Various Places of Interest: California Edition
1.
Pre Plastic Junk Museum
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| Image from clui.org |
Also
known as PPJ, the venue is seemingly mentioned only on clui.org. I
cannot seem to find any information about the place anywhere else
online. Located in Red Mountain, the premise is that it has (or had?
Not sure if it’s even still around anymore) a collection of things
and artifacts scavenged from the desert. Includes a large wooden
fishing boat labeled as part of the China Lake Fishing Fleet. If
anyone just so happens to know if this place still exists, or any
other info about, please consider letting me know. I would love to
learn the history of this place.
2.
Red Mountain
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| image from ghosttowns.com |
An
unincorporated town in San Bernadino County, originally it was named
‘Osdick’ after a man with the same last name (P.J. Osdick).
Created in 1919, it received a post office under its former name in
1922. In early 1929, they changed the town name to Red Mountain. Red
Mountain has a small population, about 130 or so people. It’s
approximately 23 miles north of Kramer Junction, and 23 ( or 32
depending on your source) south of Randsburg. It is also one of
“three active ghost towns”, the other two being Randsburg and
Johannesburg. The town also seems to have many of the original
buildings from the mining days, including cabins, saloons, and a
church. Apparently the main highway in the area (hwy 395) still has
the original houses, which the current population lives in today. One
website (ghosttowns.com) states that the “old general store looks
like heck but is still in use”. If you want to see a timeline about
the town, visit the ghosttowns.com link I’ll provide in the
sources. It’s a real interesting place. The website has images sent
in, though they look pretty old, at least by 20 years. Currently I’m
unsure if any of these buildings are around anymore. Finally, there
is a really interesting museum called the Historic Owl Cafe, which is
a bit out of town when you look on a map. There is plenty of history
on the area on their website, which I’ll also link below.
3.
Burro Schmidt Tunnel
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| image from clui.org |
A
2,000 foot long tunnel located in the El Paso mountains in the
Mojave, Burro Schmidt Tunnel took 38 years to finish. Different
sources state that it was started in 1906 and finished after 32
years, where others state it was started in 1902 and finished after
38 years. Started by William Henry “Burro” Schmidt (1871-1953)
with hand tools and explosives in order to transport the ore from his
mine to the processing site, Schmidt devoted over 32 years of his
life to the tunnel.
He
was mining gold in the El Paso mountains ans was faced with a
dangerous ridge between the mining claims he had and the smelter in
the south. He said that he would “never haul his ore to the Mojave
smelter down that back trail” with his two burros, and started in
1902 on the tunnel. Originally coming to California from Rhode Island
after six of his siblings died of tuberculosis, he’d hire himself
out as a ranch hand every summer while working on the tunnel.
Not
saying much more than it being a shortcut, ‘Burro’ as he was
called, removed rubble with a wheelbarrow and sometimes carried it on
his back. He reportedly had abdominal muscles so strong that forced
him to bend permanently.
In
1920, a road was completed from Last Chance Canyon to the Mojave,
which took away the need for the tunnel, but by this time, Schmidt
was obsessed and kept mining his way through the tunnel. In 1938 he
completed his goal, but never used the tunnel to move his ore. He
later sold the tunnel to another miner and moved away. I’m not sure
what may have happened in between this time, but later in his life,
Burro started giving tours of the tunnel with a partner named Mike
Lee. Burro gave tours until he died in 1954, and Lee continued until
he passed in 1963.
In
1963, a woman named Evelyn ‘Tonie’ Seger bought the property with
her third husband Milo, moving into a small cabin owned by the
property owner who bought the land from Burro Schmidt. Apparently the
couple moved to the area because they felt it was the best place to
be, since Milo was dying. Less than a year later from moving in, Milo
passed away while they were filling water containers from a spring.
The
site attracts a lot visitors, who can take still take tours of the
tunnel, which only takes 30 minutes itself to walk through.
Reportedly there could be as much as 50 visitors on a good weekend to
the tunnel. The tour includes looking at the shack that Burro Schmidt
himself stayed in, which was filled with newspapers, magazines, and
Aunt Jemima pancake boxes as insulation.
Tonie
Seger was the keeper of the tunnel for 40 years, giving lectures on
the subject and even writing a profile about Burro Schmidt in the
book ‘Odd and Eccentric People’. Tonie Seger herself was an ‘Odd
and eccentric’ person, where many people called her ‘The Old Lady
of The Desert’ since it was such an oddity to see an old woman in
the desert. Many people came to the tunnel to see her also. In 2003,
Seger passed away at the age of 95.
After
Seger’s death, there has been owership disputes between the US
Bureau of Land Management and Seger’s descendants. Seger’s
caretaker Dave Ayers was also supposed to be granted ownership with a
Mr. F. Schmidt (a descendant of Burro maybe?). While the historic
buildings were transferred to Seger’s granddaughter, but the BLM
assumed ownership after a notice of abandonment was made. The BLM
tried contacting the granddaughter, but apparently none of the
attempts were made fruitful. Ayers was offered the opportunity to
sign a memorandum, of understanding where the BLM were the full time
caretakers of the site. Ayers refused to sign as he wanted to be the
paid caretaker and left to work somewhere else as he had no legal
right to be on site without signing the memorandum. So as far as I
know, the Burro tunnel is owned by the US government.
At
some point, Uncle Sam decided to put a fence around the Burro house,
since it was a victim of vandalism. Though you can’t legally walk
inside, you can still look at the building from the outside. If you
want to see more pictures of the cabin that he lived in, with the
time capsule insulation, I really recommend this blog post from
yankee barbeno:
The
tunnel has been featured on Ripley’s Believe it or Not, and an
episode of ‘California’s Gold’. The site was added to the
National Register of Historical Places on March 20th,
2003. Finally, the mine overlooks the ghost towns of Garlock and
Saltdale. Apparently from certain points though, you can see the old
mining town of Randsburg too, which is about 20 miles away.
[SOURCES]
wikipedia
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