Greenwater, Greenwater District, Greenwater Valley, Inyo County, California, USAi
| Regional Level Types | |
|---|---|
| Greenwater | - not defined - |
| Greenwater District | Mining District |
| Greenwater Valley | Valley |
| Inyo County | County |
| California | State |
| USA | Country |
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Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):
36° 10' 46'' North , 116° 36' 59'' West
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):
Köppen climate type:
Nearest Settlements:
| Place | Population | Distance |
|---|---|---|
| Tecopa | 150 (2011) | 50.8km |
A former populated place (mining ghost town).
As with the mines, the towns of Greenwater also entered a true boom period. Construction began in early October on a two-story building for the Greenwater Banking Corporation, and a safe was ordered to store its money. By the middle of the month, the Inyo Independent reported that investment capital in the new district had already reached the $15 million mark. Every prominent copper operator in the United States had some interest in the district, and claims had been staked for twenty miles on every side of Greenwater. Over forty mining engineers had made reports on the mineral potential of the area for their respective employers, and it was the "unanimous opinion that Greenwater will excel in copper production, both the camps of Bisbee and Butte."
The district by this time had 450 men and four women, and Kunze's town of Greenwater had five saloons, three restaurants, two general merchandise stores, and three lodging houses, where cots or springs on an old dry goods box cost $1 per night. Telegraph and telephone lines were being run from Bullfrog to Greenwater, and were nearing the town. Some luxuries were available, but when the first case of champagne entered the district, there were so many potential buyers that it was put up for action and sold for $150. Due to the lack of ice, liquor and water were both cooled by being stored in gunny sacks. The water itself served many purposes, first being used to wash dishes, second to wash clothes, and then given to the mules and burros to drink.
Happily, wages soared as high as prices, since miners who were willing to work steadily instead of prospecting on their own were somewhat rare. Unskilled miners and common laborers commanded $4.50 per day, carpenters were paid $8 daily and were in great demand due to the building boom, and expert miners received $5 to $5.50 per day. No one worked more than an eight-hour day. The boom is growing more tremendous with each day, summed up the Inyo Independent "Tons of machinery are being crowded into the Greenwater district; freight has become congested; every team for miles has been pressed into service and people are hurrying into the district as fast as the stage line can carry them."
Between forty and fifty mule teams were hauling in supplies from Johnnie Siding, but no progress was made in reducing the back-load which was still piled high at the railhead. Kunze's camp of Greenwater was booming, and as much as $1500 was reported to have been paid for an inside lot. Kunze even succeeded in landing the pearl of every self-respecting mining camp, its own newspaper. On October 23d, the first issue of the Greenwater Times appeared on the streets. It was an eight page paper, published every Tuesday by James Brown and Frank Reber, and halt of its eight pages were canned material. Nevertheless, the rest of the issue was chock full of new, gossip and tidbits, some confusing and most exaggerated.
By this time the camp of Greenwater was beginning to change from a tent to a board town, and the Greenwater Times was sure to note all the newly constructed buildings. Bob Brogleman, proprietor of the Greenwater Mercantile Company, had a thirty by sixty toot frame building with a "handsome rustic front," which housed his store, hotel and restaurant. Messrs. Smith and Owsley had the newest saloon, in a twenty by thirty-foot frame building with a shingled roof, John Salsbury had an eighteen by thirty-foot office building almost completed, and his thirty by sixty-foot store building would be finished in a few days. Arthur Kunze's building was almost completed and it would house the Post Office, which had been granted to his townsite, as well as the bank and his private office. E. L. Phelps had his saloon in a boarded tent, Tom Murphy was building a men's furnishings store, and J. J. Griffith had let a contract for a twenty-room hotel. Commenting upon the building boom, the Greenwater Times smugly predicted that it was "safe to prognosticate that Greenwater will be growing thirty years hence." After all, the "future of the city of Greenwater is surely as open and easily read as any book--and the reading says it's the greatest copper city of a century."
The advertisements carried in this first issue of Greenwater's paper give an insight into other business establishments in the town. In addition to the ones mentioned above, the Greenwater Brokerage Company, the Greenwater Restaurant, Edward Behten's real estate, investments and mining office, the Do Drop Inn, the Greenwater Lumber Yard, the McKinney Glover law, mining, real estate and brokerage company, the Greenwater Club, Hunter & Hutner's civil, mining and electrical engineering firm, J. C. Davidson, notary public, Reber & Company's real estate and mining information offices, the Bank Saloon, and Kennedy & Lass's assaying and surveying service, all placed advertisements in the paper.
The booming mining business was also good for the labor interests, and by late October, the Greenwater Miners Union was over 00 strong. Meetings were held every Tuesday, and the Greenwater Townsite Company donated two "very fine lots to the union, where they intended to build their union hall. The miners started a fund drive to build and staff a union hospital, and proudly proclaimed its motto across the pages of the Greenwater Times "It is Justice the World Needs! Not Charity!"
In other news, the Times reported that the chief engineer for the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad was in town to select the best rail route into the district, and that due to public demand for living space, Patsy Clark had agreed to throw open his townsite of Furnace, which had hitherto been reserved for employees of his mine. Then, as was fitting, the first issue of the Greenwater Times closed with a large advertisement for the Greenwater Townsite Company. Greenwater was, according to this ad, "The Greatest Copper City of the Century." The payroll at its mines already exceeded that of Beatty, Bullfrog and Rhyolite combined, and $52,500 in real estate had been sold in Greenwater in the month of September. Still, however, business lots were available at "ground floor prices" to anyone interested.
Less than a week later, the Inyo Independent took its turn at marveling at the wonder of the eastern California desert. Lock at the place, the paper said, where back in July only one tent was to be seen. Now Greenwater was a well laid out city, with over 1,000 people in the district. At the present rate, the population would be 2,000 before the year was over The Bullfrog Miner, noting the same week that nearly $20,000,000 had been invested in 100 claims in the last six months at Greenwater, agreed that "by far the most sensational jump into prominence of any mining camp added to the map in many years is that of Greenwater . . . Greenwater is without doubt the greatest copper mining territory ever found in the world." Only the Engineering & Mining Journal, the far away and much more staid publication, managed to hold its breath. In a much more realistic appraisal, and one which immediately became immensely unpopular in Greenwater, the Journal noted that the "district is too new, however, to permit of trustworthy predictions as to its future, and it will take many months before development work can be carried far enough to establish its real value, and make it a factor in copper production. The present indications, however, are promising."
Although the Engineering & Mining Journal was absolutely correct in stating that it would be many months before anyone began making money by mining copper, that was too cold an assessment for a boom town. There were much easier and quicker methods of making money in a boom town, and although all of them were risky, there was not a lack of men who were wilting to try. Charles Crismor, for example, was a favorite Horatio Alger-type story much played up by the local papers. Arriving in Rhyolite in January of 1906 with 30¢ in his pocket, he had entered the restaurant business there. With the advent of the Greenwater boom, Crismor had grubstaked two prospectors with left-over food from his dining room, and by the 1st of November had sold the claims which they staked for a $150,000 profit. Such was the way money was made at Greenwater. The promoters who bought those prospects, in turn, incorporated a mining company to find cut if there was any ore in the ground, and sold stock shares to the investing public, which by now extended from the west to the east coast. The promoters paid themselves salaries out of the proceeds of the stock sales, and used the rest of the funds to look for ore. Only if ore was found would a profit flow back to the stockholders. H the meantime, as long as the boom lasted and people could be persuaded to invest their money in Greenwater's mines, everyone on the ground was making money.
As the boom continued and the mineral district spread farther and farther out across the desert, new towns appeared to accommodate those miners who lived too far from Greenwater, Copperfield or Furnace to walk to work. South Greenwater, for example, was started on the grounds of the Pittsburgh-Greenwater Copper Company, fifteen miles south of Greenwater itself, in early November, Later that month, the town of East Greenwater was started, to serve the mines in that area, approximately eight miles east. At about the same time, the first gas hoists began to arrive in the district, marking the transition of some of the companies from the exploration to the development stage of mining. Eleven more mining companies were incorporated in November, bringing the total in the district to forty-one. Many times that number of small mines, locations and prospects were also being held and worked by individual miners who were awaiting the proper price to sell their locations to mining companies.
And the towns continued to grow. Our best information concerns Kunze's Greenwater, since the Greenwater Times naturally boosted its own town over the rival camps. By November 6th, Greenwater had two barber shops, and twenty wooden buildings were in the course of construction. A lawyer had moved to town, to take advantage of the lucrative fees involved in the inevitable mining conflicts, Paul Wiesse had started a butcher shop, and two more restaurants were ready to open, bringing the total to five. T, E. Blake opened a shoe repair shop, two more offices full of mining engineers and surveyors opened, and J. C. Collins announced the grand opening of his Undertaker and Scientific Embalmer' services. So many carpenters were now in camp, serving the demands of the building boom, that they organized themselves as a local branch of the Nevada carpenters union.
Despite the boom fever, there were several firms besides the Engineering & Mining Journal which managed to resist the excitement of the rush. William Clark, president of the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad, for example, resisted the heavy local pressure to begin immediate construction of a branch line into Greenwater, and instead more reasonably announced that the branch road would be built "just as soon as we are fully assured of the camps' permanency." The pressure on Clark was tremendous, for if Greenwater did turn into a productive camp, the first railroad into the district would reap enormous profits. !n addition, the Greenwater fever had invaded the Clark family itself, for J. Ross Clark, William's brother, had invested in the district and incorporated the Clark Copper Company.
By the middle of November, the Greenwater phenomenon could no longer be called a boom or a rush in the usual meanings of those terms, and the Inyo Register described it best as a "stampede." No less than 100 people, said that paper, were arriving in the district every day, and still the demand for labor far exceeded the supply, since most of the newcomers preferred to look for their private bonanzas rather than settle down to shift work in the mines. As a partial remedy, mine superintendents had taken to placing pickets down the trails leading into town, in order to grab the miners as they arrived, and offer them jobs.
But the district still had several rather insurmountable problems, and in mid-November one of them was graphically highlighted when one of the water wagons serving the holdings tanks of the town broke down. An immediate panic ensued, and water prices shot up to $20 per barrel before the wagon could be repaired. It was a reminder, if any need be had, that Greenwater would never become a producing district until the water and transportation problems were solved, for under the present services only the very highest grades of copper ore could be profitably shipped out of the district.
By the end of November, the Greenwater stampede was of such proportions that although the district had yet to ship a single sack of ore, it was getting almost weekly coverage by the national mining journals. California and Nevada prospectors, miners and capitalists are thronging into the new copper camp of Greenwater . . . . as fast as they can get there by automobile, stage, wagon, burro or afoot wrote the Engineering & Mining Journal "The trails across Death Valley and the Amargosa desert are filled with men on the way. Rich men, ready to buy anything with a likely look are plentiful, which is a sure proof that the camp is on the boom . . . . From a population of 75 at the end of October, the camp has grown to 1,000 in a few weeks, and not less than 100 men a day are arriving. Labor is in demand, and already about 500 miners have been set to work on the big properties, and as fast as experienced miners come in they are at once given employment." As one single example of the continuing boom, Thomas W. Lawson of Boston, a noted copper operator and millionaire, purchased the Greenwater Red Boy and Greenwater Saratoga Mining Companies in late November for a reported $2,000,000 in hard cash, and immediately announced plans to erect a copper smelter. Indicative of this boom spirit purchase is the fact that Lawson intimated that the smelter would be built at Greenwater, regardless of the fact that there was no where nearly enough water anywhere around Greenwater to support a smelting plant. One wonders how carefully Lawson considered his purchase before laying down his money.
By now the Greenwater boom was so great that the competition between the Kunze and Ramsey townsites became impractical. Kunze's site, due to its location nearer the larger mines, and its success in obtaining a Post Office, a newspaper and several leading business houses, was clearly leading in the townsite race over Ramsey's camp, but there were problems involved in Kunze's physical location. His camp was perched up in the Greenwater Hills, practically on the end line of the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company mines, and only a wooden fence kept drunken miners from walking off the end of one of Kunze's streets into one of the mines' shafts.
In addition, the leading mine owners of the district realized that a railroad was an absolute necessity for the future prosperity of Greenwater, and building a railroad into Kunze's town would be difficult, due to its location in the hills overlooking Greenwater Valley. Nor were the railroad interests very anxious to build directly into the heart of the mining district, for they had painfully learned at Tonopah how expensive it was to lay tracks over active and conflicting mining claims. Thus the railroad companies, both for ease of construction and avoidance of involvement in expensive land battles, preferred to build their rail heads at spots away from the actual mines. Charles Schwab, in turn, was growing uneasy at the prospect of a large town night on top of his mining claims, since that would lead to difficulties in opening up new ground when the time came. For a combination of these reasons, the leading promoters of the district decided in late November to move Kunze's camp of Greenwater away from its present location and down into the Greenwater Valley below, where railroad construction and and acquisition would be much easier and less expensive. After all, the planners at this time were expecting Greenwater to blossom into a city of thousands, rivaling the other great copper towns of the United States, such as Butte, Montana, and there simply was not enough room at Kunze's site for such an expansion.
As a result, Harry Ramsey's camp of Copperfield, which had never enjoyed the prosperity of Kunze's, suddenly found itself saved. A new Greenwater Townsite company was incorporated, which bought out the interest of both Ramsey and Kunze in their old townsites, and backed by the capital of the leading mining promoters, announced that the entire Kunze townsite would be moved down into the valley, near Ramsey's old site. Owners of lots in both Kunze's and Ramsey's old townsite would be given lots of equal value and location in the new town, and the new combined townsite would carry the name of Greenwater.
After the announcement of the townsite consolidation, the Las Vegas & Tonopah Railroad reported that it would build a spur into the new site, and John Brock announced that he would soon start construction on a $60,000 hotel. All was not well, however, for with the coming of winter, although mild snowfalls helped alleviate the water shortage, the cold weather immediately pointed out another serious supply problem in the district. Wood was almost unavailable as a fuel to warm the tents and buildings of the district, and Greenwater residents began to experience a "lively skirmish to get enough greasewood to keep warm."
Then, just to keep the townsite situation from becoming too calm, Patsy Clark decided to promote his townsite of Furnace, and ads began running in the Rhyolite newspapers. Lots were on sale, according to the ads, for $250 to $750 apiece, and over $30,000 worth of lots had already been sold. FURNACE," the ad proclaimed, "WILL BE THE METROPOLIS OF THE GREENWATER DISTRICT."
But wherever they were located, and whatever they were called, all the towns of the district continued to expand. The Southern Nevada Telegraph and Telephone Company completed the extension of its telegraph lines into the district in mid-December, and promised that the telephone lines would soon be finished as well. Wells were being sunk by several hopeful individuals and water was struck in one, eighteen miles from town. The Greenwater Townsite Company began laying pipe from Greenwater Springs to the townsite, although the flow of that spring was nowhere near enough to accommodate the demand.
By the end of 1906, with the population of the district pushing 1,500, the boom was finally slowing down, although everyone blamed the unprecendented cold weather rather than any abatement of the Greenwater fever. Several snow storms in late December caused much suffering, and the price of greasewood, which became increasingly scarce, rose to $15 a wagon load. Twenty loads, it was reported, were necessary to equal the burning power of a normal cord of wood. The cold weather stopped work on most of the mines, for only those whose shafts were deep enough to escape the effects of the weather were able to continue work. Still, nine more mining companies were incorporated in the district in December, bringing the total to fifty, and everyone sat back, waiting for a break in the weather, so that Greenwater's unprecendented stampede could continue. During the lull in the the action, the townsite move began, and New Greenwater, "The Greatest Copper Camp on Earth," was born.
Hard on the heels of the townsite consolidation came the news of another large merger, which set even the feverish minds of Greenwater agog. Several of the leading mine owners, realizing that the district needed a smelter in order to become a producer, announced the formation of a giant merger towards that purpose. On December 15th, Charles Schwab, John Brock, and some financiers from Philadelphia formed the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Mines & Smelting Company. The merger company had a capital stock of 5,000,000 shares, par value $5 each, for a total capitalization of $25,000,000--an amazing sum which astounded even such boom-hardened towns as Goldfield and Tonopah. The new corporation was essentially a holding company, and consisted of the majority interests in the Greenwater Death Valley Copper company, the United Greenwater Copper company, and the unincorporated mines belonging to Brock and the Philadelphians. By pooling their resources, Schwab and his partners hoped to be able to cut costs and erect a large smelting plant for the reduction of the ores from each of the mines. Although no specific site was announced, Ash Meadows immediately became the leading contender for the smelter site, due to its proximity to a plentiful water supply and the railroads.
The new company announced that it would build its own branch railroad from the mines to the smelter area, thirty miles away, and that work would immediately begin on the railroad spur, the water development at the smelter site, and construction of the smelter itself. A smelting expert was hired by the merger company for $25,000 per year to supervise the selection of the plant site and construction of the smelter. In the meantime, although the mines involved in the merger came under the umbrella supervision of the new corporation, each would retain its separate identity and would continue to pursue its own development independently.
Spurred by this news, developments at Greenwater continued at a rather hectic pace. The townsite merger was being carried out, and in addition, Patsy Clark, who stayed outside of both the townsite and mining mergers, continued to plug his town of Furnace, By January 1st, that site was described as containing stores, business houses and a hotel. A separate stage line connected it with Amargosa, and a Post Office had been requested.
The new townsite of Greenwater was likewise experiencing growth, in addition to the confusion of consolidation. A second weekly newspaper, the Greenwater Miner, was started by an editor who was attracted to the boom district all the way from Nome, Alaska, and several more assaying, surveying and brokerage offices opened. But January saw yet another young publication start up, which turned out to be one of Greenwater's unique claims to fame, On January 1st, the first issue of the Death Valley Chuck-Walla hit the streets. The little magazine, published by C. E. Kunze and C. B. Glasscock, was best described by Glasscock in later years as "freakish." it was printed on butcher paper, for economy, and the two young editors launched their enterprise with a total capital stock of $35. As its advertisements read, it was "A Magazine for MEN." It was "written in a vein to please. It is entertaining as well as valuable. It exposes the crooks, the wildcats and the frauds, and roasts the knockers." And, as the cover declared, it was "Published on the desert at the brink of Death Valley. Mixing the dope, cool from the mountains, and hot from the desert, and withal putting out a concoction with which you can dc as you damn well please as soon as you have paid for it. PRICE, TEN CENTS."
The first issue of the Death Valley Chuck-Walla was especially unique, for it vividly described the total contusion inherent in the townsite move which was currently taking place. In an article, aptly titled "A Town on Wheels," the movement was portrayed: ". . . pandemonium reigns. Saloons and boarding houses, stores, and brokerage firms are doing business on the run and trying to be on both sides of the mountain at one time. A barkeep puts down his case of bottles on a knoll en route from the old camp to the new, and serves the passing throng laden with bedding and store fixtures . . . . The butcher kills a cow en route and deals out steaks and roasts to the hungry multitude hurrying back to the old camp to get the necessities for the new. Those who remain in the old camp are walking two miles to the new to get the eggs for breakfast. Those who have journeyed to the new are walking two miles to the old to get their mail, and a pair of socks. Through it all Jack Salsbury, Harry Ramsey and the Townsite Company smile . . . Questions as to the cause of the change are referred to the anti-publicity committee, and picturesque and forceful language as to the advisability of the change noted and filed for reference.
The Chuck-Walla had other aspects as well. Although the editors were totally committed to boosting the Greenwater District, they also realized that the proliferation of fraudulent mining schemes would hurt the district in the long run, and made it their pet project to uncover mining companies who were bilking the public. The first issue carried a long article damning the manipulations of the Boston-Greenwater Copper Company, promoted by J. Grant Lyman and his Union Securities company, Lyman, it may be remembered, had been arrested in Boston for pushing stock sales for non-existent mines around the Bullfrog area, and he was doing the same at Greenwater.
By January 4th, the Rhyolite Herald was able to report that the townsite consolidation was complete. Although the total population of the district and its towns was not easy to estimate, since so many men were constantly thronging through the hills, the Herald estimated it at between 1,500 and 2,000. More important, however, for the development of the mining district, was the report from the Fairbanks-Morse Company that it had received orders for at least twenty hoists of various sizes for the district, which indicated that more and more companies were beginning the transition from exploration to the development stage of mining. All the district needed in order to pass from a boom camp into a permanent mining town was for one big mine to make the next step, from development into production.
New Greenwater, meanwhile, reported thriving business. The townsite company surveyed 2,200 lots in over 130 blocks at the new site, and reported brisk sales. Lots on main Street sold from $500 to $5,000 apiece, and the county supervisors of Inyo county approved the townsite plat. The continuing cold weather, however, put a damper on business, as one miner reported that it was "fiercely damnable, and we put two-thirds of the time trying to rustle greasewood enough to keep from freezing." Despite the snowfall, water was still in short supply and was selling for $10 per barrel.
Nor were freight difficulties made any easier by the weather. The trip from Johnnie Siding by a loaded freight wagon took three to four days, and freight costs were still extremely high, due to the lack of enough teams to supply the demand. Freight charges from Johnnie Siding to Greenwater were $60 per ton, which succeeded in driving subsistence costs at Greenwater through the roof. The Greenwater Bank, however, reported no lack of business due to high costs, and in one week early in January reported $20,000 worth of transactions. Visitors to the district at this time could watch four separate surveying parties on the ground at the new townsite, as both the Las Vegas & Tonopah and the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroads had survey crews considering lines into the town, and the Southern Nevada Telegraph and Telephone Company also had two crews out, surveying lines for the telegraph and telephone extensions into New Greenwater, Farther up the road, a fifth survey crew could be seen laying out a new access road into Furnace. All in all, as the Engineering & Mining Journal noted, "There seems to be no diminution of the rush to the Greenwater . . ." The Journal however, was still puzzled about the Greenwater madness, for as it noted, "as yet none of the camps in that region has become productive."
The Engineering & Mining Journal was not the only publication to wonder at the immense rush into Greenwater. The Mining World, in late January, noted that "It is too early to predict the possibilities of this district. Its remoteness from transportation facilities and water have retarded its development, but notwithstanding the many difficulties encountered, very active work is being prosecuted on about 50 different properties. During the next six months, exploratory work will have probably progressed sufficiently to determine the persistence of the ore deposits. That was the crux: why was so much money being poured into the district, when the very existence of the ore deposits below the surface level had not yet been proven? Apparently the boom spirit, which had been ravaging throughout Nevada and eastern California since the bonanza discoveries at Tonopah and Goldfield, reached its height at Greenwater. In addition, since copper deposits at other camps such as Bisbee and Butte had always improved with depth, everyone assumed that the same would hold true for Greenwater. Since the surface richness at Greenwater far surpassed that of any copper camp ever, who could fail to think that Greenwater could indeed become the Greatest Copper Camp on Earth?
One paper, at least, did think exactly that. In late January the Goldfield Gossip printed its own assessment of the Greenwater District, and it was one which flew directly in the face of all the local predictions. "We have dissected reports from as many sources as possible regarding the future of Greenwater," wrote the Gossip "and all these agree that the camp would never make a production of copper to amount to anything." As might be expected, that report caused an immediate and extreme reaction from the Greenwater papers, particularly the Death Valley Chuck-Walla which more than adequately fulfilled its promise to "roast the knockers." The Bullfrog Miner also scorned the Goldfield Gossip's assessment, and printed its own: ". . . there can be but one future for Greenwater and that will be expressed by the six words 'Greatest Copper Camp in the World."
In the end, however, no one would know for sure whether Greenwater would turn into a producer or not until the actual time arrived, and meanwhile the Greenwater District enjoyed its booming prosperity. In late January, the Greenwater Times and the Greenwater Miner reported that the district had enjoyed its first marriage celebration. The growing affluence of the desert camp was also indicated by the notice of a piano for sale, and the Death Valley Auto Company was established, In addition, a town government committee was organized to supervise sanitary and police measures, and Inyo County appointed a Justice of the Peace and a constable for the district. District Recorder Nelson informed the papers that 3,000 location notices had been made in his book during the last five months, and estimated that probably 1,500 more had been recorded directly into the Inyo County books at Independence.
By mid-February, the Rhyolite Herald reported that it was confident that the Tonopah & Tidewater would build a branch into the Greenwater District, and even speculated that the road would be finished by June 1st. The Death Valley Chuck-Walla in its mid-February issue, put the population of the district at 2,000, including 500 in the town of Furnace, which was beginning to emerge as a real rival to the new Greenwater townsite. By this time, seventeen more mining companies had been incorporated since the first of the year, bringing the total of incorporated mining companies in the district to sixty-seven, but not all of them were working. Indeed, some of them never worked at all, as they were designed more to mine the pockets of gullible investors than to mine the ground. The Death Valley Chuck-Walla in one of its more valuable contributions, listed the mines of the area, and indicated that twenty-three of them were actually mining for copper.
Many of the mines listed by the Death Valley Chuck-Walla were not working, although most were planning to, and the magazine went on to specifically denounce several which it had proven were frauds. Neither the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Mining Company, for example, nor the Greenwater Consolidated Mining Company appeared to own any ground in the district, although both were actively advertising and selling stock. The Greenwater Death Valley Copper Mining Company in particular seemed to be relying on the close similarity between its name and that of the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company to bilk unwary investors of their money, for the latter was one of Greenwater's biggest active concerns.
The same issue of the Chuck-Walla carried a large ad for the Greenwater Townsite Company, which optimistically forecast that Greenwater would soon be the center of three railroads. The district's population, according to the ad, was over 2,000, and two telephone and telegraph lines were doing business. "Since the first of December lots have doubled in value. This is due to the fact that there is no question whatever about the permanency and future of the place. Greenwater is destined to be the richest mineral producing city on the whole globe." In addition, the magazine carried ads for several new Greenwater businesses, including the Greenwater Drug Company, and Alkali Bill's Death Valley Chug Line, a fanciful name for a desert character and his one automobile, who claimed he could take anyone anywhere for the proper price. Greenwater was now becoming so full of its own future, that the Engineering & Mining Journal reported that "From the desert comes the news that the Greenwater people believe that they are growing so rapidly that they need a county all to themselves, with Greenwater as the county seat."
But as February drew to a close, there was a decided slackening in the great Greenwater boom. The district had now been opened for well over a year, and had been in a boom stage for more than half that time, and as of yet, none of the companies which were sinking their shafts had found any ore under the surface which could compare with the rich surface streaks that had started the boom. This fact, while slow to dawn upon the district itself, was beginning to become apparent in the nation-wide stock market. The Rhyolite brokerage firm of Taylor & Griffiths also noted the trend, and commented in late February that the demand for Greenwater securities of acknowledged merit . . . has not been what it should be," but went on in the same breath to push stock sales. From a development standpoint, this district is making a most excellent showing . . . . The surface showing in the Greenwater district has never been surpassed in the history of copper mining . . . . It is now time for the man who is inclined toward copper to get in and secure same of this stock while it is low.
The Bullfrog Miner also noted the same slight slackening of the Greenwater boom, and reported that while "there is somewhat of a dullness pervading the camp, as far as the influx of people and industries is concerned, the properties are looking mighty fine. In a way, Greenwater was starting to succumb to its own over-blown boom publicity, for after the stampede to the district began to subside, everything else looked less than normal by comparison. [6]
But at the time, no one could possibly have hoped to persuade a Greenwater citizen that the bloom was beginning to fade. On March 1st, the papers reported that the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Mines & Smelting Company was beginning to work on the smelter site at Ash Meadows. More immediate encouragement came from the news that Mr. Lemle was opening a sub-agency for Budweiser at Greenwater, and was arranging for daily ice delivery via auto. "If he can run his autos over the hot roads fast enough to keep the ice from melting en route," said the Death Valley Chuck-Walla "he will surely catch the trade." During the same week, the Greenwater Meat Company was organized, and advertised that it would drive cattle across two mountain ranges from Owens Valley, California, to Greenwater, in order to furnish a constant supply of fresh meat daily to Greenwater inhabitants. The Furnace Townsite Company also stepped up its advertisements, and the Greenwater Townsite Company countered by running its own ads, plugging the unique and desirable aspects of its camp. In its bi-weekly rundown on Greenwater mining, the Death Valley Chuck-Walla was able to list twenty-one mines and mining companies who were actively working in the district.
Still, qualms of uneasiness were beginning to be felt around the district. The Bullfrog Miner was the first local paper to admit such, noting that "As yet there are no real mines in Greenwater, as mining men understand the term." The paper went on to qualify that statement, adding that the working shafts are down several hundred feet and the ore bodies are well enough defined so that the owners know that they have immense quantities of very valuable rock, but the workings so far have been confined to these shafts and no effort has yet been made to take out ore except such as was necessary in sinking the shafts." Privately, many Bullfrog operators were glad to see that the Greenwater boom was abating, for at the height of the rush, the drain of investment money towards Greenwater had decidedly hampered the operation of the mines around the Bullfrog District.
The mid-March issue of the Death Valley Chuck-Walla noted little change in the district, with nineteen companies actively working. On the brighter side, the Inyo Register reported on March 15th that articles had been filed at Jersey City, New Jersey, to incorporate the Tonopah & Greenwater Railroad Company, with the purpose of building a railroad from the Amargosa Borax works to the Greenwater District. A capital stock of $500,000 had been created, and the construction of such a road, which would easily tie into the Tonopah & Tidewater, would mean a ready outlet for Greenwater's ores. Although no announcements were made, the Inyo Independent speculated that the recent incorporation undoubtedly meant that the Tonopah & Tidewater itself had decided not to build into Greenwater. The new railroad company was expected to start work soon, and complete the line by July 1st. Two routes had already been surveyed into the district, but no decision had been made as to which one to use.
By the end of March, the Bullfrog Miner put the population of the district at 2,000, which indicated that for the first month since the district had been discovered, it had not grown. Both Greenwater and Furnace, however, were described as being very alive and bustling, and both townsites had hotels, lodging houses, saloons, feed corrals, freight companies, meat markets, auto lines, brokerage houses, attorneys, newspapers, boarding houses, etc. In addition, three railroad lines had been surveyed into the district, the Ash Meadows water company was working on getting water piped into the district, and an electric light system was projected for the towns.
But the boom had definitely slowed, as evidenced by the incorporation of only seven more companies in the district in March. The following months of April and May would see one additional company incorporated during each, bringing the total of incorporated mining companies in the Greenwater district to seventy-three. Although that was more than enough, the cessation of incorporations meant that the exploration stage of the Greenwater district had finally drawn to a close, after a short but extremely violent boom, and the future of the district now depended upon what ore bodies were found under the ground during the subsequent development phase.
On April 1st, the Death Valley Chuck-Walla reported that twenty-four companies were presently engaged in finding out exactly what did lie under the surface of the ground. The pipe line for the Ash Meadows water system had been ordered, and a telephone connection had been completed between Greenwater and Furnace, enabling conversation between the two rival towns. Plans had also been announced for a new $50,000 hotel.
Two weeks later, the Death Valley Chuck-Walla was able to report twenty-six companies working, but as of yet no one had found sufficient ore bodies beneath the surface of the earth to warrant full-scale production mining. Towards the end of April, the Bullfrog Miner reported that 300 men were working in the district, with about half being employed in the mines around Greenwater and the other half around Furnace. The payroll for the district was approaching $50,000 per month. The townsites had settled down from the boom period, and Greenwater was described as being mainly a rag town, although it had some wooden and one iron building. Lumber was still very expensive, costing $130 per thousand board feet, which depressed the building industry, but the bank was thriving, and business in general was good. Water still sold for the very high price of $7.50, as compared to $5 per barrel which had been the highest price Bullfrog had known in its early boom days.
By the first of May, although twenty-six companies were still actively engaging in development work, it was becoming very apparent that unless someone found a large profitable copper lode soon, the district would be in trouble. The investing public, which by now expected great things from the district which had boomed so brilliantly, was becoming impatient, and as another month passed without any big ore strikes being made, stock prices began to slip.
The Death Valley Chuck-Walla noted the stock slump, but blamed it on the eastern Wall Street stock manipulators "who wish to bear the stocks until they can be purchased at a rate far below their real value and therefore at great profit." In reality, the Greenwater boom had led to too great of expectations from the investing public, and suspicions of a gigantic fraud were now beginning to form among the ranks of far-off investors. Nor did it help the Greenwater District that the first effects of the Panic of 1907 were beginning to be felt on the eastern stock markets. Naturally, shares of mining companies which were still in the initial stages of development were among the first to be unloaded by cash-hungry investors. Still, no one was ready to give up, least of all the naive young men publishing the Death Valley Chuck-Walla They could write with pride that their magazine was read by more than nine thousand stock brokers across the nation, although they sadly noted that only 1,000 of them had paid for their subscriptions. [7]
On May 1st, the Ash Meadows Water Company ordered 135 miles of pipe for its various lines into Greenwater, Lee and other spots. The line to Greenwater, it announced, should be completed by the middle of August, when water would be available for around $4 per barrel. During the same week, Inyo County belatedly got around to implementing a full civil government for the district, appointing a deputy sheriff, a deputy district attorney, a deputy assessor, a deputy tax collector and a new Justice of the Peace. By the middle of the month, the Death Valley Chuck-Walla could report 300 miners still at work. One company had no less than six gas hoists going full blast, and several were down to the 300 and 400-foot levels. Unfortunately, no ore bodies had yet been found.
Towards the end of May, the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad announced the opening of Zabriskie Station, which cut the distance between Greenwater and the railroad considerably. The company also announced the establishment of an auto service between the station and Greenwater, with connections to both daily trains. The auto ride would take two and a half hours, and tickets were available from the commercial agent permanently stationed in Greenwater. The Inyo County commissioners also announced plans to consider the erection of a turnpike from independence to Greenwater, at an estimated cost of $1,000, whereby travel time between the two towns would be shortened by several days.
On June 1st, the Death Valley Chuck-Walla could still point to twenty-five companies at work, and although no sizeable ore bodies had yet been found, no one seemed quite willing to give up. Articles from the district's two other papers, the Greenwater Times and the Greenwater Miner, also contained the same hopeful spirit, and the Engineering & Mining Journal noted that fifteen gas hoists were at work throughout the district, and that more miners were at work than ever before. For once, the labor problem seemed to be solved, for the buying and selling of claims had ceased with the coming of harder times, and more and more miners were willing to give up their dreams of instant wealth and settle down to earning a steady wage. In late June, the Inyo County Board of Supervisors let out bids to construct a branch jail at Greenwater, and announced that the proposed sixteen by twenty-foot stone and cement building would contain three cells.
Then, on June 22d, the inevitable fire swept through part of Greenwater. Although the relative damage was rather light, considering the destructive potential for fires in mining camps built of canvas and wood, one saloon and the offices and presses of both the Greenwater Miner and the Death Valley Chuck-Walla were consumed. The editors of the Chuck-Walla had only recently bought out the Greenwater Miner, and they immediately announced plans to secure a new printing plant from the west coast and continue both publications. But the capital stock of $35 which they had started out with had not increased very much over their six months of publication and after several weeks of trying to get their paper printed at the Bullfrog Miner office, the editors gave up and left the country. The Las Vegas one of the more mature Nevada newspapers which had never much approved of the style or approach of the Chuck-Walla, noted that it "was roasted alive by the Angel of Fire because of the many unholy things it has printed. The destruction of the Miner, (whose sins are less notorious) and the saloon only proved that chastisement, like rain, falls alike upon the just and the unjust."
The fire seemed to be an omen, for with the passing of the Death Valley Chuck-Walla Greenwater's loudest and brassiest booster, the fire seemed to go out of the district. The Ash Meadows Water Company, for example, had promised on June 29th that water would be connected into Greenwater by the 1st of August, but by July 13th, revised that date to September 15th, and added that pipe would be laid into Lee before Greenwater--indicating that the prospects of the Lee District now looked better to that company than did those at Greenwater.
As the summer wore on and fall approached, it became apparent to all but the most die-hard that the great Greenwater boom had started to bust, and many people could be seen quietly leaving town. As a continuing barometer, the Ash Meadows Water Company postponed its connections to Greenwater once again, and announced on September 13th that water would not be available to the district until the middle of November. Those who still had faith tried to explain away the decline of the district by advancing various causes. "The present situation is one of those cyclic occurrences that simply hampers the growth of what is coming," said one, "but will not stop it for you have the wares that the world needs so much." "The camp, as far as the town is concerned, is very quiet," noted another observor, "but work in the mines is going steadily on . . . . There is not much doubt as to the ultimate future of Greenwater. The camp is now going through the development period, which all camps have to undergo, in laying the foundation for their future prosperity.
But if the mines were still developing, not nearly as many were doing so as in previous months. Of the seventy-three companies which had incorporated to do business in Greenwater by the spring of 1907, only twelve were left by September. Although these figures must be qualified by pointing out that fully thirty of those companies never did any work at all, still it was apparent that the mining situation at Greenwater was definitely on the decline, and unless some ore was found soon, the camp would die. The Panic of 1907, which was beginning to hit the mining regions of the west by this time, obviously aggravated the problem.
Businesses, such as the Greenwater Lumber Yard, began to close their doors in the summer of 1907, and as the fall progressed, the trend increased. Fires again played a part, such as in mid-October, when Charley Hennessy's saloon, the Death Valley Vault, burned to the ground. Once the fire started, as in the case of the Chuck-Walla's office, the building was allowed to burn completely, since water to put out the fire was more expensive than the wood necessary to rebuild. The loss of the Death Valley Vault, however, was especially hard to take, since it had become famous throughout the district by offering a free face wash with every drink purchased.
Although fifteen hoists were still in operation in Greenwater in mid-October, and "more extensive development is expected as soon as the weather becomes cooler," even the local papers were beginning to wonder about the future of the district. The Inyo Register noted on October 17th that the "impression prevails that Greenwater is not in the best condition as regards mining showing, but protested a week later that "Greenwater has, for some occult reason been pronounced dead, or at least in decline. The facts in the case do not bear out such a statement.
Still, the paper noted that the population of the district was now estimated at 500, down considerably from the 2,000 of the previous spring.
The departure of businessmen continued in November, and included one of the editors of the Greenwater Times who sold out his half interest to his partner. "From a business standpoint the camp is on the bum," he told the Bullfrog Miner "but from a mining standpoint it looks better than ever." If from a mining standpoint he meant that the mines were reaching increasing depths, he was right, for two of Greenwater's biggest mines had by now sunk to 500 feet below the surface of the earth. But they still had not found the elusive copper deposits without which the district could not survive.
And as 1907 ended, those ore bodies were still not located. The district experienced a mild revival in December, as mine owners and prospectors came back in to do the annual assessment work on claims and locations in order to protect their titles for another year. But as the year ended, the population had shrunk to "several hundred," and only ten companies were still working, five of which had come under the control of the Greenwater Death Valley Cooper Mines & Smelting Company, the large holding company. [8]
As 1908 opened, it was dearly evident that the only hope for the Greenwater district lay in the two big mines which were still operating, and which were going for great depths to find the ore bodies. The Furnace Creek Copper Company, the Patsy Clark outfit, was still sinking on its property, as was the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company, the main Schwab holding. Both were sinking below the five hundred foot level, and one or the other would have to find ore soon or Greenwater's mining history would be extremely short.
The work continued through January and February, but with no results. By mid-February, the once-bustling Greenwater District had shrunk to a mere shadow of its former self.
The only business establishments left in the district were the Tonopah Lumber Company, which was still supplying timbers for the mine shafts, two saloons, two stores and one restaurant. The total population of the district had fallen to [about fifty souls,] and the Rhyolite Daily Bulletin sadly wrote that the desert country about Greenwater is not as abundantly prosperous as it was one short year ago." The remaining buildings at Greenwater were already being torn down and moved to Gold Valley, a small boom town to the south. But those remaining at Greenwater did not give up easily. In early March a Greenwater report stated that a spur track from the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad would 'probably' be built into the district at an early date, and as "soon as the building of the road is assured a great mining boom is almost a certainty." The report went on to blame the demise of Greenwater on the slump in copper prices worldwide, without remembering that Greenwater had no copper to ship, regardless of price.
The Furnace Creek Copper Company and the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company continued to sink through April and May. S. J. Fairbanks told the Bullfrog Miner that "Every month or so these companies send their experts and I understand that the recommendations are to continue sinking. It is a well known tact that excellent ore was discovered on the surface, and these companies are going on the theory that depth will reveal profitable bodies." Fairbanks, who had one of the last remaining stores in the district, added that "These people are spending their money and taking a chance. If they can afford to do this, I can afford to await results, since l am making a living and then some, in the meantime." He was forced to admit, however, that "the camp is showing small encouragement at this time.
Later in April the Bullfrog Miner reported again on the district. "The future of the Greenwater district depends very largely upon the shafts which these two companies are sending down. It is held by geologists and mineral experts that if copper deposits exist in commercial quantities in the Greenwater district they will be found below the water level and at great depth, and these companies have undertaken to demonstrate the theory."
But still no ore was found, and the district continued to decline. The Greenwater Times the last of the district's newspapers, finally gave up and quit publishing shortly after the end of May. By early June, 5. J. Fairbanks reported that "Greenwater is only a shadow of its former self. Fairbanks had the only store and saloon left in the district, "and the population had dwindled to almost nothing." The only other business left in town was the Tonopah Lumber Company, which would stay as long as the companies were sinking and buying timbers for their shafts.
In mid-June the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company struck a small streak of copper ore 1,000 feet below the surface, and mild excitement was felt again in Greenwater. Since many of the previous claims in the district had been allowed to lapse, the news of the strike brought some prospectors back to relocate their claims, in case the strike turned into something big. Within a week, however, it had proven to be only a small stringer, but even that brought out the hopes of the faithful. Although the extent of the strike was disappointing, the Rhyolite Herald reported that "the quality was good and will no doubt lead to a larger body of ore. The existence of ore at this depth will certainly be accepted as conclusive evidence that Greenwater is not a surface proposition as has so often been claimed. Despite the smallness of the strike, prospectors continued to come back into the district to relocate their claims, just in case.
Even the mining companies were heartened by the small strike, and as the Inyo Independent pointed out, "although Greenwater is not very active at the present time . . . it is a significant fact that the owners over there are patenting the mines and are spending sums of money which business men are not likely to throw away or sink in worthless ground." Closer papers, such as the Bullfrog Miner, were not so optimistic: "Greenwater, which once attracted such wide attention on account of rich surface discoveries of copper, has practically faded from the map . . ."
But such was the lingering magic of the Greenwater name that the rumors of a new rush would not die. In mid-July, the Engineering & Mining Journal reported that Greenwater "is again to the front, after being dead for many months." The Journal had its own unique idea as to why the previous strike had not been given much publicity, and wrote that it "was kept as quiet as possible until the Schwab interests could secure control of contiguous territory. Meantime there is again a rush of prospectors and others into the camp, incited by this reported discovery." But those who returned were sorely disappointed and soon left again, for the strike had definitely not amounted to much. The Tonopah Lumber Company finally gave up and closed down its Greenwater yard in late July, and by the middle of August the Bullfrog Miner reported that the "town of Greenwater has but few people left. Mr. Fairbanks himself is running the only store in town.
The decline continued through August. The Post Office at Greenwater was discontinued on the 15th of that month and moved to Death Valley Junction, and Mrs. Spear, proprietor of Greenwater's last restaurant, closed down late in the month and returned to Rhyolite. The Mining & Scientific Press, late in August, summed up the results of the summer season in the district: "Greenwater is still trying to keep itself from utter collapse . . . . Occasionally the long-silent telephone wires to Rhyolite dropped whisperings of fancy 'strikes' at Greenwater. These found their way into print, but Greenwater failed to sustain the promise of its earliest boom days for anyone to take much interest in these later murmurs."
During the rest of 1908, the district was exceedingly quiet. The Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company continued to sink in its shaft, going deeper and deeper in the search for ore. The Furnace Creek Copper Company did likewise, although at a slower and more desultory pace. The Greenwater Calumet Copper Company, which had been idle for some time, returned to perform the required annual assessment work in the fall, and several small groups of miners and prospectors did likewise. But as the year ended, no profitable bodies of copper ore had been found anywhere in the district, and it was quite apparent the time was rapidly running out for Greenwater.
Just when it seemed that Greenwater was finally dead, another revival of hopes arose. Early in January of 1909, ore was again found in the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company's mine, this time at a depth of nearly 1,100 feet. The mere mention of the discovery, before anyone knew the amount, extent or richness of the deposit, caused another mild rush back into the district. As the Rhyolite Daily Bulletin reported,
"Greenwater, the copper camp of the Funeral range, has steadily advanced in its development, and is believed to be on the verge of a boom which will eclipse its first meteoric flight. That such a boom is imminent, and will undoubtedly come early this coming year, is now confidently believed by those most intimate with conditions there. As a result of this change in the feeling toward this camp, most of the old-timers, who were first into this camp, and were most concerned with its success, are back again, doing assessment work, relocating good ground, and preparing fur the awakening which they say is sure to come soon!"
That article, which seemed wildly extravagant when printed in early January, began to look more realistic by the beginning of February, when the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company announced the discovery of a sixty-foot ore body bearing 5 percent copper at a depth of 1,080 feet. The Bullfrog Miner reporting the discovery, remarked that the "new-old camp of Greenwater, the camp of glorious hopes and shattered promises is again to the front in the attention of the mining world On the proving of the new ore body depends the future of the Greenwater Death Valley mines, and practically of the camp of Greenwater." The news of the discovery started another small rush into the district, several other defunct mines reopened their works, and the population of the district soared up to 150.
Somewhere, new investors were found to back another plunge into Greenwater stock, and such companies as Greenwater Central Copper started work once again. Towards the end of February, as the mini-rush continued, the Bullfrog Miner once again reported that the "camp of Greenwater is on the rise from all indications. Parties with holdings there are putting forth more zeal in the development than has been shown for over a year."
Developments on several properties continued through March, with the East Greenwater Copper Company and the Greenwater Calumet Copper Company joining the list of reactivated mines. But the efforts were futile, and soon proved worthless. The small mines shut down again, and in March one of the two giants gave up, when the Furnace Creek Copper Company finally abandoned hope and ceased work. Throughout the summer and fall of 1909 only the Greenwater Death Valley Copper Company continued to work, and finally even that company quit in September. The shaft was stopped at a depth of 1,439 feet, and the papers were finally able to report for sure that Greenwater was totally dead. As the Inyo Register wrote in the nature of an obituary, with "the cessation of all work at the Greenwater Death Valley mine, the once thriving camps of Greenwater and Furnace Creek, California, have been given over to the reign of the coyotes. There is scarcely a man to be found in the entire district, and locally it is considered extremely doubtful that the Schwab company will ever resume work at the mine, which was once pronounced a bonanza."
Greenwater was now definitely dead, and the great boom which had propelled its name across the headlines and stock boards of the nation was best forgotten by the thousands of investors who had been badly burned. The Mining World in its annual review of mining for 1909, summed up the demise of the once heralded district in one short sentence: "The copper districts of the county have lapsed into obscurity. With the final crushing of hopes, locations were abandoned, as were titles to the once thriving business blocks of Greenwater and Furnace, and the Inyo County papers started carrying long lists of delinquent tax payments due from mining companies, businesses and citizens who had once owned land in the district. The demise of Greenwater even had a ripple effect, as Amargosa, once a lively station on the railroad used to supply the Greenwater boom, declined by the middle of 1910 to a population of two.
Mining was never again revived in Greenwater, and by 1917 all that a visitor could find on the spot of the town of 2,000 inhabitants was one deserted cabin. Most of the buildings at Greenwater and Furnace were readily movable, due to the lack of permanent construction, and most had been hauled away by their owners. What was left had been taken by R. J. Fairbanks, the last merchant of Greenwater, and hauled to Shoshone, a settlement on the Tonopah & Tidewater Railroad, where Fairbanks started a small store which later grew into a thriving desert oasis.
Small attempts at sporadic production were made in 1916-1918, and again in 1929, during periods of very high copper prices, but these efforts never amounted to more than one or two man operations, and consisted mostly of gleaning the remains from the dumps of the old mines and laboriously packing it out of the desert. Total production from these activities was estimated at $10,000. During the early 1920s, Greenwater became a favorite winter rendezvous spot for the old desert-rats, a breed of shiftless and broken-down prospectors left over from the Nevada boom years, who gathered there for several winters to swap yarns about the old days, and dream their futile dreams of strikes to come.
A rather foolish attempt was made in 1970 to revive the Greenwater District once again, when a consortium calling itself the Furnace Creek Copper Company (no relation to Patsy Clarks outfit) scraped together the mining rights to a great number of claims in the district, and even paid for a wildly optimistic mineral report on the area. Happily, the backers of the company decided against the attempt to resume mining. Greenwater is now totally deserted, with the exception of occasional campers who remember the once-famous days of one of the deserts most glorious boom districts.Latschar
List of minerals for each chemical element
Localities in this Region
- California
- Inyo County
- Greenwater Valley
- Inyo County
Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality
North AmericaContinent
North America PlateTectonic Plate
- Basin and Range BasinsBasin
- Mojave DomainDomain
- Southern Basin and RangeWide Rift
USA
- Death Valley National ParkNational Park
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