DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL MONUMENT CALIFORNIA NEVADA UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL MONUMENT Contents DEATH VALLEY FROM BREAKFAST CANYON Cover Open all year • Regular season, October 15 to May 15 BEFORE WHITE MEN CAME 3 THE HISTORICAL DRAMA 4 cipitation at headquarters during the past TALES WRITTEN IN ROCK AND LANDSCAPE 5 DEATH VALLEY National Monument is distinguished by its desert scenery— 15 years has been 2.03 inches. DESERT WILDLIFE 10 a combination of unusual geology, flora, Summer daytime temperatures in the DESERT PLANTLIFE 11 fauna, and climate. Famed as a scene of valley itself are quite high. The maxi­ suffering in the gold-rush drama of mum air temperature of 134° F. in the INTERPRETIVE SERVICES 12 1849, Death Valley has long been shade recorded in Death Valley was a WHAT TO SEE AND DO WHILE IN THE MONUMENT 12 known to scientist and layman alike as world record until 1922 when 136.4° F. HOW TO REACH DEATH VALLEY 13 a region rich in scientific and human was reported from El Azizia, Libya. interest. The monument was established Higher locations on the mountains in the MONUMENT SEASON 14 in 1933 and covers almost 3,000 square monument have comfortable daytime WHAT TO WEAR 14 miles. temperatures and cool nights. ACCOMMODATIONS 14 The monument is in the rugged desert From late October until May, the val­ ADMINISTRATION 15 region east of the Sierra Nevada in east­ ley climate is usually very pleasant. ern California and southwestern Nevada. Days are often warm and sunny, nights PLEASE HELP PROTECT THIS MONUMENT 15 The valley itself is about 140 miles long, cool and invigorating, with the temper­ with the forbidding Panamint Range ature seldom below freezing. forming the western wall and the pre­ Historic Events cipitous slopes of the Amargosa Range bounding it on the east. Running in a 1844 Fremont party, following old Spanish 1871 Further explorations for Government by Before White Men Came Trail, camped within sight of south end Wheeler and Lyle. general northwesterly direction, the val­ of Death Valley. 1872 Panamint mines discovered. Panamint ley is narrow in comparison to its length, booms in 1874. 1849 Jayhawkers, Georgians, Bennett-Arcane ranging in width from 4 to 16 miles. For centuries, the Death Valley region party, and others entered the valley 1873 First borax discovered in Death Valley. Nearly 550 square miles of the valley through Furnace Creek on Christmas has been inhabited by the Panamint Day. 1875 Further exploration by Lt. Rogers floor are below sea level. An area in the Birnie. Indians, a small offshoot of the vicinity of Badwater is 282 feet below 1856 First General Land Office survey of 1880 Aaron Winters sold borax claims for Shoshone Nation. Capable of great en­ Death Valley. $20,000. Borax industry in Death sea level—the lowest land in the West­ durance, ingenious in the utilization of Valley started. 1860 Darwin French and S. G. George pros­ ern Hemisphere. Telescope Peak, im­ every edible or otherwise useful plant, pecting parties explored Panamints and 1891 Biological expedition by Merriam, mediately to the west, towers 11,331 eating any animals they could catch, fol­ parts of the valley, giving many place Palmer, Coville, and others. names still in use. feet above the lowest point. lowing the seasons in incessant migra­ 1904 Goldfield mining boom, resulting in 1861 Lieutenant Ives explored region for Cal­ to mining camps such as Rhyolite, Skidoo, Death Valley is famous for its con­ tion between valley floor and mountain ifornia Boundary Commission, using 1908 and Greenwater. camels as pack animals. Prospecting sistently fair weather, minimum rainfall, crest, they managed to exist, but with parties active. 1926 Stove Pipe Wells Hotel and Furnace and low relative humidity. The aver­ a relatively simple culture. They called to Creek Inn established. Eichbaum toll 1864 Jacob Breyfogle lost the famed Breyfogle 1927 road built from Darwin. Beginning of age number of clear days in a calendar Death Valley "Tomesha," which means mine. tourist traffic to the valley. year is 283, although 351 clear days were "ground afire." Since the coming of 1870 Bellerin Tex Bennett started Furnace 1933 Death Valley National Monument estab­ once recorded. The average annual pre­ white men, the Indian population has Creek Ranch. lished. 2 3 greatly diminished and aboriginal cus­ desperate attempt to find a way to toms and arts have been largely lost. Be­ civilization and to bring aid if possible. fore the Shoshone arrived, the valley was After a trip of terrific hardship, they occupied by Indians who subsisted by finally returned and led their group to hunting as well as by gathering edible safety. Manly-said that the weary emi­ plants. They used the spear and the grants looked back across the valley— atlatl rather than the bow and arrow. the tremendous barrier that had caused They were here when big game was so much privation and suffering—and plentiful and perhaps were hunting cried, "Goodby, Death Valley." While mammoths and camels at the end of the several lives were lost along the trail, a Ice Age (Pleistocene Epoch). "Captain" Culverwell was the only emigrant of 1849 to die within Death Valley. In the next few years some of A 20-mule team. Frasher's Photos, Pomona, Calif. the "Forty-niners," undaunted, returned The Historical Drama as guides or on their own to prospect and search for the Lost Gunsight silver lode. desert in huge high-wheeled wagons proper sequence, their total thickness 'There is no record that the early Gradually the country became better drawn by 20-mule teams. In 1907, the would probably exceed 12 miles. How­ Spaniards entered or explored Death known. In the mountains around Death Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad was ever, the strata have been so greatly dis­ Valley. In 1844, John Charles Fremont Valley, towns mushroomed. Panamint built to the edge of the valley to carry torted, broken, and jumbled that the probably saw the southern end of the City and later Skidoo, Greenwater, out colemanite (another borax mineral), story is difficult to read. valley. The first scene in the recorded Rhyolite, and Chloride City lived their but was abandoned when a richer de­ Over a period of time nearly as old as drama of the valley was written in 1849. short lives and died, leaving only tum­ posit of borax (kernite) was discovered the earth itself, rock materials have been It remained for a wagon train of half- bled shacks, weathered timbers, and in the Mojave Desert. Death Valley deposited by wind, water, and volcanoes, starved emigrants, pushing westward on broken bottles to mark their sites. was also brought to the attention of the and rocks have been formed from masses a supposed shortcut to the newly dis­ Occasionally, the prospectors found public through the exploits of Walter- of molten magma. The oldest rocks covered gold fields, actually to enter small amounts of precious metal in the Scott, ex-cowboy of Buffalo Bill's Wild have been so greatly changed by heat, Death Valley in the winter of that year. rugged peaks and barren canyons which West show, who became known as Death pressure, and deformation that little can They had deserted their guide and were isolated the valley from the surrounding, Valley Scotty. In time, adventurous be learned about their original form. lost in the wilderness, hungry and tired. less-forbidding desert. Itinerant pros­ visitors drove their cars into the valley, These oldest somber-colored rocks are The wide salt floor of the valley, with pectors prodded their burros from one cursed its then abominable roads, but exposed in the Black Mountains east of the towering Panamints beyond, was the waterhole to the next, following Indian came again. With better roads, and all Badwater, where they are in contact with last blow to their morale. The train trails or beating out new tracks. They America on wheels, it was inevitable younger and more highly colored rocks. separated into seven groups, each seek­ crossed and recrossed the ranges from that Death Valley would come into its The alternating layers of light and ing its own escape. One group, known one end of the valley to the other. Some own. dark rock, exposed particularly well in as the Jayhawker Party, abandoned al­ of them were careless or unacquainted the Funeral and Grapevine Mountains, most all of its equipment, made its exit with the country—they missed springs, Tales Written in Rock and Land­ belong to the Paleozoic rocks of inter­ through a canyon later named the Jay­ lost their burros, or lingered too long on scape mediate age. During this era, seas inter­ hawker Canyon, and crossed Panamint the floor of the valley in summer. Their mittently covered the land, allowing Valley and the Mojave Desert. After remains, dried and picked clean by co­ Death Valley is a vast geological deposition of great thicknesses of lime, suffering tremendous hardships, the Jay- yote and raven, were eventually found museum. A tremendous span of geo­ sand, gravel, and mud. hawkers finally reached Sutter's Fort. and buried beside the trail. logic time is indicated in its exposed Granites, thought to have been formed rocks. All of the great divisions of geo­ Another group, the Bennett-Arcane Borax was finally responsible for the during the next era (Mesozoic), are a logic time, called eras, and nearly all of party, crossed the salt flats. They partial taming of the valley. In the source of the quartz grains which form their subdivisions, or periods, are rep­ camped for 26 days at Tule Spring and 1880's, "cottonball" borax (ulexite) was the sand dunes.