20 Mule Team Days in Death Valley by Harold O. Weight

Author:Harold O. Weight [Weight, Harold O.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Criminals & Outlaws, Rich & Famous, Social Science, Ethnic Studies, Native American Studies, History, United States, 19th Century
ISBN: 9781789120240
Google: nDxODwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Published: 2018-02-27T02:39:38+00:00

5—THE LONE LINE SKINNERS

No more vivid and romantic figure has come down to us, through the legends that set forth the opening of the desert and the desert mines, than the long line muleskinner of Death Valley.

“To see him soar up over the front wheel to his perch,” wrote John Spears, “tilt his hat back on a rear corner of his head, gather in the slack of a jerk line, loosen the ponderous brake, and waken the dormant energies of the team with ‘Git up,——you; git up!’ is the experience of a tourist’s lifetime. When the teamster pulls up beside the dump with the mules in a line so straight a stretched string would touch the ear of every mule on either side of the chain, as has often been done, one wanted to be introduced and shake hands.”

All the old Death Valley teamsters are gone now. And not one of them who handled the teams during the epic Death Valley-Mojave years of 1884-1888 seems to have left his story behind. Even the names of the muleskinners of those halcyon days of the twenty mule teams are unknown or uncertain.

John R. Spears, a star roving reporter on Dana’s New York Sun, who came to the deserts late in 1891 to do a series of sketches about desert borax, recorded the only observant first hand picture of their life. He visited the operating mines at Borate and in Nevada and the recently closed ones in the Death Valley country, traveling hundreds of miles along the old borax roads by buckboard. He talked with borax kings and desert outcasts, with miners, caretakers—and teamsters.

“In freighting over the desert with a twenty animal team,” Spears wrote, “every driver has an assistant called a swamper. On the down grade, he climbs to a perch on the rear wagon and puts on the brake; on the upgrade he reasons with and throws rocks at the indolent and obstreperous mules. As mealtime approaches, he kicks dead branches from a grease-bush along the route and pulls up sage-brush roots for fuel. When the outfit stops, he cooks the food while the driver feeds the animals, and when the meal is over, washes the dishes which, with the food, are carried in a convenient box in the wagon.

“The mules get their grain from boxes which are arranged to be secured to the wagon tongue and between the wheels, when feeding. They eat their hay from the ground. Beyond feeding and watering they get no care—they curry themselves by rolling on the ground with cyclonic vigor. The cloud of dust raised is suggestive of a Death Valley sandstorm.

“Drivers receive from $100 to $120 a month, swampers about $75. They furnish their own food and bedding. The bill of fare at a desert freight camp includes bacon, bread and beans for foundation, with every variety of canned goods known for the upper strata. They carry Dutch ovens for baking, pans for frying, tin kettles for stewing. A cobbler made of canned peaches serves for both pie and cake.

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