Big sky prospecting
Posted: November 13th, 2005, 6:21 am
I suppose there are doubters; those who insist that the promise of great riches alone compelled the oldtimers to strike out into inhospitable deserts in search of gold or silver. I suppose many would dismiss the notion of an unspoken bond between a prospector and his beloved empty realm. But proof abounds of the desert's powerful hold on its few determined subjects. Consider the tale of William "Burro" Schmidt, who spent 33 years of his life digging a tunnel through a half-mile of mountain, with no apparent payoff in mind except for a serene overlook of a powder-white basin on the far side. The cynics are invited to sit this one out.
Burro Schmidt was born in Rhode Island in 1871. He had six brothers and sisters, all of whom died of tuberculosis before reaching the age of thirty. He never married. He could not abide the possibility of passing on the consumption to his children. He journeyed to the western Mojave desert in 1900, where he staked a few claims on a stark high desert mountain within sight of the Sierras, and began a sporadic one-man operation.
But the mountain itself soon captured his undivided attention, and he launched into his epic dig. No one knows why, exactly. Burro never talked much about his great lifelong project, other than to describe it as a "shortcut". Perhaps he intended to carry ore through his tunnel to a smelter on the other side, but that seems unlikely, since his tunnel eventually emerged on a steep and high ledge, more suited to obscure desert poetry than road-building and commerce.
For the next thirty-plus years, Burro Schmidt chipped away at his peculiar dream, steadily, literally. He worked summers as a ranch hand and took his earnings each fall to buy food and supplies, which he hauled into his dry hills using a buckboard and his two burros, Jack and Jenny, to resume work on his impossible project through the winter months. He never called on his burros to help with to help with the excavation. They watched him go in each day, assured by his words that he would return.
He lived in a one-room cabin with newspaper clippings on the walls for insulation. He had to cart in drinking water from a spring about a mile down the hill, and he lived mostly on coffee, flapjacks and beans, which he cooked on a small cast-iron stove. He kept up a steady regimen of digging, in no hurry, inching eastward through his chosen mountain, using a four-pound single jackhammer with a drill steel of whatever size he could find, augmented by frugal deployments of dynamite with blasting caps and fuses. And he pushed his luck at times, using short fuses to save materials. He would light them and then literally run for his life. He dug out the rubble by hand, filled his ore cart, and muscled each load back toward daylight, which became a shrinking spot behind him, and he used a bowl of water set atop the cart to level the path.
At some point, probably early on, the tunnel, or more likely its pursuit of light on the far side, took precedence over any serious mining concerns for Burro Schmidt. He actually found promising veins of copper, silver and gold about halfway through his quest, but simply ignored them. Upon completion of his tunnel many years later, he took out relatively little ore, or no ore whatsoever, depending on who you talk to, even after thirty-three years of hard, solitary labor.
I imagine his elation at finally breaking through.... one more jackhammer thrust, one of millions, unearthing the first hint of dependable Mojave light and energy at last. I imagine his wild dance on the uneven excavation, arms above his head to to shield himself from a low, ragged ceiling. I imagine how he celebrated his last cart load, backward or forward. I imagine the first morning after, the joy of it, when he rose early to carry his favorite chair through that same hard-won half-mile, out to a new place of big sky language which infused him with a new type of grace so much like the place he came from.
A few years later, his funeral was held at the entrance to his stubborn and prodigious tunnel. A few fellow miners turned up from other camps in the same remote hills to pay their respects, and to act as pallbearers. And Burro Schmidt was properly buried in the same desert realm which provided him with endless inspiration. I only hope to be so lucky.
edited for grammar, syntax, etc., plus more tunneling details.
Burro Schmidt was born in Rhode Island in 1871. He had six brothers and sisters, all of whom died of tuberculosis before reaching the age of thirty. He never married. He could not abide the possibility of passing on the consumption to his children. He journeyed to the western Mojave desert in 1900, where he staked a few claims on a stark high desert mountain within sight of the Sierras, and began a sporadic one-man operation.
But the mountain itself soon captured his undivided attention, and he launched into his epic dig. No one knows why, exactly. Burro never talked much about his great lifelong project, other than to describe it as a "shortcut". Perhaps he intended to carry ore through his tunnel to a smelter on the other side, but that seems unlikely, since his tunnel eventually emerged on a steep and high ledge, more suited to obscure desert poetry than road-building and commerce.
For the next thirty-plus years, Burro Schmidt chipped away at his peculiar dream, steadily, literally. He worked summers as a ranch hand and took his earnings each fall to buy food and supplies, which he hauled into his dry hills using a buckboard and his two burros, Jack and Jenny, to resume work on his impossible project through the winter months. He never called on his burros to help with to help with the excavation. They watched him go in each day, assured by his words that he would return.
He lived in a one-room cabin with newspaper clippings on the walls for insulation. He had to cart in drinking water from a spring about a mile down the hill, and he lived mostly on coffee, flapjacks and beans, which he cooked on a small cast-iron stove. He kept up a steady regimen of digging, in no hurry, inching eastward through his chosen mountain, using a four-pound single jackhammer with a drill steel of whatever size he could find, augmented by frugal deployments of dynamite with blasting caps and fuses. And he pushed his luck at times, using short fuses to save materials. He would light them and then literally run for his life. He dug out the rubble by hand, filled his ore cart, and muscled each load back toward daylight, which became a shrinking spot behind him, and he used a bowl of water set atop the cart to level the path.
At some point, probably early on, the tunnel, or more likely its pursuit of light on the far side, took precedence over any serious mining concerns for Burro Schmidt. He actually found promising veins of copper, silver and gold about halfway through his quest, but simply ignored them. Upon completion of his tunnel many years later, he took out relatively little ore, or no ore whatsoever, depending on who you talk to, even after thirty-three years of hard, solitary labor.
I imagine his elation at finally breaking through.... one more jackhammer thrust, one of millions, unearthing the first hint of dependable Mojave light and energy at last. I imagine his wild dance on the uneven excavation, arms above his head to to shield himself from a low, ragged ceiling. I imagine how he celebrated his last cart load, backward or forward. I imagine the first morning after, the joy of it, when he rose early to carry his favorite chair through that same hard-won half-mile, out to a new place of big sky language which infused him with a new type of grace so much like the place he came from.
A few years later, his funeral was held at the entrance to his stubborn and prodigious tunnel. A few fellow miners turned up from other camps in the same remote hills to pay their respects, and to act as pallbearers. And Burro Schmidt was properly buried in the same desert realm which provided him with endless inspiration. I only hope to be so lucky.
edited for grammar, syntax, etc., plus more tunneling details.
