Customer Reviews

Death Valley and the Amargosa: A Land of Illusion

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This book contains an excelent, highly detailed account of the history of Death Valley, CA from the first appearances of man up to it's designation as a National Monument in 1933 by President Herbert Hoover. It is very well researched as evidenced by the bibliography at the end of the book. Mr. Lingenfelter allows the reader to experience the trials and tribulations of the many soles who entered into "The Valley of Death" to discover, the hard way, the many illusions promoted by the published accounts of those who ventured before them. A must read for anyone wishing to visit the National Park for a drive or hike through a very mysterious and beautiful land.

What more could one want in a history book? Clean clear writing (and Lingenfelter is a professor of physics--go figure), plenty of interesting characters, loads of legends, and a starkly beautiful setting to back it all up. Lingenfelter has done a marvelous job. I've poured over his book twice and could easily read it a third time again without feeling bored. This book gives a wonderfully complete history of the Death Valley area. Read it first or take it along if you plan to visit. It will increase your appreciation of Death Valley immensely, and you'll be enthralled by the history as its told here.

In the Preface to this definitive history of Death Valley, Richard Lingenfelter writes, "This is the history of Death Valley, where that bitter stream the Amargosa dies. It embraces the whole basin of the Amargosa from the Panamints to the Spring Mountains, from the Palmettos to the Avawatz.... This is the story of an illusory land, of the people it attracted and of the dreams and delusions they pursued.... But mostly it's the story of the illusions - of the shortcuts to the gold diggings, of the deadliness of the land, of the bonanzas and immense riches ...." The history spans a period of time from its earliest recollections to 1933, when Herbert Hoover designated it a National Monument.

Apparently Death Valley got its name from a group of Argonauts passing through on their way to the California gold fields in 1850. The name first appeared on a map in 1861. Paiute and Shoshone Indians frequented the area, of course, long before whites showed up, and lived off crops they grew. The earliest whites were prospectors, looking for gold and silver. Ironically, the most valuable resource would turn out to be the white substance anyone could find just by looking: borax. Millions of dollars worth of borax was shipped out of the valley, first by the legendary 20-mule team wagons, and then by train. In the early 20th century gold was discovered in the valley and soon gold camps and boomtowns, places like Bullfrog, Beatty, and Rhyolite, were attracting miners and get-rich-quick schemers from all over the country. Copper and gas frenzies followed, but the next big change to the area was brought about by the automobile: tourists in their Model Ts were invited to "see Hell firsthand" and to experience the mysteries and uniqueness of this unforgiving area with Death in its name. And soon there was Scotty's Castle to ogle. Then in 1933, after years of wrangling, President Hoover declared Death Valley a National Monument.

Lingenfelter's book is dense with fact and incident, but it's a fascinating read from beginning to end. Although a previous book published in 1940 had attempted to be a history of Death Valley, it was incomplete and selective, and mixed fact and fable without distinguishing the two. Lingenfelter's book is thus the first to cover the ground completely and factually. (100 pages of endnotes attest to his serious intentions.) The book is authoritative and, as I mentioned earlier, definitive. Highly recommended.

This is much more than just a social or human history of Death Valley.

It's also a highly in-depth natural history. And, it must be.

No human history of the hottest, driest, lowest, and certainly starkest place in North America could discuss human history without examing both the climate and geology behind it.

And Lingenfelter does an excellent job of doing just that.

Learn more about early treks across this land, the Native Americans, precious metal and borax/chemical mining and more.

Over the past few years I have begun adventuring out to Death Valley and the surrounding areas. After going to places covered in this book I began to yearn for a greater knowledge of the places I've visited. This book is wonderful. Although I titled it as concise I did so in comparison to the amount of research done by the author. It is a long read but adventuresome all the while. Do not hesitate in ordering a copy if you are interested in the history of Death Valley and the Amargosa!

If you are even remotely interested in the history of Death Valley or American History in general, I'm sure that you will enjoy this book. Those who are planning on visiting the area will get a lot more out of their trip if they read this book and know the history. Very well researched and put together.

This is not only one of the most informative books ever published on the history (as opposed to the geography, geology, anthropology or wildlife - if you want those, go elsewhere) of Death Valley and the mountains surrounding it, it is a thoroughly amusing and satisfying read for any student of Western history and does for Death Valley what J. Frank Dobie did for territories further south. One gets the impression that in spite of its inhospitable nature, there may have been more frauds per square foot committed around Death Valley than any other American soil west of Wall Street. Lingenfelter traces them all, and one of the charms of his book is that while he is admirably even-handed in puncturing the inflated claims of bull-shippers like Death Valley Scotty and George Graham Rice, he seems to have a sneaking affection for all the boodlers, grifters, con men and watered-stock-artists he chronicles, as well as for the hopeful dreamers totally unprepared for Mother Nature's crueler side who seem to have populated the region ever since the first California-bound covered wagons stumbled into it. In fact, the only thing missing from this book that I would have found useful is a record of what is still there to be seen of the colorful boom towns he chronicles - for example, according to the National Park Service, Rhyolite still has quite a bit to reward the sightseer (even though it has had to be fenced off to keep tourists from carrying it away bit by bit as souvenirs to decorate their dens), while the once-flourishing mining towns of Greenwater and Bullfrog have so totally disappeared that there is nothing at all to be seen there today.

With a fifty-five page bibliography and a hundred pages of endnotes, you'd expect this closely documented history of this region, published from a university press by a professor (of physics!) to read like most academic texts. It does not. It's witty, insightful, droll, while remaining relentlessly focused not on the feel of the area (for that, see his "Death Valley Lore" edition of century-old tall tales and/or journalism or John Soennichsen's lively personal take "Live from Death Valley"; both books also reviewed by me on Amazon)-- but on its discovery by pioneers, its promotion by hucksters to gullible investors, and the sheer difficulty of getting its mineral and ore riches out of the Valley due to the lack of water and wood. No matter how tempting the surface finds might promise prospectors and speculators, the fact remained that more borax than gold came from there, and perhaps more lead than silver, and the enormous labor and climatic peril meant that, less than a century after it was stumbled upon by gold-rushers seeking a shortcut west, it became more lucrative as a tourist attraction rather than a mother lode.

Lingenfelter assembles his considerable data primarily from newspapers and government archives of the time. Maps both early and later help you visualize the places, and period photos give you a peek into a few of the sites. I wish more of these had been included, but it's a minor flaw. Chapters cover chronologically the pre-European settlers; the miners of the 1850s and 1860s; the Pocket Miners' boomlets that sparked buying frenzies for gold, silver, lead and later the humbler but savvily-sold borax; the copper and lead profits; and the rise of the auto, rail, and bus excursions that in the wake of Scotty's endless PR set the Valley indelibly on the map and on the silent screen. His opening paragraphs for each of the chapters and sub-sections serve as models for expository writing in their command of image, style, and intrigue.

The author wrote most of his account based on the contemporary reports from the area, and the abundance of press from the California and Nevada mining towns themselves must have rivalled dueling bloggers who try to cash in on the staked-out domains of the Net in our own feverish commercial marketing campaigns. Death Valley's Scotty and his lesser-known real-estate snake-oil rival C.C. Julian emerge from these closely printed, but largely engrossing, pages as larger-than-life promoters of their own image and of the dreams of avarice that they kindled in their readers all over the country. The narrative leaps energetically into such characters' humbug, and your patience for all the data on stock prices, lists of claims, and dutiful attention to grubstakes and legal battles, while all necessary for the foundation of such an informative text, is rewarded with a chance to feel the repelling yet fascinating charm of the salesmen who sold the spirit of the Gold Rush or Klondike or Comstock to later, more citified, folks, and delighted in the con all the way as much as perhaps many of their willing victims seemed to do. Likewise, the manipulation of Leadfield by Julian as the profits rose and fell on his considerable talents in advertising what his reader wanted can be rivalled by earlier, less-known efforts such as the Panamint and Bullfrog and Ryan mines that crested and tumbled their value on the stock exchanges in roller-coaster fashion.

Finally, there's a glimpse at such later figures as "Bob" Eichbaum, who built a toll road, sensibly, to found a resort smack in the middle of the Valley when his horses refused to go any further with his supplies for construction. He and the last to get rich off the Valley managed to do so by convincing Hoover, just before he left the White House, to protect the interests of those who had already cornered the market for the automobile-bound visitors. These developers wished to keep the mining going, while heading off any real-estate boom, and they succeeded in cornering their control of the concessions and sights, while getting the taxpayers to take over the bill for roads, maintenance, and upkeep.

Still, as Lingenfelter concludes, this may well be a great bargain, for in its appeal as a supposedly deadly, noxious, forbidden, or hellish place, its own Hollywood-fueled scenario makes it the largest National Park today. It also was spared the dispiriting subdivision of Palm Springs or the tacky sprawl of Las Vegas. In its not-quite pristine but still rather primitive state, it's a place where yearly one that half a million of us drive to, winter or summer, in search of the curious lure that impels us to look high up to Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the 48 States, while far below sea level at fittingly named Badwater.

This book provides incredibly thorough coverage of the history of Death Valley. For my interests, I wish the emphasis had included more information about Panamint Valley, Searles Valley, and the Darwin area, but these, somewhat peripheral, areas do get some coverage. The details provided by the author are very helpful and it is obvious throughout the book that the history presented here was carefully researched and authoritative. On top of everything else the entire story of Death Valley is presented clearly and in a style which is enjoyable to read.