|
Biographical Notes
|
|
|
|
|
Walter Edward Scott - "Death Valley Scotty"
|
|
|
Gaylord's money ran out and Scotty had a serious challenge. If it was believed that he had unlimited wealth from his mine, how could be continue to demand money from Johnson? He answered the challenge by inventing murderers and thieves that were out to take his mine away from him and perhaps do violence to himself as well. In September 1905, Scotty took Azariah Y. Pearl into the desert to see a likely claim near his mine. After briefly showing Pearl another man's mine, Scotty and his brother Bill staged a gun fight which forced the group to flee to Barstow. For most of the rest of the year he was involved in trying to promote a play in the New York Opera House that would tell the story of his life. Late in the year he went out into the desert and disappeared. When his mule and blood stained saddle appeared in camp, Death Valley Scotty was again newsworthy. Later it was determined that he had accidently shot himself in the leg.
|
|
|
Meanwhile Pearl had lined up some financing from T. Coleman du Pont for the new mine that Scotty had shown him. In connection with this deal, Scotty agreed to take Daniel E. Owens, a qualified mining engineer, to the mine to verify its worth for the du Pont investment. Scotty invited Johnson to come along and, without his knowing it, Gaylord sent a spy along to check on what, if anything, Scotty really had. Using Johnson's and du Pont's money, Scotty organized a luxurious expedition which set out from Lone Willow Spring on February 25, 1906. Scotty had surreptitiously provided tainted water to Owen making him so ill that he had to be tied to the wagon seat. That evening a planned ambush that had been designed to scare the party and force them to turn back went sour and Scotty's brother, Warner, was accidently wounded. The next morning the party turned back to Barstow. The newspapers referred to it as the "Battle of Wingate Pass" and headlined that Scotty had escaped death.
|
|
|
On March 11 Scotty's play opened in Seattle at the Third Avenue Theater with standing room only crowds clamoring to see Scotty play the leading role as himself. When the play finished in Seattle it was to run in California but Scotty was arrested instead. Owen had brought suit against him for $152,000 in assorted charges associated with the affair at Wingate Pass. Bail was set at $2,000 and was paid by the writer of the play that Scotty was starring in. The suit was thrown out on a technicality, but the court proceedings made it clear that Scotty was a fraud. The press covered the trial extensively and Scotty was publicly exposed as a charlatan and the mystery of his mine destroyed. Public interest in the "Death Valley Fraud" faded quickly and the play closed soon thereafter.
|
|
|
Amazingly Scotty refused to admit anything, ignored the bad press, and somehow managed to keep Johnson interested in his mine. In 1908 Johnson sent Alfred MacArthur to visit the mine. After the usual run around, MacArthur concluded that there was no mine and so informed Johnson. Johnson refused to believe it and the following year went to Death Valley himself to finally get to the bottom of things. Once again he left without seeing the mine. About this time Scotty began fencing high grade ore stolen from other mines in the area. As a front for this operation he left Death Valley and leased a mine in northern Nevada in the Humboldt Mountains. He remained there until 1912 when he returned to Death Valley to announce that he had sold his mine for a million dollars. This claim landed him in court when his creditors sued for old debts. This time he actually went to jail and was forced to admit that his mine did not exist and that the money that he had spent over the years had come primarily from Gerard, Gaylord, and Johnson. The press branded him a cheat.
|
|
|
This time Scotty moved to Twentynine Palms and lived quietly until 1915 when Johnson decided that he wanted to visit Death Valley again and see his old comrade Death Valley Scotty. Johnson purchased the Staininger Ranch in Grapevine Canyon as a base camp and permitted Scotty to use it when he was not in residence. Scotty received a modest allowance and immediately returned to his old ways. Once again the mystery of his mine was the subject and once again the tales were unbelievable. Johnson regarded it as entertainment and did nothing to inhibit Scotty. He claimed that Scotty paid him back in laughs for every cent that he gave him. One of Johnson's closest associates believed that he actually admired Scotty for the way in which he had fooled him.
|
|
In 1922 Johnson hired F.W. Kropf to start construction at the Staininger Ranch on what was to become the Johnson vacation home in the desert. Johnson hired Frank Lloyd Wright to design his new residence, but rejected Wright's plans as being too avant-guard. Instead he hired Matt Roy Thompson to oversee construction of a structure designed by C. Alexander MacNeiledge. European artisans and craftsmen were brought in to complete the interior and furnishings were purchased in Europe. As people saw the scale and quality of the new construction, renewed interest focused on the possibility that Scotty really did have a mine after all. Scotty, of course, claimed that he was building a castle for himself and the new structure became known as "Scotty's Castle" even though the name over the front door read "Death Valley Ranch." The press once again began speculating and the mystery around Scotty was rekindled.
|
|
|
Scotty rarely stayed in the castle itself, preferring to stay in a small bungalow that Johnson built for him at Grapevine Springs on the edge of the valley. His wife, Jack, and their son, Walter Junior, stayed in another bungalow provided by Johnson in Reno. Work on the castle continued until 1931, when it was discovered that, because of surveying error, Johnson did not own the land on which the castle had been built. The error had been discovered in the run up to making Death Vally a national park at the close of President Herbert Hoover's term in office in 1933. The problem was finally resolved in 1935, but too late for Johnson to finish the building. His insurance company had gone into receivership in 1933 and he did not have the funds necessary to complete the plans. Johnson and his wife willed Death Valley Ranch to a religious organization and wrote into the will that Scotty should live there as long as he wished. Scotty's castle was never completed, but Scotty continued to live there until his death on January 5, 1954. He is buried at Death Valley Ranch on a hill above "his" castle as per his expressed wish.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|