Searchlight Museum

Entrance to the Historical Museum in Searchlight, Nevada

As I have mentioned numerous times in my columns, museums have a special place in my heart and I try to visit as many as I can whilst out and about on traveling adventures.

Again, as I have also mentioned numerous times in my columns, our children used to roll their eyes, harrumph, or feign illness whenever I turned into the parking lot of some vault of historical value - namely a museum.

Laureen, my lovely traveling partner, and I tried to instill an appreciation of history and the stories of those who came before us and who made wherever we happened to be traveling what it is today.

It did not matter if it was Amboy, Bullhead City, Randsburg, London, or Paris - each place has a special story to be heard and appreciated. 

The iconic ghost town of Amboy, California

George Santayana, the philosopher is given credit for penning the immortal phrase: ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

I am the perfect example of Santayana’s statement. How many times Laureen has reminded me that a small taste of Mrs. Renfro’s Carolina Reaper Salsa didn't sit well with me in the past? I generally remember while being rushed to the emergency room by a team of paramedics.

But I digress.

Recently, our daughter Kelly let us know that she was taking our grandson, Eli, to a children’s museum in their town of Meridian, Idaho.

We smiled over the video call but once disconnected, high-fived each other. “It worked,” we stated in unison.

According to Rebecca Carlsson in her article for MuseumNext, published on September 15, 2023, ‘Museums have the power to create unity of both a social and political level and a local one. Local museums can provide a sense of community and place by celebrating a collective heritage, offering a great way to learn about the history of a particular area.’

Carlsson ends her piece with ‘Museums are just as crucial to the future as the future is to museums. Not only can our museums bring history to life, but they can also shine a light on our present and future - a light which can be hard to find elsewhere.’

Great article and a must-read for parents - in addition to my own columns, obviously - to instill a sense of who we are not only as a country, state, or city, but who we are as a whole.

Sometimes those visits may conjure up images we may not want to recall.

It is hard for most right-minded people not to get teared up while visiting the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles, or walking the acres of land containing Manzanar along Highway 395. Those are gut-wrenching places to wander but at the same time, as Santayana hoped, if we remember the past we may not let those things happen again.

Perhaps the philosopher was not as skeptical of the human condition as many are today.

But I digress.

With my admiration of museums, I visited the small but extremely informative historical center of Searchlight, Nevada.

Searchlight in the bygone days

I wrote about the once bustling mining town during the dark years of the pandemic when I was not able to enter the museum with the mask restrictions, social distancing, and COVID bugs flying non-stop creating havoc, so I made it a point to revisit.

The museum is located in Clark County within the Searchlight Community Center along Cottonwood Cove Road which ultimately leads to the Cottonwood Cove Recreation area on Lake Mohave.

In 1897 a miner by the name of George Frederick Colton was looking for gold in the area when he supposedly said, “It would take a searchlight to find gold ore here.”

Well, gold was found, and thus the name for find, Searchlight Mine, and in 1898 the name of the newly founded gold rush town.

Today, there is not much to view in the town, more of a crossing spot for those traveling to the blue waters at Cottonwood Cove or on their way to Las Vegas along Interstate 95. A casino or two, a gas station or two, and a few places to grab a meal - but the museum is a must-stop since it holds some very interesting pieces of information explaining why the town of Searchlight is a truly hidden treasure of history.

Let us put away the mining history, important as it may be for making a desolate desert landscape come alive with untold riches, but concentrate on who was once involved in this town of now only 278 humans that was once home to nearly 2,000 souls.

As I wandered around the well-displayed kiosks in the museum I was amazed at the photographs, newspaper clippings, tools, books, and other artifacts which made this stop so much worth anyone’s time.

I did not know that John Macready once lived in Searchlight where his father once owned a very rich ore-producing mine. Macready was a famous pilot in the early years of the 20th Century and helped make aviation a household word. He was one of the first pilots to fly non-stop across the United States and the only three-time winner of the Mackay Trophy. 

I did know that Edith Head, the very famous costume designer who still holds the record of receiving eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, lived in Searchlight as a young child. Her mother had been married to a mining engineer and called Searchlight home for many years. Edith is considered one of the most influential costume designers in the history of film, working for Paramount Pictures for over four decades.

The history of Edith Head while living in Searchlight, Nevada

I did not know that Clara Gordon Bow, the 1920s film star, used to visit Searchlight on a regular basis from her nearby abode, the Walking Box Ranch - named after a camera connected to a tripod for filming in the early days of Hollywood. The ranch was owned by Bow and her husband, actor Rex Bell, as a respite from the often craziness of the film crowd in Los Angeles. 

Clara Bow's personal trunk on display in Searchlight, Nevada

I did not know that Scot Joplin, the King of Ragtime, once wrote a song entitled Searchlight Rag in 1907, in honor of a couple of friends who had done some prospecting in Searchlight - Tom and Charles Turpin. The song was inspired by the tales the two brothers related to Joplin of their time spent in local bars in the area. Now, who would not like that song?

And, I did not know that a man by the name of William Harrell Nellis spent part of his youth in Searchlight before his family moved to Las Vegas when he was 13 years old. This man then went on to become a fighter pilot during World War II and flew in over 70 combat missions before being fatally shot down on  December 27, 1944, over Luxemburg. On April 30, 1950, the Las Vegas Air Force Base changed its name to Nellis Air Force Base.

Nellis's own story in Searchlight, Nevada

I did know that the late Senator Harry Mason Reid Jr. was born in Searchlight in 1939 but learned that he was one of four sons born to Harry Reid and Inez Orena Reid. The Senator’s father was a rock miner working various mines in the hills around Searchlight and his mother was a laundress for the local brothels in the area.

The things you learn while visiting museums!

Searchlight’s museum may be small but it is jam-packed with interesting tidbits about the history of the mining industry, and the famous folks who were either born there, visited there, or spent some time there during their lives.

There are quite of things to view at the museum in Searchlight, Nevada

I wandered a bit and marveled at the care taken in preserving the memory of this small town, really in the middle of nowhere but actually in the middle of some pretty big stories.

For more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obKkQ4U31VA

https://www.clarkcountynv.gov/government/departments/parks___recreation/cultural_division/musuems/searchlight_musuem.php

John can be contacted at: beyersbyways@gmail.com

 

 

The Mining Town of Chloride, Arizona

Chloride, Arizona is known as the ‘Gem of the Cerbats.’ I had no idea what that even meant - the gem of anything to do with bats did not seem like a place anyone would want to visit.

I looked up potential dangers of hanging around with bats, especially upside down. There is the Salmonellosis disease which I think will make humans allergic to eating salmon. There is the Yersiniosis disease which will make humans say ‘Yer sister is a sissy’ too many times, and finally the Batasuarus disease which can make humans rather large and extinct.

Of course, I may have embellished those results, but still, it should not be taken lightly if bitten by an unwanted Chiroptera.

According to Deserae, the local fount of historical knowledge about the small town of Chloride who seemingly runs both the Mineshaft Market and the Arizona Visitors’ Center, the name comes from the minerals found in the nearby Cerbat Mountains.

This range runs for approximately 23 miles and is home to many of Arizona’s top producing silver mines from days in the past.

Ruins of one stamp mill in Chloride, Arizona

“Millions of dollars were pulled out of the mines located here in and around Chloride,” Deserae said. “We’re the only true living ghost town with over three hundred permanent residents and some of those mines are still producing ore today.”

I have learned in my travels, and some readers will tell me I’m wrong, that a ghost town generally has no one around, except ghosts, and no federal post office. Chloride actually has one of the longest running post offices in the state of Arizona. It opened in 1873, closed for a bit, and then reopened in 1893. It is still in operation today, and yes, I checked. 

On the left is the original post office in Chloride, Arizona

Sure enough, there is a poster with a handsome guy who looks a lot like me hanging on the left wall. ‘Wanted, for impersonating a travel writer. Reward $0, he ain’t worth it.’ Now, that’s a Post Office.

Silver Chloride, which the town is named after, has a long and confusing history. Long because it dates back to the ancient Egyptians and confusing because I have no idea what the brainiac chemical scientists are writing about. Let’s just say that so much silver was found in the nearby hills that a whole lot of people became rich and a town where nothing existed before.

History, like where I left my car keys, can be mystifying, so the story of when silver was found in present day Chloride plays in the same realm.

In 1860, six miners found silver in the Cerbat Mountains and began digging. That is what miners do, but the local natives did not take kindly to it. So much so that four of the miners were killed and two escaped west to seek help from the United States military.

Deserare pointed out on the map where two of the miners who were killed by the local Native Americans are buried just southeast of the Chloride cemetery. 

I paid a visit to the fenced off area of repose for the miners and said a prayer.

After the killings, the Cavalry arrived and peace was restored. Nope, not in the natives mind, but big mining diggings began anyway. 

By 1863, the town of Chloride was founded with over 70 mines in operation.

Chloride grew to be the largest town in Mohave County (that’s how it is spelled in Arizona) and was actually the county seat.

With a larger population, Chloride needed a jail

At its height, Chloride boasted over 2,000 residents, and where people reside they need the necessities of life. Soon there were five hotels, a bank, a pool hall, eight saloons, five restaurants, and four brothels, as well as six churches for all those who spent naughty time at the saloons, brothels, and maybe even the pool hall.

Yesterdays Restaurant and Saloon in Chloride, Arizona

Soon, a railroad spur was in place to transport the ore found in Chloride to Kingman and beyond. The train service also included passenger cars for locals, treasure-seekers, and the curious to visit this booming mining town nestled on the west side of the Cerbat Mountains.

Unlike many of these communities which dry up almost as quickly as they started, Chloride really only had a moment in its history of losing so many folks that it almost truly became a ghost town. During WWII many miners dropped their picks and shovels and picked up rifles and ammunition in the service of their country.

As the war ended, people started returning to Chloride but not just for mining, though there are still plenty of active mines in the area, but folks looked upon the small town as a haven from the ‘big city life’ and relished in the close knit community.

In fact, a lot of artists and musicians moved into the area to take advantage of the mild weather that Chloride had to offer and the beautiful landscape which can inspire such persons to wonderful creative moments.

I sat down for a moment on the exterior porch of The Thirsty Miner Soda Shop and Emporium located along North 2nd Street and started playing my harmonica. I felt inspired by the blue skies, wonderful vistas toward the mountains when suddenly the owner came out and smiled.

“Sorry,” she said. “I thought a cat got run over in the road.”

One true artist, not me, was Roy Purcell, a world renowned western painter who created marvelously brightly colored pieces of art depicting the beauty of the western scenery and way of life.

The late Senator Harry Reid once spoke of Purcell, saying ‘Purcell’s work reminds us of the mysticism of William Blake, the mastery of Michelangelo and the passion of Van Gogh - gifts he used with deep insight and compassion from the perspective of the ages yet with the poignancy of our own time and needs.’

And if proof of Purcell’s passion is needed, there is a section of rock murals laboriously crafted by the artist in the late 1960s on 2,000 feet of rock approximately one and a half miles east of Chloride along an easily maintained dirt road, appropriately named the Chloride Murals.

Roy Purcell's artwork near Chloride, Arizona

The images are those from Purcell’s vivid imagination and a great inscription painted along one of the murals is, “The Journey: Images From an Inward Search for Self.”

John R Beyer is search of a selfie

I sat upon a large boulder and did some searching of my inner self while viewing the murals. It did not last long, and I headed back to town - I was hungry and thirsty.

After quenching both at Yesterday’s Restaurant and Saloon, I wandered over to Cyanide Springs.

Cyanide Springs in Chloride, Arizona

Being a western town from the 1860s, Chloride offers a lot for tourists to engage in from gift shops, food and drink, museums, a visitor’s center, campgrounds, hotel accommodations, and regularly scheduled good-old-fashioned shoot-outs at Cyanide Springs.

Dead in the center of Chloride is a reconstruction of a section of the original town made with the wood collected from the nearby Golconda Mine and utilized by the locals to build the town of Cyanide Springs.

Actual timber from local mines to build the façade

Four actual miner’s cabins that were once used to house the families of some of the men working the mines are there in original shape, but now are occupied by gift shops and workshops for the maintenance needed on the structures. 

An actual theater, the Silver Belle Playhouse, is still in use, mainly for the Historical Society’s meeting place but can be used for various venues for the public.

I stopped by the Jim Fritz Museum which contains artifacts from Chloride’s heyday all the way back to the 1880s. Very interesting for anyone who finds learning things fascinating - and who doesn’t?

According to Deserae, “Our peak season is just starting and soon there will be hundreds of people visiting here each week, for a couple of hours or for a couple of days.”

As I drove out, I noticed the Chloride Western RV Park was pretty crowded and with the amount of vehicles parked in front of the Sheps Miners Inn, it may be hard already to book a room.

Chloride has a long history and the folks I bumped into were gracious, ready to share a story or two about the town, and truly seemed to love living in this not ghost town next to the Cerbat Mountains.

For more information: https://chloridearizona.info/