Cattle In The Cold Desert, Expanded Edition

3. Left-Hand Trail to Hell

50 The Open Land The Humboldt River route of the California Trail has been called the “highroadtotheWest,”andrightlyso.ThetrailleftSodaSprings,twisted through the mountain causeway past the City of Rocks, and went down Birch Creek and into Goose Creek. The trail led up Goose Creek to the far northeastern corner of Nevada and then down Rock Creek to Thousand Springs Creek, which drains into the Bonneville Lake Basin. After following Thousand Springs Creek to its headwaters, the emigrants crossed the divide at the head of the creek to enter the Lahontan Basin and followed Bishop Creek down to Humboldt Wells. UpperGooseCreekandThousandSpringsCreekareamongthemost isolated areas of the modern Great Basin, but in the 1850s they were on the mainstream of the western migration. Many people had the opportunitytoseetheland ’spotentialtosupportdomesticlivestock,butmost saw only the endless sagebrush and felt only fear of harassment from hostile Indians. Thousand Springs Creek is similar to hundreds of other drainages in the Great Basin. It starts and ends in obscurity. The headwaters of the drainage are on Antelope Peak and Burnt Crown Mountain north of Wells,Nevada.AtWrstthestreamheadsnorthasifstrivingfortheheadwatersofSalmonFallsCreekandeventualfreedominthePaciWcOcean . However, this is not to be, and the creek turns south to Bill Downing’s H-D Ranch, where Toano Draw enters from the south. Once Thousand Springs Creek passes the H-D Ranch, it swings far to the north, avoiding Tony Mountain, and receives the waters of Rock Springs Creek and Crittendon Creek. The stream swings back south to Wnally emerge from theToanoRangeintothevalleyatMontello.Thetotallengthofthecreek isaboutWftymiles,withanaveragedropinelevationofeighteenfeetper mile. The name Thousand Springs, an obvious choice considering the many springs that occur along the creek’s course, was Wrst applied on explorationandrailroadsurveymapspreparedbyLieutenantBeckwith. ThevalleyatMontellohasseveralsigniWcantfeaturesthatcontribute to livestock production. The oblong valley, some Wfty square miles in Gray Ocean of Sagebrush 51 area, is dominated on the southeast by the austere Pilot Range and the massive ten-thousand-plus-foot Pilot Peak. At the northeastern end of thevalleythereisagapbetweenthenorthendofthePilotRangeandthe south end of the Tecoma Mountains. Through this gap extended an arm of pluvial Lake Bonneville, the Ice Age lake of which the Great Salt Lake is a remnant. On the vast alluvial fans that spread from the Pilot Range across the valley at Montello and through the northeastern gap to the Bonneville Salt Flats were thousands of acres of winterfat and other salt desert shrubs suitable for wintering cattle. A second feature of the area that enhanced livestock production was the several thousand acres of saline/alkaline plant communities that occurred where Thousand Springs Creek spilled onto the valley Xoor. These communities ranged from wet meadows and alkali bullrush (Scirpus robustus) marshes to extensiveareasofthetallgrassGreatBasinwildrye (Elymuscinereus).This semiwetlandsareaprovidedanextremelyvaluablegrazingresourcethat wasmuchmoreproductivethanthesagebrush/grasslands.Thelastfeatureofthevalleythatenhancedlivestockproductionwasman -made:the CentralPaciWcRailroad. Rock Creek and Crittendon Creek extend north from Thousand Springs Creek in broad basins with hundreds of thousands of acres of sagebrush rangeland. The Toano Basin extends south from Thousand SpringsintothenorthernendofthePequopRangeandadditionalthousandsofacresofrangeland ,includingextensiveareasofpinyon/juniper woodlands. The town of Toano was an important freighting station before the Central PaciWc Railroad was completed. Freight wagons left Toano for the McGill ranches to the south and the eastern White Pine mines. To the north, it was six days’ fast freight to Boise City. The Wrst “ranch” between Salt Lake City and Carson Valley, Nevada, was located near Humboldt Wells and operated under dubious circumstances .PeterHaws,anearlyCanadianconvertofJosephSmithwhofell outoffavorwiththeMormonsettlersintheSaltLakeValley,established himself on the Humboldt in 1854. Haws’s daughter married Carlos The Exploitation Pageant 51 52 The Open Land Murray, who settled in Thousand Springs Valley. The combined families raised a garden, sold the produce to emigrants, and traded fresh for sore-footed cattle. Dark rumors began to circulate that the Haws families were in league with Indians who stole back the animals they had traded to the emigrants. Eventually, Haws was forced to Xee for his life, and Carlos Murray and his wife were killed in Thousand Springs Valley by the Indians they were accused of aiding.19 Probably the next rancher to try his luck in Thousand Springs Creek ValleywasBillDowning.Billbecamedisillusionedontheemigranttrail to California and dropped out to rest at a likely looking spring in the upper part of Thousand Springs Valley. The surroundings grew on him, and he decided to stay. He combined trading for sore-footed cattle with tendingagardenandsellingsuppliesheboughtinWells.Hebrandedhis stockwiththeH-DbrandandcalledhisoperationtheOx-YokeRanch.20 In the late 1860s Bill Downing started to have neighbors, or at least someone living within a three-day horseback ride. Colonel J. B. Moore had commanded Camp Ruby in Ruby Valley on the east side of the Ruby MountainsduringtheCivilWar...