Mapping And Imagination In The Great Basin: A Cartographic History

8. Maps of the Modern/Postmodern Great Basin: 1900–2005

the twentieth century brought phenomenal changes to the Great Basin. Several factors, including the development of the automobile and air travel, were to revolutionize both society and place here as elsewhere. Sites associated with the defense industry flourished, and cities like LasVegas, Salt Lake, and
eno boomed. And yet many traditional activities begun in the nineteenth century, such as ranching, persisted. Mining also maintained its strong presence in the Great Basin.Consider events in the booming Bullfrog Mining District of southern Nevada.The name Bullfrog was derived from the mottled greenish ore that had been found here, and it proved irresistible as a name for the mining district. It also proved irresistible as a cartographic icon. In the early twentieth century, a humorous map delineating the Bullfrog Mining District was designed by T. G. Nicklin of the Bullfrog Miner newspaper in Beatty, Nevada (fig. 8.1). Nicklin’s imaginative map reveals how whimsical cartographic images could be in an era of aggressive competition among towns and mining districts hoping to lure capital and people . Nicklin depicted Beatty as the literal heart of the Bullfrog Mining District, and he creatively employed the railroads (and projected railroads) as arteries in this anatomy lesson.The cartographer transformed the namesake of the mining district—a stylized bullfrog—into something that everyone could identify with. On his ingenious map, the bullfrog awaits our scrutiny much like a laboratory specimen about to be dissected by a student. Nicklin’s map created quite a stir when it was published. Several observant 153 Maps of the Modern/Postmodern Great Basin 1900–2005 8 wags noted that while Beatty was the heart, the town of Bullfrog was positioned in the armpit. At just the time that Nicklin’s map was produced (1907), southern Nevada ’s mining communities were thriving. The main streets of new boomtowns like Tonopah (1900) and Goldfield (1905) were crowded with people on foot, horse-drawn wagons, and that new phenomenon of the new century —automobiles. Within a decade, the Great Basin found itself on a rapidly developing national network of roads and highways. Even before the development of improved roads, however, bicycle relay racers and automobile -driving pioneers traversed the region using trails that still bore the tracks of horses, oxen, and wagons. When daredevils journeyed across the region on the first coast-to-coast automobile expeditions, they used any and all surfaces to get them through. These horseless carriages soon evolved into automobiles that had to traverse primitive, rutted roads. These vehicles were little more than internal combustion engines mounted on wagons or buckboards . On several occasions, automobiles were driven right on the railroad tracks,the drivers ever alert for oncoming trains that now barreled along the SP mainline girdling the region’s midsection. These early automobile adventures not only tested the drivers’ mettle, but also provided an opportunity for early automobile manufacturers—Olds, Hudson, Franklin, Packard —to demonstrate the punishment that their cars could withstand. Lester Whitman and John S. Hammond were typical, perhaps, of the intrepid early motorists who challenged the Great Basin. In midsummer of 1903, they set out from San Francisco in a new Oldsmobile with a letter from the mayor addressed to his counterpart in NewYork City. As charted, their route would take them directly across the Great Basin from
eno to Ogden. In his log, Whitman humorously noted that their valise did not “contain tuxedos or stovepipe hats, but was to hold our film rolls, writing materials, our crude maps, such as they were, and the letter which we hoped to receive and deliver between the two mayors. We carried our complete wardrobe on our backs.”1 Not trusting their maps, they also carried a compass . As they prepared to leave
eno,Whitman noted that the duo“set about to fortify ourselves against the demons of sand, sun and thirst.”That effort included securing “a capacious and practical sort of canteen to carry our drinking water.”2 Fifteen days later, after numerous misadventures that included running 154 mapping and imagination in the great basin maps of the modern ⁄ postmodern great basin 155 figure 8.1. T. G. Nicklin, Map of the Bullfrog Mining District (Bullfrog Miner, 1907). Author’s collection out of water and several mechanical breakdowns,Whitman and Hammond had finally crossed Nevada. Fully half a day had been spent repairing the road between Elko and Deeth. Like some modern motorists in the Great Basin...