Paying the Price to Learn About Old West

Michael Kidneigh and 20 other self-described romantics are digging into their pockets for the privilege of unearthing artifacts in the blistering heat on this backcountry ranch.

They’re happy to pay $375 for a week of helping the Foundation for Field Research and its founder, archeologist Tom Banks, restore the 124-year-old Kimbel-Wilson trading post.

Banks is a San Diego State University graduate who contracts with builders and local governments to check land for possible archeological sites before it is developed. He became acquainted with the crumbling trading post through his grandfather, Clayburn LaForce, who was an agricultural consultant for 20 years with the Vista Irrigation District, which owns the 43,500-acre Warner Ranch. The district leases range land to local ranchers.

“I’d come out here with him from time to time and watched it (the trading post) slowly disintegrate,” Banks said. The thought of restoring the trading post, with its colorful past, and excavating for Old West artifacts, began to grip Bank’s interest.

Four years ago, with that in mind, Banks founded an organization called Have Mule Will Travel Inc. He changed the name to Foundation for Field Research when people began confusing the organization with a travel agency.

The Kimbel-Wilson trading post was a real part of the Old West. Located 10 miles east of Henshaw Dam on what is today Highway S-2, it is believed to have once been a favorite stopping place for both stage coaches and wagon trains making the long trek on the Immigrant Trail from Missouri to Los Angeles or San Diego.

“This was the first point out of the desert where there’s an abundance of water,” Banks said. The trading post was also the place that provided feed for animals and supplies for weary travelers.

The trading post was built in 1862 by Cyrus Kimbel, whose life came to a violent end in a scene fit for a Western movie. Kimbel was murdered when he tried to homestead nearby land that was claimed by a local cattle baron. From 1875 until 1908 the trading post was operated by one Henry Wilson.

After that the trading post closed and the building served a variety of uses, including being a ranch house.

Now, nearly 125 years since it opened, the ramshackle adobe and wood structure is literally melting away from the effects of rain and grazing cattle seeking shade. “Once adobe gets wet, it melts pretty quickly,” Banks said, noting that the roof has already caved in.

“We are trying to restore it and, at the same time, we’re trying to find out what really happened back then,” said Annie Cody, Banks’ assistant at the Alpine-based foundation.

But that is going to cost money, Banks said.

There have been two excavations so far, one in March and the other in June. A third is planned for November (over Thanksgiving). Of the total $7,500 paid by the participants, $1,000 has been saved for the restoration work, which is expected to cost over $10,000.

Banks acknowledges his pay- as-you-go archeology is unusual but said he had nowhere else to turn because governmental budget cuts has eliminated money for such projects.

And it seems people don’t mind paying to work when they’re turning up artifacts like old-fashioned black gunpowder flasks, parts of old pens, pieces of glass, a broken double-whiskey shot glass, and parts of pipes that might have been smoked by pioneers or cowboys.

“It’s so different from what I do for a living,” said Kidneigh, a Sun Valley machinist who has been on both digs at the trading post and plans to be in on the third, along with his 14-year-old son.

“When you’re out there, you get so involved in your finds that you don’t want to stop to eat,” said history-buff Kidneigh, who likes to picture in his mind what it must have been like at the trading post when it was still part of the Wild West.

Another one of the paying workers, Yountville secretary Dorothy Cleveland, summed up her feelings this way:

“All of us have something deep down we’ve always wanted to do, and I’ve always been curious about the Old West.”