Mining Art in the Mojave

We were looking for a place to stay on a lark to Death Valley National Park in November, and the news wasn’t good. No vacancy. The Furnace Creek Inn, Furnace Creek Ranch, the campgrounds--none had room for us, a couple of free spirits who were paying the price for poor planning.

That’s how my photographer friend Yosi and I ended up in Beatty, Nev., a detour that took us to places we never intended to go and sights we never imagined we’d see.

We arrived in Beatty late on a Friday evening, hungry and tired after our six-hour drive from Los Angeles in a rented SUV. We checked in at the 54-room Phoenix Inn, the first place we called that had rooms available. Brown was the prevailing color scheme in our comfortable double room, which came complete with a queen-size bed and tiny Cashmere Bouquet soap bars in the bathroom and a heating and cooling system that sort of worked.

Beatty, a village of 1,500 that sits at Nevada 374 and U.S. 95, is a gold mining town and the supply center for mining operations in the surrounding Bullfrog Hills. It has tourist services available 24 hours a day, restaurants, motels and, because it’s in Nevada, casinos.

We wandered down the street into the Exchange Club Motel & Casino & Restaurant. The club, built in 1906, once was the town center for quenching one’s thirst and learning the latest mining news. A glass partition in the restaurant, which has creamy white walls and seating and dark red carpeting, separated us from the casino and dulled the noise.

Yosi and I ate tasty grilled chicken with pasta salads on stoneware plates. The dinner, only $4.95, was refreshingly simple.

But the best thing about Beatty was its proximity to central Death Valley. It was only a half-hour drive back to the park, where the vast emptiness held surprises.

Saturday morning we got up early to photograph Death Valley landscapes and were so engrossed in the morning colors--fuchsia and Prussian blue--that we almost ignored the road sign on California 374 (Death Valley Highway) pointing to the town of Rhyolite, six miles west of Beatty on a dirt road. We decided to investigate. Just past Bullfrog Mine, I spied an urban totem pole made of discarded desert artifacts--boots, hubcaps, bike wheels, horns and other debris nailed to a splintered wooden pole.

“Stop the car,” I yelled, nearly jumping out before it quit rolling. Beyond the pole were stranger sights: a tall wooden statue titled “Icara”; a life-size apparition called “Ghost Rider”; a statue, “Desert Flower,” made of chrome car parts; and a massive stone sculpture, “Chained to the Earth.”

We had stumbled upon the Gold Well Open Air Museum, an ongoing project since 1984 of Belgian artist Albert Szukalski and other sculptors.

Stunned at finding this collection of art in the desolate Mojave Desert, Yosi and I walked around each of the 10 sculptures trying to guess the artist’s motivation. We lingered longest in front of the ghostly figures of “The Last Supper” (pictured on L1).

We read in an article taped on a wood building that Szukalski used the residents of Beatty as models for his sculptures. After the plaster set, the model eased out of the encasing shroud. Szukalski then used fiberglass to coat his sculptures, protecting them from the harsh elements of the high desert.

Perhaps because it was so early--7 a.m.--we had a private showing of the sculptures. In the distance, we noticed several colorful trailers, homes, we later learned, for the artists who come and create new works or take care of existing art in the Gold Well Open Air Museum. Szukalski stays here during the summer.

Leaving the sculptures, we drove into Rhyolite past the remains of once-bustling businesses. The town, named for the volcanic rock it was built on, burst into existence after prospectors Shorty Harris and Ed Cross struck gold there on a sizzling day in August 1904.

Men and women, forged of iron will from hard labor, believed that the gold would flow forever from the Bullfrog Hills. Unlike other “gold” towns built of wood, Rhyolite was built of concrete, brick and stone, built to endure and prosper. And for a brief time it did: From 1906 to 1909, the town housed up to 10,000 people.

In its heyday, Rhyolite had an opera house, about 20 stores, 53 mines and more than 50 saloons. Perhaps because the stone buildings are still partly standing and the surrounding Mojave Desert is so beautiful, Rhyolite is one of the most photographed ghost towns in the West.

Though Yosi and I had planned to photograph other Death Valley sites, we were too intrigued to leave Rhyolite.

A gentle gust rose, and I could imagine the presence of Rhyolite’s residents . . . women in skirts swishing along the floor, speculators making transactions, miners murmuring as they took out loans for equipment.

I tried to imagine the hardship the miners, merchants and families endured to build this prosperous town and the pain of having to call it quits when Rhyolite fizzled like a firecracker, running out of gold and becoming a ghost town by 1911.

We left Rhyolite in the early afternoon to find something to eat. To the south, in central Death Valley along California 190, we stopped at the Furnace Creek Ranch Resort Steakhouse for lunch. We sorely needed strong and steaming buckaroo coffee, but the cups we were served were weak. We ate our cafeteria-flavor hamburger and chicken sandwiches while reading the Furnace Creek pamphlets. That’s when we realized how much money we’d saved by staying in Beatty, where motel rooms are about $38 to $50 for a double; the Furnace Creek Ranch Resort runs from $94 for cabins to $290, double, for the Furnace Creek Inn. By staying in Beatty we not only discovered Rhyolite but also found a bargain.

After walking around the Furnace Creek Ranch Resort area, we decided to return to Rhyolite.

In late afternoon we stopped at Rhyolite’s Bottle House. There, a caretaker came out of a nearby trailer to greet us. He looked like a miner--weathered, with a long gray beard and suspenders holding up tattered charcoal pants--and he was hankering to tell us a story. The bottle house, he said, was constructed in 1906 by Tom Kelly, a prosperous Rhyolite saloonkeeper. Kelly used 51,000 glass bottles to build his house, and spent about $2,500, mainly on wood and fixtures. He embedded the bottles into adobe walls and decorated the house with bits of scrollwork.

The sun was setting and the cool air nipped at our backs when we decided to return to Beatty for dinner and, like Rhyolite’s miners, gamble on our future, not in gold but on the slot machines.

As we drove away from the ghost town, I looked back and noticed the swirls of clouds and darkening shadows on the ruins. It was a haunting place, and although young historically, it resembled ancient Athens with its decaying columns and crumbling walls. We promised the spirits of Rhyolite we would return.

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Budget for Two

SUV rental: $96.00

Phoenix Inn, two nights: 80.46

Dinner, Exchange Club: 28.95

Breakfast, Burro Inn: 13.80

Lunch, Furnace Creek Ranch Resort Steakhouse: 11.15

Snacks/groceries: 16.64

Gas: 39.25

FINAL TAB: $386.25

Phoenix Inn, tel. (775) 553-2250. To get a copy of the Rhyolite Tour Guide pamphlet, contact the Beatty Chamber of Commerce, tel. (775) 553-2424.