Our 99th Episode!
This episode features the narration talents of musician Will Oldham, also known as Bonnie Prince Billy. Will tells the story of Rhyolite, a town once founded in Death Valley after the discovery of gold by Frank “Shorty” Harris. Today it is a ghost town.
But first, Mick tells the story of the Bone Wars, when Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope should have gotten along, but didn’t. Still, they made some major paleontology and dinosaur discoveries.
Stories written by Mick Sullivan, with editorial help from Will Oldham. Music arranged and performed by Mick Sullivan.
Scripts below – not 100% accurate to the audio, but pretty close!
Bone Wars
When Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh first met, the vibe in the room must have been electric. Good vibes all around. It was that kinda day. In 1863, there were not many people as obsessed with ancient bones as these two guys. Pretty much everyone else in the world had no awareness, no interest, no time to think about such things. Paleontology was new, information was hard to come by, and plus – not many saw the world – past or present – like these two science nerds. It was probably lonely for a bone fanatic. So the fact that these two archeology-obsessed Americans had found each other in Germany, of all places, was very surprising – what were the odds? Two men, with more passion, thirst, and knowledge about ancient bones than nearly anyone else in the world, somehow find each other in a foreign nation…amazing. You might think that the immediate friendship would last a lifetime and the scientific pair would change the world with their discoveries and undying friendship. Would you be right? You’d be worse than right – you’d be wrong.
The good vibes did not last.
Both men had traveled to Germany to learn and research, but also to avoid the Civil War raging in America. Following the war, they both returned to the states to continue their careers in the newish field of paleontology. Before the Civil War another scientist, Joseph Liedy, had assembled the first complete dinosaur skeleton in America. It planted the seed of dinosaurmania. Mr. Leidy would be an important person to both Cope and Marsh, at least until they pushed him aside in their quest for more dramatic dinosaur discoveries. But for much of their career, Leidy loomed large over both men.
Othneil Charles Marsh was born poor, but he had a wealthy uncle – his mom’s brother. Uncle George realized how smart little Othneil was and helped him with an education. Later, Othniel convinced his uncle to start a natural history museum on campus at Yale University, and since his very wealthy uncle paid for it, he kinda got a job working there. It was a lucky break for a bonafide bone buff.
A few years younger, Edward Drinker Cope’s family were quaker farmers in Pennsylvania. When it came to money, they did well, but not well enough for a family funded job at Yale. Cope had very little training and access to money – so most of his education happened the old-fashioned way: both in classes and by getting his hands dirty, working hard, and learning from whomever he could – including Joseph Liedy.
Both men were very eager to make their mark in the scientific journals of the day and the history books that would come later. Both were also eager to uncover mysteries of the past held below the earth’s surface.
Once back in America, the men exchanged letters and information. Things seemed friendly. Because so few dinosaur bones had been methodically uncovered and catalogued, there was lots of new information and discoveries in the mid-1800s and Cope and Marsh were leading the pack. They knew were working on something big, and they both respected each other, so among their early discoveries were dinosaurs that they named after each other – Cope found a dino he named the Ptyonius marshii and Marsh named one of his discoveries the Mosasaurus copeanus.
Then one day an invitation came. Cope’s job in Philadelphia put him near a remarkably good excavation site – marl pits in Haddonfield, NJ. Not many knew about the treasures in the exposed earth. There on the crowded eastern seaboard of the United States, Cope was finding incredible pre-historic skeletons and he wanted his friend Marsh to see. Marsh’s worse impulses got the better of him. He liked what he saw on the visit. So much so, that he stabbed Cope in the back. Not literally. That would have been unhinged. Marsh’s treachery was more in secret – when Cope wasn’t around, Marsh found the man in charge of the pits and told him,
“Hey if you find something really awesome, how about you send it my way instead of to Cope. He’s got enough. And besides, I’m smarter than him. Plus, I’ll pay more. Here’s a little money upfront so you know I’m for real.”
Bad move Marsh. The first shots of the Bone war were fired. Because secrets like this don’t stay secrets for long. Not long after Marsh’s unfriendly arrangement with the man at the marl pit, Cope noticed that he wasn’t getting as many bones from the New Jersey site as he had been. He also noticed that Marsh was publishing more and more articles about dinosaur discoveries he was making – but not really saying where the skeletons came from. Cope, did the math and realized that Marsh had done him dirty.
Cope tried to move on. He had something important cooking anyway. You see, someone had sent him some very curious bones excavated from Kansas. He spent countless hours working with the collection – diligently researching similar skeletons, and slowly piecing his back together. He came to believe this was something truly remarkable. Excitement bubbled in his body as it became clear to him that these bones belonged to something entirely new. Not just another dinosaur – A sea creature with a tremendously long tail, flipper feet, and a head connected closely to its powerful, broad body. It was unlike anything else anyone had ever found. This was a big deal.
He put it together, wrote an article, which he published complete with illustrations, and congratulated himself for finding an entire new class of dinosaur. King Cope, the great dinosaur hope. Feeling confident, he invited his old backstabbing buddy Marsh to see it, so maybe he could rub it in a little bit. An entire new class of dinosaur – unlike any others yet seen. As you can imagine, Marsh was surprised when he saw the skeleton – but something seemed off. It just didn’t look right. Maybe Cope had got this mixed up?
No way said Cope. So they brought in Cope’s old mentor, the famed Dr. Leidy.
Leidy stood in front of the giant formation of bones, looking at it quizzically. Without a word, he walked towards it, took the skull off, and put it at the end of the tail. Only it wasn’t a tail. He knew it was a neck. Cope had gotten the creature backwards and put the head at the wrong end. As soon as he did both men realized he was right.
“You had the head on the butt. I moved it to the neck, where a head is supposed to be. Heads don’t go on butts. You know that.”
“Nope. Cope, You’ve been a dope.”
Cope was horrified – it was just a regular old plesiosaur. In his nearsighted effort to make a splash and beat Marsh, he had convinced himself of something wrong and embarrassed himself not just in front of his frenemy, but also Dr. Liedy. Perhaps more than anything he was horrified that he had already published the paper with his glaring mistake. So he tried to buy every copy that had been published. Obviously this was impossible, and a few copies remained in the hands of Marsh, who intended to use them to embarrass him further down the line.
If he hadn’t been in such a rush and wasn’t working so hard to beat his rival, Cope would have benefitted from what had happened. Scientists rely on something called peer review – where other experts review the work of each other. Everyone makes mistakes, but this process helps us weed out mistakes by having other experts critique it. That’s why science changes – new information provides more evidence. It’s easy to fear criticism, but if done right, it’s a good thing. People should be in favor of criticism – it can make us better. Of course, in reality, Cope’s work did get peer reviewed, only it was done publicly, and after he published his paper, much to his embarrassment.
The next few years were tremendous for both men. They looked out west – to places like Wyoming, which were filled with bones just below the surface – or sometimes sitting right there on top to trip over.
Whoopsie Daisy! Well what do we have here? A triposaurus?
Teams of people with shovels and pickaxes unearthed enormous amounts of bones for both men. But all along, they were always fighting over turf – with each guy constantly trying get a leg up on the other. Cope and Marsh both hired spies to keep tabs on the rival crews, bribes were even paid to train operators.
After those bones are loaded up for delivery, why don’t you just send them to me? He won’t even know they’re missing.
It’s even believed that there were orders on what to do if a crew couldn’t use or gather all of the bones on a dig. They were supposed to smash what was left so the other side couldn’t use them. Who knows how much history was lost because of their childish competition?
Nevertheless, great strides were made, not in terms of maturity – but in terms of science, at least. In the winter of 1877 alone, the men documented, verified, and gave the world the knowledge of three of the most famous dinosaurs today: apatosaurus, stegosaurus, and triceratops. Kids everywhere love those dinos now – and it was one busy winter that unearthed them all. Obviously their competition changed the world because they drove each other to work so hard. They rushed to publish papers, get their names in print with each discovery, and name as many new species as they could find.
Between the two men, they discovered 126 new species of dinosaurs – almost all from the western United States. But their competition also undid both of them. As they grew older, under financial stress and trying to remain relevant, they began trashing each other in the press. Each told stories of treachery, accused the other of cheating, plagarizing or copying others, and generally made each other out to be monsters. It was pretty wild, but a lot of people reading newspapers in the 1800s liked stuff like this – it was salacious – filled with dirt and intrigue and general pettiness – like a dimestore novel – but with world renowned scientists and enemies in the middle of the story. Ultimately both were embarrassed, and their careers took a hit. Each lost large amounts of their collection, either because they had to sell them to make ends meet, or the government and schools they worked for took them, because they had, after all, paid for the digs in the first place.
It was a sad end to what could have been a great partnership – just think – if they had worked together what could they have accomplished? Still they got a lot done and the scientific process worked – things they got incorrect were corrected by others who followed with more evidence. But a lot of what they did still stands – think about that the next time you look at a triceratops skull in a museum.
Speaking of skulls, Edwin Drinker Cope was the first to die, in 1897. He gave his skull to science, and wanted Marsh to do the same when his time came – that way they could prove whose brain was bigger. Cope wanted to take the competition to the afterlife. Marsh chose not to do so. It was about time someone ended the feud.
Rhyolite
Take note: Death Valley is not the kind of place where you should lose yourself. In 1849, a group of travelers did not heed this important advice we are sharing with you, and they found themselves waiting for weeks to be rescued. Lured by the promise of gold in the California Gold Rush, the path these 49ers took led them close to the lowest point in North America, which also happened to boast some of the highest temperatures anywhere on the planet at that time. Faced with the endless, terrible, and dusty terrain, some abandoned the party for who-knows-what destiny. Other remained, suffering to survive with the few resources they had saved. Thanks to rescue efforts in 1850, the more fortunate families finally made it out. As the landscape faded behind them, someone in the group was said to have looked over their shoulder and cooly spoke these words which gave it the name we know today, “Goodbye, Death Valley.”
Frank Harris knew this whole story, but it didn’t keep him away. He was one of a handful of people seeking fortune in the vast and harsh desert. The big Gold Rush had faded, but there were still a few prospectors searching California, Nevada, and beyond, all hoping history might repeat itself. Frank was known to just about everyone as “Shorty.” He was short, yes, but he also wore clothes that were a few sizes too large for him. Perhaps big pants and shirts were all he could find out west, but the oversize clothes hanging from his body made him look even smaller. In 1904, fifty-five years after the Lost 49ers named Death Valley, Frank “Shorty” Harris was exploring the land as a party of one. He wasn’t totally alone, though. Planning to be out for a while, he travelled with five donkeys all loaded down with plenty of food and water, as well as the necessary mining gear, just in case he made a strike.
Passing by a nearly-vacant mine that was only occasionally in operation, Shorty ran into another party of one, a man named Ed Cross. Ed had been working with a partner, but this prospector had wandered off, into the sand and mountains on a mission that was taking a little too long for Ed’s liking. Ed wasn’t sure if the man was even coming back, so he considered joining Shorty. Shorty had a reputation among prospectors as a nice enough guy – and he had enough food to keep them both fed for weeks. Beyond sharing supplies, Shorty was also open to sharing anything of value they might encounter along the way. So the two became a pair.
Not long after teaming up, the men awoke one morning to yet another desert sunrise, which brought rapidly rising temperatures. But this sunrise also revealed other problems. The mules had wandered off overnight. While Ed cooked breakfast for two, Shorty left camp to follow the footprints and retrieve the animals. Around the time he found the mules he also found a greenish rock sitting hot in the sunbaked sand. Curious, he gave it a whack with the pickaxe he was carrying. He bubbled with glee as the inside was revealed: there were bright yellow bands of gold. It was easy to see the gold was pure – better than any other gold he had found in his years as a prospector. Without hesitation, he ran back to camp, yelling the good news to Ed about what was waiting for them.
And it turned out that Shorty was right. It was really pure, and therefore really valuable, gold – and the area seemed to be filled with it. As nice as Shorty might have been, he did have one flaw – he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Before long, every prospector for 100 miles was staking a claim in the area. When they returned the next week there were over a thousand people there, all trying to get some of the new found Death Valley gold.
And that was how the town of Rhyolite began – as a bunch of camps and tents and wagons in the middle of the desert, 75 miles from any major supply hub. Rhyolite sat in the Bullfrog Mining District, a name that likely came from Shorty describing the abundance of lumpy greenish rocks in the area. More people found employment when the largest nearby commercial mine opened – the Montgomery Shoshone Mine. All of the people it brought meant the town-to-be needed supplies. It took a lot of work and money to get the essentials for life into the mining camp. Wagonloads of timber, food, and barrels of water showed up, while loads of gold went out.
The first buildings built in Rhyolite were wood and canvas. Far from stable. Luckily people wouldn’t have to struggle with them for long. Early in 1905 the settlement started to grow into a small city in the remote and inhospitable western edge of Death Valley, some 120 miles north of Las Vegas. Other prospecting camps in the area saw the developments in Rhyolite and their inhabitants began to move there too – quickly increasing the population.
Streets were laid out – 36 blocks, in total. Homes were built. Big, well-built general stores were soon stocked with goods carted in over the dry desert. But as would always be the case in Death Valley, water was a big issue. At great cost, pipes were run from springs, while barrels filled with water from elsewhere arrived to fill giant water tanks on platforms above the city. The population continued to grow. Work crews built beautiful buildings like the Cook Bank Building, an opera house, hotels, churches, and a school. Saloons, a hospital, a fire station, and a post office popped up too.
And in 1907 the railroad showed up. They laid tracks right into town and built an incredible station to go with them. This made supplies easier to get, made getting gold out of the city more profitable, and made it easier for people to come to Rhyolite, for a visit…or to stay.
Looking out the windows of a train car on the way in, a person would have seen endless desert, which probably seemed pretty unwelcoming to human life. But upon arriving in the town and stepping out of the station, most folks probably had a hard time making sense of their surroundings. Just two short years before, there was nothing but dry desert. The town of Rhyolite now had paved concrete sidewalks, running water, and utility poles bringing electricity to the homes and businesses filled with people. A person could pick up the local paper, go watch a show, hear live music, eat dinner, or do just about anything else you could do in a major city. The people were so proud of their success that bottles of champagne were imported in a show of fanciness. There were so many bottles in fact, that one man decided to build a house out of them. He lived in the bottle house for years.
Clearly, Rhyolite rose from the ground up with remarkable speed.
Unfortunately, it ended just as quickly. There were nationwide financial panics in 1907, but more importantly the ugly truth reared its head: mines eventually run out of ore. As the amount of gold pulled from the mines dropped, people were unwilling to invest more money. Without the mines keeping people working, most decided there was no reason to stay in the middle of the desert. Slowly people left in search of other opportunities.
At its height, as many as 10,000 people called Rhyolite home. But by 1910, just three years after many of the nicest buildings were built, the town’s population had dwindled to only 675. Things can turn around quickly in a so-called boom town. If there’s a boom of people, excitement, and economy tied to a place, there’s usually a bust somewhere down the line. People thought Rhyolite might have been different – why else would a town be built with such fantastic amenities? But when the gold was gone, the people soon followed.
A few people hung around. The newspaper was published for another few years, but by 1914 one last train left Rhyolite. There was no coming back, because they pulled up the tracks. Useful and valuable, the railroad company laid the metal rails somewhere else – perhaps to carry people and goods to the next boom town. The few who remained in Rhyolite had to find other forms of transportation. By 1921, it was reported that only two residents remained – a mother and son who ran a hotel. Their business was slow.
Over the years, many of the buildings were disassembled and moved to other towns. As you might imagine, a century of Death Valley weather has deteriorated many others. Today, the town of Rhyolite is still there. You can stop by for a visit, if you’re in the neighborhood. The hotel is long closed though – Rhyolite is a genuine ghost town. No one lives there—hasn’t for nearly a century — but much remains, including the train station and the house built from glass bottles.
Shorty Harris lived on, moving often, like most of the other people who came through Rhyolite. In the 1920s he visited Rhyolite one last time. It was empty by then, but his journey was much easier, on account of the automobile he had to get him there. He died in 1934, at the age of 78 and was remembered as the last old-time prospector. It was his wish to be buried in Death Valley, and how can you say no to a guy like Shorty?
—
It should also be known that while many people came and went, leaving a number of ghost towns to dot the maps of Death Valley, some people had lived there continuously for centuries. The Timbisha Shoshone people have considered Death Valley to be their ancestral lands from a time long before Americans and Europeans ventured into the area. They were forced from the lands by the National Park Service in the 1930s. But around the year 2000, land was given back to them and dozens of Timbisha households live today in the desert valley. Many still speak their native language.
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