The following is an account of a 600-mile trip taken in 1932 from Los Angeles to Death Valley. It was written on Furnace Creek Inn stationery by my grandmother, Grace Bartlet Kissam Duryee. Sadly, I never knew my grandparents, but Grace and her husband, Harvey Duryee, personified the self-sufficient ideals of the turn of the last century. They moved from New York to Redlands, California in 1898. Soon after, they moved to Los Angeles and got into the real estate boom in turn-of-the-century Southern California.

Harvey found land on the Mojave Desert to his liking, and so he brokered much of the land that today lies under the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale. Of course, real estate salesmen in the frontier days of Southern California were not hampered by truth-in-advertising standards as they are today. A favorite story about my grandfather finds him walking the rails in the Mojave Desert with his business partner on a warm, quiet, moonlit summer night. They each carry sacks filled with oranges. As they approach Joshua trees on either side of the tracks, they impale the oranges on the spines of these stark, desert trees. (I always imagine them laughing whenever I tell the story.)  The next day on the train, immigrants fresh from the east coast and Europe listen as Harvey promotes the fertility and potential of the land all around them. He points out of the windows of the plush rail car and earnestly states "…there's so much water here that oranges literally sprout, (as it were), from the cacti’…"

Harvey and Grace also had quite a taste for adventure. In the same box with this journal, I found stacks and bundles of other letters, pictures, and postcards from all over the western states, including a trip taken on a steamer from Los Angeles to Hawaii in 1922. They also took a long trip in 1925 through Arizona, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming, and from there, up to Alberta and British Columbia. Especially interesting were pictures of their trips from Los Angeles through the Owens Valley to the Sierra Nevada, which they took every summer from 1915 until 1927.

In the early 1920's, the couple purchased a 100-acre ranch in Littlerock, California about 60 miles as a crow flies north-northeast of downtown Los Angeles. They lived on the ranch part of the time and grew peaches there until the 1940's when they retired to La Cañada, a small town then, just northwest of Pasadena. The two were in their late 50s or early 60s when they took the following excursion to Death Valley.

Some history on Death Valley at the time Harvey and Grace visited there. In the mid-1920's A man by the name of H. W. "Bob" Eichbaum had a dream of building a resort to attract tourists to Death Valley. He saw Stovepipe Wells as the location for his resort, however, there were no roads to Stovepipe Wells at that time. After 3 attempts with the Inyo County commissioners to get a contract to build a toll road, he was finally given the go-ahead. There is a picture in the gallery below taken of a car similar to the one that Harvey and Grace drove to Death Valley climbing up through a canyon on the Eichbaum Toll Road. The picture was taken in 1928, just 5 years before Harvey and Grace's trip. They drove the exact same route.

You can read more about Bob Eichbaum and how Stovepipe Wells wound up where it is today in my Stovepipe Wells blog entry.

F U R N A C E   C R E E K   I N N

D E A T H   V A L L E Y,   C A L I F O R N I A

Trip to Death Valley—

Left Los Angeles Friday April 22, 1932 at 9 P. M. Spent night at ranch in Littlerock. 100 miles (on leaving for trip).

Sat. 23rd — Went to Palmdale and talked over Death Valley trip with Mr. Mennig as he had just returned. Drove back to the ranch, packed up and started off at 3:30 P. M., weather cool, rather windy. Had a lovely drive to Olancha, then decided to go to Darwin for the night instead of pushing on to Lone Pine. Got there about 8 P. M. We had a lovely little cabin for $2.00, which had hot and cold water. We had a good dinner at the Outpost. Elevation about 5000 ft., very cold — 166 miles.

Sund. 24th — Got up early, it was a beautiful day. Had a fair breakfast, and after buying a lamp vase that had been colored by sun, we left Darwin at 8 A. M. There was a beautiful view of Death Valley coming down into Stovepipe Wells Hotel before 11 A. M. Temperature was only 88 degrees. Waited for some coffee to fill our thermos bottle, and started on for Beatty at 11:10 A. M.

As we crossed the valley, we negotiated some very deep sand near the dunes. Past here, there was a broken stone road all the way to top of Daylight pass between Grapevine Mts. and Funeral Mts. At the top of the pass, it was cold, windy, and very muddy, so we went down the grade a little to get out of the wind and had a picnic lunch.

Lunch finished, we drove down into the Amargosa Desert and across to Rhyolite. Just before reaching Rhyolite, we had a flat tire and lost about 1/2 hour. Rhyolite is an interesting deserted gold mining town, all falling to pieces. We spent most of our time looking at the bottle house — then we followed an old railroad that led to Beatty. In town, we had a funny old rheumatic garage man mend our tube, (it had a HUGE hole in it), and mount it. Before he finished with that tire, though, we found another tire going flat. There was a large spike in that one. He fixed that one too, and got it all on the wheel. Not until he had the tire mounted back on the car did he find he had put tube in the wrong way, with valve inside, so it all had to be done over again. We lost an hour there, and spent another ? hour for lunch with the garage man.

We started back toward Death Valley and a little beyond Rhyolite turned right onto a road that crosses the Grapevine Mts. This was a perfectly magnificent trip. We passed by Leadfield and then went through Titus Canyon. The roads were simply terrible. Just past Rhyolite, we had to drive up a grade with hairpin turns that was very narrow and rough. Going up, something began to rattle and gears to crash. We had visions of being stuck there, but it quieted down. Leaving Leadfield we went down Titus Canyon, narrow and very high walls of stone twisting and turning, just a riverbed for miles in deep, deep large gravel — endless, silent and bewildering. The wind was quite strong and the trip was very cool all the way.

We came out further north in Death Valley than Stovepipe Wells, and what with very rough roads, the wind blowing harder and harder, and much sand blowing near the Dunes, we thought we would never reach Furnace Creek Inn, but finally did at 8:15 P. M. Pretty tired after rocking around and bumping bottom all day, and the noise of something wrong in the car returning every once in a while to worry us. Had two lovely drinks and 2 baths, and then a nice dinner "cold plate" at 8:40 P.M. Almost no one in the Hotel — it closes May 1. Air very mild but much wind. 150 miles.

Monday 25th — Harvey found the other tire the old man had repaired and mounted at Beatty had its tube on the wrong way too, so had the garage near the inn remount it. Had a fair breakfast and started at 9 A.M. sightseeing. Went back a couple of miles to see Furnace Creek Ranch - not much, cabins/tent homes — and Harmony Borax Works, (ruins) then started down bottom of valley to see Devil's Golf Course. Went about 6 miles in all, and then the gears began to crash, crash, crash. We finally managed, in low, to crawl back to hotel garage. Very good mechanic found a nut loose on high gear, so we were driving two gears at once, which can't be done!  It sounded as if the whole transmission was stripped, but he fixed it in a very short time, and we left again for Devil's Golf Course at 10:30 A.M., then back past hotel and out Baker way.

Went out on Zabriskie Point, through Golden Canyon, nasty narrow road and turn around top of tiny peak. We then drove through 20 Mule Team Canyon — very interesting — and then up to Dante's View. Perfectly magnificent and awe-inspiring. The wind was blowing terrifically and very cold — clouds all about. From Dante's View, went on to Shoshone — tiresome road — very hard to hold car on road. At the gas station in Shoshone, we saw two rattlers and a chuckwalla in a case together. From there, I drove to Baker. Hard, stony, corduroy road — shakes car to pieces. Around sunset, the light effects on the mountains were lovely. We reached Barstow at 8 P.M. for dinner at Harvey House and drove on to Victorville and ranch, arriving 12:30 A.M.

While unpacking the car another tire went flat and we found no water in the line for the house — The "end of a perfect day."  294 miles.

Total trip from ranch 610 miles.

Postscript:

Tuesday 26th — Still no water, tire still flat and battery dead!!!  Got some breakfast with what we had in canteen. No one noticed our red flag of distress at the gate. H. H. D. walked over to the Andersons on Calle del Valle, and he took him up to well to fill everything with water, and to Brinks to phone Mr. Ellis, who came down to help us out. He towed our car to Palmdale.

Grace's Journal

Here is the small "journal" Grace kept of their Death Valley trip, along with some photos of places they went and saw on their trip. If you're at a full-size monitor, tap/click on the first image, and a full-sized slide show will open and display the images one by one.