I’ve been wondering for years why Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley is located in the middle of nowhere, yet there is a huge history of Native Americans using the springs for thousands of years, and miners relying on them as the only source of water for miles and miles. Remarkably for me, even if for no one else, my decades-long search for an answer has finally been rewarded.
Let's start with some given facts: There are no springs located at the present location of Stovepipe Wells, so it can't be the site where so many thousands of years of history played out:
- There is at least one well that supplies water to the small resort area, but no springs.
- To the north, Death Valley pans out for miles and miles, the nearest springs are likely tens of miles away and probably hidden in the hills to the west.
- To the east, deep, seething sand dunes; again, no springs there.
- To the south is a large mountain range that without doubt has many large springs, but none of them are near present-day Stovepipe Wells.
- To the west is a long, fairly steep alluvial fan with a road that travels up to Towne Pass, and then continues on to the eastern front of the Sierra Nevada range. No springs.
So it's confirmed that there are no natural springs to be found anywhere near the hotel, restaurant, bar, grocery store, or gas station that make up the resort area known today as Stovepipe Wells.
If you look carefully at a map, you might find a very small dot with the name “Old Stovepipe Wells” to the northeast of the present-day Stovepipe Wells. There is no explanation of why present-day Stovepipe Wells exists where it does, about 5 miles southwest of Old Stovepipe Wells.
There are some subtle clues, but very few. I’ve only found two: First, the restaurant at the hotel in Stovepipe Wells is named "The Toll Road". Second, there is a historical marker at Old Stovepipe Wells, so it is a recognized location. That’s about it. I’ve asked around while in Death Valley on my many, many visits there why Stovepipe Wells is where it’s at, but I’ve never received a genuine answer.
I recently stumbled across the answer while researching my grandparents' Death Valley trip in 1932, and had to write about it.
Stovepipe History
Herman William "Bob" Eichbaum was born in 1878. He graduated with a degree in engineering from a college in Virginia around 1900. He made his way to California, and in the earliest years of the 20th century, he worked as an engineer in various mines in the Death Valley region. He grew to love Death Valley and realized its value as a potential tourist attraction, given the tourist drives of the day like health-related resorts and auto-touring. He put this realization under his hat, and with the “financial panic” of 1907 and the closing of most of the mines in the Death Valley region, Eichbaum moved to Los Angeles.
In Los Angeles Eichbaum fell in love and married Helene Neeper. He worked at developing recreation facilities at Venice Beach and on Catalina Island. He spent over a decade in Los Angeles all the while thinking of the recreational possibilities of Death Valley.
By the mid-1920s, Eichbaum wasn’t the only one thinking about recreation in Death Valley. By the 20s, borax mining in the Death Valley region had slowed to a stop along with every other type of mining. The Pacific Coast Borax Company, famous for the 20 Mule Team, had begun their exit but had noted that they were leaving an area that had tremendous appeal, what with incredibly mild and wonderful winter temperatures, and a railroad that connected with Los Angeles and all the other western states as well as Canada. They also owned wonderful living quarters at their mines in Death Valley, so they decided to convert their mines and residences to tourist housing. All of this eventually condensed and resulted in the construction of the Furnace Creek Inn, which opened in February 1927.
Eichbaum on the other hand wanted to develop his own resort, and so he needed a road that went to Stovepipe Wells, the spot he had chosen for his resort. The springs still existed out on the desert floor, but with no roads accessible to automobiles anywhere nearby, they were inaccessible. Eichbaum first hit up Inyo County to let him build a road from near Beaty, Nevada to Stovepipe Wells. That request was thrown out as soon as it was received. The Inyo County Supervisors saw nothing but waste associated with bringing tourists to Stovepipe Wells, or anywhere else in Death Valley for that matter.
Next, Eichbaum asked to build a road from Darwin, a tiny town that still exists today in Inyo County, west of Death Valley and is near the small town of Olancha in the Owens Valley at the eastern front of the Sierra Nevada range. The county supervisors’ initial response was a resounding “No and don’t ask us again about building any other roads in that godforsaken place.”
In response, Eichbaum started a petition circulating around the residents of the area. It was signed by several hundred people, including Death Valley Scotty of Scotty’s Castle fame. Eichbaum eventually got his road approved.
So, in late 1925, nine men were hired to bulldoze a path from Darwin, up through Darwin Wash to the present-day location of Panamint Springs, and then across Panamint Valley and up through Towne Pass and down into Death Valley. The basic route of that bulldozed path, at least from present-day Panamint Springs, is the present route of California State Highway 190 across the Argus Range and down to present-day Stovepipe Wells.
The route they created became known as the Eichbaum Toll Road. Remember the name of the restaurant at Stovepipe Wells today? Yes, The Toll Road. But we're getting a little ahead of the story.
Now that he had a road coming in, Eichbaum got busy planning his resort at Stovepipe Wells. He envisioned the resort being open from October until May. He would build frames for tent buildings at first, so six truckloads of wood were ordered from Los Angeles.
At this point, it's important to note that Eichbaum was making plans to build this resort at the actual historic location of Stovepipe Wells.
Meanwhile, by May of 1926, the toll road construction had progressed to within about five miles of historic Stovepipe Wells. After surveying the intervening sand dunes, taking into consideration the prevailing winds and the general migration of the dunes, Eichbaum ordered the road to be constructed around the dunes' northern perimeter.
While the road crew was planning to push northeast around the dunes, six trucks with wood, which had been ordered earlier in the year for construction of the resort, showed up. They were unannounced and unexpectedly early. Given that the road was not yet complete, one of the drivers, intent on making it to Stovepipe Wells, attempted to drive across the open desert to the north of the dunes but misjudged the dunes’ extent. The truck became mired in sand above its axles; I came across hints in research that getting the truck dislodged from its new home in the dunes was not an easy chore. Eichbaum assessed the predicament they were in. Being as it was May and construction couldn't really be postponed at this point with the summer temperatures looming, he told the other five drivers to just unload their wood right where they were. He didn't consider the 5-mile separation from the actual Stovepipe Wells a defeat in the least.
So that was where Eichbaum’s Stovepipe Wells was built, about 5 miles as a crow flies from the actual physical location of Stovepipe Wells. And THAT’S where Stovepipe Wells is today. As mentioned above, the Furnace Creek Inn was completed in February of 1927. Bob Eichbaum completed his Stovepipe Wells "Bungalow" resort in November of 1926 in time for a Thanksgiving celebration. There's a note below under "Postscript" that provides some light on the competition involved between the multi-million-dollar backed Pacific Coast Borax Company's Furnace Creek Inn, and Eichbaum's privately funded (ad)venture.
Thanks, H. W. "Bob" Eichbaum, I really love this story.
Postscript
I came across a couple of maps from the early 1930s that show a little of what competition was like in Death Valley at that time.
There is a large map showing all of Death Valley with Furnace Creek Inn displayed in large print in the center of the map. The location of Eichbaum's Stovepipe Wells resort is blank; it only shows the location of the historic Stovepipe Wells where the original springs are located.
Another map, contained within a pamphlet published by Eichbaum, shows his Stovepipe Wells, but Furnace Creek Inn is mysteriously missing. Images of both maps are in the Gallery below.
Gallery
Below is a small gallery of Stovepipe Wells-related images. You can click on any of the pictures and it will open up to a large version, and an automatic slideshow of large images will begin. You can pause the slideshow by clicking/tapping on the "Stop Slideshow" label in the lower-left corner. To re-start the slideshow, simply click one of the arrows in the lower-right corner.
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Notes
Greene, Linda W. 1983. Death Valley National Monument; Historic Resource
Study; A History of Mining SECTION III: INVENTORY OF HISTORICAL
RESOURCES; THE WEST SIDE Part D. The Valley
Floor, Section 2. Stovepipe Wells Hotel.
Death Valley Historic Resource Study; A History of Mining.
Retrieved April 10, 2022, from:
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/deva/section3d2.htm
CalTrans, Eichbaum Toll Road Historic Context Report
https://dot.ca.gov/caltrans-near-me/district-9/district-9-popular-links/eichbaum-toll-road-historic-context-report
Pomona Public Library Digital Collections, Eichbaum Toll Road photos, text
on photographer Burton Frasher
http://content.ci.pomona.ca.us/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=any&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=/Frasher&CISOBOX1=Toll
National Park Service, Death Valley; Tourism - the Entrepreneurs
https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/tourism-the-entrepreneurs.htm
Death Valley Natural History Association, History Minute 4; The Eichbaum Toll Road
https://dvnha.org/historyminute4/