PSR Dine

From Beatty to Ballarat, On the Trail of Shorty Harris

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And, he was an exceptionally good prospector. He could find gold like some people can catch colds. Over his lifetime in Death Valley, he'd found many a good claim, but he would sell them to someone else who had the resources and the desire to develop them. Shorty would take his fee, go out on a binge, spend all the money then return to his desert and start all over again.

He was popular, the kind of man would give a stranger the shirt off his back. Many old-timers had been fed or tanked up by Shorty when he was in the chips, and they'd return the favor anytime he needed it. He always had a partner, whether it was while prospecting or while he was out on a drinking spree.

Bullfrog was his first and best strike. The gold was pure, veins of gorgeous color in a green rock that reminded Shorty of bullfrogs; hence the name.

In 1904, the Bullfrog Mountains were just some unnamed dry hills west of Montillus Murray Beatty's ranch, which he had established about a quarter-century before. Shorty was taking part in the excitement at Goldfield some 80 miles north of Beatty's ranch. But no good locations were left at Goldfield ­ he had arrived at the strike too late to find a claim worth having. So he headed over to the Funeral Mountains where his friend Jack Keane had made a good strike.

There, at Keane's Wonder mine, he found himself once again on the outside looking in; there were dozens of prospects but no good locations left unclaimed that had any sign of gold. Shorty remembered some hills to the east in which he had seen some good indications. Cross, who was also coming up empty at the Keane strike, partnered with Shorty and they headed out.

He told the story of the discovery to a newspaperman (from the Rhyolite Herald) a few years later (1909):

"We packed the four burros and struck out, together with some other prospectors who had joined in the Keane Wonder rush. Some of the boys went to Thorp's and some to Tokop, but when we came to Daylight Springs I told Cross I had passed up a country some time before, and as it looked good to me, we would go back to it. We came on to Buck Springs.

"Next morning we started west. Cross started down to the little hill to the south, and I went over to the blowout. I found lots of quartz all over the hill and started to break it with my pick. Cross hadn't moved over 400 feet away when I called him back.

"I had run against a boulder, and I called out, 'Come back, we've got it!'

"The quartz was just full of free gold, and it was the original genuine green Bullfrog rock. Talk about rich! Why, gee whiz, it was great! We took the stuff back to the spring and panned it, and we certainly went straight up. The very first boulder was as rich in gold as anything I had ever seen."

That was Shorty's story of the discovery, but Cross's version varied somewhat. About 40 years later Cross told a magazine writer that he'd made the initial discovery, not Harris, with a chunk of gold the size of a hen's egg. But this controversy doesn't matter much other than to fuel the flames of other disputations of the character of Shorty Harris in future dealings, especially with Pete Aguereberry at Harrisburg. The truth will never be known for certain, but it also didn't make any financial difference to the discoverers of the gold. Cross and Harris were full partners in the discovery and shared the original Bullfrog claims.

The partners had found one heck of a bonanza, too. When they had the rock assayed in Goldfield, it far exceeded their expectations; they were thinking it would run about $200 to the ton, but it assayed at $665. It was a rich find, and after Shorty and Cross toured the saloons and let out the word, a rush began that, according to Harris, was "...a real stemwinder. It looked as if the whole population of Goldfield was trying to move at once."

The town of Bullfrog sprung up on the flats below the hills, a tent city that was destined to die young. A little over six miles to the south of the Original Bullfrog discovery mine the city of Rhyolite came into being, and quickly grew into a metropolis with brick and stone buildings. The skeletons of those buildings stand today in mute testimony of Cross's and Harris's great find, and the tremendous effort made by the people who followed them to develop the Bullfrog strike.

At Bullfrog, Shorty Harris was 47 years old and in the prime of his life, keeping up with much younger men. Years later, well into his 70's, he was still tough enough to wander the desert as a single-blanket-jackass-prospector. He wasn't in it for the gold itself; he threw that away every time he found it. It was the life that he loved. He wasn't in it for the possibility of becoming rich. He never had any riches, as society might measure them; he was born poor, lived poor, and died poor. But by all accounts he was a happy man. His gold was in the joy of his life.

Rhyolite still stands. This town was not built to die; its founders built to last. They truly believed Rhyolite would be a center of mining for centuries to come. Their dreams were not to be, however. Several solid but empty old buildings stand in mute testimony to their efforts.

Two trailer camps have sprung up, where semi-permanent residents live. An art colony is on the southern edge of town. At the colony stand several wood monuments, to the chagrin of the Bureau of Land Management who wants everything here to blend into the desert scenery. These monuments definitely don't blend with anything around here. They are startling caricatures, including a pink lady, a collection of religious icons, and one curious piece: a prospector, swinging a pick, with what appears to be a penguin behind him.