From Beatty to Ballarat, On the Trail of Shorty Harris
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The town of Ballarat was born to serve the gold miners and prospectors who worked the Panamints during the 1890s. There wasn't much to Ballarat, and its location in the Panamint Valley was less than ideal. Located on the edge of a salt flat, the weather is atrociously hot in summer, as high as 120 degrees, and bitterly cold in winter due to the winds coming off the snow-laden Panamint Mountains.
Even so, the town grew to some 500 residents, and boasted the Calloway hotel, a dozen saloons, and two stores, but not a single church. It primarily served the laborers at the [Image] gold mines that were being developed nearby and the prospectors that roamed the hills. Ballarat served as a supply point and a party town, and stands in history as the town that supplied many a great story about Shorty Harris. One of the best is the story of his first funeral the one he lived to tell about. Whether it is true or not, who knows? But it certainly should be told.
One Fourth of July Ballarat was celebrating, and Shorty was there. The party had gone on for two days, and Shorty was three sheets to the wind. He was a little under the weather, too, from the two-day hoo raw. He finally passed out.
His friends had an idea that would wake him up and sober him down, so he could enjoy the rest of the party. They gathered up some boards and threw together a coffin, then gently laid the snoring Shorty to rest. They placed the coffin on a pool table in Chris Wicht's saloon, and the bartender kept an eye on him while he slept the afternoon away.
When Shorty began to stir, the bartender spread the word. Soon votive candles were lit and the rainbow-chasers gathered around the pool table, speaking softly to each other of Shorty's life. Shorty's eyes opened, but he didn't move, while his friends prayed over him and sang his praises.
Finally the candles were blown out and the boys picked up the coffin for the trek out to the graveyard. Then Shorty started yelling, and word has it that he jumped out of his coffin and ran out the door of Chris Wicht's saloon, not returning to Ballarat for several months when the shock finally wore off.
Shorty Harris hit his big payday more than once. The second time he made the map with a discovery in the Panamints. While out traveling with another prospector, Pete Aguereberry, Shorty not only made his mark with another good claim, he had a town named after him.
The year was 1906. Shorty had recently lost his claim at Bullfrog, and while heading back to the Panamints he ran into Pete, who decided to ride along. Crossing the Panamints was a hard and dangerous business, and nobody wanted to do it alone; travelers would team up for safety and comfort.
Shorty was on his way to Ballarat for (what else?) the big Fourth of July celebration. Aguereberry was going to Ballarat to collect a grubstake and head out to do more prospecting. On a big flat south of what would become Skidoo, the pair found gold. One or the other of them did; they both claimed to have made the discovery.
After a quick trip to Wildrose Canyon for a supply of water, Shorty and Pete staked out claims for themselves and a few friends, then hurried down to Ballarat to spread the news. Pete returned first with a group from Ballarat history doesn't say where Shorty was, but Wicht's saloon is a good bet. Pete found that some hopeful boys from Wildrose Canyon had already gotten the word. They had jumped his claim, pulling out his location notices and replacing them with their own. Pete, backed up by the party from Ballarat, convinced the claim jumpers they were in the wrong, and won back the claims.
A tent city quickly grew, and in days some 300 miners were working the flats. The town was named Harrisberry, named for both of the founders. Somehow it later transformed to Harrisburg - some blame Shorty for that, but most likely it just happened and Shorty must have had big hopes for his namesake. Yet, true to form, after a while Shorty sold out his interest in the claim and wandered off. It soon became apparent that this was a small strike and the tents were struck, bringing an end to Harrisburg. The town was in its last throes when an even bigger deposit was found over the hill in Skidoo. Later, Pete bought back the original Harrisberry claims and worked the mine for the rest of his life, earning a respectable living.
As towns go, even in its heyday Ballarat never was much of a place; and today it's even less. It's located on the southern end of Panamint Valley, north of Trona. Much of the town is privately owned, and even though it is designated as a Historical Site only its few remaining residents not the BLM or any other government agency protect the town from the depredations of unthinking visitors.
The scenery is out of this world.
Right behind the town the Panamint Mountains rise almost straight up off the valley floor, in the space of just a few miles. Across the valley, the mountains that make up the Argus Range seem nearly as tall. The view from Ballarat is stupendous: a long dry lake bed at your feet, desert flats with creosote and the occasional Joshua, the colorful canyon walls of the Panamints and deep blue mountains in the distance, lined with scars and cliffs. It is colorful, wild, rugged and empty.
Here Shorty Harris lived out his golden years, in an adobe-mud shanty near Wicht's saloon. From this headquarters he'd head out on prospecting expeditions, nearly always with a partner, and here he kept his old mule. Long after the mule had gone blind he took care of her and let her live out her remaining years happily.
