A Line in the Sand Musings & Essays on Stagecoaching: Volume Iii: Where the Dust Settles

By Joseph M Nixon B.A. Ph.D.

The concluding volume in a three part essay series, Where the Dust Settles, examines the characteristics and use of adobe ‘mud brick’ in the arid US Southwest. Considerations encompass its appropriation rectifying the absence of lumber, its use to fashion residences giving rise to communities serving Gold Rush driven prospectors, its adaptation to cultural expression at Stagecoach service facilities, its survival as architectural remnants into modern times, and its potential to yield significant Historical information. The previous volume II Dusty Trails to Shiny Rails explores the origins and administration of communication technology in the newly acquired American frontier. Volume I, Ancient Footpaths, examines the origins of pre Euro-American networks of Trails & Traces. Cumulatively this essay series provides an entertaining overview of this aspect of American ingenuity. Hybridizing History and Anthropology, using an approach tailored to preservation, analysis focuses on Trail characteristics in prehistoric, historic, and modern times with a final focus on the possible future of these irreplaceable linear artifacts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728371078

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© 2020 Joseph M. Nixon. All rights reserved.

Interior Image Credit: Hillary Murphy, B. A.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/28/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7062-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7063-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-7107-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020916061

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgements & Dedication

Foreword

In The Archives

An Adobe Primer

Making Adobe

Aeolium, Alluvium, & Adobe

Making Things with Adobe

On The Bradshaw Trail

Winnowing a Sample

Segmenting the Bradshaw Trail

The Coastal Segment

The Coachella Segment

The Desert Segment

Speed & Distance

Comparative Considerations

A Stagecoach Vision

On the Gold Road

Riding The Gold Road

Assessng Integrity

The Criteria of Integrity

Integrity Assessments

Evaluating Significance

The Quality of Significance

Significance Evaluations

Afterword

Source Material

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MAPS

Map 1. Coachella Segment, Bradshaw Trail

TABLES

Table 1. Camps, Springs & Stations (from Johnston 1987:203)

Table 2. Adobe Ingredient & Labor Availability by Trail Segment

Table 3. Comparative Adobe Resource Availability

Table 4. Coastal Segment Stations & Stops (n=10), Bradshaw Trail

Table 5. Reconstructed White Water Ranch Ownership

Table 6. Coachella Segment Stations & Stops (n=4), Bradshaw Trail

Table 7. Bradshaw Ferry Fee Schedule (from Block 2014)

Table 8. Desert Segment Stations & Stops (n=12), Bradshaw Trail

Table 9. Estimated Distance Between Stations

Table 10. Approximate Home & Swing Station Frequency

Table 11. Summary, Station Types & Amenities

Table 12. Integrity Assessment Composite, Bradshaw Trail Stations

Table 13. Composite, Significance, Stations & Stops, Bradshaw Trail

PREFACE

Visit a bookstore: actual, not virtual. From the History section, choose a recent publication, open it. If prepared by a conscientious Historian, the presentation, style, text formatting, adherence to timelines, and various details reflect the approach of the Author’s discipline. It follows a rigid chronological order, credits all sources, referencing each. Perhaps he/she added footnotes, endnotes, appendices, all stylistic elements of modern History.

The foundations of my education counseled otherwise. In Anthropology, I learned interpretations emerging from applying different methodological approaches can vary. No one approach is more correct. Each comes wrapped in its respective package of protocols, preferences, research procedures, documentation requirements, syntax, grammar, editorial quirks, et cetera.

As an Anthropologist I feel off ‘home turf’ when pondering History. But having perused more than my share of their wares, it seems Historians train to assess development of something (a cause, country, product, event) through examining trends, patterns, and tendencies. Those are Historians’ presumptions. My teachers infused me with different presuppositions, emphasizing not trends and tendencies but the individual.

Common to History and Anthropology, the progress of each graduate student is overseen by a committee of faculty members, one of which serves as Chairman. Responsible for guidance and advice, mine offered two thoughts. First, to convince committee members of your qualifications to join their ranks, you must design, implement, and complete a professional level research project. As he said, it did not matter what the area of your work, just finish your degree then do whatever you want.

Second, based on his own work in New Guinea, my Chair advised apply your skills at home. There are plenty of problems in modern American culture needing attention so do not run off to some foreign place to apply your education. Heeding both, I found myself working for the Tribal government of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians (ACBCI) in Palm Springs (CA). While there, the Tribe acquired a tract of land in the westernmost reaches of the Coachella¹ Valley. Not anticipated by any involved, a mid-1800s Stagecoach Station stood on the tract near a desert ghost town called White Water.

Ruts carved by iron belts encircling Concord Coach² wheels approached the former Station from the West, leaving to the East, straight into the Colorado Desert. Canals excavated to provide water for the livestock and grow fodder remained in place. Although now dry, with the addition of water they again could become arable. Cottonwoods planted to provide shade in the sweltering pre-air conditioned desert stood in the alignment someone selected more than 150+ years ago, their tap roots seeking moisture in more inviting conditions beneath the fajita hot desert pavement. But the Station house itself, constructed using adobe brick, deteriorated. Interviews (Anthropological) with residents revealed it survived as a partial adobe ruin into the 1970s when unintentionally ‘melted’ into surrounding soils.

The immediate task became identification of Station sites like White Water to assemble a representative sample of Stations and stops along the Bradshaw Trail. The focus of selection turned to standing Architecture, remnant adobe structures, landscape modifications, and buried Archaeological deposits which might have served Stagecoach era functions. With a sense of distribution of adobe technology at Stations and their environs plus a feel of Station footprint, comparisons are possible between microclimates along the Trail. With a similar sense of what might be expected on such sites, the question became, ‘What’s Left?’ Applying standard criteria, identified sites are evaluated to better comprehend their surviving integrity. These evaluations provide a map of what might still be considered significant both to Stagecoach history and the distribution of - and preference for - adobe technology.

Responding to curiosity and with caution, I began assembling information focused on mid-1800s transportation industry and in particular the Bradshaw Trail represented by this fortuitously acquired Stage Station. This broadened to Stagecoach Stations in general, their supportive routes and lines, the companies and Investors sponsoring them, and the efflorescence associated with the ≈1862-1877 Gold Rush around La Paz (AZ). This I did not from the perspective of corporate transportation technology; not in view of period market trends or saturation; not looking at transportation industry magnates blazing the fiscal trail for the railroad tycoons to follow. Rather, I assumed the perspective of individuals who worked for these tycoons on a Stagecoach route, or in a livery, or building adobes, or driving a team of six. Other than as context (and as bosses now and then), I did not focus on Owners or Investors, not intending to retell stories of mercantile fortunes and failures. Rather I addressed the individual in this vignette of History and where appropriate included Owners & Investors to complete the cast. With these qualifications and reservations, in the essay to follow I offer an Anthropologist’s assessment of this piece of western saga, its evolution, and transition from ancient to modern times.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

& DEDICATION

Time passes; age accumulates.

July 2018

I accredit my education to those who came before – my teachers – and the foundations they laid. I gratefully acknowledge those who assisted with current work and I dedicate the following to those yet to come.

First, I recognize and appreciate the input of those who came before, who planted the seeds anticipating the tree. Like age, education accumulates. Not measurable other than by subjective criteria, it is an amalgam of past experiences reflected in expression erupting as current understanding.

Second, I unreservedly acknowledge the contributions of my biological Father, Myron S. Nixon (BA, 1919-2000) who relentlessly infused into my thinking the importance of education tempered with hard work. He emphasized determination enriched with action to achieve results. Materially able to eke little from our home on the isolated Illinois prairies, he substituted attitude as the fodder of drive. His teachings permeate current work, his unflagging wisdom and foresight wordlessly backdropping current offerings.

Perhaps unconsciously, my father-in-law helped fill the void of Father’s passing. The sagacity of James H. Brown (1931-2014) complemented my education through patience and encouragement. He recognized and fertilized the motivation implanted by Father to continue to build reasonable and rational progress, providing impetus to regenerate energy when weariness intruded.

Time and distance precluded Father and Father-in-Law ever meeting. Had they, I am sure they would have bonded in humility, humor, and wisdom. Their spirits, albeit unspoken, reside herein. Requiescat in pace!

In retrospect I cannot dismiss a surreptitious cadre of teachers spanning my learning experience from elementary school to ivory tower. Common to all in my upbringing who provided educational reassurance, who appreciated the value of a good book when searching for answers. Rightfully I acknowledge their assistance and perseverance in understanding the worth of education as warming to the mind as an evening bonfire is succor for hard work.

Further, I acknowledge the assistance of those here and now who contributed to manuscript preparation. I include among them Tribal Governments and their memberships. From within their ranks, Medicine Men and Women, Elderlies, colleagues, commentators, all contributed.

Representing the Palm Springs Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, the Tribal Chair and the Government opened their Cultural Register to research and their membership enthusiastically cooperated throughout manuscript production. Regarding the White Water Ranch, the Tribal Council demonstrated an understanding of preservation characteristic of their long adaptation to, and appreciation of, the Palm Springs area. This work recognizes and applauds their quietly ongoing efforts to preserve an ancient heritage as well as to chronicle the more recent saga of this part of the American (US) Colorado and Mojave deserts under the guidance and leadership of Net (Chief) Milanovich.

Further, the assistance and cooperation of the Pala Band of Mission Indians in Pala, California (CA) contributed to research. Staff at the Tribal Historic Preservation Office opened their Cultural Register providing, among other material, the 1903 image of the Pala Campanile, an Architectural accomplishment in adobe singular to their mission. Their cooperation, assistance, and comments evidence an abiding interest in preservation of Pala Tribal and local heritage.

The staff at the Huntington Library (San Marino, CA) extended an always welcome attitude when visiting their archives. Their publication of Waterman Ormsby’s (1942) notes and articles titled The Butterfield Overland Mail made available much information about the early business of Stagecoaching.

Thanks, too, to those who read and commented on early versions of this manuscript. To JHB for taking the time to provide individual input and comments on usage. To MCH for assessment of aptness of historical application and advice on the use of historical approaches. To HM and LN for illustrative and evaluative input. To AP, a survivor of gold fever, and his comments thereto. Thanks as well to friends and family who listened with raptor like focus to an old man mumbling about some train or telegraph or Stagecoach thing again.

Finally, regarding those yet to come, grandchildren, great grandchildren, generations unimagined, to whom reading will be a lost art, a dalliance reserved for academics with too little to do. To all, past, present, and future, I acknowledge unspoken yet undeniable contributions to cognitive development. To all I acknowledge much appreciated stimuli to pick up pen yet again.

In response to reviewers’ questions about categorization, this is an essay. It is neither pure History nor strict Anthropology, rather it suffuses premises of both – and various other disciplines – with personal experience to relate impressions of the Stagecoaching phenomenon. It is hybrid fact and fiction; it is intended to relate documented history probabilistically reconstructed. To all, past, present, and future, I dedicate thoughts to follow

FOREWORD

Lured by the siren call of Stagecoaching, afforded an opportunity to investigate a former Station (courtesy ACBCI), questions rose from the sand. Primary among them, what facilities serviced Stagecoach Routes in the treeless US West and Southwest? Assuming adobe prevailed, how was it used along the Bradshaw Trail? What remains represent Stagecoaching? Are characteristics of the White Water Station typical of others along the Bradshaw Trail? Along other Stage routes elsewhere? With these as guidance, the first task became identification and isolation of Stations and stops along the Bradshaw Trail. Applying certain selection factors, 26 facilities compose the current sample.

Second, following initial sorting of the composite Station list, patterns surfaced among sites along the Bradshaw Trail with regard to the prevalence and use of adobe, community development and settlement patterning, proximity of raw materials, availability of labor, presence of water, firm bedrock basement, prevailing microclimate, and a host of variables.

Third, turning attention to modern site conditions, an evaluation of surviving integrity uses recognized and commonly referenced evaluation criteria. Applying these, some Stations already have been evaluated by others; their work is accessible. At other venues are sites where known and documented improvements were made but have been impacted, some destroyed. Additional sites never developed beyond their utility as a natural feature and some Station and stop locations could not be assessed for one reason or another. Surpassing all inventories and assessments, two locations are evaluated as significant, possessing potential to yield significant information useful in advancing historical reconstruction.

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In the mid 1800s, the promise of ‘get rich quick’ gold strikes coupled with well promoted availability of productive land in the (US) West, tempted many to abandon homes in search of the promised land. The charisma of improved quality of life eclipsed the reality of dangerous adventures, searing deserts, hostile marauders, relentless sun, dehydration.

Travelers moved by horseback, wagon train, Stagecoach, undoubtedly some walked. Crossing the Mississippi River, the observant traveler might notice a gradual but persistent change as tall, stately oaks, bountiful hickories, annually brilliant maples and sumacs, disappeared. The foliage of the East paled with distance as travelers approached the prairies and treeless deserts beyond. Demas Barnes noted these shifts when crossing the Missouri River on his westward trek (1866:18-19),

Wood generally disappears, the land rises and becomes more rolling … until soon after crossing the Missouri river small timber is only seen skirting the water courses. From Julesburg [Schuyler County, MO], three hundred miles to the gorges of the mountains, such a thing as a tree, shrub or bush is not to be seen.

Perhaps less obvious to the traveler: the diminished availability of lumber these trees supplied - the raw material with which to build homes and settlements. This paucity of lumber did not deter the ancient Anasazi who turned to natural sedimentary stone for Architectural purposes in their arid Southwestern homeland. Anasazi expertise in this lenticular medium survives as magnificently designed cliff dwellings still extant in the US Southwest. But moving west, into the deserts, suitable building stone, too, became rare - large, rounded granitic boulders not suited for building more common. Yet some sort of building medium would be needed to construct the residences, homesteads, outbuildings, shelters, and corrals, fortune seekers would encounter en route or, once settled, in nascent neighborhoods. As Samuel Clemens notes, pioneers in more northern prairie locations utilized adobe and occasionally, sod in their architectural expression but where lumber was lacking, adobe substituted.

Steeped in the trappings of Anthropology, curiosity about structural techniques used to build Stagecoach features proliferated. Without suitable lumber, what materials contributed to Architectural expression accompanying westward expansion? Lacking arboreal resources, did early residents import lumber? Did they, similar to the Anasazi before, employ local stone or similar material(s)?

A companion essay, Ancient Footsteps (Footsteps 2017), examines the current understanding of ancient Trails - silent sentinels to history - encompassing the mountains, deserts, and Coastal regions of the US West. A follow up essay, Dusty Trails to Shiny Rails (Trails 2018), rejoins the historical clock in the mid-1800s, a heyday of Stagecoach proliferation and the temporal setting of the Bradshaw Trail. This volume, Where the Dust Settles (Adobe 2019), narrows to address the prevalence and uses of adobe as a construction material. Because of a series of factors, adobe utilization ascended as facilities along Trails developed often appearing as base construction for way Stations and Stagecoach service related facilities. An examination of its frequency and occurrence along the Bradshaw Trail (Los Angeles [CA] to La Paz [AZ]) highlights current musings.

Preliminary investigations made clear standing buildings do not represent the totality of Architectural expression within the Stagecoach universe. From contemporary sites used in conjunction with physical buildings stood support features without which standing structures soon would exhaust utility and wither to ghost towns (see Peyton, 2012; Ghosttowns 2005). The Trails themselves are principal but they are no more or less significant to the overall function of advancing progress than other built features.

Granted, in the eyes of the traveler, ancillary features may have seemed to contribute little to the visual impression of Stations and settlements which, according to the Stagecoach Driver, lay just around the next bend. While virtually invisible, these facilities played quietly obscure but critical roles defining Stagecoach Stations and stops, residences and, in composite, settlements. Recognizing that, curiosity meandered toward descriptions of wells, privies, fences, windbreaks, tree lines, canals, roadways, and other hollow features, and to their employment complementing traditional Architectural themes.

Straightforward discussions of Architectural characteristics along early transportation routes do not appear in consulted literature. Even with the most complete of information, gaps glared apparent. There were elements void of information, events incompletely explained, anecdotes with differing interpretations, and events marginally considered by chroniclers who left behind these literary artifacts of American History.

Curiosity propelled accumulation of as many descriptions as possible noticing where native material sufficed for construction, where pioneer builders incorporated natural features - such as a steep canyon wall helping enclose a corral - where they excavated wells, and where local materials sometimes found inventive adaptations.

Found in various literary sources, descriptions of using adobe brick for Architectural expression began to accumulate. Like a mirage, at first they described a shifting pattern tantalizingly beyond recognition. Slowly, scattered mentions congealed into a recognizable expression - a building trend. Questions arose. What is adobe really? Did early Western settlers import it? Or make it? What characteristics make adobe suitable for desert construction?

Questions narrowed, the issue rotated to where to look for comparative data on the use of adobe. Spurred by curiosity about Stagecoach evolution, previous research visited linear east-west trending samples of three Stage routes including the Butterfield Stage Line, the Overland Express, and the Bradshaw Trail. Owing to climatic and topographic considerations, the latter constitutes the current sample.

IN THE ARCHIVES

Summarizing efforts in connection with previous research, "Written