Desert Messenger

February 1, 2012

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Page 26 Read DESERTMESSENGER ONLINE @ www.MyQuartzsite.com We're Back @ Main St. Laundromat Wash the dog, & the clothes! HOLLYWOOD PETS Mobile Grooming Professionally groomed by Robin Barbour Award winning groomer! 23 years experience! Pamper your pet in our state-of-the-art fully mobile grooming parlor Best Rates in Town! 218-426-5317 www.DesertMessenger.com Desert Messenger celebrates the arizona's centennial with Voices from The Past in Quartzsite, AZ Excerpts from "In the Shadow of Saguaros" by Rosalee Oldham Wheeler DRENNAN RENAMED EARP IN 1930 Until 1930 the ferry stop across the Colo- rado River from Parker was loosely known as Drennan. The U.S. Mail was brought across the river on a ferry boat operated by Joe and Nellie Bush and then held at a sa- loon next to the Signal gas station for min- ers who had staked claims in the nearby Whipple Mountains. Since 1906 one of the most active min- ers searching for gold and copper in the Whipples was a tall slender gentleman with thinning white hair and a full mus- tache that tapered off into a thin chinstrap beard. He had staked out more than 100 claims which he personally worked dur- ing the fall, winter, and spring months while he and his wife lived in a comfort- With a week like yours, you need a church like ours! Reverend David Woods' dynamic personality and his genuine character wow's audiences through- out America weekly. His genuine character is refreshing to most everyone he encounters. David Woods Teaching on Healing Daily 2-3pm thru Friday, Feb. 3rd Rock of Israel Ministries FROM BIKER TO BELIEVER Fire Station Church Scott Roberts Sunday, Feb. 12th 7pm Love offering EVERYONE IS WELCOME! 665 W. Tyson, Quartzsite, Arizona • 928-927-5808 able tent-house with wooden floors and roll-up flaps over screened openings. With success the reserved couple bought a small home in nearby Vidal and lived there from 1925–1928 while working his "Happy Days Mine." It was the only permanent residence the couple owned the entire time they were married. During the summer months they retreated to an apartment in Los Angeles near their Hol- lywood friends, living com- fortably off real estate and mining investments. In the early 1920s, Nellie Bush learned that the re- served couple was Wyatt and Josie Earp. Never shy, Nellie became acquainted with the Earps and learned that in- deed Wyatt was the one-time Tombstone, Arizona Mar- shall who with his brothers Virgil, Wyatt and Morgan along with Doc Holliday sur- vived a gunfight with Ike Clanton and his gang at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. Three members of the Clanton gang had been killed, while Ike and another wounded member escaped. In March of 1882 Mor- gan was gunned down so Wyatt and another brother, Warren, along with friends, hunted down and killed the four assassins. Accused of murder, Wyatt and Josie fled Arizona to Colorado where for the next few years he quietly worked in various mining camps. In 1886 they moved on to Idaho then later that winter checked out the boom in San Diego, where Wyatt gambled and in- vested in real estate and saloons. In 1897 they headed for Nome, Alaska and operated a saloon during the Alaska Gold Rush. In 1901, with $80,000 in profits, they headed for a new gold strike in Tonopah, Nevada, February 1, 2012 where Wyatt successfully invested in a sa- loon, gambling and more gold mines. Wy- att loved the desert and his mining interests had proved more profitable than gambling so he took up prospecting full time, stak- ing claims just outside Death Valley and elsewhere in the Mojave Desert. In 1906 he discovered several veins that contained gold and copper at the base of the Whipple Mountains northeast of Drennan. Wyatt spent the winters of his last years working his various mine claims in the Whip- ples before he took ill in 1918 and passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 80 on Janu- ary 13, 1929. His pallbearers were promi- nent friends including Los Angeles Examiner writer, Jim Mitchell, Hollywood screenwriter Wilson Mizner, Wyatt's good friend from his days in Tombstone, John Clum, and Western actors William S. Hart and Tom Mix who openly cried during the service. In 1930, to honor this one-time teamster, buffalo hunter, stagecoach driver, railroad worker, Wells Fargo agent, gambler, law- man, saloon keep and prospector turned successful mine owner, the little town of Drennan was renamed "Wyatt Earp, California." It's odd, that when the name Wy- att Earp comes up everyone remembers him as the fearless frontier lawman of Dodge City, Kansas and as a survivor of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, but that period accounted for less than five years of his life. In fact, Wyatt actually spent most of his life in the deserts of his beloved Southwest, often in the company of his brothers Virgil, Morgan, James and Warren, as well as his wife Josie (Jose- phine Sarah Marcus Earp), combing the hills and filing mine claims in his lifelong pursuit of finding his next big gold, silver, or copper strike. At the eastern terminus of High- way 62, about two miles north of the bridge over the Colorado River at Parker, a real post office was established in Earp. The little building also became somewhat of a museum with memorabilia linked to Wyatt and the most colorful five years of his life. At one time there was a little fake cemetery with a Wyatt Earp headstone but his ashes were actually buried in Josie's family plot at the Hills of Eternity south of San Francisco in the town of Colma. Josie died in 1944 at the age of 83 and is buried there beside him. Now Open in Quartzsite! WiGo Communication Computer Sales & Accessories Computer Repair Center Cell Phone Service Provider & Accessories 395 N. Central Blvd. Wireless, Keyboards, USB Cords, Data Storage, Routers, Switches, More! Open Mon-Fri. 10-5 928-927-5958

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