Hornswogglers, Fourflushers & Snake-Oil Salesmen (21 page)

“Good. Then it sounds like I have the right man for the job.”

Alfred MacArthur headed on out to Death Valley within days. Scotty saw trouble coming, so instead of growing resistant, he responded in true Death Valley Scotty fashion. He seeded an old abandoned shaft with raw gold ore. “Well, what do you think of that, Mr. MacArthur? Need much more convincing than that?”

Scotty pointed to the gold he'd dug free right in front of MacArthur. “That there,” he said, holding up a nub of rock between their faces, “is gold ore, plain and simple. Just a taste of what I've been coming up with. But make no mistake, MacArthur, you want to make money in this game, you got to spend money.”

He leaned close to MacArthur, and spoke in a low, conspiratorial tone. “That's what I been trying to tell these investor types like Mr. Johnson, see? This ain't an overnight type of thing. Mining for gold takes time, it takes money, it takes dedication and investment. Plain and simple.”

“From what I've seen and from what I've been told, Mr. Scott, you've had plenty of both time and investment, in the form of other people's money. What you haven't shown is that any of it is paying off. Heck, Mr. Scott—no, no, now let me finish,” he held up a hand to stop the blustering Scott from stomping all over his words. “What I haven't seen hide nor hair of, Mr. Scott, is an actual working gold mine with promising ore.”

“What do you call this, Mr. MacArthur?” Scott held up the recently unearthed ore. “That's gold, that is! Right here in this shaft!”

“Scott—I'll dispense with the whole ‘Mr.' thing, if you don't mind, as neither of us are much into the formalities this situation does not require.”

“I'm not sure I follow, Mr. MacArthur.”

“What I'm saying is that I'll be informing my employer, Mr. Johnson, that you are no closer than he suspected to exhibiting proof of a working, bankable gold mine. This shaft, Scott, is an old, abandoned, useless, and spent thing. And don't try to convince me otherwise. I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”

True to his word, despite numerous protestations by Walter Scott, Albert MacArthur reported back right away, via telegram, to Albert Johnson. Scott, he said, had failed at every turn to convince him not only that he had indeed struck gold but that he even had a gold mine.

In short, it seemed that Death Valley Scotty had burned the last bridge to a moneyman that he had. The one last wealthy investor who seemed to want to believe him, and believe
in
him, a man who had been kind enough to throw out a lifeline, had just been told that Scott was exactly what the press claimed he was: an outright fraud.

Incredibly, Scott was able to keep this millionaire investor, Albert Johnson, on the hook and supplying funds to keep the “mine” in operation. Even after MacArthur visited the mine and reported back that there truly was no mine at all, Johnson funded Scott's sleazy efforts.

The next year, 1907, Johnson decided to visit the mine himself. Scott decided that the only way he could keep Johnson on the hook was to make the visit particularly exhausting—not a difficult thing to do in Death Valley. He took Johnson on a grueling horseback tour through Death Valley. But Johnson surprised him, even though he suffered weak health from a train wreck he barely survived as a young man. Indeed, Johnson fell in love with the sunny, dry place and stayed for a month. He felt great and his health conditions improved. Even though it became quickly apparent he was being swindled, primarily because they never seemed to arrive at a mine, he and Scotty hit it off. It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship. And it was an odd pairing at that, Scotty being a man fond of drink and outright lies, while Johnson was a teetotaler and a pious, churchgoing man.

You'd think Scott would quit while he was ahead, but not a chance. Once a thief, always a thief. And in Scotty's case, he devolved even further, going from swindling to outright theft of physical property. The first thing he did, though, was to obtain a lease on a worthless, played-out mine in the Humboldt Mountains of northern Nevada. Then, when no one was around, Scott took to visiting various mines throughout the region. While there he pilfered substantial amounts of high-grade ore and sold it at various locations around the region, careful to not sell too much at any one location lest he arouse suspicion.

Ever the blowhard and braggart, Scott headed back to Death Valley with a lie on his lips that would land him in court, and then jail, once more. He told everyone who would listen that he had sold his mine in the Humboldts for the tidy sum of $12 million. But as clever as he claimed to be, Scott conveniently overlooked the fact that he had a lengthy string of creditors dogging his trail like hungry wolves on the scent of a fat rabbit.

Once these long-suffering former investors got wind of his supposed windfall, though surely they had their doubts about Scott's truthfulness, they sued him for nonpayment of old debts. The result was, once again, no money forthcoming from the penniless shyster. The only person in the deal to receive anything was Scott himself, who got a three-year jail sentence.

By 1915 Scotty, out of jail, was lying low, or as low as a serial swindler was able. He'd moved to the town of Twentynine Palms, California. Johnson dropped in on him and eventually forgave Scotty for being such a sleaze. Once more they roved Death Valley together, Scotty showing the man his favorite locales, and Johnson falling more in love with the ghostly place with each day. Before long he bought the Staininger Ranch in one of the most lush spots in Death Valley, Grapevine Canyon. At its heart is an oasis of trees surrounding an ample freshwater spring, used for centuries by local Indians.

The ranch consisted primarily of many acres of barren land and a few ram-shackle buildings. It was enough for Johnson, and he had a modest home for Scotty built there as well. But after making a few trips to the ranch with his wife, Bessie, she made it clear that she wanted something more comfortable if he wanted her to accompany him on his Death Valley vacations. The result, begun in 1922 and continually expanded, is an estate that cost Johnson upward of $2.5 million. Johnson also added to his acreage through the years until, by 1937, he owned more than fifteen hundred acres surrounding Grapevine.

The massive, multistory Mission Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival villa is officially named Death Valley Ranch, though it is now better known as Scotty's Castle. Over the years, Johnson built Scotty a fine five-room cabin at an adjoining property, Lower Vine Ranch, which Johnson also owned. It sits five miles from the castle. The place he built for Scotty also included a number of outbuildings and room for Scotty's mules.

Despite this largesse, Scotty the Swindler could not help himself. As the never-ending castle took shape, growing more elaborate with each month, Scotty did little to dissuade people from thinking he had finally and truly struck gold in a big way. He intimated that all those negative headlines through the years were incorrect, and he went out of his way to tell everyone he was, in fact, the builder and owner of the estate. Rather than take offense, Johnson found Scotty's tall tales amusing and did nothing to spread the truth.

In fact, Johnson and his wife were so fond of the affable Scotty that they had a special bedroom made up for him in the villa, though he never used it. He would gladly drive on up to the big house from his modest ranch, entertain the Johnsons' guests, regaling them with barely believable stories of his life, then bid them adieu and head back to his own place to spend time with his dogs and mules.

The elaborate villa, a massive compound, consists of a main building with numerous guest rooms, a music room and pipe organ (with 1,121 pipes), a quarter mile of tunnels beneath the main house, a garage and stable, guest and servants' quarters, a gas station, a powerhouse, dynamo, and solar hot water heater, all designed by Johnson himself, a clock tower, a massive unfinished swimming pool, and much more. And all of it sumptuously decorated with one-of-a-kind pieces of furniture, artwork, and tiles from all over the world.

Following the stock market crash, Johnson's company slid into bankruptcy in 1933. Though he and his wife lived on limited means compared with their previous level of spending, they still lived quite well, traveling back and forth from Chicago to Death Valley throughout the year. Despite that, construction on the villa and various buildings ceased, though much of it was already complete.

In order to help defray the hefty costs of running the place, Scotty suggested the Johnsons take in paying guests and give tours of the exotic home. When they were not in residence, Scotty played tour guide, answering the door as if he were the man of the house. He would proceed to tell visitors that he had had it all built, that the Johnsons were actually his live-in maid and butler, and that he paid for the place with earnings from his various successful mines. Convincing as ever, people didn't doubt the homespun huckster for a moment.

Scotty and his wife, Jack, separated shortly after his son, Walter Perry Scott, was born in 1914. Scotty was, predictably, a lousy husband and father, but once again, his guardian angels, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, stepped in to prop him up. They felt badly that though they were supporting the swindling Scotty, he was doing nothing to support his own family.

So in true benefactor fashion, the Johnsons took the boy into their lives, raised him for a few years, and even attempted to adopt him. His mother resisted the idea, so they bought Scotty's estranged wife a home in Reno, Nevada, and paid her a tidy sum each month, ranging from $100 to $150, for upkeep of herself and the boy. They even paid for young Walter to attend a military academy, and he later joined the navy. All the while Scotty did nothing on his own to help his family. He spent his time strutting the grounds of “Scotty's Castle,” as if he owned the place.

On the Johnsons' passing, she in 1943, he in 1948, they willed the property to a religious foundation they had established, with the provision that Death Valley Scotty be allowed to continue residing at his place, unharried, for the rest of his days. And that's just what he did, dying there in 1954. He is buried on a hill overlooking his “castle.”

F
or thousands of years before invaders from afar came calling, the land mass now known as North America was occupied by numerous tribes of native peoples who lived largely in tolerance with one another. When Europeans “discovered” this land of hope and possibility several centuries ago, a cycle of conflict began between oppressor and oppressed that continues to this day.

From an early meager toe-hold, Europeans established settlements in the New World, and with them their own forms of governance. British-ruled colonies transformed into the fledgling United States of America.

From that time through today, the US government has made more than five hundred treaties with Native American tribes and has in one way or another broken, altered, or nullified each, most notably for land acquisition, and most famously on the Western frontier. But long before the federal government herded Native Americans onto reservations throughout the West, they drove the First People from the East. . . .