Stories from the desert

More than probably anywhere else, when I am driving through deserts or what one might call big country, places where the sky sometimes seems to overpower the land, my mind is full of the potential stories. The clues to what they might have been remain where the people have long gone on-- an empty mine shaft, a nearly fallen down shack, a deserted trailer, a bordello in the middle of nowhere its doors now shuttered, a hotel that never manages to get renovated because some say there are ghosts, cemeteries, trails that lead to who knows where, and even the infamous Area 51 where alien bodies are preserved-- maybe.

I always knew one of the more fascinating stories was that of Scotty's Castle, which lies in the northern part of Death Valley. It isn't really a castle and didn't really belong to Walter Scott, more popularly known as Death Valley Scotty.

Many years ago, when we came south with our small children, we had all gone on the tour of what is more a lavish hacienda than a castle. I loved how it was inside, the intriguing touches that made the home something special. I still remember the stories we heard on that tour. My favorite touch had been a waterfall on one wall in the living room used to naturally cool the house.

On this trip down, although we drove into the parking lot and hiked around a bit, we didn't take the tour as we had miles to go before nightfall. After I got to Tucson, I took advantage of the Internet to look for more information of the story behind the castle.

Superficially, here is the mostly known version: [Scotty's Castle]. Albert Johnson built the home to give his wife, Bessie, a nice home when she came for the winter along with him. He had found the place thanks to his friend, Walter Scott.

But when I kept looking, there was another story, a more personal and intriguing one that didn't involve Scotty: [Albert Johnson], [Bessilyn Johnson], and [Mat Roy Thompson]. Who's that last guy, you ask? Have you noticed how things are often sooooooooo seldom what they seem on the surface?

The story begins with Walter Scott, born in 1872, who was a horseman, would-be prospector, but a better conman. He had come to Death Valley in his youth working as a cowboy. He got a chance to ride with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show and did that for over 10 years as he made valuable contacts and came to realize there were better ways to make money as in selling interests to non-existent gold mines. A thousand here or there and the dollars add up. Somewhere in there, he was married, had a child but more or less deserted both. He was, after all, a ne-er do well and adventurer.

As he conned this one or that, eventually that led to Albert Johnson, a very wealthy, Chicago businessman also born in 1872. Johnson, married to Bessie in 1896, had fragile health. (In 1899, on a trip west, with his father, to explore possible mines for investments, his father was killed in a train accident and Walter tragically injured his back; so badly that he evidently was never fully functional as a man again. He did, through willpower, get back his ability to walk.)

Johnson, interested in the idea of investing in mines, had made quite a bit of money in the past doing such, and he began to fund Scotty's mine. After a few years of no gold showing up. (look back at links for more details), Johnson decided to come out to see about this gold for himself. He spent time with Scotty riding around the desert, camping, enjoying the story-teller's company, and not finding the mine, of course; but he found something more valuable to himself-- friendship and better health. He returned again and again.

The simple version of what came next is the very religious Bessie, curious about what her husband had found, decided to come out, wasn't fond of roughing it which led to Johnson building her the castle where they spent every winter until she was killed in a car accident in 1943. When Albert died in 1948 of cancer, he willed the castle, to which he had never returned after Bessie's death, to a gospel organization. Scotty lived out his life in the area, continued to tell his version of its story until he too died in 1954.

That doesn't answer, of course, who Mat Roy Thompson was. He was the man Bessie had fallen in love with at Stanford University when both were students. He evidently was not considered a suitable candidate to marry the daughter of a wealthy man; and in 1893 when his family lost what fortune they had in one of those financial crashes, her father demanded they end the engagement.

Bessie left Stanford and went to Cornell where she met Albert, married him; and maybe she was happy until he had his tragic accident which probably ended their sexual relationship and any chance of her having children.

Through the years, Bessie kept in touch with Mat, who also married and ended up having 6 children. When a home was planned for Grapevine Canyon, the Johnsons contacted Mat to ask him to plan and build it for them. Although evidently Johnson also discussed a possible architectural plan with Frank Lloyd Wright, someone decided that would not do; and his ideas were never used.

When Thompson realized the scope of the project, he gave up his job with the government. As many civil engineers do, he left his family, sending them money as he was paid, and for the next 6 years planned and arranged for the building of what would come to be known as Scotty's Castle.

Why don't we ever hear Thompson's name in connection with the building? Not only did Scotty claim it was his home, whenever anyone asked, but Albert went along with it. It appears Mat's omission on all the drawings was thanks to Albert, who didn't much like his builder, spoke poorly to him (according to Mat's son), and erased his name from any document connected to the building.

Now why would that be? Possibly because Mat and Bessie were soul mates and their love, although probably, due to her religious beliefs, never consummated, also was never ended? Mat's son believes the eventual divorce of his parents was due to that love. He also said Bessie told him how to her he felt like the son she had never had. Probably he also reminded her of the life she never had. And did Thompson build her a home that looked so much like the buildings at Stanford as a testament to that love? It wouldn't be surprising if Albert had some mixed feelings about all of that, would it?

Sometimes the brightest dreams have a way of not working out. A crash in the stock market in 1929, took a lot of Johnson's money. Thompson left Death Valley with the estate not finished (a year later, he married again). More complications on the castle ensued when it was discovered that due to surveying errors, the land on which it was built wasn't actually owned by Johnson. He bought that land eventually, but doing it sucked up even more of his fortune. Some of the estate remains unfinished today.

There is one final question about the tragic threesome. When Bessie was killed on the highway in Death Valley, Albert was driving. Supposedly she was killed outright; but some did not think so. They thought, because things seemed to have been moved, that Albert either killed her or let her die. Personally I tend to doubt that although who really knows. Could he have been bitter at knowing his wife loved another man all those years? Did he feel he had been cuckolded in the building of the castle? If so, for a powerful man, there would be easier ways to dispose of her and why wait so many years? Given his own religiosity, more likely if she broke her neck in the accident, maybe, at her age especially, he didn't want her to go through what he had endured and finished what the accident started. Maybe but who knows.

None of that involved Scotty, who lived out his life peacefully in Death Valley. His actual home was never the Castle but rather this: [Lower Vine Ranch]. He did visit the castle to tell his stories and contribute to the atmosphere. Walter Scott is buried on the hill above the castle, his dog Windy alongside him.

For more tidbits from these interwoven lives, check the links above. All photos are from our recent trip.

On Walter Scott's tombstone is the epitaph: "I got four things to live by: Don't say nothing that will hurt anybody. Don't give advice-- Nobody will take it anyway. Don't complain. Don't explain." Not bad advice!