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Northward, a station wagon loaded with luggage and kids flies along Highway 395, down the last incline of Conway Summit, a few miles south of Bridgeport.

"Dad, when are we gonna get there?"
"I’m thirsty. I want a cold drink!"
"Me too!"
"I gotta go to the bathroom real bad!!"
"Dear, the next town is only a few miles ahead, let’s stop there and eat."

Southbound, a semi-truck begins the long assault of Conway. The driver is chattering on the CB with his buddy in another rig a quarter mile behind.

"Hey, good buddy, gotta wind up the turbo to tackle this grade."
"Yeah, got the pedal to the floor. Hey, you see this sign to Bodie?"
"Yeah. Always wanted to go there someday; hear it’s pretty neat."
"Yeah, me too." One of these days I’m gonna swing this rig over that way. Maybe come here on vacation."
"Yeah, me too."

Heading north in a black coupe, a couple are anxious to behold the Nevada state line at Topaz.

"Can’t wait to hit the bright lights of Reno, dear. How about you?"

Trailing a plume of snow, a southbound 4x4 station wagon with skis mounted braves the snow covered highway. Through fogged windows can be seen two couples.

"Gotta get to Mammoth!"
"Yeah! Can’t wait to turn tips down from Chair 21!"

To the west, in sight of those who notice, rest a few stone walls. From north and south, a swarm of cars, pickups, campers, motor homes, semis, motorcycles, bicycles, and buses ply Highway 395 to other destinations, other sights. A considerable number of them turn eastward to favored Bodie, the site that eclipses other ghostly whereabouts in Mono County. It is the biggie in the region, but it was not the first spot east of the Sierra to cry a golden song in an attempt to lure mortals from the Mother Lode over to the desolate and unknown east side. Only a handful of trappers, sheepherders, and a few other brave souls dared to cross the crest. East of the summits lay superstitions and Indians.

Unpretentious, those stone walls west of the highway bear the distinction of starting a chain reaction that lead to the creation of Mono County. Those are the stones that paved the way for Bridgeport, Bodie, Mammoth City, and Benton; the foundation of modern day Mammoth Lakes, June Lake, Lee Vining. Those stones created the need for modern roads to connect them with the world outside.

"Hey! Look at me!" they cried out to those men who braved the crossing to the unknown land. A few came, saw, looked, and left. "This place is only good enough for dogs!" they said.

Monoville, Aurora, Bodie. Each a better breed that won the attention of the increasing number of men, then women and children. Louder voices crying out golden melodies, leaving the original as the underdog. What a life. What a place. What a name … Dogtown.

The skies are still the bluest in this corner of Mono County, where the sagebrush hills butt against the Sierra. Folks come for the open spaces and attractions scattered about and beyond, but they ignore the bones of Dogtown, as they lay in the middle of 395. While you swerve to avoid the carcass, let me fill in the tale regarding these bones.

Let’s see, now … In 1853 … no, back up … It all started in the 1840s. Gold was discovered in California’s interior. Gold, great amounts of it, washed down from the heights of the grand ridge into the foothills and valleys below. "Eureka! I have found it!" cried James Sutter. His cry was heard all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Beginning in 1848 came a stampede, each individual hoping to find it too. Over the passes they came, descending upon the rich lands along the western slopes. The east side was dismissed, especially those eastern lands between Walker Pass on the southern end of the great barrier, and what was to become Donner Pass near the northern terminus.

The stampede stopped and settled, creating the new state of California by 1850. Its eastern boundary was for the most part, imaginary. No one really knew what was contained by the ink and paper line and the Sierra crest, especially that stretch between Lake Tahoe and the Colorado River. So when it came time to divide the state into little jurisdictions called counties, those along the western slopes had their boundaries extended to the stateline with the stroke of the pen. "There, that was easy enough. No one will care, there’s no one back there to care about it anyway."

There was so much gold in those great rivers on the west side of the mountains, they could scoop it out by simple means. No one even considered hard rock mining: it was that easy. And so they panned, shoveled, sluiced, and rocked their long toms. They built homes, businesses, ranches, towns, cities, capitals, mansions, and empires. No one gave much thought to what lay on the east side. Life was good, so why go through all that rubbish with danger and hardship again?

There was enough gold for many but not all, on the western surface. Only a couple of years after the stampede descended from the wall onto the west slope, a few men forgot about the perils that lay east of the mighty range, and began to cross over to hunt and explore. A magic land called Yosemite attracted men to its cool heights; greener pastures enticed shepherds to push their flocks into the high country near the crest; curiosity lead them to peek over the top to discover what lay beyond. And when they did, an enormous blue eye stared back at them; a body of water that stretched to the horizon.

Along about 1852, the state government figured it was time to send a few people out to follow those imaginary lines, to scrutinize what was back there, where the lines went, and what they encompassed. Hesitantly, they began to step lightly into the new land, a land filled with strange wonders and unknown fears.

And, by golly, they found a few folks back there.

Around the border area separating California by lands claimed by Utah, folks were coming together in a few small clusters. The Mormon faith, ever willing to explore and colonize, sought out new locales to civilize and settle. At the foot of the Sierra, lush meadowland spread out in all directions. A few latecomers in the golden dash who had stopped to rest and themselves and their animals had found it a place to linger.

In the brown hills to the northeast, a few men were probing about, looking for gold in their pans, but instead found some funny blue stuff. It would not be until the latter part of the decade that the blue junk tossed aside would be recognized as silver.

During the year government surveyors were following the paper lines across the state, one man was chasing a renegade Indian along the same path. Lieutenant Moore chased Chief Teneiya over the Sierra and into the socket of the giant blue eye, later to be designated Mono. During the chase, the glint of gold made the cavalry forget about Teneiya. Instead of an Indian trophy they brought back a golden trophy to be showcased in Mariposa. This prompted a man named Leroy Vining to lead a party over Mono Pass and down Bloody Canyon to check things out. They came, they saw, they prospected, they stayed.

By 1855, the west side placers were beginning to give out. The golden glow east of the Sierra was getting brighter and brighter. Soon, men were trickling into Mono country from the north, south, and west, seeking its golden treasures. Men were coming over Mono Pass, Sonora Pass, over Walker Pass and up through Owens Valley; others were coming down from Genoa in the north.

In 1857, they all collided at the confluence of two streams in the southern part of the East Walker River watershed, upstream a bit from the Big Meadows. Here, depending on whose account you accept, Leroy Vining or Cord Norst founded the placer gold that delivered unto this world the scrawny mutt dubbed Dogtown; it is certain that both were there to witness its birth. And it came into this world howling loud enough to bring more men running.

It is hard for one today to picture the circumstances at Dogtown’s birth. Inspecting the weathered buildings at Bodie doesn’t begin to tell of the hardships at Dogtown, for those rude shacks are downright palatial in comparison. Those who fell upon the land where two creeks met used what nature provided them until manmade comforts could be brought in. What nature provided was plenty of stone, sagebrush, willow and aspen. And that was exactly what their homes were made of. The nearest settlements were almost a hundred miles away in Genoa (which itself was still having growing pains), or on the other side of the Sierra. Getting to the shopping center meant a long walk on your own two feet, or a lumpy ride on the mule.

Can you picture the miner at Dogtown pondering what winter would bring: a lonely miner, stuck for six months in his little 8x8 rock hut, aspen and sagebrush roof, a crude cot, a little flame of smoldering sagebrush in the corner, a few beans to nibble on, an almost empty whiskey bottle, a raging blizzard outside, constant fear of the unknown and Indians?

But by the summer of 1858 a hundred men were panning Dog Creek.

The lifecycle of Dogtown never did proceed like those of many towns of the region. This dog never had a good meal to start with, and became the runt of the litter. The town became a collection of hovels, one of them a store of sorts. Warren Loose opened up his hut of commerce and stocked it with all a man could ask for: whiskey, cigars, more whiskey, a few cans of whatever, and more whiskey. You wanted more? Fine, head on over the mountains or north to Genoa. And don’t forget to bring with you next spring!

The year 1859 brought many changes that affected Dogtown, both directly and indirectly. The blue stuff in the hills above Washoe and Carson valleys was recognized as silver ore, stupendously rich. That discovery brought a rush in reverse back across the Sierra to the land the ‘49ers neglected and cursed on their way to the fabulous gold lands of California.

That year, too, brought the direct blow to Dogtown, that of an even richer find to the south. On July 4, Cord Norst decided to get a case of wanderlust on his day off, dropped over the summit to the south, and into the upper drainage of the Mono Basin. He found some gold, and came galloping back with the story to tell those celebrating the 4th.

Shortly, everyone was rushing north or south, to the rising metropolis of the Comstock or to the new strike at Monoville, in search of whichever precious metal struck his fancy. The rest of the litter was born one by one to a newly-named mother tagged Mono. She favored the new puppies – Monoville, Bodie, especially Aurora – and ignored her firstborn.

And as these new pups fattened up, Dogtown became scrawnier.

At the point of Dogtown’s death, the humble Chinese took it in. They had been banished from the rich mines of Bodie, Aurora and Virginia City, but no law prohibited them from gleaning the worked out placers at Dogtown. The dog continued lean, but it remained breathing.

Like all flashes in the gold pan, the gold became so thin that even the frugal Chinamen could not make it pay, and so they moved on. The mutt died. The piles of placered rubble covered its unmarked grave.

By this century, a few cranky contraptions given the moniker of "horseless carriage" began to trickle into the region. Soon a path was bladed through the sagebrush to lead the auto safely to civilization. In the fourth decade of this century, a huge dredge was set up to take hefty bites of the surrounding earth and filter out the tiny flakes of gold too small for the average eye to see. The skeleton of Dogtown was shaken, but not crushed, and soon the contraption was dismantled. Silence returned to the region.

Sometime during the sixth decade of the 20th century, someone decided to make a headstone to mark Dogtown’s grave, but finding new freedom in their faster automobiles, looking upon forlorn remains was definitely not in the plans of bypassers.

The setting is the same today. A few people spot the headstone along the pavement of Highway 395 and stop to read the brief epitaph. A few may opt to make their way over to the stacked rock walls and wonder. An infrequent one may probe into the sad story behind the dead dog in the middle of the road.

Dogtown Photos
The original photos used for the article in THE ALBUM have not been scanned in to digital format. However on October 7, 2002, I returned to Dogtown and took these photos.

References
BODIE - 1859 TO 1900, Wedertz, Frank S.
GHOST TOWNS & MINING CAMPS OF CALIFORNIA, Nadeau, Remi
GOLD, GUNS & GHOST TOWNS, Chalfant, W.A.
HIGH MOUNTAINS AND DEEP VALLEYS - THE GOLD BONANZA DAYS, Clark, Lew and Ginny
MAMMOTH LAKES SIERRA (third edition), Smith, Genny Shumacher
MONO DIGGINS, Wedertz, Frank S.
PAITUE, PROSPECTOR, PIONEER: A HISTORY OF THE BODIE-MONO LAKE AREA IN THE NIETEENTH CENTURY, Fletcher, Thomas C.
PIONEERS OF THEMONO BASIN, Calhoun, Margaret
THE STORY OF BODIE, Cain, Ella M.
NEVADA GHOST TOWNS & MINING CAMPS, Paher, Stanley W.
NEVADA POST OFFICES - AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY, Gamett, James and Paher, Stanley W.

©1991, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 D.A. Wright
All Rights Reserved

Revised: 06/19/2007