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William Henry "Burro" Schmidt |
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The Burro Schmidt tunnel and property is located in
Kern County, CA
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The 1930 Fed Census of Kern County, CA (Weldon district)
shows a William H. Schmidt, age 59, head of household (nobody
else in household), b. Rhode Island, parents born Germany.
There is no listing for him in the 1920 census.
The 1910 census of "Twp 1" in Kern County shows
William H. Schmidt, 39, b. Rhode Island, as a boarder and "farm
laborer" with William and Upton Randero? Randeno? (last
name could be spelled wrong).
The 1900 census of Bakersfield, Kern County, shows William
H. Schmidt, as a lodger and day laborer, living in some sort
of boarding house.
There is no 1890 census for the States of interest, they burned
in a fire.
The 1880 census of Woonsocket, Providence County, RI, shows:
John J. Schmidt, b. ca 1826, Bavaria, head
Margret C. Schmidt, b. ca 1830, Bavaria, wife
Paulina Schmidt, b. ca. 1857, dtr
Emma M. Schmidt, b. ca 1862, dtr
Charles Schmidt, b ca 1864, son
Frank Schmidt, b ca 1867, son
Louisa B. Schmidt, b. ca 1869, dtr
William H. Schmidt, b. ca 1871, son
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Conqueoring a Mountain With Pick & Shovel
Story Text Courtesy Roger Vargo & Explorehistoricalif.com
Most mountains are conquered by climbers ascending their tallest
peak. William Henry Schmidt did his conquering by digging, drilling
and blasting through the interior of Copper Mountain. Why? Schmidt's
precise justification went with him to his grave, but "Because
it was there" seems as valid a reason as any.
William Henry Schmidt was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island in
January of 1871. As a young man, he was frail and small of stature.
Six of his brothers and sisters died from tuberculosis. He was
expected to face the same fate as his siblings unless he moved
to the West with its hot, dry climate.
Young Schmidt came to California in 1894, a year before the big
gold strike above the Fremont Valley. He prospected around Kern
County and eventually established claims in the (then) remote
interior of the El Paso Mountains, near Last Chance Canyon. The
canyon was known to travelers before Schmidt's day. Some
forty years earlier, in February of 1850, William Lewis Manly
passed through on his escape from Death Valley. The mountain
range, particularly to the east near Garlock or Cow Wells , as
it had once been called, was an established mining area.
A successful mining operation depends on several factors. First,
there must be a worthwhile body of ore that will allow itself
to be separated from the surrounding rock. Secondly, a transportation
infrastructure must be available to convey the ore to a processing
or distribution facility. Mojave, about 20 miles to the south,
was the local transportation hub. The Southern Pacific Railroad
had been there since 1876. Closer were the mills of Garlock or
those in the young mining town of Randsburg. Schmidt's dilemma
was that no roads, only scant trails, were available in the El
Pasos. His primary route of travel, like Manly's, was through
Last Chance Canyon.
A time to dig
There had to be a better route. This was a time of building,
a period of great ideas. Work had already started on a canal
across the Isthmus of Panama. There was talk of building a gigantic
pipeline from the Owens Valley to bring water to Los Angeles.
Schmidt had an idea. He would build a tunnel through Copper Mountain.
Flatlands, meaning easy access to Garlock or Mojave, lay on the
other side. History remembers that year, 1906, not for the birth
of Schmidt's Tunnel, but for the destruction of San Francisco
by the Great Quake.
Schmidt apparently had no formal training in either mining or
engineering. He had no power tools, although the use of such
appliances was well established in the mining industry. He pounded
through the solid rock with a pick, four-pound hammer and a hand
drill. The broken rock was carried out first on his back, and
later in a wheelbarrow. Schmidt would eventually install iron
tracks and a mine car to transport debris beyond the growing
tunnel.
Schmidt lived a solitary and frugal existence in the high desert.
His only companions were a pair of burros, Jack and Jenny. The
locals dubbed him Burro Schmidt. His clothes were patched with
flour sacks. Tin cans were pressed into service as soles for
his shoes. An old cast iron stove, purchased second hand, cooked
his meals and heated his one room cabin which was insulated with
old magazines. Two of his favorite meals were supposed to have
been pancakes and a fish chowder made from sardines, rice and
boiled onions.
Short fuses save money
Burro's mining habits differed little from his sartorial and
eating habits. He did most of the work by hand. Some explosives
were used, but in character with his frugal nature, Schmidt would
cut the fuses as short as possible. Once the fuse was lit, he
literally would run for his life toward the end of the tunnel
and throw himself to the ground to avoid being struck by the
force of the blast and debris. Sometimes either his fuses were
too short, or he didn't run fast enough, because he would occasionally
show up injured at another prospectors shack.
When he could afford it, Schmidt burned kerosene in his lamps.
When kerosene became an unobtainable luxury, he used candles,
but limited himself to one two-cent candle each day.
Work progressed slowly. At some point in time, the tunnel mutated
from a project into an obsession. Schmidt would hire out during
the summer months on Kern River ranches in order to generate
income to support his digging. In the 1920s, a good road
was constructed through lower Last Chance Canyon to the Dutch
Cleanser Mine at Cudahay Camp. It connected with the rail line
extended from Mojave in 1909. Schmidt was in his fifty's, and
for most folks, this would have been reason enough to stop tunneling
and get on with mining.
Daylight at last
But reason didn't Burro Schmidt. He continued tunneling
until 1938 when daylight was finally visible through the far
side of his tunnel. Fifty eight hundred tons of rock had
been hollowed out of Copper Mountain.
Sixty seven years old, stooped and gnarled from thirty two years
and more than 2000-feet of tunneling, Schmidt never used the
tunnel to transport ore. He sold the claim to another miner,
Mike Lee, and moved elsewhere the El Pasos. "I never made
a damn thing out of it," Schmidt said. He retained ownership
in several other claims. The California Journal of Mines and
Geology, April 1949, showed Schmidt as the owner of the Copper
Basin Group of mines (copper) and the Iron Hat mine (gold).
Burro lived another sixteen years. He died in January of 1954
at the age of 83 and is buried in the Johannesburg Cemetery.
Was it Schmidt who conquered the mountain, or the mountain that
conquered Schmidt?
The Lone Miner
Robert L. Ripley , cartoonist, chronicler of human oddities,
and author of the "Believe It or Not " features, made
Schmidt's legacy known to the world in the 1940's. Ripley
called Schmidt "The Lone Miner" of the Black Mountain.
Ripley wrote, "Wm. H. Schmidt spent 32 years boring thru
a mountain. The greatest one man mining achievement in history.
He dug the tunnel 2,000 feet long in order to facilitate the
shipment of ore."
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