Walter Scott lived there in high style for decades. He claimed the castle as his own and said that it sat atop a gold mine. But the truth was he didn’t have a cent.
A DRIFTING GRIFTER
Walter Scott was born in Kentucky in 1872. He left home at 11 to become a cowboy in Nevada and, at 13, got a job working as a water boy for the Harmony Borax Works in Death Valley. By the time he was 18, he was such a skilled rider that Buffalo Bill Cody offered Scott a role in his Wild West Show. For 12 years Scott traveled and performed throughout the United States and Europe. In 1901 he arrived in New York City, where he was supposed to ride into town with the other performers. But he went out drinking instead. Buffalo Bill saw Scott standing drunk (and cheering) along the parade route and fired him on the spot.
He was out of work but not out of ideas. Scott had (unsuccessfully) worked a gold mine for one winter in Colorado, so, well versed in the art of publicity from his days with the Wild West Show, he invented a tale about a gold mine in Death Valley, one of the most remote areas of the country and the perfect place to hide a fictitious gold mine. Scott lured several New York investors with tales of the lucrative mine and convinced them to give him money to excavate the ore in exchange for a percentage of the profits.
A cell-phone app called Date Check lets users run a background check on potential dates.
A PRO AT CONS
There was no mine, but Scott took the money anyway and headed to California. Once there, he lived it up in the towns around Death Valley and in Los Angeles. He stayed in expensive hotels and tipped in large bills.
Even though none of the money went to mining equipment, he continued spinning his tale and investors continued to give him money. When his backers asked why they hadn’t seen any ore or profits from the mine, Scott put them off, saying there had been a mule stampede, a flash flood, or a run-in with bandits.
ENTER ALBERT JOHNSON
One investor, though, started to distrust Scott’s excuses. Born in 1872, Albert Johnson had made a fortune in zinc mining but also made several bad investments. In 1906 Johnson invested in Scott’s gold mine.
Three years passed before Johnson began to doubt Scott’s tales, but in 1909, he traveled to California to see for himself the Death Valley Mine whose riches never seemed to materialize. Scott agreed to take Johnson to the mine, believing the trip would prove too difficult for the Easterner and that Johnson would back out before they ever reached the “site.” But Johnson loved the desert. Ten years earlier, he’d been injured in a train crash, and he still suffered the ill effects of a broken back. The dry climate and the adventure in Death Valley made him feel better than he had in years.
It didn’t take long for Johnson to realize there was no mine, but he had such a good time in Death Valley that he didn’t care that he’d been duped. He kept returning to the area and eventually bought 1,500 acres in Grapevine Canyon. When his wife, Bessie, began accompanying him on his trips and grew tired of the tents and rude shack that served as accommodations, Johnson decided to build a permanent home.
HOME ON THE RANGE
In 1925 Albert Johnson approached Frank Lloyd Wright to design a house, to be called the “Death Valley Ranch.” But Wright’s design wasn’t grand enough for Johnson, so he hired a second architect, C. Alexander MacNeiledge. Over the next five years, the castle started to take shape. And because the home was so elaborate, its construction revived the rumors of Scott’s gold strike, rumors that neither Scott nor Johnson did anything to quiet. In fact, Scott (who by this time had earned the nickname “Death Valley Scotty”) bragged to reporters about the castle and said it belonged to him. Johnson perpetuated the lie and would say only that he was “Scotty’s banker.” So Death Valley Ranch became known as “Scotty’s Castle.”
The word eclair means “lightning” in French.
In 1931 construction on the castle stopped. The 1929 stock market crash had cost Johnson most of his fortune, and he could no longer afford to keep building. The castle stood unfinished.
DEATH (VALLEY) AND TAXES
In the early 1930s, the federal government began surveying Death Valley in preparation for making it a national monument and discovered that Albert Johnson didn’t actually own the land on which he’d built the castle—the boundary for Johnson’s land was one mile away. It took four years for Johnson to get permission from the government, but in 1937, he bought the land he thought he already owned for $1.25 an acre.
Death Valley officially became a national monument in 1933 and the tourists began pouring in. Johnson, still needing money, opened up the castle for guided tours and paying guests. He and his wife moved to a house in Los Angeles, but Scotty remained at the castle, where he entertained visitors with jokes and stories of the Wild West.
Scotty also continued to brag about the gold mine, which brought some unwelcome attention in the early 1940s. The Internal Revenue Service wanted to know why Scotty had never paid any income taxes on this supposedly fabulous wealth. Finally, Albert Johnson had to admit that he owned the castle and Scott never had a gold mine in Death Valley.
END OF AN ERA
Albert Johnson died in 1948, but Death Valley Scotty lived at the ranch until his death in 1954. After that, a charitable organization called the Gospel Foundation inherited the castle and maintained it. In 1970 the National Park Service bought the site for $850,000.
Today, 200,000 people visit the ranch annually. Park officials wear authentic 1930s garb and regale tourists with the tale of Death Valley Scotty and the legend he built on a lie.
Nails the landing! One in 25 babies is born feet first.
TOY FADS
The Federal Communications Commission used to have a rule banning
children’s TV shows based on existing commercial characters or toys.
The reasoning was that kids are impressionable, and such TV shows
would just be long ads. But in 1982, the FCC repealed the ruling.
Result: TV shows designed to sell toys…lots of toys.
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
Description: Radioactive ooze turns four pet turtles into humansize crime-fighting, pizza-eating, jive-talking teens named Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello.
A Fad Is Born! In 1984 cartoonists Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman self-published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a violent but darkly funny comic book. They printed 50,000 copies, all of which sold out in a few weeks. After that, the comic was published regularly for two years but garnered little interest beyond comic book fans. In 1986 advertising executive Mark Freedman discovered the comic and bought the rights from Laird and Eastman, figuring the Turtles could be a cultural phenomenon if they were marketed to kids, rather than older comic-book collectors. A newer, more kid-friendly comic was introduced, along with a TV cartoon series and lots and lots of Ninja Turtle toys. Freedman was right: In 1989, $250 million worth of toys were sold; in 1990, a live-action movie earned $140 million; and in 1991, a Burger King promotion sold 200,000 Turtle videos per week. But all fads are destined to die. Sales plummeted in 1992, and the cartoon was cancelled. A grittier, back-to-basics comic book was released, but it bombed. New cartoons and new toys were released in 2003, but they flopped too. A big failure? Hardly. Since 1984 the Ninja Turtles have generated $6 billion in revenue.
TRANSFORMERS
Description: Giant robots that can “transform” into vehicles crash land on Earth from outer space, and wage battle for “energon” cubes.
A Fad Is Born! In 1982 Hasbro Toys scoured the world for toys on which they could base cartoons, which they could then use to sell more toys. They bought the rights to three Japanese toy lines: Takara Toys’ Car Robots and Micro Change, and Bandai’s Machine Men. The toys were all die-cast metal robots that, with a few twists and turns, became toy planes, cars, or other objects. Nearly 20 million of these toys had been sold around the world—but would they sell in the United States? Industry insiders predicted that Hasbro’s “Transformers” would flop—complicat
ed Japanese toys were untested and parents would balk at paying $10 for a toy car, they said. But the insiders were wrong. Kids loved the strange new toys and action-packed cartoon. (It didn’t hurt that kids could figure out how to make the toys “transform,” while their parents couldn’t.) By the end of 1985, $380 million worth of Transformers had been sold. Sales and interest declined after that, but various versions of the show have been on the air since 1985 and related toys still sell well, with further help from the two recent Transformers films. The success of the toy line helped make Hasbro the second-largest toymaker in the world.
The paper clip was patented by William Middlebrook, a Connecticut inventor, in 1899.
MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS
Description: With the help of huge robot dinosaurs, six teenagers use ninja skills to fight giant monsters sent to Earth by an evil witch who lives in a dumpster on the moon.
A Fad Is Born! The most popular kids show and toy line of the 1990s is an unlikely success story. In 1986 TV producer Haim Saban had an idea: take footage of the robot dinosaurs from the Japanese action show Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger (Dinosaur Squadron Beast Ranger) and combine it with newly shot scenes of American teenagers. The special effects from the Japanese show were cheap and sloppy, mixing miniature models, marionettes, and stuntmen in rubber suits. It took Saban seven years to sell it to a network, but Fox finally agreed to air it. Good move. It was an instant hit in the fall of 1993, becoming the #1 kids show on TV. Bandai was contracted to make toys based on the teenagers and robots, but didn’t anticipate the high demand. How high? Twelve million toys were sold in 1993. By 1996 the show had exhausted all the available Kyoryu footage, so it had to start stealing from other Japanese shows. Now, each fall, Power Rangers changes its entire premise and cast. New heroes, monsters, robots, villains—and toys—are introduced. To date, Bandai has sold over 160 million Power Ranger toys.
Burn it off: Your body temperature rises slightly when digesting a large meal.
SCOTLAND’S DISH
Back in the 1950s, the BRI’s future food historian, Jeff Cheek, took a
trip to Scotland while on one of his clandestine missions with the CIA.
(He won’t tell us why he was there.) But he did write this story of
haggis for us—the origin, the tradition, and the elusive
hunt for a wee, tiny beastie.
WASTE NOT, WANT NOT
Scotland has given the world many gifts: plaid, golf, the poetry of Robert Burns, and Scotch whisky. They have also offered us their national dish—haggis—but there are few takers…once they find out what haggis is made of. It is the offal (the waste parts) of a slaughtered sheep, minced and then boiled in the sheep’s stomach. The dish and name most likely came from the Vikings—the Swedes have a similar dish, hagga, but they use choice cuts of meat to make it. The frugal Scottish farmers, however, wasted nothing, so instead of discarding the lungs, heart, and liver, they used these along with homegrown oats to make haggis. And the Scots have revered it for centuries.
In his “Address to a Haggis,” 18th-century poet Robert Burns called the dish “the Great Chieftain of the Pudding Race.” And it has become a Scottish tradition to serve haggis on Burns Night, January 25, to celebrate the poet’s birthday. Loyal Scotsmen are also supposed to eat haggis on November 30, St. Andrew’s Day, to honor Scotland’s patron saint.
DOWN THE HATCH
Another tradition may explain the dish’s lasting popularity: you don’t eat the haggis by itself—it must be served with “neeps, tatties, and a dram.” Translation: turnips, mashed potatoes, and Scotch whisky. (Possible rationale: everything tastes better if you wash it down with whisky.)
As you might imagine, most non-Scots (and many natives) are quick to reject a dish of innards, so many of the restaurants in Scotland prepare a more palatable version of haggis for their squeamish visitors: it’s cooked in pots instead of stomachs and uses choice cuts of meat instead of the awful offal.
The world record for “haggis hurling” is held by Alan Pettigrew: 180'10".
HAGGIS HUNTING
Now you know where haggis comes from, but gullible tourists are told a different tale by the Scots: The haggis is actually a “wee beastie” that lives in the bogs and glens of Scotland. It’s easy to recognize these little creatures—their legs are shorter on one side than the other. Why? From scurrying sideways up the steep Scottish hills, of course. It’s very difficult to find a haggis, as they only come out at night. And they have very sensitive ears.
“So if ye go huntin’ for the haggis, don’t wear anything under ye kilt. The sounda ye underwear rubbin’ against ye plaid will send ’em divin’ for cover, laddie! And another thing: Before ye go, ye’ve gotta drink lots and lotsa Scotch to mask ye human odor. Them haggis have very sensitive noses, too, ye know!”
Result: Scores of happy, half-naked, inebriated tourists wandering around the countryside after midnight, drinking whisky and swearing that they just saw a real, live haggis…but it got away. “If ye com’ back next year,” you’ll be told, “perhaps ye’ll catch one of them wee, tiny beasties.”
Here is a recipe for traditional haggis.
Ingredients:
• 1 pound sheep liver
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 pounds dry oatmeal
• 1 sheep stomach, scraped and cleaned
• 1 pound suet, chopped
• 3 cups meat stock
• ½ teaspoon each cayenne pepper, salt, and black pepper
Preparation: Boil liver and onion until liver is done. Mince together. Lightly brown oatmeal in a hot skillet, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Mix all ingredients. Fill stomach with mixture, pressing to remove the air. Sew stomach securely, then prick several times with needle so it won’t burst. Slow boil for four hours. Serve with “neeps, tatties, and a dram.”
Something to chew on while waiting for the haggis to cook: A Scottish chef, John Paul McLachlan, created the world’s most expensive haggis for Burns Night in 2005. He marinated Scottish beef in Balvenie cask 191, a 50-year-old Scotch (only 83 bottles exist), and then boiled it in a sheep’s stomach. Cost: $5,500.
Physics fact: If all the empty space around all the atoms in the world disappeared, the entire human race could fit into an area about the size of a sugar cube.
CLOSE
ENCOUNTERS OF
THE CREDIBLE KIND
Investigations into 99% of UFO sightings have resulted in rational and very
Earthly explanations. But then there are those few that simply have no
explanation. Here are three cases that still have the experts baffled.
STRANGE BALL
In 1783 a London, England, man named Tiberius Cavallo, Fellow of the Royal Society, witnessed something that was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. “Northeast of the Terrace,” he wrote in his memoirs, “in clear sky and warm weather, I saw appear suddenly an oblong cloud nearly parallel to the horizon. Below the cloud was seen a luminous body, brightly lit up and almost stationary.” Cavallo described the object as a “strange ball” that was faint blue when he first saw it but then grew brighter and brighter. At one point, it flew high up into the air, then back down, and flew low across the horizon. After a few minutes, “it changed shape to oblong, acquired a tail, and seemed to split up into two bodies of small size.” The object then disappeared over the horizon in a flash, and the last thing Cavallo heard from it was a “loud rumble like an explosion.” Thinking the object may have crashed, Cavallo and other witnesses searched the area, but couldn’t find a craft or an impact crater. One possible explanation: The “explosion” may have been a sonic boom, created when an object goes faster than the speed of sound…but this happened more than 150 years before humans had invented any type of vehicle that could break the sound barrier.
STS 48
While stationed in Earth orbit in September 1991, the Space Shuttle Columbia’s aft-mounted TV camera recorded video of several unidentifie
d objects that seemed to be “swimming around.” The camera was focused on an experimental tether 44 miles away, and beyond that was the horizon of the Earth. The glowing white objects intermittently entered the frame, and then turned and swam around, like microbes swimming in a petri dish. After a few minutes, a white flash appeared in the bottom left corner of the screen and suddenly, as if on cue, the little white objects all turned in unison and zoomed out of the frame. A few seconds later, a streak of light entered the frame and seemed to pause. Then, inexplicably, the camera rotated down toward the cargo bay, which was completely out of focus, then rotated back up…and the lights were gone.
NASA has dismissed the objects as “normal ice and debris” that sometimes float around ships in orbit. But these weren’t floating; they were moving independently of each other and changing direction. And the occasional “debris” NASA referred to is usually found close to the ship. The camera was focused miles away on the long tether, and some of the objects appeared to fly behind the tether. So what were these things? No one knows for sure. They are truly unidentified flying objects.
FLAMING ARROW
On the night of June 30, 2002, a UFO was sighted across nearly all of central China. It was first seen over the eastern province of Jiangsu, then moved west, over Henan province, then Xiaxi province, and then Sichuan. “At 10:30 p.m., an object resembling a flaming arrow appeared in the night sky,” wrote Henan’s City Morning Post the next day. “Then the tail of the fiery arrow opened up like a fan, which emitted bright light. The light-emitting section then changed into a crescent. A fireball on top of the crescent glowed brilliantly. Five minutes later, the UFO disappeared.”
Uncle John’s Briefs Page 24