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Stovepipe Well
Death Valley National Park
The well was once at the intersection of two trails through Death Valley. After sand obscured the spot, someone stuck a piece of stovepipe into the well as a marker.
Bottle House
One of the few buildings still standing in Rhyolite is a house made of glass and adobe. A local saloon owner, Tom Kelly, built this house in 1906 using materials he had in abundance: 51,000 beer bottles and mud.
Rhyolite
Rhyolite was a town near the eastern edge of Death Valley that began as a mining camp in 1905. Fueled by a gold rush, the town grew to nearly 5000 people in just a few years, but the easily accessible gold had all been exhumed in just a few years. By 1910, the mine was operating at a loss. The mine closed in 1911 and the town's population dove to fewer than 1000 peopl. By 1920, the town was abandoned and in ruins.
Tribute to Shorty Harris
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Tribute to Shorty Harris
Fred Bervoets
1994
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Shorty Harris (along with his partner Ernest Cross) struck gold in the Bullfrog Mountains in 1904, and sparked the gold rush that built Rhyolite. This sculpture portrays Shorty as a miner with a pick axe, and artist Belgian artist Fred Bervoets as an out-of-place does-not-belong-in-the-desert alien penguin.
