Searching for the Happy Day

First day: Because of my fascination with Wyatt Earp, it was important that we find the mine that was so much a part of the last quarter century of his life. In this blog, I detail our two-day adventure of investigating and searching for the mine--not that the mine is actually lost. Plenty of people have been there over the years, some have actually worked the mine. But finding it is still an undertaking that requires a little bit of research and effort. There are no big "This Way to the Mine!" signs.

Google maps and GPS coordinates are convenient tools of choice these days, but having a topographical map and compass are still the most reliable tools in the desert. Amateurs (like us) often find out, finding the right trail is more difficult that it first looks. The night before our first attempt, I made a plan and printed a google map as our guide. It appeared our destination was less than 2.5 miles off Highway 62 very near the unincorporated town of Earp.

"the Plan"  maps.google.com

This map was 'the plan' I had in mind when we set out. We looked for the 'road' as we returned from Vidal Junction. Unfortunately, because it was nearly 2:30 p.m., my stomach played a role in our misjudgment. On our way past this area in the morning,  I saw a road that looked similar to the turn we needed to make. There were several RV's 'dry-camping' along it. So, on our return, I was looking for RV's and not paying attention to the GPS coordinates. We passed the turn shown above, and, instead, continued another mile to where I saw the dry-campers.

The trail was hard packed and well traveled. Surely this was the road the Wyatt's mine. Why else would anyone be camping out here? My map indicated it was 2.1 miles from the road to the mine so I was pleased that the trail off-road was negotiable in our little Honda CRV.  Instead of having to walk, we could drive. Sunni plugged the GPS coordinates into her iPhone and we agreed to continue down the nice wide dirt road as far as we could. I asked her about every 100 yards if we were getting closer.  She kept saying, "No." The distance seemed to remain the same although the bearing changed from 'northerly'  to a 'more easterly' one as we drove.

Stopping for lunch

The well-traveled road played out after about a mile and Sunni was raising some objections against continuing. Past experience has proven she's right, so I pulled off in a level area and parked. The GPS indicated the distance to the mine was 1.9 miles, even though we had traveled a mile. We were a little discouraged tha we weren't farther along. Sunni asked, "What are you going to do?" I replied, "Let's have lunch and think about it."

From the tailgate of the Honda we ate our lunch. We could see at least three other vehicles on the hilltops around us, each about a half mile away and closer to the highway. We decided to continue to walk up the trail to the conical shaped hill to the north and see what our GPS read there. So we packed our cameras, water and a few other things and headed down the trail on foot.

About 200 yards into our hike we were met by a couple on an ATV, and we asked if we were on the right trail for the Happy Days mine. They gave us dumb looks and pulled out a map. "There are a lot of old mines out here," they said pointing to an area on the BLM map far beyond where we intended to go. They wished us 'Good Luck' and continued on their way.

My first assumption that "The Happy Days" mine was a popular destination was wrong. People dry camp out here to run their ATV's on the numerous desert trails. From the BLM maps they can see there are numerous mines in the area but seem unaware of what was mined or the history connected to them.  I might as well have asked the couple about the Mickey Mouse Mine. The fact that Wyatt Earp had a mine here called the "Happy Days" and had developed over 100 other mines in the area is not common knowledge. Making it all the more important we find the "Happy Days."

Earlier, I had assumed we could walk the 4.2 miles to the mine and back without a problem, but now I had lost some of that optimism. After traveling a mile by car, the mine was only .2 miles closer. And, as we continued walking, I realized that even in February the desert sun can be awfully hot and the dry air makes walking even more strenuous.

Walking in the desert isn't like walking on flat ground.  It is up and down, sand and rocks, vermin and cactus. Four miles would have been a little tough on two old sedentary computer geeks.

We continued walking until we were around the hill on the north side.  Looking up at the top, we could see there were two, maybe three large openings that had to be someone's dig.  Both of us were tired and I suggested we use our remaining energy to climb up the hill and explore the openings. It was obvious we weren't going another mile and a half, much less the mountains on the BLM map the ATVers had.

Sunni decided not to climb and would wait at the bottom. Her ankle has been very weak since she broke it several years ago. It gives out on her when descending a grade -- treacherous.

Took about ten minutes to climb.  Distances are deceiving out here. Close things seem far and far things sometimes seem closer than they are. From the bottom, I would have guessed the openings to be 5 feet and 3 feet in diameter. When I got there, the holes were actually 3 feet and 1.5 feet respectively. They had been excavated and not natural. Inside the smaller hole was a GPS Cache notebook with several entries.  I stood and read a few before descending.


This entry says; "Praise God, 10com., B of R, constitution, Socialism is the antithesis of our founding! WAKE Up America before it's too late. 
God Bless, 
Wally Jolly, the Joker."

Others posted about their day, or the hike, their faith, so forth. Very interesting.

Sunni was waiting for me at the bottom and we made our way back to the car.  Both of us were exhausted and disappointed we had missed the mine.

View from the top of hill looking south. I know it's hard to see, but the arrow is pointing to a black dot.  

Day 2 Searching for the Happy Day

The next morning, I spent more time scrutinizing Google maps trying to figure out where we went wrong and determined that the road we should have been on was a mile west of where we ended up.

The yellow line is our drive.  The red line is our hike up to the top of the conical hill.  maps.google.com

A better way would be to drive to the canal road then east to a wash on the east side of the moutain and walk in. The walk should be fairly flat, most of it would be in the wash. When I started to tell Sunni this, she interrupted and said, "We should have gone up the canal road." Apparently, she had been reading some blogs on the mine. We both smiled and knew we were going to try again. Packing more water, cameras, sweat rags and hats we set out to find the road north to the canal road.

The turn going to the cannel road of of Hwy 62 just happened to be the old Parker to Needles wagon road. We followed it for 1.5 mile to the canal and turned right. Then followed the canal road another 1.5 miles east to the wash, turned off the road and parked the car.

There was no road to the mine from this approach, only the dry wash which made our  walk harder today because the wash bottom was dry sand much like you would find along an ocean shore. But it was also cooler because the sky was slighty overcast. The distance we needed to travel was a little over a half mile.

We followed the wash around the mountain, and because I didn't know exactly where the mine was located, we angled up the side of the mountain a little sooner than we should have.  Upon reaching a ridge we had to decend to a flat area that had some old steel barrels and other metal objects lying around.  I was sure this was the mine site we were looking for, but it took a while to locate the mine because it wasn't visible until you were right in front of it. We truned a corner and there it was, Wyatt Earp's Happy Day mine. No wood post and beams, no "Welcome to the Happy Day Mine," no picks or shovels, just an ominous gapping hole in the ground.

Had we continued to follow the wash around it would have crossed a trail leading up to the mine, so, I suppose we got there the hard way, but a way that I was sure wouldn't miss it.

We weren't prepared, didn't bring rope, didn't bring a flashlight. I'm sure Sunni was sighing with relief. The shaft was heading down at about a 45 degree angle, so I could only climb down into the mine a few feet for a photo op and then took a couple of pictures of what was below and the vent shaft to the right.

Hard to see, but there was a 55-gal. drum at the bottom.

Very fun knowing that I was standing where Wyatt Earp had once worked. A few more pictures and we headed back to the car and out for Pizza and Beer in Parker.  I'm sure Wyatt and Josie would have done the same thing if pizza had been invented back then.  Boy did they have it rough!




But wait! ...there's more!


The "Secret Mine" of Wyatt Earp.  There is evidence that Wyatt discovered a rich gold mine near his desert home of Vidal, California. It is a well know fact that Earp explored and registered at least one hundred mining claim, called the "Happy Day"group.  But on the back of a file copy of a typed letter, from John Flood to Josephine Earp, is a map drawn in pencil and labeled "Diagram Secret Mine, from Vidal to Mine." Nothing in the letter itself refers to the drawing.  The letter is a report to Josephine (Wyatt's wife) about routine affairs. Only one comment refers to mining. "I understand that Vidal is experiencing a boom; perhaps you will remain there and open a store. As soon as we have our mines in operation, that will be an active country."

Photo of the map to the secret mine. http://clantongang.com/oldwest/earp_home.html

According to John Gilchriese, who was a lifelong collector of history on Wyatt Earp, and a good friend of John Flood, Josephine makes occasional references to this lode in her letters to Flood. From Gilchriese's commentary and Josephine's letters, it appears that Earp knew the mine was on an Indian Reservation and a claim could not be filed. He would wait until there were no people in the area and only approach the mine at night. According to Gilchriese, Flood had told him that in a few weeks time in the 1920s, Wyatt mined nearly $16,000 in gold nuggets from the mine or close to 535 ounces of gold. Today's value would be 6.5 million dollars.

An agatized vein of rock cut near the Happy Day mine.

Along with the map, Flood had a pencil sketch of two gold nuggets that he said were drawn by Wyatt Earp on a fragment of notebook paper.

According to Gilchriese in 1955 he and John Flood "believed" they visited the mine. It seems by his statement ('believed') he wasn't sure. If they actually did, they did not mention finding any gold.  (Remember, John Flood's profession was mining engineering.)  I suspect they didn't actually find the mine.

Looking back from the ridge above the Happy Day Mine are two things I wanted to point out.  First, in the distance is the peak I stood on the first day. And second, just below and to the left of the peak in the larger photograph is another mine which we neither saw nor explored.  t is about a half mile from where I took this photograph. In the blow up, you can see Parker Arizona in the distance.

 John Flood was an engineer and personal friend of the Earps who wrote the first and only authorized biography of Wyatt Earp. When Earp died, much of his personal effects were given to John Flood.  Then at Flood's death, all his documents and collections were willed to his friend John Gilchriese,  University of Arizona field historian and lifelong collector of history on Wyatt Earp.

Upon John Gilchriese's death in May of 2004, most of the Wyatt Earp collection was sold at auction in June of that year. This is important and sadly interesting because Earp's history remains (to my knowledge) in the hands of private collectors and not accessible to the public.

So, the "secret mine" location, if it exists at all, to this day remains a mystery.