Havasu's early
mining history at
Road's End Camp
located 6 miles
south of Lake Havasu City,
on the California side of the lake
Revised excerpt from
Where the Road
Ends,
Havasu Palms Recipes & Remembrances,
By Bobbi Holmes
Miners Lincoln Baily and his brother came to the area before the first
World War. Other early miners included the Spaniards, who worked the
Kelly Gold Mine. Legend has it that the Spaniards were responsible for
bringing in the original donkeys, ancestors of our wild burros. Local
mines included the Roulette( gold mine), Islander (gold, copper and
silver), Klondike (gold mine), Joker (gold mine) and the Lucky Lady
(part of the Joker.) Twenty men worked the Islander in the late 1920’s.
The first
known owner of Road’s End Camp was J. Fleming, who leased a mine from
the Baily
Brothers. The brothers owned claims throughout the hills, which they
frequently leased out.
Bob Orchard built his miner’s shack in the
early 1930’s, before the lake was created. Today the foundation is under
water.
The various owners of
Road’s
End Camp/Havasu Palms were (in chronological order) J. Flemings, Bob
Orchard, Al and Glenn Sanderson, Bud and Kay Sickles, Homer and Pauline
Willis, and Noel and Mary Keefer, and their children (this group of
owners changed the name to Havasu Palms), and the final owners, Walter
and Caroline Johnson, Luanne King and L.A.Moffet.*
Bob Orchard built the first part of the
original Road’s End store about 1940.
They cooked and sold hamburgers from the
building and lived in a portion of the store. During this time they
would also rent fishing boats.
Although it began as a joke, Bob Orchard
hung a pair of pants from a flagpole to let visitors know he was home.
This unusual
welcome became the official “open” sign. The area pictured is the
Havasu
Palms Store and Marina.
The Original Road’s End Camp Store, about
1943.
The
store was rebuilt twice from Western Electric crates and other recycled
material, and covered with tar paper. The store was at one end, with a
beer box in the middle and a bait and storage room on the end. Gasoline,
which was brought in by the barrel, was sold.
During World War II the lake
was closed off and the area was used for a high artillery and gunnery
range. At that time the lease was from the United States Fish and
Wildlife Service. During the war the proprietors did not have to pay
their lease payments, and they were allowed to come in to protect their
equipment.
The vehicles pictured
are a 1940 Plymouth and
a 1926 Model T, which reportedly originally belonged to Jack Kelly of
the Kelly Mine.
The “The Rattlesnake Hut”
(Photo 1949)
was built by Mr. Fleming in
the 1930’s.
The shack was located on Whipple Point, the location where Havasu Palms
would construct its trailer sites, in the vicinity of space 51. It
earned its name because of the many rattlers that plagued the area. The
shack was frequently rented out to fishermen.
*In
1974 the Federal lease land, occupied by Havasu Palms, Inc., was added
to the nearby Chemehuevi Indian Reservation. Havasu Palms, Inc.’s lease
with the Tribe expired in 1999.