![]() ![]() After a week of speeding around Hollywood and Beverly Hills in a new car, his red necktie blowing in the breeze, reporters proclaimed him "America's number one mystery man." Before construction was complete, Scotty was referring to the ranch as "my Castle." In 1929, Scotty went on another self-promotion binge, claiming among other things that he would set a new world airplane speed record, break the bank at Monte Carlo and purchase an entire string of polo ponies for his personal use at his Castle. In 1926, Johnson decided to build a splendid ranch in Death Valley and began construction in 1927. (It was later revealed that Scotty had arranged the attack himself.) In February 1906, he traveled with Scotty to California, but gunmen ambushed the party along the way, and Johnson never got to see the mysterious mine. Scotty soon spent the $2,500 he was advanced, and Johnson invited him back to Chicago in 1905 to opine on the Death Valley wilderness. Johnson met Scotty in 1901 while he was in the East searching for additional grubstake run. After receiving a mining degree from Cornell University, Johnson made his first fortune from a Missouri zinc mine. Like Scotty, Albert Johnson was born in 1872, the son of a wealthy Ohio financier-industrialist. Having previously supplied him with a few small grubstakes, Johnson grew more interested in Death Valley mining investments. In Chicago, grubstaker Albert Johnson, then treasurer of the National Life Insurance Company of Chicago, was among the crowds at Dearborn Street Station to greet Scotty. At one point along the route, it is said that Walter signed a hotel register as "Scott, Death Valley." It did not take long to before this entry became his lifelong moniker - "Death Valley Scotty." Scotty's Patron The press reacted by inventing dramatic tales of his secret gold mine. "We got there so fast that nobody had time to sober up," was the way Walter described the feat. Arriving in Chicago in just 44 hours and 54 minutes, his train did indeed break the existing record for the 2,265-mile journey. On July 9, 1905, with backing from a Los Angeles mining engineer, he chartered a three-car train, the Coyote Special, at a cost of $5,500. Walter was soon boasting he could break the rail speed record from Los Angeles to Chicago. ![]() When the bag was mysteriously "stolen" before he reached Philadelphia, newspapers eagerly picked up the story, which launched Scott on another of his lifelong loves - his sprees of self promotion. By 1904, after more than $5,000 had been invested, Walter boarded an eastbound train carrying a bag supposedly holding $12,000 in gold dust. ![]() For the next two years Walter faithfully wrote his patron describing his lucrative strikes in Death Valley, but never shipped any ore. Unable to rejoin the Wild West Show in 1902, Walter utilized his performance skills to convince a wealthy New Yorker to grubstake his fictitious gold mine in Death Valley. In 1900, while in New York City, he met Ella Josephine Milius, whom he later called "]ack." They married 6 months later and moved to Cripple Creek, Colorado where Walter unsuccessfully tried his hand at gold mining. Here he learned how to perform, touring the U.S. In 1888, at the age of 16, Walter joined Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show as a stunt rider. After a stint railroading for the Southern Pacific, he returned to ranch life. ![]() In 1885, he took a job with the Harmony Borax Works and quickly rose to the position of swamper on the 20-mule teams that hauled borax across the Mojave Desert. When he joined a crew surveying the California-Nevada boundary later that year, he made his first visit to Death Valley, beginning his lifelong love with this hot, barren region. At the age 11, he left home to join his two brothers on a ranch near Wells in northeastern Nevada.īecause of his experience with horses, Walter signed on with a horse drive to California in 1884. Scott spent his early childhood traveling the harness racing circuit with his family. Scotty (center) with Albert Johnson and his wifeīorn in Cynthiana, Kentucky, on September 20, 1872, Walter E. Scott, who during a lifetime of shameless self-promotion, hustling and swindling, came to be known as Death Valley Scotty. How Johnson's ranch came to be called Scotty's Castle, is a tribute to Walter E. In fact, the popular 32,000-square-foot compound was built in 1927 by Albert Johnson, a wealthy Chicago insurance executive, who constructed Death Valley Ranch for his health. One of the most popular attractions in Death Valley National Park is Scotty's Castle, a two-story Spanish Villa in Grapevine Canyon that is neither a "Castle" nor, "Scotty's." Death Valley Scotty Prospector - Performer - Con Man ![]()
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