a trip to death valley, part 5 - scotty's castle

This post is part of a series. To read the first post, click here. To see more Death Valley photos, click here.

Finally the time came to pack our lounge chairs, fold up the Tent Cot, and move on from Texas Spring campground. We only had one day left to explore Death Valley, and it was difficult to choose where to spend our precious and fleeting time. After much debate and deliberation, we headed north to Scotty's Castle in the spring-fed oasis of Grapevine Canyon. What a surprise it was, after driving through miles of the now-familiar barren landscape, to turn a corner and see cottonwood trees! When we disembarked from the RV, we could hear the faint rustling of palm trees too, a welcome sound after days of parched, dusty living.

Scotty's Castle is not a real castle, and it did not actually belong to Scotty. It's a sprawling mansion, built in in the 1920s in Spanish Colonial Revival style for Chicago millionaire Albert Johnson. The compound (also known as Death Valley Ranch) is now part of the national park. Tours are available almost daily, and are the only way to see the inside of this remarkable piece of architecture, which was never fully completed.

Once again we had scheduled our main adventure for the middle of the day, but it worked in our favor this time. The cool semi-darkness inside Scotty's Castle made it the best place to be in the afternoon heat. Dressed in 1930s style clothing, our tour guide led us through the castle and shared the fascinating history of Death Valley Scotty and the Johnsons. The architectural features of the place were intriguing, as was this look into desert life in the 1920s and 1930s, but what really got my attention was the cast of characters and their relationships with one another.

Death Valley Scotty was a con man who originally attempted to swindle the wealthy and upright Albert Johnson, by taking his money as an investment in a nonexistent gold mine. When asked for a return on the investment, he led Albert into Death Valley, assuming this Chicago businessman would give up on the whole scheme when faced with the desert's harsh conditions. Instead, Albert loved the place, and found his health improved there. Albert grew fond of Scotty, too. This was a true friendship of opposites. 

It's the kind of story that makes me wish I could go back in time, to watch them getting to know each other. Imagine going on horseback rides in Death Valley at sunset with these two: the used-to-be-sickly, churchgoing, well-respected city dweller, and the entertaining, shady-yet-lovable desert nonconformist. In their conversations and adventures together they must have learned much from each other. Albert found an alternative to a way of life that wasn't working for him. Scotty found a friend he could trust, and a fancy new permanent residence.

Johnson began hanging out in Death Valley regularly with Scotty, and started bringing his wife Bessie along. Bessie was even more religious and morally strict than her husband, yet she too came to appreciate Scotty and Death Valley. The three of them became fast friends, adventuring in Death Valley and considering themselves lucky to be able to spend time there together. At least, that's what Bessie would have us believe, in her book about living with Death Valley Scotty; it makes them out to be quite the trio of free and loving spirits. I read as much of this book as I could in the Scotty's Castle gift shop, while cravenly hiding from the still-oppressive afternoon heat after our tour was concluded.

Bessie wanted a better residence in Death Valley, more comfortable and less plagued with snakes, and that's how the idea of the Death Valley Ranch/Scotty's Castle came about. Scotty thought this idea of a swanky residence in Grapevine Canyon was wonderful. He immediately began telling everyone that he was building a castle with profits from his secret Death Valley gold mine. Albert confirmed this rumor, describing himself as Scotty's banker. Reporters spread the word that this opulent palace was the home of a gold millionaire. This tale was so universally believed, and Scotty had become so famous, that tourists flocked to the place along with more reporters and even movie stars.

Of course, there is always more to the story than what reporters and castle owners say. Bessie's book, called Death Valley Scotty by Mabel, was probably written for the tourists who came to the castle in the 1930s. Not that she wasn't fond of Scotty, but life among the three of them may not have been as ideal as this literature (and the tour guides now) make it out to be. Undercurrents of discontent were most likely present. Who did Bessie hire to oversee the construction of the castle? Her former sweetheart, Mat Roy Thompson, the guy she was in love with (and forced to break up with by her father) before she married Albert. Mat Roy's son was convinced that taking on this job was responsible for his father's divorce from his first wife. To add fuel to this gossip fire, we also have the questions that were raised after Bessie died an untimely death in a Death Valley car accident while riding with her husband. Many people seemed to think that her death contained elements of the non-accidental.

You can probably see why this place and the people associated with it interested me so much. It has that you-can't-make-this-up flavor to it. If someone would take all the stories and speculations centered around Scotty's Castle and use them as the basis for a series of fictional tales, I'd definitely download those novels to my e-reader right away. Everyone involved is eccentric on some level, often many levels, and the castle itself is an anomaly: a mansion in a desolate desert, bearing the name of a crook who wasn't the owner. The castle's servants reported that Bessie, very religiously observant, used to spend most of her time at Death Valley writing two-hour sermons that she would preach on Sundays while wearing robes and a tiara. Attendance among the servants was compulsory, and they hated every minute of it. 

Albert and Bessie left no heirs when they died. Scotty's Castle was willed to the Gospel Foundation, which Albert had founded in 1946. Eventually, the Gospel Foundation sold the castle and land to the National Park Service. It was stipulated in the will that Scotty be allowed to live the rest of his life in the castle, which he did until his death in 1954. He was buried on a hillside overlooking the compound, his grave marked by a cross. We climbed this hill and checked out Scotty's latest view of the mansion he'd claimed as his own. It was hot up there. From that height we could see the green tops of the trees that had surprised us with their appearance earlier. The castle was dwarfed by the acres of empty desert around it.

There's much more that could be told about Scotty's Castle. This is true of Death Valley in general; for a place that looks empty, it harbors a lot of complex human and geological history. As many photos as I'd taken of this odd palace, there were still more opportunities I had missed. But we were running out of daylight on our last day in the park, so we got back into the RV and drove on to our final Death Valley destination.