Joshua Tree National Park (Part 1)

Joshua Tree National Park protects 795,156 acres around the convergence of the Mojave Desert and the Colorado Desert near Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley in southeastern California. The Joshua Tree Visitor Center is located in the village of Joshua Tree by the West Entrance Station of the park while the Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Center is in Twentynine Palms by the North Entrance Station, the Cottonwood Visitor Center is by the southern entrance near the intersection of Interstate 10 and Pinto Basin Road, and the Black Rock Nature Center is at the Black Rock Campground in Yucca Valley.

The Mojave Desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii agassizii) became the face of animal conservation at Joshua Tree National Park after it was listed as a threatened species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1990.

Joshua Tree National Park is dominated by two deserts, the higher and cooler Mojave Desert in the west and the lower Colorado Desert in the south and east. The Mojave Desert lies above 3,000 feet and provides crucial habitat for the park’s namesake Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia), which are common in the western half of the park. The Colorado Desert lies below 3,000 feet and is an extension of the larger Sonoran Desert characterized by ocotillos, ironwoods, palo verdes, and teddy-bear chollas. The Little San Bernardino Mountains in the southwest of the park exceed elevations of 4,000 feet and support communities of California junipers, Muller oaks, and pinyon pines. The park is also home to the California fan palm (Washingtonia filifera), the only palm native to California. Five of the 158 California fan palm oases in North America can be found within the park.

The deserts of Joshua Tree National Park are partially a product of the rain shadow effect caused by high mountains in the west such as Mount San Jacinto and Mount San Gorgonio. As storms pass over these peaks, the air rises and cools, releasing precipitation on the mountains, and leaving little remaining moisture for the area to the east. The aridity of the park is also compounded by its latitudinal position between 33 and 35 degrees north under the North Pacific High pressure cell. As hot, humid air rises from the equator, it cools and loses most of its moisture in the upper atmosphere via condensation and precipitation before it sinks back down at around 30 degrees north and south. The dryness of this air contributes to the formation of deserts near these latitudes.

The oldest rocks in Joshua Tree National Park, such as Pinto gneiss, formed about 1.7 billion years ago and are exposed to the surface in parts of the Pinto, Cottonwood, and Eagle Mountains. Perhaps the most notable geological features in the western portion of the park are the hills of solid rock and mounds of loose boulders scattered among the Joshua trees that attract rock climbers the world over. Between 250-75 million years ago, the movement of tectonic plates heated magma that oozed upwards and cooled beneath the surface. These plutonic intrusions formed monzogranite which slowly developed a system of rectangular joints. Roughly horizontal joints formed from the erosion of miles of overlying rock while vertical joints formed partly from the stress of earthquakes. As the monzogranite uplifted, groundwater percolated down and chemical weathering widened the joints, rounded the corners and edges, and transformed the outside of the rocks into a soft clay. Over time, the once rectangular blocks turned into rounded boulders that became exposed at higher elevations in the park as flash floods and gravity eroded away the surface soil and softer rock. Other hard rocks like Pinto gneiss were also exposed as the softer, looser debris was transported away to form alluvial fans and bajadas at the mouths of canyons and basins between mountain ranges.

The Coxcomb Mountains that make up the easternmost range of Joshua Tree National Park run north-south and are part of the larger Basin and Range Province, which formed due to tectonic extension that began about 17 million years ago. The Little San Bernardino, Hexie, Pinto, Cottonwood, and Eagle Mountains in the park are part of the Transverse Ranges which run roughly east-west through southern California. These five mountain ranges formed about 11 million years ago as the result of tectonic activity along the San Andreas Fault, which runs southwest of the park. Several other faults, including the Dillon, Blue Cut, and Pinto, crisscross the park and have caused occasional earthquakes. The hard, impermeable rock at some of these fault lines forced underground water upwards to the surface where they formed the five oases that support the park’s California fan palms.

During the Pleistocene (2.58 million-11,700 years ago), the area that is now Joshua Tree National Park had a wetter and cooler climate which allowed Columbian mammoths, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, ground sloths, horses, camels, and llamas to exist here. The first known humans to reside in and around the park area were people of the Pinto Culture who hunted here from 8000-4000 BCE. They left behind cultural artifacts in the Pinto Basin such as spear points and stone tools that suggest they subsisted on hunting game and gathering seasonal plants. Later Native American groups such as the Serrano, Cahuilla, and Chemehuevi peoples eventually came to live in small villages within the present-day park boundaries near sources of water like the Oasis of Mara at Twentynine Palms. The Mojave also used local resources as they trekked along “salt trails” between the Colorado River and the Pacific coast. The Oasis of Mara was first settled by the Serrano who called it Mara, or "the place of little springs and much grass." It is said that a medicine man instructed them to settle there and plant a palm tree for each boy that was born, resulting in 29 palm trees during the first year. The most recent of the later indigenous groups to arrive were the Chemehuevi who migrated from the Great Basin by 1500.

As Anglo-Americans encroached on the area in the late 19th century, indigenous populations drastically declined due to disease and conflict. A war between the Chemehuevi and the Mojave from 1864-1867 forced the Chemehuevi to retreat into the desert with some occupying the Oasis of Mara. Many of the surviving natives eventually moved to reservations established in the vicinity. By 1913, the Chemehuevi abandoned the Oasis of Mara and Native Americans no longer occupied the park area. Today, the Chemehuevi, Cahuilla, Serrano, and Mojave peoples are enrolled in 15 federally recognized tribes including the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Augustine Band of Cahuilla Indians, Cabazon Band of Cahuilla Indians, Cahuilla Band of Indians, Chemehuevi Indian Tribe of the Chemehuevi Reservation, Colorado River Indian Tribes, Fort Mojave Indian Tribe of Arizona, California, and Nevada, Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeño Indians, Morongo Band of Mission Indians, Ramona Band of Cahuilla, Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians, Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians, Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians, Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians of California, and Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation.

In 1772, future governor of the Province of Las Californias, Pedro Fages, led a Spanish expedition into the San Bernardino area in pursuit of indigenous Christian converts who had escaped from a mission in San Diego. This was the first group of Europeans to sight Joshua trees, which they referred to as date palms. Alta California and Baja California became part of Mexico after the country declared independence from Spain in 1821. In 1823, Captain Jose Romero led a Mexican expedition from the San Gabriel Mission in Los Angeles to find a Native American path called the Cocomaricopa Trail in an attempt to discover a land route between the southern California coast and Sonora. Although the expedition ultimately failed, the group is thought to have reached the Eagle Mountains that are now part of the park. In 1826, Jedediah Smith of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company led the first group of American fur trappers and explorers west on the Mojave Trail. In 1829, Mexican merchant Antonio Armijo established the Mojave Trail as the western portion of the Old Spanish Trail between New Mexico and Los Angeles. In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican–American War and forced Mexico to cede nearly half of its territory to the United States, including California.

In 1848, gold discovered in the Sierra Nevada foothills set off a flurry of Anglo-American migration to California. It may have been around this time that the Joshua tree obtained its current name. The plant was long known by the local indigenous peoples who ate its flower buds and seeds and used its leaves to make baskets and sandals. The Cahuilla called it hunuvat chiy’a or humwichawa, the Mojave referred to it as huêlye, and the Chemehuevi knew it as tsoarömpö. According to legend, Mormon pioneers of the mid-19th century named the plant after the biblical figure Joshua because they thought that its limbs resembled his outstretched arms guiding them westward to the promised land. Scientists once classified the Joshua tree as a member of the Lily family but modern DNA studies have placed it within the Agave family. Accurately determining the age of a Joshua tree is difficult as it is a species of yucca that lacks the growth rings associated with true trees. Rough estimates can instead be made based on height since the plants grow about half an inch to three inches per year. Some scientists believe that the average lifespan of Joshua trees is about 150 years but many plants may be much older since the largest individuals reach heights of over forty feet.

Some gold mining occurred around Twentynine Palms in the late 1860s but the first Americans to use the future park area consistently were cattlemen who arrived in the 1870s. These settlers grazed cattle on the tall grasses that grew in the western, higher elevations that received greater rainfall than they do today and used Joshua tree limbs and trunks to construct fences and corrals. Oliver Smith was the first to run cattle near Quail Springs from 1870-1876. By 1879, William "Bill" McHaney drove cattle into the Lost Horse, Queen, and Pleasant Valleys. To Bill’s dismay, his brother, James “Jim” McHaney, organized a gang to rustle cattle from Arizona and Mexico and return stolen horses to those areas. The gang operated from Cow Camp on the western end of the Wonderland of Rocks and kept stolen herds penned in Hidden Valley. The nearly 50-mile distance from the nearest law enforcement in Banning allowed the gang to continue their illegal activities well into the 1890s.

The 1890s brought an influx of miners to the area, kicking off the most productive period of gold mining which lasted until just before World War I. Over time, seven major mining districts were established in or around the current park area with mines yielding gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, and iron. Many miners used Joshua trees and other vegetation as a source of fuel for steam engines to process ore. One early mine was the Iron Chief Mine, which was founded by William Stevens and Thomas Doffelmeyer around 1892. The mine was briefly sold in 1897 before the men reacquired it and continued operations until 1902. The most successful mine in the park area was the Lost Horse Mine, supposedly named after a nearby valley where Johnny Lang had a run-in with the McHaney gang while looking for a lost horse. The original quartz vein was discovered by Frank Diebold who sold it to Lang in 1893 out of fear that the McHaney gang might take it with violence. Lang named the mine, partnered with three others for protection, filed the claim, brought in a two-stamp mill to process ore, and set to work. In 1895, Lang’s partners were bought out by Thomas and Jepp Ryan who included their brother, Matthew Ryan, Jr., in the venture for financial backing. Lang was allegedly forced to give up his rights to the mine after he was caught stealing gold. The Ryan group patented the mine in 1897, replaced the two-stamp mill with a ten-stamp steam-powered mill, and built a water pipeline from Lost Horse Spring to ease the milling process. By 1907, the mine was tapped but it continued to receive occasional attention as others reworked its tailings until the 1930s. It is estimated that the Lost Horse Mine produced 10,500 ounces of gold and 16,000 ounces of silver throughout its lifetime, which would be worth over $4,300,000 today. Another notable early mine was the Desert Queen Mine. Lost Horse Mine employee, Frank L. James, discovered the vein in 1894 while prospecting in the Queen Valley on his day off. Unfortunately, the McHaney gang caught wind of this and James was shot and killed by gang member Charles Martin, who claimed self-defense and was acquitted of the murder. Jim McHaney briefly took over the Desert Queen Mine and brought in outside investors to develop it. After failing to keep up with payments, he lost the mine to the bank, and sold his cattle interests to George Meyers. In 1900, Jim McHaney was convicted of counterfeiting $20 gold coins out of lead plated with gold and sentenced to three years in prison. He later died in 1907.

The demise of the McHaney gang allowed more legitimate cattle businesses to establish in the future park area. Ranchers dug wells and built rainwater catchments called “tanks” to supplement what little water was naturally available from springs. Miner and cattleman C.O. Barker partnered with former Sheriff of San Bernardino County Will Shay to form the Barker & Shay Cattle Company. Barker constructed the Barker Dam to collect rainwater for the cattle and horses in 1902 and bought out George Meyers’ cattle interests in 1905. Thomas and Jepp Ryan also started running cattle in the park area as did Bill Keys, who moved to the area in 1910. Keys quickly became friends with Bill McHaney, who vacated ownership of his homestead in 1916, allowing Keys to file a claim on it. He also acquired the Desert Queen Mine through a property wage settlement in 1917 following the death of its owner, William Morgan, two years prior. Keys renamed the former McHaney homestead the Desert Queen Ranch and incorporated Cow Camp as part of his ranching operation. He came into conflict with the Barker & Shay Cattle Company when his homestead claims blocked their herds from accessing the reservoir behind Barker Dam. This resulted in Keys shooting and wounding one of their employees in a non-fatal incident. Barker and Shay turned over their cattle business in 1923 to a series of short-term operators until the interests were acquired by Katherine Barry and Harry Stacey in 1929.

Although precious metal mining declined in the park area after World War I, the Great Depression and adoption of cyanidation brought desperate people back to prospect new mines and rework old pits and tailings. The Gold Crown, Mastodon, and Silver Bell mines were established during this time. Miners who could only partially process their ore often paid a fee to have it further refined at another millsite. Bill Keys took advantage of this by setting up a gasoline-powered two-stamp mill known as the Wall Street Mill at his ranch in 1932 and ore processing became his largest source of income during the Great Depression. As less successful miners abandoned their efforts, Keys snatched up their claims and expanded his holdings. After Joshua Tree was proclaimed a national monument in 1936, Katherine Barry and Harry Stacey sold off their cattle. A few ranchers continued to use the monument lands, notably James Cram who watered his herds at Cottonwood Springs and Keys who grazed his cattle at the Lost Horse and Pleasant valleys, but this ceased during World War II.

Hidden Valley Trail is said to pass through a gap blasted open by Bill Keys to allow his cattle to graze the valley a few months before Joshua Tree was proclaimed a national monument in 1936.

Without a doubt the most important figure for the protection of the future park area was Minerva Hamilton Hoyt. She and her husband, Dr. Albert Sherman Hoyt, lost an infant son which prompted their move to South Pasadena, CA in 1897. As an avid gardener, Minerva took an interest in the desert plants of southern California. Following Albert’s death in 1918, Minerva found solace in visiting nearby deserts and became alarmed by the considerable damage brought by automobile traffic. Joshua trees were commonly used in manufacturing, shot up for target practice, or set on fire to act as a beacon for those driving through the desert. The rising popularity of landscaping with desert plants in the 1920s led to the removal of so many cacti and palms that parts of the deserts still have not recovered. From 1928-1930, Hoyt exhibited desert plants in New York, NY, Boston, MA, and London, England in order to increase awareness and support for desert preservation. In 1928, the California State Park Commission hired landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to identify natural areas that the state could acquire to expand its park system. Olmsted recruited Hoyt to the survey team, which recommended 125 areas for consideration as potential state parks in the Olmstead Report published in 1929. Hoyt recommended the creation of large parks at Death Valley, the Anza-Borrego Desert, and the Joshua tree forests of the Little San Bernardino Mountains. The Olmstead Report provided critical information for the state as well as the National Park Service (NPS) which also sought to create parks in California. Director Horace Albright made it a priority for the NPS to establish parks protecting four distinctive desert plants of the American Southwest: the saguaro cactus, the organ pipe cactus, the California fan palm, and the Joshua tree. In 1930, Hoyt founded the International Desert Conservation League to promote the preservation of desert habitats through the creation of parks. Mexican President Pascual Ortiz Rubio even called her the “Apostle of the Cacti” during a meeting about preserving the cactus forest of Tehuacán, Mexico.