Hungry Bill's Ranch

 ranch, interesting place, historic ruins

This "ranch" was established about 1873 by a small group of Swiss farmers who cleared the land, built elaborate terraces and grew food for the miners at Panamint City until 1878 when a huge rainstorm nearly destroyed Panamint City. Hungry Bill was a Shoshone Indian raised in Death Valley, who saw the '49ers when he was a youngster, and was given title to this ranch in payment for his services as a scout in the Modoc Wars. Enormous long rock walls and terraces with black walnuts, pomegranates figs, pears, apples and domestic grapes remain. He was given his name because he frequently showed up at prospectors campfires asking for food.

In his younger years, Bill and his brother Panamint Tom became famous for their horse-stealing raids in the Spanish settlements of Los Angeles. Hungry Bill and his brother later adapted to the ways of civilization, helping build the road across Death Valley's salt pan for hauling borax in heavy 20-mule-team wagons.

A man named William Johnson had started the ranch that Bill later took over. Johnson, whose name the canyon we traveled now bears, had constructed irrigation ditches and terraces, planted fruit orchards and vegetables in the spring-fed canyon.

He made regular trips over rugged Panamint Pass to the silver boomtown of Panamint to sell his wares to hungry miners. When Panamint's boom went bust in 1876, Johnson left the Death Valley country for parts unknown. Hungry Bill, and later his brother, homesteaded the ranch until around 1920, when Bill died.

www.panamintcity.com/panamint/hungrybills.html
www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com/2005/05/27/news/deathvalley....
angeles.sierraclub.org/dps/archives/dps02408.htm
www.hscl.cr.nps.gov/insidenps/report.asp?STATE=CA&PARK=...
www.hscl.cr.nps.gov/insidenps/report.asp?STATE=CA&PARK=...
www.hscl.cr.nps.gov/insidenps/report.asp?STATE=CA&PARK=...
www.hscl.cr.nps.gov/insidenps/report.asp?STATE=CA&PARK=...
www.hscl.cr.nps.gov/insidenps/report.asp?STATE=CA&PARK=...
www.hscl.cr.nps.gov/insidenps/report.asp?STATE=CA&PARK=...