GHOST TOWN PACKET with GHOSTS

GHOST-TOWNS WITH GHOSTS     Page 2

_{Smallest newspaper in the world and the only 5 paged one.}

Packet 3 of Pouch 7
—~—
^{This paper is not entered as second class mail. It's a first class newspaper.}

Published at Fort Oliver
T HOUSAND P ALMS, C ALIFORNIA
ON THE NEWS STANDS 10¢ A COPY
But sometimes they don't have them.
ONE YEAR BY MAIL — 4 COPIES 50¢
Darned if I am going to the trouble of mailing it for nothing.

10 Years ..............  $5.00
100 Years ..............$50.00
 This offer expires when I do
            ——~—— 

^{Asbestos editions will be forwarded in case you don't make it.}

Published by
Fort Commander
HARRY OLIVER
1888     1999
  Editor, Humorist, Historian, Publicist, Pioneer, Philosopher, Prospector, Showman, Builder, Hermit, Secessionist and Ghost  

If anybody steals your thunder, make some more.

---

Each day is the only of its kind

THE MAIL

To those people who mess up our cliffsides with such paintings as 'Christ Died For Your Sins" here's hoping they do for theirs. —Wayne Mitchell, Wildlife Photographer

Household Hints

Rubbing pots and pans with garlic will get rid of the smell of fish.

My Roadrunners, say "PACK RAT" packet next.

Lightin' up the Diggin's

This is the Ghost Town edition with some fine Western Ghosts thrown in for good measure. I have been asked, while getting this packet together if I believed in ghosts. To this I must say, "NO I HAVE SEEN TOO MANY TO BELIEVE IN THEM." As I gather these stories I can't help but think of the fun I will have when I get to be one— "gee" I can hardly wait.

I found myself (at a party) telling about things I did 50 years ago, proving I was an old timer. ALL IT TAKES TO BRE AN OLD TIMER IS YEARS — but it will take effort to make this 68th year outshine all the others — so far 1955 looks like a lot of fun — to your Editor.

YOUR EDITOR MAKES THIS ANNOUNCEMENT AFTER A QUARTER OF A CENTURY AS PRESS AGENT FOR THE GHOST OF PEG LEG SMITH.

The Old Boy at a conference Friday, May 13, told me he wants a change. Wants me to start the next quarter with a spirited, bunkun jubilee in a new spot, "Where?" . . . just watch the newspapers.

Peg Leg in New York

My 25 years as Press Agent for a Peg Leg Ghost has at long last caught the attention of New York.

Frank Scully, writing in the New York Variety, May 25, 1955, says, and I quote— "Wonder if Oliver ever heard of the silver pegleg that was buried with Peter Stuyvesant, once a mayor of New York? If he ever does, he may do for the silver market what even Wm. Jennings Bryant couldn't do."

Randsburg's Dancin' Skeletons

I called in all my Ghost-Writers here at Old Fort Oliver to help on this Ghost Town edition.

As we sat around the fireplace in my combination aton-bomb-shelter and wine cellar, the old timers told many of their Ghost stories, all have a slight flavor of the bottle. I have them scattered throughout this packet, not too close together, it was a big night, "for spirits."

Old Jake Topper told about the noisy Ghosts he saw and heard up at Randsburg. Says he saw two skeletons dancing on the tin roof of the old Hubbard Printing Shop.

Determined to get a better look, he climbed a ladder to the roof of the White House Saloon next door, as he stepped off the ladder toward them the two skeletons stopped dancing and reached for their shrowds. Jake said it was sure eerie.

"The tall Ghost but his cold bon'y hand on my sleeve and said to me — as if he could see I was scared — don't ever worry — look at me I would not be here if I had not worried myself to death — I thought I saw a tear in his eye-socket — but it was a moth. Yes sir said the Ghost, I was a newspaper man and I worried and worried, then I got so I worried because I could not remember what I was worried about."

Right then and there — said Jake — I made up my mind never to worry again. So saying goodby and keeping worry out of my mind I started down off the roof, and by gosh, you know I fell down the last three steps of the ladder and broke my ankle.

My Dog Whiskers
_{The Best Dog I Ever Worked For}

So Ghost Dogs Have White Fleas

My Dog "Whiskers" says, dogs are not supposed to have Ghosts — but he thinks something is wrong about this belief — says he picked up some white fleas in Goler Ghost Town miles away from any fur landing field — says those pesky, wingless, jumping insects — have got to have transportation of some kind.

I tried to talk to my Cats about Cat Ghosts, but those independent rascals had their own ideas about the spiritual hereafter — told me they work with the Ghosts through their first nine lives — then come back as women and haunt men — and we use all the tricks we learned as Cats — ME'OW.

GHOSTS, DEMONS, GOBLINS, BOGIES & SPIRITS     Page 3

OLD SLIM LAW

Says he met a Ghost that complained tha he had been dead long enough to be considered "Great" (that is up there) he was not trying to fool other Ghosts — said, he had joined 37 Clubs and Groups and always paid his dues — had served on over a thousand committees and "once had an idea of his own."

[image:] Mineral Spirits
—~—

Dry Camp Blackie

Met a Ghost that used to be a sound-effects man in a radio station. He told him Frankie Lane murdered that "Cool, Cool Water" song, says, it's not Western any more.

Says, he heard a record of "Mule Train" with a horse's whinny dubbed in. Wants to help if he could but thinks the fools don't know how to tune in to The Ghost World.

He told Blackie, that the Ghosts will soon launch a Ghost to Ghost Network and figure they can easily haunt 1,997,799 houses a night in this way.

Editor's note, as if radio is not already driving us loco, their pun'y humor will get anyone off balance.

"One time in order to get money to go to press with my Scrap Book, I took a job as janitor of the Thousand Palms School I might have been a better janitor than editor," "and if I had stayed at it I might have owned the school by this time."

I WAS HONORED

They gave me a party, showed me the plaque and said a lot of nice things like they do if you are dead.   (and one of your family is listening)

Ole J. Nordland, editor and co-publisher of the Indio News, said of me, "He is the desert's gift to editors with sun-dried news sources in the summer, the champion desert philosopher, humorist, called the biggest liar outside of Russia, the greatest practical jokester, and maybe just plain nuts, and if he is any of these things he's greater than any of us."

Nordland said his research led him to the conclusion that Oliver tells the truth more often than he lies, and his lies contain more truth than falsehood.

Gee— I felt like I was a Ghost and shouldn't be there.

SQUAW WOOD   They don't know what it is

Old Blue Montain Hard Rock, says, the old Forty-Niners thought they had hard times, but they were nothing compared to the Hardships the Uranium Prospectors have to put up with now adays, they ride around in steam heated cars with Radios to listen in on, while they keep an eye on the meter-dial of a Scintillator, and at night they pull off the road and camp in a House Trailer with Butane stoves and lights and Electric Blankets and Electric Shavers. —J.W. Lovejoy

ARIZONA
  _{Territorial Days}

The Old Territorial Hotel still stands in Yuma, a block from the Government Prison Ruin. Its name was changed two times after Arizona became a state.

The old hotel was crowded and the only room vacant was one out over the river's edge, and with the reputation of being haunted. But the man was weary and decided he'd chance the room anyway. "By the way," he inquired of the evil looking attendant conducting him, "has anything unusual ever really happened in this room?" "Not for over 30 years, sir," was the reply. "And what happen [sic] then?" asked the guest. "There was a gentleman who spent the night in it," replied the other, "and he showed up for breakfast the next morning."

Coyotin' 'round the rim

Two night watchmen of adjoining mines up at Randsburg have for years met a midnight and always greet one another with this bit of happy repartee.

"I'm a great lover of ghost stories."

"So'm I, pal. Let's shake."

You can't shake off a genuine sense of HUMOR

Your old editor climbed the hill to see "Sky-Eye Jones" the old timer that fixed himself a telescope out of a hollow log. I greeted the 90 year old, (as I shook his trembling hand) "And how is "Sky-Eye" today?" "Thank you" said the old timer, "I am well quite well, but this shack, it's sure jumpy, the jumpiest shack I was ever shook-up in. If it keeps trembling it will totter off its foundations. The shack is becoming almost uninhabitable, and I think I will have to move out of it soon. But I am quite well, quite well — I see to damn many shooting stars — but I'm quite well."

EAVESDROPS

George Gobel TV Comedian gives with some Horse and Buggy Humor— that is the kind that stays funny.

About his honesty:

"If I tell you a lie, I tell you it's a lie — unless I'm lyin'."

I know what my capacity for drinking is but I keep gdettin drunk before I can reach it."

"I only drink on special occasions. Special occasions like —well— like when the sun goes down." —Erskine Johnson

MUST HAVE BEEN A GOOD GIRL

The names of most dance-hall girls have been forgotten. One exception is Anna King, who was murdered in a dance-hall brawl at Bonanza and was buried by a committee of miners from Custer who learned that respectable townsfolk did not want her bones to lie in the town graveyard. They planted her well to one side in a square of earth marked by four pine trees. So magnificent were these trees that Anna's grave became eventually a state beauty spot cared for by the Department of Forestry.

NO SUCH THING AS - GHOSTS -
_{Say's Liminatin' Lem}

I didn't believe in ghosts either, so I said I'd stay in the haunted house. I moved right in and the first night at three o'clock in the morning, a ghost came through the wall as if there weren't no wall there at all.

What did you do?

I went through the opposite wall the same way.

Lem says this is not that old Ghost Story— but it's the Ghost of it.

Uranium wihout a counter

Some forty years ago when SHADY MYRICK of Randsburg was busy with his quest for gold in the Lead Springs area of the Mojave, before he made his big strike, he told me HOW TO FIND PITCHBLENDE ORE at night, at that time there was no URANIUM nor Geiger counters. Just look for a blue white fire on a low volcanic hill at night in the hot summer time.

"What is this black stuff good for?" I asked.

"Oh nothing much" he answered. "It takes a lot of that to make a little Radium."

Now that Pitchblende is worth $3.50 a pound, I may in the hot months search at night for what the old timers call "GHOST FIRE." —INDIAN TOM. "Lipman"

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE

COLORADO'S   _{DAY TIME GHOST}

Much of this story is known to folks of Colorado as this Black Ghost's claim to fame is due in a great part to his association with the most colorful names in its Ghost Town history.

In Jim Town oft called Gin Town; on June 10, 1892, Bob Ford, slayer of Jesse James, was shot to death in his own saloon in much the manner that he had murdered his bandit chief.

At Ford's funeral, which was conducted by the sporting gentry of the town, there were no flowers but quantities of wine and champagne.

Later Ford's body was removed and shipped to his home in Missouri, and that same day his open grave (still warm) was used to bury a Negro murderer.

Ford's slayer, a youth named O'Kelly, had killed Ford, he said, to avenge Jesse James' death, but feeling ran high against him. He was saved from lynching by the intervention of the renowned "Soapy" Smith, who in the camps of Colorado and later during the Klondike Gold Rush at Skagway, Alaska built up a lucrative racket by hawking soap on corners. His "spiel" sonsisted of the startling announcement that many of his cakes of soap were wrapped in $50 and $100 bills and that a chance to draw for them cost a mere $5. Some cakes were wrapped in bills, to be sure, but no one but Soapy's "shills" or come-on men, ever had the luck to draw one.

History was made! That same night "Soapy" Smith was run out of town, and out of Colorado. And it is said (in ghost circles) that the Negro Murderer stirred restlessly in his grave and that his Ghost got up and left its grave before sundown.

Many old time Colorado Miners have told your Editor they have seen this black shadowy Ghost dart in and out as they travel along rocky trails in the deep canyons (the only Ghost that don't wait for nightfall.)

Your Editor got 99 per cent of this yarn from Histories of Old Colorado Ghost Towns. "Guess" what my one per cent is? — but don't write me — as I candle each letter — if it has no money in it I do not open it — so hold your breath for the three months and wait for the answer in the next packet.

Mexican Flying Sombrero   Lands in Salton Sea

As told by Old Captain Catnip Ashby — who scoffs at Ghost Stories.

I saw her coming in carried by a high wind, it was manned by a crew of cucarachas, who brought it to a perfect landing, whirlig as it was after it hit the water, yet they guided it to the shore safely. One of the cockroaches (it sounds better in Spanish) one of the cucarachas with a moustache, the pilot I think, told me they had tried flying saucers but it was too hard to hang on. Then he said "See each of my crew carry a 'sticly' cocklebur to hang on to, to keep from whirling off into space and you know you get lonesome if you are all alone in space — I think there is too much space, don't you?"

And, said Catnip, I had to agree with him.

Francis Bret Harte's Cat and Fiddletown Dog

We were being shown through The Old St. Charles Hotel at Fiddletown, a Ghost Town up in the Mother Lode. As the Guide directed us, saying, "This is the room and desk where Francis Bret Harte wrote his famous masterpiece, "The Luck of Roaring Camp,' as his cat (a constant companion) lay happily on the window-sill and purred, from his chair he could look out this window and view the scene of the story."

"Indeed! Why, last year you showed us another room on the other side of the Hotel and you told us his dog (a constant companion) was always at his side and he had written "The Outcasts of Poker Flat,' looking from that window."

"Quite right, quite right Sir — but that room is being repainted this week — the Dog is having a week off — and you Sir are sure spoiling my vacation — this week I was not going to talk or think about that dam' Dog.

4       HAUNTED GHOST TOWNS Packet
_{This page dedicated is to the World's Greatest Optimist - the Desert Prospector}

Harry Oliver's DESERT RAT SCRAP BOOK

The Day They All Come Back
Easy to read ONE ACT Play   by Robert Finch

ROBERT FINCH is a talented dramatist who combines a high regard for his craft with a deep, sure knowledge of his locale and its people. As you read this play you will know them to be as genuinely AMerican as Ham and Eggs and as Western as a Silver Dollar.

It is my hope that printing this Great Ghost Town play might encourage some of our Western Communities to stage shows backgrounding their own early life.

Robert Finch has written a dozen one act Westerns. CAUTION the plays are protected by copyright law, including professional, amateur, radio, etc. but the fee is small, if you wish to add one to your "Old Timers Day Celebration."

Write Robert Finch, care, Play Department, Greenberg: Publisher, 201 East 57th Street, New York 22, N.Y.

THE DAY THEY ALL COME BACK
  A ONE ACT PLAY BY ROBERT FINCH


           CHARACTERS
HARRY,       a barroom pianist
KERRIGAN,       an old gambler
POP,              an old miner
LILY,      once an entertainer
CLAYT,                 a miner

FROM OLD CALICO GHOST TOWN

In its heyday Calico was wild and the duties of Sheriff and Undertaker were numerous.

One morning the Undertaker found a dead donkey in front of his porch. He called on the Sheriff and asked him, what he should do with the body.

"Bury him, you're the undertaker aren't you or are you an Ass too?"

"Yes, yes, I know, but it's the usual thing to notify his mearest of kin, are you sure you do not feel you should send flowers?" —As told by Calico Post

HIGHGRADED

A couple of ghosts in Oklahoma wandered into a roadside drive-in and demanded a whiskey-and-soda. "This is a dry state," snapped the proprietor, "and we don't serve spirits." —Bennett Cerf

HISTORICAL
CALICO GHOST TOWN
Yermo, California
13 Miles East of Barstow

Calico in the 1880's was the largest silver mining Camp in the southwest. Almost obliterated by time, it is now being restored by Knott's Berry Farm. An ideal outing for the rockhound, and camping groups.

OPEN DAILY

One Year $2.00     Single Copy 25¢
_{Grubstaker: The late Scotty Allen}

The Pony Express

Stories of Pioneers and Old Trails

Herb S. Hamlin, Editor
Address All Mail to

P.O. Box 326
SONORA, CALIFORNIA

Published Monthly at Placerville, California, Formerly Hangtown

Only One World Famous

VALERIE JEAN

DATE SHOP

11 Miles South of Indio on Highway 99
        or Please Mail Your Order

1-lb. Date and Desert Confections. $1.85
1-lb. NEW "Date Crunchie" Fudge...  1.85
3-lbs.  4 Varieties Rare Dates....  3.15

^{Including Delivery — write for Folder}

VALERIE JEAN DATE SHOP
Thermal, Calif.

THE GHOSTS OF OLD VIRGINIA CITY

Virginia City Ghosts are different, says, Paul Smith of the Museum of Memories. Telling of the ghost of an old Doctor that steps out on the stage at Piper's Opera House at 13 pulse beats after midnight every Friday the 13th and asks "IS THERE A PATIENT IN THE HOUSE?" —H.O.

THE INDIAN GHOST of THOUSAND PALMS

The ghost of Chief Pushawalla watches Paul Wilhelm of Thousand Palms Oasis. The Chief traded this oasis to Paul's dad (the Lucky Dutchman) about 50 years ago for a buckboard and two mules. The crazed mules died later, with the Chief, because he couldn't get them out of the wash. This was during the cloudburst of 1899.

Yes, the Chief watches Paul as he digs into the old Indian graves and watches him as he plants palm seeds and tiny palms between the giant palms of 200 years. He laughs at the little plants for Paul is trying to gild the lily. Can't do much to what is already the prettiest darn Oasis on this Desert. —Reprinted from Packet 1 of Pouch 2

SUPPOSITION

A Ghost in Virginia City told your editor that there is no truth to the belief that breaking a mirror is bad luck — fact is, he said, you are sure you are going to live at least another seven years, to have that bad luck.

TUMBLEWEEDS

Then there is the Ghost of the absent minded professor who rolled under the dresser and waited for his collar button to find him.

I am not so much irked by those who hate cats as by those who apologize for them. —Cats Magazine Guy Bogart

The Flying Ghost of Picacho

Jim Dugan went up in Colorado RIver's only steamboat explosion and came down on both sides of the river. *Steamboat the 'General Jessup" year— 1859.

Some old timers at Picacho say, the Ghost gets together some times in Arizona, some times in California, and has been seen meeting himself face to face in the middle of the river. *Paddlewheel Days (page 101) in California.

WORST ARE THE GHOSTESS SAYS DUSTY

I ain't speekin' to any Ghost or Ghostess.

I saw a pretty Ghostess sitting on a sand dune, in a Mirage, once — but she said she didn't believe in human beings — I was glad when the wind turned the Mirage into a Dust Devil — snippy she was.

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GHOST TOWN

A Great Collection of Relics
A Faithful Reproduction of a Composite Old West Ghost Town

OPEN DAILY 12 NOON to 9 P.M. — COME AND HAVE FUN AND A GOOD DINNER

KNOTT'S BERRY FARM

BUENA PARK, CALIF.
        22 MILES SOUTHEAST
        OF LOS ANGELES

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VISIT FAMOUS

Scotty's Castle

Finest Accommodations
EXCELLENT MEANS
_{Gasoline and Oil}

Open the Year 'Round

Showplace of

DEATH VALLEY

DESERT RAT SCRAP BOOK     5

All text was lovingly hand-entered (no OCR scans) by RIC CARTER who stakes a claim to the copyright for the layout and markup, but not to the contents, which remain the property of the heirs and estate of Harry Oliver, wherever they may be. Hopefully all the original typos were preserved and not too many new ones were introduced, but y'know how it goes...