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Rated: E · Book · Western · #1599234
Humorous account of an Arizona boom town.
                                                                        Clear Creek Gold

         At the exact center on a map of Arizona,often obscured by where the horizontal crease meets the vertical crease, is the town of Clear Creek. It was not always so. Until 1973, the town was known as Clapp Creek, named for the stream of the same name. The brook derived its name from a crusty old prospector called Samuel Mulesnort Clapp. Before Arizona became a state, from 1908 to 1910, Mulesnort prospected for gold along the banks of his eponymous creek. He never brought out more than a roll of dimes-worth of color. After suffering for two years with a bad back, bending over, his hands in the water, Muley quit. He went to Williams, Arizona, where he worked as a bartender and died a happy drunkard.
         The woman responsible for the name change was Rosalind vanVliethoven. She felt the name Clapp was suggestive of a venereal disease and petitioned the Arizona Department of Highways to change the name to Clear Creek.
                1973 was the beginning of a spiritual upheaval in America. It was called “New Age” religion. Rosalind vanVliethoven was one of its first supporters. She wished she could live and work in the heart and Mecca of New Age, Sedona, Arizona, but the real estate prices were too high. She had the happy idea of converting Clapp Creek, or Clear Creek, to a second Sedona. True, it lacked the startlingly beautiful red rocks and imagination-provoking formations of Sedona. In fact, the exposed rocks of Clear Creek were dark and grey, like the forgotten ashes of fiery Sedona. There were no breath-taking views in Clear Creek. No magical vortices of spiritual power or ancient Indian hexes or spells. And Clear Creek was twenty-seven miles south of Sedona.
                Rosalind vanVliethoven was a powerful woman. Average women do not petition the Highway Department successfully. She stood six-feet tall, but thin as a cactus spine. She had designs on an old building in Clear Creek that once housed the town dancehall. She named her store the Turquoise Javelina. In it she sold mostly silver and turquoise jewelry, not all of it real, not all of it Indian made. Some, in fact, were nothing more than polished sky-blue plastic. But Roz had discovered that women shoppers wanted to buy something, and the ersatz turquoise was in their price range. Now they could play cowgirl as Roz did.
                Rosalind vanVliethoven wore a woven straw cowgirl hat, the front and back brims bent severely down to vertical inclinations.  Inserted in the sides of the rattan hatband were three long cock-pheasant tail feathers. Attached to the back of the hatband was a rabbit’s foot. On the front of the hat crown was a large, silver, arrowhead brooch inlaid with turquoise.
                She wore a dozen thin, beaded bracelets on each wrist and a dozen beaded bracelets on each of her ankles. The flexible ankle ones did not reach completely around her legs as they were designed for arms. Around her neck she wore four heavy necklaces fashioned from turquoise nuggets and silver balls. She had silver and turquoise rings on each finger, including the thumbs. So outfitted, she was a walking advertisement for her store. She wore long, flowing, pleated skirts of the type modern cowgirls wore. She wore a gingham blouse with a leather vest. Country singers were never dressed so fine.
                  Her partner in the store, and in life, was Inessa Pring, an owlet of a woman. Inessa was shorter than Roz; her mouth was a tiny slit; her nose hooked and narrow. She had a great cloud of grey curls on top of her head in the Afro style so popular then. To round out the baby-owl look she wore large, red rimmed glasses with circular lenses.
                  A second store in Clear Creek was Rimrock Camping Emporium. Although essentials for camping, such as tents, sleeping bags, cook stoves, camping stools, backpacks, etc., could not be bought there. Proprietor, Lector Hartshorn, stocked small things like tent pegs, water-purification tablets, batteries, clever little collapsible cups, pans for gold seeking, and topographical maps. His customers looked to be hikers using Clear Creek as a starting point on the Yellow Elk Antler Trail at the end of town.
                  The third store was the Native AmeriCAN. It sold Indian-made goods such as blankets, baskets and clay vases. It was bedecked with dreamcatchers, all with dangling turkey feathers. Owner Thane Parker hired Nazario Lottawahteh for atmosphere. Lottawahteh claimed to be the last member of the Sinagua tribe. This was convenient, as he had no skills in an artistic vein, and he could thus expound equally well on Navajo and Zuñi works. Like the Turquoise Javelina, they sold crystals, pyramids and arrowheads for the New Age folk. Native AmeriCAN also sold fudge.
                  Gasoline could not be bought in Clear Creek, or crackers, or liquor, or candy bars. These had to be purchased at the nearest service station/convenience store in J-Bar, at the crossroads of AZ 398 and Highway 42.

                Clear Creek never became Sedona, junior. The stores were looked upon as too specialized for the general public. There was no singular attraction to bring buyers, other than the trailhead for the Yellow Elk Antler Trail. New Agers stayed away in droves. It was, in short, a dismal disappointment for the entrepreneurs who had invested their dreams in the local stores.

                      Then, something magical happened. Whether it was due to the quantity of crystals in town is debatable, but it changed the complexion of the town of Clear Creek.
                      Roz vanVliethoven was hiking on the Yellow Elk Antler Trail, as was her wont. Her long legs enabled her to clear rocks and indeed boulders with a single hop. She was not a hiker, though; she had not brought any equipment to spend time in the wilderness. After two hours she tired, and sat down to rest. The pleasant, little Clear Creek babbled along nearby. Roz took out her bandana and dipped it in the deceptively clear water to mop her burning brow. She saw, instead, a tiny bead glistening along the sandy bottom of the shallows. About the size of a B-B she pulled it out to examine what it could be. It was not a bead as she had first supposed. It was too irregular. Perhaps it was fashioned as an earring bauble to look rough. There was no hole or ring to attach it though. Roz was thinking too single-mindedly, as a jewelry store owner.
                        Roz turned it over and over in her hand, more out of professional curiosity than anything. It was not Fool’s Gold, although the area abounded in iron pyrite. The gorgeous red of Oak Creek Canyon was due to iron oxide. She hiked back to her apartment behind the Turquoise Javelina and showed the find to Inessa. Inessa Pring was not impressed.

                      “It’s not a real gold nugget,” said Inessa.

                      “I know,” said Roz. “But what is it?”

                      “Probably came off some hiker’s jewelry,” said Inessa.

                      “That’s what I thought, too, but it’s not refined enough.”

                      “Throw it away,” said Inessa.

                      “No! It might be real gold and valuable. I’m going to take it to Lector’s, see if he knows how to have it assayed.”

                    “Tommyrot!” said Inessa. “Even if it is gold, you’ll probably find it’s gold plated and inferior quality metal. Throw it away, it’s worthless.”

                      Roz brought her find to Lector Hartshorn. He was overjoyed to think it might be a real nugget.

                      “Mulesnort Clapp searched for gold in that stream for years,” he said. “I’ll be glad to have it evaluated.”

                      And so, Lector Hartshorn took possession of the B-B sized gold nugget.  Lector was not unscrupulous, but he was going broke selling over-priced nothings to hikers who were disillusioned by his store. Therefore, he began to make it well-known:

                    “Gold has been found along Clear Creek!”

                    The Gold Bug that bites, causing Gold Fever, had been unleashed on an unsuspecting population. There were colossal numbers of loafers who had moved to the Phoenix Valley in recent years. They came without prospect of a job, just to enjoy the sunshine and warmth. Here was an opportunity for them to pick up, from the ground, a fortune in gold. Wasn’t Arizona known for mineral deposits: copper, silver and gold? A little research revealed that Samuel Clapp had a mining claim patent on Clear Creek in the early part of the century.
                In a week, Clear Creek, the town, was inundated with treasure-seekers. Hartshorn’s Camp Store was soon sold out of gold-hunting pans and topo maps. The curious came with their wives and bought jewelry at the Javelina and blankets and pottery at the Native AmeriCAN. It was a bigger influx of customers than any Sedona had ever known!
                There was, of course, no gold to be found in them thar hills. Mulesnort Clapp could have told them that. There was the excitement of squatting over a gurgling brook, hoping for some flash of yellow dust. At one moment, the prospectors were lined shoulder-to-shoulder along the banks of the stream, like fishermen on opening day. But not one flake of gold was recovered. Would-be miners who had bought pans and maps and rubber boots, never recouped their investment.

                  Instead, the gold was pouring into the cash register tills of the Clear Creek stores. Roz vanVliethoven got several dozen eggs, hard-boiled them and sold them for two dollars each. She persuaded Inessa Pring to bake cookies which sold, individually Saran-wrapped, for a dollar each. They bought plastic milk jugs, poured out the milk and filled them from the tap with water, a gallon of which sold for $10.
                Thane Parker quickly sold out of fudge and made a trip to Phoenix where he bought pounds of hard candy and sold it for exorbitant prices along with packets of crackers for the gold-seekers to carry back to the fields that didn’t exist.
              The gold-hungry didn’t seem to mind the prices, although a few initially complained, but then, when they realized it was pay, or go without, it sunk in: they had been horn-swoggled.
              So the only beneficiaries of the Clear Creek Gold Rush, like so many rushes before, were the merchants that supplied necessities.
              Roz and Inessa Pring made enough to retire. They sold their inventory of turquoise jewelry to a shop in Scottsdale and moved to an RV Park in Show Low.
              Thane Parker sold his remaining Indian craft merchandise and Nazario Lottawahteh to a tourist-trap chain in New Mexico. Lector Hartshorn decided to stay in the camping-supply business, but moved closer to Phoenix where the crowds came for week-end hiking along the trails on Camelback Mountain.

            Geologists claim gold deposits are frequently associated with quartz-crystal veins. Was it a New Age vortex created by so many crystals for sale that brought good fortune to Clear Creek?

              By the way, the nugget Roz vanVliethoven found, . . . assayed out as Fool’s Gold.



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