Re: SP NG 18

Quote

"...either 300 miles too long or 300 years too early."

I love that quote although there is speculation that it was invented by Lucius Beebe rather than spoken by Darius Ogden Mills as attributed.

W. A. Chalfant uses this line in his book The Story of Inyo, copyrighted in 1922 and 1933. And this seems to be the source for all subsequent quotes. However, we do not know where Chalfant obtained the line. The Inyo Independent newspaper gives a contemporary report of Mills visiting Keeler, within months of the completion of the line; but no words are quoted -- only the editor's wish that he had visited the communities on the west side of the valley.

Dick Datin, the former Director of the NSRM, once told me that he had searched for a contemporary report of the line. He could not find one. But, he did find that Lord Baker of the Borax company had remarked that the Tonopah & Tidewater had been built 150 miles too long or 150 years too soon, after taking a ride on that desert road.

Brian Norden