Steve and I are big fans of David Woodruff and his wife, Gayle. When we learned that he was doing a presentation about the history of The Wedding of the Waters we knew we had to be there.

Father Crowley was one connected Catholic. The descriptions below are his, written after the event. At the end of Day 1, the gourd was carried by Bert Johnson, son of the man who first climbed Mount Whitney. There were lumps in cheering throats as his horse clattered down the traffic-cleared street to the bank, where William Boyd (Hopalong) stood ready to deposit the gourd in the vault until the morning. Wild right?

According to David, the prospector chosen was supposed to be Walter Scott, of Scotty's Castle fame, but in true Scotty fashion, he didn't show.

"Next stage was a covered wagon, one which had been driven from Missouri to Yolo County in 1849. Through the canvas archway peered comely Josephine Breen, descendant of the Donner Party. The water was handed to her by Sidney Chester Doty, grandson of that Captain Ed Doty who had led the Jayhawker party through Death Valley."

"Two miles south stamped a genuine twenty-mule team hitched to one of the original borax wagons for the last time. At the jerk line sat Johnny O'Keeffe, a pioneer mule-skinner. Even the driver of the ox team confessed a thrill when Johnny, the gourd cradled safely on the driver's seat, clicked his tongue and the rippling muscles of the mules marked the thrust with which they began to pull their burden on its historic trek."

"Another mile, and a real stagecoach standing by the highway, Mount Whitney-Death Valley painted on its sides. Ollie Dearborn, who used to handle the lines in the seventies and eighties, rode the box, but Governor Merriam insisted on climbing up beside him. As the State's chief executive rode away, the Doty gun tucked in the crotch of his arm, the Padre at the microphone sang out 'Buck Merriam rides again!' Such was the spirit of those happy days."

"Where the highway crosses the narrow-gauge tracks, eight miles from Lone Pine, an old-time locomotive panted, and behind it all the passenger rolling stock for this branch that the Southern Pacific owns. The car deluxe, in which the Governor traveled, had iron beds and tin bathtubs. With Engineer Jim Henry carefully guarding the gourd in the cab, a wildly cheering mob rocked along to Keeler, scores sitting on the roofs of the cars or climbing to the platforms."

"Early Sunday morning Mass on the church lawn, with the pioneers and tourists and townsmen appareled as forty-niners, cowboys and gay caballeros. Then a race to Keeler, where Jim Henry had his train drawn up at the platform for the water transfer to the 1938 Lincoln Zephyr, the first public appearance of that model in California. Louie Meyer, three-time winner at Indianapolis took the gourd from the engineer and was off with a roar for the point of dedication, on the summit of the Argus Range, twenty-five miles away. There the Governor and the officials were already stationed, close by the temporary telegraph instrument set up by Western Union to receive the President's signal from Hyde Park. Promptly at eleven-thirty it came, clear in the hush achieved by a word of warning to the crowd."

"Out on the clay bed of Panamint Valley rested a great white bird, the first plane to land on the spot now used as an emergency field by TWA. Captain Carey, World War I flyer, was handed the precious water, and the graceful ship was soon skimming the dried adobe surface and spiraling off towards Telescope Peak. The sun had just dropped behind Telescope as the plane appeared over a rise just south of the depression called Badwater, which nestles against the cliffs on the east side of the Valley. With the swoop of an eagle it came straight over the glassy pool, a fine spray shooting down from an opening in the cockpit. TR. Goodwin, Superintendent of Death Valley National Monument, was emptying the gourd. The crystal waters of American's highest lake had been joined with America's lowest; the Wedding of the Waters was o'er."

I have always said that history can be found everywhere. David's presentation really informed and delighted and made me want to know even more.