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Owens Valley
Newspaper and Historical Pioneer
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All the rough and ready,
gold-crazy exuberance of the old West is captured in the stories
penned by Walter Chalfant. The days when men, good and bad, were
motivated only by the lust for nuggets and gold dust have been
sympathetically yet humorously chronicled by W. A. Chalfant.
Fifty-five years as editor of the Inyo Register in Bishop,
California, gave Bill Chalfant an excellent opportunity to collect
pioneer lore. Word-of-mouth tales, notes, and letters deluged
his office, and for years he wrote up the stories, running column
after column of them in the Register. These same tales
have been collected in three volumes: Outposts of Civilization,
Tales of the Pioneers, and Gold, Guns & Ghost Towns.
These books recount the choicest bits from each of them.
Chalfant's anecdotes are more than mere legends or tall tales,
for, as Horace M. Albright says: "He was a born historian
with the instincts of a careful research technician." People
are his most important consideration - people like Mary McCann
of Bodie who "asked no odds of anybody, and was mannish
in pugnacity as well as in language," and people like Shorty
Harris, desert rat and "single-blanket jackass prospector."
"Those who have a hankering for the tales of the early Argonauts
who thronged west in search of gold will be delighted with the
hardtack and salt pork authenticity of Bill Chalfant's stories."
W. A. (Bill) Chalfant was born
in Virginia City, Nevada, and lived all his life in the High
Sierra. In 1885 his family moved to Bishop, where they started
The Inyo Register, the newspaper of which Bill was editor for
fifty-five years.
His life was full of action - editorial battles fought and won,
civic leadership that is typical of a man who knows well whereof
he speaks and writes. He remembered vividly the boom days of
his Nevada boyhood and had an ever-ready ear for the stories
of his father and his contemporaries. His flair for anecdote
and his love of people, history, and the Sierra country made
the Gold, Guns & Ghost Towns stories possible.
Up to the time of his death in 1943, Bill Chalfant was a lover
of the outdoors. He was in touch with John Muir, the naturalists
from universities, the Sierra Club, government agencies like
the National Park and Forest services - all were his devoted
friends. |
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