First Sketch Made in the West

A painting inspired by Thomas Moran’s sketch of Green River tops Christie’s auction of William Koch’s Western artworks.

Christie’s New York still holds the artist record for Thomas Moran, for another Green River oil, painted in 1878. A collector bid $15.8 million for it seven years before the above Green River 1896 oil hammered in at $7.5 million. Editor's Note: Despite Moran's title, his sketch was not the "first" made in the West. George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, Alfred Jacob Miller and Albert Bierstadt were among the other artists who drew earlier sketches during their travels to the American West.

Written by Meghan Saar
True West Magazine

Before 34-year-old Thomas Moran reached his ultimate destination of Yellowstone in Wyoming Territory in the summer of 1871, he stepped off the Union Pacific Railroad and viewed the towering cliffs of the Green River. The artist completed a field study that he later inscribed, “First Sketch Made in the West.”

Moran would return to this first Western subject of his many times during his storied career. His 1896 oil of Green River, featuring a troop of American Indians in the lower right, was exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and appeared at auction for the first time, on May 21, 2015, at Christie’s New York. Not surprisingly, this rare work of art landed the top bid, at $7.5 million.

The painting was sold from the collection of American businessman William Koch, who is most famously known in the Old West collecting arena for paying $2.1 million for the only known photograph of outlaw Billy the Kid. Koch has been collecting Western artworks for an Old West town he hopes to build, but he ran out of room and decided to put some of the treasures on the auction block.

The Green River oil was painted a quarter century after Moran spent five weeks with Dr. Ferdinand Hayden’s surveying expedition to Yellowstone to complete an article assignment for Scribner’s Monthly. His visual documentation of more than 30 sites, along with photographs taken by William Henry Jackson, inspired the creation of Yellowstone as America’s first national park in 1872.

Although Moran took eight trips to the West, between 1871 and 1892, he never forgot his first experience of the frontier. His sketch of Green River lived on in his studio as the basis for more than 40 depictions he created of the river’s bluffs. His daughter Ruth recalled that whenever the household needed funds, the family would joke, “Well, it’s time for Father to paint another Green River.”

The artist did have a tendency to minimize signs of civilization in his paintings. He didn’t portray Green River’s railroad settlement, which had about 2,000 residents in 1868, the year Congress established Wyoming Territory. Moran ignored the town’s schoolhouse, church, hotel and brewery, and a landscape scarred by train tracks. Easterners viewing Green River from Moran’s perspective saw a virgin, pristine area, whose only inhabitants were wild American Indians. “I place no value upon literal transcripts from Nature. My general scope is not realistic; all my tendencies are toward idealization,” Moran freely admitted.

Along with Moran’s oil, collectors purchased works by other artists who similarly portrayed a more romantic and nostalgic impression of the frontier.

The Oasis in a Desert Ghost Town

The town of Nipton has a rich history, bustling from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries along with the mining industry. (Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

by Rick Paulas
KCET.com

The stretch of I-15 between Las Vegas and Los Angeles is a road paved with poor decisions. Every year, 8 million people make the drive, meaning that every Sunday afternoon there's roughly 153,000 people crammed into two lanes of highway. These people are tired, hungover, and reeking of stale Axe body spray. As you'd imagine, it's not very pleasant.

Yet just outside the border town of Primm, Nevada is an exit for Nipton Road. If you peel away from the crowd and head east for 15 minutes, straight into a desert landscape that seems to be void of any life apart from the occasional lizard sunning itself on the pavement, is the sleepy town of Nipton, California. It has a population of 60 and a "center of town" consisting of a general store, a cafe, and a one-story motel.

It also has quite possibly the best food in the desert.

Pull into the empty dirt lot outside of the El Oasis Cafe and it may seem abandoned. But walk to the side entrance and pull open the wooden door, and it's like you entered the best basement crash pad ever.

A pool table sits in the middle of the one-room seating area, a nearby broken-in couch providing a landing pad for whoever's next. Photos hang from the wall detailing stories from the desert's lush history. And tucked away in the corner is a glowing foil-laden box that wouldn't be out of place in the background of an Ed Wood film. Gather up enough nerve to look inside and you'll see a canopy of potted leafy green plants. This is the restaurant's "emergency indoor herb garden," in case the owners need to pluck something extra special for a dish.

Already, you get the sense this place is different.

Peek through the side windows and you'll see a small garden shielded from the harsh sun. Inside are plants growing tomatoes, cilantro, basil, spinach, lettuce, and kale. Even aloe vera, strawberries, onion and garlic once found a home inside of the garden. "We are still in the learning process about what will make it here," says Fernando Gamez, who has run the restaurant with his wife Susan since late 2012. "Our goal is to strictly grow non-GMO and organics."

Suddenly you understand why El Oasis is the perfect name for the cafe.

The cafe is the culmination of a lifelong dream. While living in the town's nearby RV park, Fernando and his wife used to host outdoor cookouts for neighbors. "Everyone encouraged me to open up a restaurant," he says. When word got out that the cafe was looking for someone to take over, they jumped at the possibility. And now they cater to everyone stopping through their tiny hamlet, a roster that includes tourists to the nearby Mojave National Preserve, Vegas revelers, nature lovers, stranded visitors needing a place to stay, and even video gamers. "Incredibly, there's been a few visiting families that have stayed here because the kids want to visit the famous Nipton in 'Fallout 3'."

Nipton wasn't always this sleepy. A plaque outside of the cafe tells the story of the town's birth in 1905, when a new rail line from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles chose Nipton as a stop, quickly making it a hub for miners and cattle ranchers. In the 1920s, silent film star Clara Bow regularly stayed in the motel next door with her husband Rex Bell, whenever the two wanted to get away from the stressors of old Hollywood.

But as the train gave way to the automobile, and the gold in the mines started to dwindle, so too did Nipton's population. For a long while the only reason anyone would have heard of it was as the answer to the trivia question: What general store sells the most tickets for the State of California Lottery? (The town's general store, right next door to El Oasis, had the mantle for years, before an office set up even closer to the Nevada border took away most of the business.)

Things started to change in 1984, when Malibu-based gold miner Gerald Freeman purchased the town in the hopes of making it an ecologically-friendly tourist village. In 1986, the run-down motel was restored. In 1998, the first prototype EcoLodge tented cabin for visitors of Mojave was built. In 2010, Freeman built a solar plant in an attempt to provide the town's power. And in 2012, the cafe was taken over by the Gamezes, who quickly installed vertical organic growing gardens of their own and continued the town's eco-friendly focus.

"Our goal," says Fernando, "is get to a point where more people will request non-GMO and organic food instead of just easing their hunger with whatever is put in front of them without questioning what they are consuming." It certainly helps when the food tastes just like grandma used to make.

In this case it's because, quite literally, grandma used to make it. The menu is full of traditional Mexican dishes like cerviche, burritos, and huevos rancheros -- the recipes straight from the cookbook of Fernando's grandmother, Maria Montes -- alongside a wide assortment of traditional American fare like pancakes, burgers and vegetable shakes. When I walked in, Fernando was cutting and cooking the cafe's homemade breakfast potatoes, made fresh every day.

This attention to detail isn't because of the burgeoning organic craze. It's done this way because it's the way it's always been done. "It's something I grew up doing as a child and taught to me by my mother and grandmother," he says. "It's instinct."

Big Boy rolls through Barstow

Bystanders watch Union Pacific's ‘Big Boy' No. 4014 roll through Lenwood on its way to an inspection stop in Barstow. The locomotive, one of the largest ever built, is headed home to Cheyenne, Wyo., for restoration that is anticipated to take three to five years. (LARA HARTLEY, FOR THE DESERT DISPATCH)

MIKE LAMB, STAFF WRITER
DESERT DISPATCH

BARSTOW • Steam wasn’t coming out of its stack, but Big Boy No. 4014 roared down the tracks along the Harvey House before coming to a complete stop in front the historic Barstow train station on Monday.

Hundreds of onlookers were allowed to walk up to the gigantic steam engine as dignitaries and a Union Pacific crew jumped off.

The locomotive arrived at 3:41 p.m., about 40 minutes late, being towed by a modern Union Pacific engine with the same number as Big Boy — 4014. Another locomotive was pushing it. Three passenger cars, two box cars and five flat cars followed.

“It’s magnificent,” Wade Harris, of Barstow, said. “You don’t want to miss something like this. It’s history.”

Shelli Anderson, of Claremont, followed the train since it left Colton on Monday. The train enthusiast says she has posted a lot of photos to Facebook.

“It’s awesome,” she said. “Absolutely spectacular.”

In its heyday, Big Boy No. 4014 was a “moving eruption of smoke and vapor” that was known to drag heavy freight trains over the mountains of Wyoming and Utah, according to one Associated Press story. The American Co. in Schenectady, New York, built 25 of the monsters to Union Pacific’s specifications between 1941 and 1944.

A Union Pacific crew is towing the 1.2 million pound steam locomotive 1,293 miles on an 11-day excursion to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where it will be restored back to life during a five-year project.

“It’s beautiful,” said Joseph Sanchez, who worked for Santa Fe Railroad for 25 years. “It’s a beautiful piece of machinery made in the United States of America.”

Sanchez’s fiancee, Ann Canizales, agreed: “I love antiques, and this is a real one.”

Soon after the couple talked about Big Boy, a voice bellowed from the locomotive.

“All aboard!”

It was 4:09 and time to go.

The wheels on Big Boy slowly came to life, and its horn blew twice.

“Diesels just don’t have that look. But look at it,” said Dave Keeler, of Barstow, as he walked away from tracks where Big Boy once rested. “The Schooner of the prairie. There’s nothing more romantic than a steam engine. I just had to see it. I actually wish they would put them in service again.” Keeler gave Big Boy one more glance as it rolled further down the track. “That’s incredible.”

A railroad dinosaur is coming back to life

Steam engine No. 4014, nicknamed Big Boy, was retired in 1959 but will now be restored by UP as a traveling museum

Union Pacific crews are laying 4,500 feet of temporary track so Big Boy No. 4014 can cross a parking lot and reach a nearby Metrolink line. (Los Angeles Times)

By Bob Pool
Los Angeles Times

See video

It's been sitting around in Pomona for nearly 53 years, but now the beast they call Big Boy is making tracks for Wyoming.

Officially known as Union Pacific steam engine No. 4014, the locomotive has been parked at the RailGiants Train Museum in Pomona since 1962, a displaced piece of the past.

Now Union Pacific has reacquired the behemoth and has begun inching Big Boy No. 4014 toward mainline rail tracks that will take it to Cheyenne, where it will be rebuilt and begin life afresh as a rolling museum on steel wheels.

"It's been sitting here in sort of a railroad Jurassic Park," said Ed Dickens, senior manager of Union Pacific's Heritage Operations. "We're bring T. rex back to life."

Big Boy was built in 1941, one of 25 huge steam engines used to pull 3,600-ton freight trains over the Wasatch Mountains between Ogden, Utah, and Green River, Wyo. After traveling more than 1 million miles, it was retired in 1959, when diesel engines replaced steam. Eventually, Big Boy was handed over to the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society's Southern California chapter, which oversees the RailGiants collection.

To get the old locomotive rolling again, Union Pacific crews are laying 4,500 feet of temporary track so it can cross the Fairplex parking lot and reach a nearby Metrolink line. Once it gets to Colton, it will be shuttled onto Union Pacific tracks and start heading east after being converted from burning coal to using fuel oil.

Moving the engine and restoring it are a huge deal in every sense, according to those involved with the project.

To keep the 600-ton locomotive from crushing the asphalt parking lot, workers are placing layers of plywood beneath 40-foot sections of rails and ties. The 2-ton track panels are moved by forklift and truck and leapfrog ahead of Big Boy as it is slowly towed across the lot by a tractor.

At the Metrolink tracks at the northern edge of the fairgrounds, Big Boy will be pulled by a diesel engine that also bears the old steam engine's original 4014 number. A second diesel engine will be hooked behind the steam engine to serve as a brake.

Dickens declined to speculate on what Big Boy's restoration will cost. But he's confident that Union Pacific has experts who will get it running again.

"These engines are our life," Dickens said. "I have the blueprints for this one on my smartphone."

It will take about five years to refurbish Big Boy in what Dickens calls a "frame-up restoration." After that, it will tour the country on his company's 35,000 miles of track, which connects about 7,000 cities.

Those affiliated with the rail historical society's RailGiants Museum say they are sorry to see Big Boy go. But they will still have eight other locomotives and four cars on outdoor display at the Fairplex, said Rob Shatsnider, chairman of the society's Southern California chapter.

"The whole motive of our chapter is railway preservation," Shatsnider said. "Now, the entire country will see him."

Pomona Mayor Elliott Rothman said he also will miss Big Boy. Twenty years ago, he enjoyed bringing his 6-year-old son Jason to the fairgrounds to sound the engine's horn.

Other young rail fans also come to the fairgrounds to watch the locomotive's slow move out of Pomona. High school student Shelly Hunter, 17, has been a member of the locomotive historical society for four years and has come to the Los Angeles County Fair to admire Big Boy for as long as she can remember.

As Big Boy rolls the over the makeshift rails that will take it to a new life, "I'll be keeping close track," Shelly promised.