EL BARRIL MYSTERY by Choral Pepper

The following is a chapter from the late Choral Pepper's unpublished book, 'Baja's Missions, Mysteries and Myths'
THE MYSTERY OF THE OLD ROCK HOUSE

Purple clouds moved over the sun as we picked our way along the rutty road to El Barril. When a sturdy old building suddenly took form through the mist, it appeared as spooky as an Addam's Family stage set. Weathered doors that once opened onto an encircling balcony were cracked, and the balcony sagged, but the three stories of masonry had been executed with such precision that they seem destined for eternity. The sole occupant within those empty walls is said to be a benevolent ghost, but the rock house of El Barril (not to be confused with El Barril on the Cape) arose long before the ghost.

Standing high beside a protected port, it harbored both foreign and Mexican pearl smugglers around the turn of the last century when Baja's pearl beds were being exploited for exportation. Hillocks of eroded, bleached shells that surround the house lay as testimony to those independent entrepreneurs who took advantage of the rock house's secluded location to carry on their business in a tax-free atmosphere. But that wasn't the original purpose of the house. The intent of the German gentleman who built it was not to provide housing for pearlers, although he did have the smuggling of another, more astonishing commodity in mind.

In 1864, Mormons in the Utah territory were having trouble with the United States government. A military fracas seemed imminent. Expected freight shipments that had to be carried thousands of miles across prairies and mountains from eastern markets often failed to arrive, but worse, so did newly converted European immigrants called to their Zion in Salt Lake City. To alleviate this desperate situation, Brigham Young conceived of a novel plan. He would establish a port on the Colorado River near the fringe of the Utah territory and transport his European saints directly into the arms of Zion via the Gulf of California to the head of navigation on the Colorado River,

Anson Call was dispatched to do the job. In record time, Fort Callville, which today lies under Nevada's Lake Mead, arose on the banks of the Colorado River about forty miles south of St. Thomas, a farming community on Utah's Muddy River also now inundated by Lake Mead. With the help of fellow saints from the Muddy River mission, Brother Call constructed a massive rock-walled warehouse 120 feet long by 30 feet wide and a substantial rock residence for himself, both similar in structure to the rock house at El Barril.

With his storerooms completed by February, Call received a discouraging blow. It would be at least three months before anything would arrive to store in them. Steamboats made regular progress to mines and ore mills located along the lower Colorado River, but those at the upper end had to be ring-winched through the treacherous Black Canyon rapids. During many months of the year, the water was too high and swift, or too low, to permit safe navigation. Call learned that the best he could hope for would be three trips per month from July to November. This necessitated a plan for safekeeping merchandise and converts brought up the Gulf on ocean-going vessels from distant ports until such time as they could be transferred aboard a sternwheeler and transported up the Colorado to Fort Callville.

At first it was believed that gentiles (non-Mormons) at ports south would cooperate by holding goods until the upper waters became navigable, but less than a month after the warehouse was ready for business, a steamboat captain commissioned by the Mormons to carry their freight to Fort Callville encountered opposition. "The ports below seem to be jealous of the Mormon post," he complained to the editor of the Deseret News. The brethren were forced to make an independent arrangement along the Gulf of California until such time as their converts and supplies could be transported north.

El Barril had been known since Spanish days as an emergency water stop for vessels. Its remote, but accessible, location on the Gulf lent itself ideally to the Mormon's requirement for a place to conduct business in utmost secrecy. A German convert from the Muddy River mission, who had helped in the construction of Fort Callville, was placed in charge. Soon the rock house rose on the beach above the luminous waters of the Gulf.

The rare Mexican vaquero who worked his way from the inland mission trail through forty-seven miles of wicked chaparral and nightmare masses of granite to reach water at El Barril was content to believe the fancy quarters found there were built by a German trader who bartered ironwood for goods from passing ships. Little did he know that further north such business was conducted by Indians who piled wood beside a rusty container into which boat captains deposited chits redeemable at trading posts.

Records in Mormon archives of this endeavor are scant because the "Mormon Mission" of Baja was short lived. They made peace with Uncle Sam and the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad promised safe delivery of freight at reasonable cost. In 1869 plans for shipping immigrants and freight to Salt Lake City via the Colorado River were declared "unprofitable" by the Church. Both Fort Callville and El Barril were abandoned.

With time, the rock house at El Barril fared better than the old Mormon fort. Convert smugglers moved out; pearl smugglers moved in. The latter made little use of the rock walls, finding them oppressive compared to their native mud-roofed huts with airy ocotillo walls, but water here was fresh and in the shadeless desert it was pleasant to recline in the shadow of the old house while they shucked oyster shells.

Eventually, the rock house was sold to a mining syndicate that operated inland at Camalli and Los Arcos. During the mining heyday of the late 1880s, its sturdy walls protected supplies arriving by boat, but when the mines ran out it reverted to its predestined purpose.

Prior to World War II, the Mexican government decreed it illegal to export live lobsters from Mexican waters to markets above the border. In contrast, Uncle Sam welcomed Mexico's Western lobsters. This resulted in another busy smuggling industry. Flyers, called "bug pilots," cleared primitive runways in remote spots along Baja's coasts where they landed on prearranged schedules to pick up lobster from native fishermen. Because the shellfish had to be delivered alive above the border, time was of the essence. Planes flown by these men were decrepit and small. The air routes they took to evade detection were unsafe. But wind or rain, bug pilots landed on death-defying terrain or took off into solid clouds, dependable as the United States mail used to be. Later, during the war, these same flyers were in demand to instruct bush pilots, and after the war, many became commercial pilots.

But during their exciting days of trafficking in the lobster industry, it was not unusual for a pilot to arrive on an evening prior to an early-morning appointment with his suppliers. In that event, the old rock house gave convenient shelter near the primitive landing strip that today delivers rich vacationers to elaborate new houses rising on the beach at El Barril or to gringo fishermen coming to the nearby resort at Bahia San Francisquito.



[Edited on 1-31-2018 by David K]

Murl Emery

Murl Emery

These two pictures from Erle Stanley Gardner's 'Hunting the Desert Whale' c1960

Fort Call

Below is a photo of the rock structure David referred to in the opening post of this thread.

Choral Pepper called it Fort Call. Stanley W. Paher, in his book Callville Head of Navigation Arizona Territory wrote “Many referred to it as ‘Fort Call,’ probably because of the massive warehouse walls.”

Additionally there was a detachment of military – Companies D and then K - Fourteenth Infantry - there for a time, early February 1867 until May of 1868. (Casebier Camp El Dorado, Arizona Territory), perhaps this also contributed to the Fort Call idea.

The photograph of the stone structure pictured here was taken in the 1930s just before being flooded by Lake Mead. (photo from: Steamboats on the Colorado River by Richard E. Lingenfelter).

The establishment there was more commonly referred to as Callville.

John M.



[Edited on 11-26-2007 by John M]

Choral Pepper

Maybe The squarecircle should be at that BBQ to give a talk on how to drive through La Turquesa Canyon?

Here's the canyon looking west from the mine... you can see the grade going up the mountain... Photo by 'steekers'

[Edited on 7-10-2008 by David K]

Squarecircle's Land Rover climbing the grade!

Bump to one of the good old (10 years old) threads.
I have since been to El Barril and the old rock house generally attributed to the Ybarra Mining Company of Calmalli, to the west, last June...

Here's the best photo of callville that I've come across. On the right you can see the steamer "Colorado" with it's smokestack:

From Choral Pepper's m/s with one of here 1966 photos.

The manuscript was for a revised edition of her 1973 book (which had a 1975 revision and slight title change). Here is the cover page from my copy that Choral (Corke) signed for me:





[Edited on 11-11-2018 by David K]

Murl's book:

Erle Stanley Gardner's book from 1967:


His 1962 book, mentions El Barril as well:


Here are the two editions of Choral Peppers book (1973 and 1975):

Quote: Originally posted by advrider

That is very cool, I'm going to have to get out there and see that. Never been down the coast past SF.

Quote: Originally posted by David K

Baja and Old California history are great for adventure stories and they just pull at me to head down and see these places in person as well as research for more information on them. My mission book was so rewarding to produce in 2014-2016. For the Choral Pepper fans, I have a newly discovered letter from 1964 from a Desert Magazine reader detailing a Jeep trip to San Ignacio that took a month and included a mule ride to the rock art sites, not long after Erle Stanley Gardner "discovered" them. I will share this letter with you all, soon!