The "Battle" of Wingate Pass
The wife and I did our first trail run of the year up on the southern end of the park up Wingate Wash towards Wingate Pass, location of one my favorite Death Valley tales: The infamous “Battle” of Wingate Pass. Another antic of the wonderful Walter Scott, aka Death Valley Scotty, the fastest con in the west, this stunt was designed to dissuade a mining engineer from exposing Scotty’s fake gold mine, almost got Scotty’s brother killed, landed Scotty in and out of jail, and ultimately led to his confession of fraud six years later in a Los Angeles courtroom.
In early 1906, Scotty roped in a New England mining promoter, A.Y. Pearl, to convince investors of a lucrative gold mine in Death Valley. To seal the deal, the investors sent mining engineer Daniel Owen to inspect the property. The problem? Scotty didn’t actually have a mine. Scrambling, he arranged to show off the Desert Hound Mine, owned by his friend Bill Keys. Though far smaller than Scotty’s fictional bonanza, it was at least real.
When Scotty realized the Desert Hound wouldn’t impress Owen, he concocted a new plan: stage a shootout to scare him off. With an eclectic crew of participants—including his brothers, Bill Keys (famous across the entire Mojave - I'll write more about him soon), and several others—the group set off into Death Valley. On the evening of February 25, 1906, the ambush unfolded near Wingate Pass. Shots rang out, and in the chaos, Scotty’s brother Warner was accidentally shot in the crotch. Scotty’s cover story fell apart when he galloped toward the “attackers” yelling for them to stop shooting—a move that didn’t exactly scream "real ambush".
The group hastily retreated, leaving provisions behind and rushing Warner to medical help. In the following weeks, law enforcement pieced together the scam, issuing arrest warrants for Scotty and his accomplices. Scotty, ever the showman, alternated between starring in a play titled Scotty, King of the Desert Mine and dodging legal trouble. Despite multiple arrests, he managed to escape serious consequences, thanks to legal loopholes and some creative boundary-shifting. Allegedly, Scotty himself moved a county boundary marker to shift the trial jurisdiction into Inyo County, where authorities had no interest in pursuing charges.
While the “battle” tarnished Scotty’s reputation (though not clear how tarnished), it didn’t put an end to his antics. True to form, he turned the drama into another chapter of his legend, keeping the public—and his critics—guessing. Even today, the existence of Scotty's lost (or at least undisclosed) gold mine remains a hot topic in these parts.
