“Either Uncle Earl Dorr discovered the richest gold deposit in the United States... or he was the most imaginative liar in the state of California.”[SUP]1[/SUP]
-- Ray Dorr, nephew of Earl Dorr, "Argosy" magazine, September 1967
In 1933, a number of scattered newspaper articles appeared across Southern California extolling the grandeur and beauty of some recently discovered massive limestone caves within the Mojave’s Providence Mountains near the old Bonanza King Mine. Known today as
Mitchell Caverns, these geological wonders were named after Jesse E. “Jack” Mitchell who had initially explored the caves in 1929 and would later market them into a popular recreational destination accessible from the National Trails Highway, better known as Route 66.
Writer Philip Johnston’s detailed observations of these particular subterranean treasures were published in the August 1933 issue of "
Touring Topics,"a precursor to "Westways," underwritten by the Automobile Club of Southern California that is still in print today. Johnston’s article “Crystal Caverns of the Mojave” along with its accompanying photographs celebrated the beauty and geological mystery of the caves and speculated what future speleological discoveries awaited in the Mojave Desert.
