Alone on the Hill

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The mining region of Rich Hill isn't what it used to be. Today, it's mostly made up of retirees with metal detectors, but not so long ago, the mountain was a haven for a different kind of prospector. The “old boys” were reclusive, eccentric and sometimes violent. They had names like Rattlesnake Bill and Crazy Willie, and Elly Loftin knew them better than anyone. BY KATHY MONTGOMERY PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID ZICKL

he tiny Peeples Valley schoolhouse quickly fills to capacity, even though a steady rain has turned the parking lot into mud. The unexpected size of the crowd has momentarily unnerved the historical society organizers of today's lecture. But the topic, nearby Rich Hill, proves as irresistible as the lure of the gold that made the mountain legendary.

Elly Loftin stands in the front of the classroom like a patient teacher waiting for her unruly charges to settle down. The dusty black cowboy hat that is her trademark corrals shoulder-length silver hair. The laugh lines around her eyes deepen as she smiles. The room grows quiet.

Loftin begins by apologizing that she is the one who will be delivering the lecture. After a mere 30-odd years on Rich Hill, she calls herself the new kid on the block. "I'm not the history of Rich Hill," she says. "I just try to keep track of it." For the next two hours, Elly entertains the group with photos of the mountain's rocky, desert landscape and stories about eccentric prospectors with names like Rattlesnake Bill and Crazy Willie who eked out a living on the gold they found there.

For more than 100 years, tales of Rich Hill, located in the Weaver Mountains about 13 miles north of Wickenburg, have assumed mythi cal proportions. In 1863, members of a scouting party sent to retrieve pack animals were said to have found gold nuggets the size of potatoes just lying exposed on the hilltop. Since then, the population and law lessness of the area have risen and fallen with the price of gold.

These days, most of the prospectors on Rich Hill are recreational club members who camp in luxury RVs and wield metal detectors. The Lost Dutchman's Mining Association led the way when it bought the ghost town of Stanton, at the base of Rich Hill, in 1978. The LDMA restored the three historic buildings there a hotel, an opera house and a store - and opened the town as a campground for members to use for recreational gold prospecting. It was a new idea.

In the mid-1980s, Elly Loftin started her own club, which became the 24 K Gold Hunters. Several other clubs followed. But Loftin owned claims on Rich Hill long enough to know the "old boys." She collected their sto ries and photos, and has become an unofficial keeper of the lore.

When Loftin arrived at Rich Hill in 1977, a surge in gold prices con tributed to a general lawlessness, and rival factions were at war.

"I got down to what is now Decision Corner, and the open pit mine had guards on it," she remembers. "They looked like the Aqua Velva man, with black turtlenecks and black caps, and it was hot, but there they were. And Uzis! I went back and took a turn north, and I just got on that road when there was gunfire in front of me, whiz, whiz, whiz.

"I slammed on my brakes and thought, I'm going to get out of here. Then someone rode over from this side with a horse and went [Elly gestures someone waving her on], and someone rode over from this side and went [she waves her hand again], and I thought, well, I don't see white flags, but I guess it will be OK. I drove through and the minute I got through, the gunfire resumed. That was my introduction to Rich Hill."

Elly thought once she got out, she'd never look back. But after a few days on the mountain she decided it was so beautiful she never wanted to leave. She bought the historic Devil's Nest claims, located at the heart of Rich Hill, and lived on them for three years.

Being gregarious and curious, Elly got to know most of her neigh bors. One of her favorites was a man the locals called Rattlesnake Bill, who lived in a stone powder house not much bigger than a walk-in closet. He claimed to share it with 14 rattlesnakes. Bill eventually moved to Wickenburg, where he died. Elly likes to say he was struck. And he was. By a car.

Then there was Crazy Willie. "When I first came out here, every body told me to stay away from Crazy Willie 'cause he'll kill ya," Elly remembers. "So I went right over to meet him. It was toward evening and the sun was getting low. The screens in his house were dusty and I could see his face behind it and it looked cadaverous; he was very thin, and it looked like a skull was talking. He called me by name and said, Elly, are you going to just stand there or come in and have coffee?'"

Clyde Thomason is one of the "old boys." A small man with narrow eyes and a warm handshake, Clyde's parents were placer miners who lived on Rich Hill. Clyde is old enough to have known the Lucero brothers, who were celebrated for killing Charlie Stanton in 1886. Stanton was the unpopular storekeeper for whom the town was named. When he knew the Luceros, Clyde was very young and the brothers were old enough to suffer from failing eyesight. Clyde used to trail behind them, returning the nuggets they had dropped.

Clyde left Rich Hill at age 15, after an accident with a mule took his leg, though his parents remained until their deaths. He inherited their claims, but sold them years ago. Now he lives in nearby Congress, where he runs a karaoke business with his wife, Jacquie, whom he married in 2008.

On a warm fall day, Elly picks up Clyde for an errand. Johnboy, a man who once worked for Clyde, had recently died. Clyde paid for the cremation and agreed to scatter his ashes where Johnboy lived on Clyde's claims.

Elly drives her green Jeep, easily spotted with its 24 K Club emblem and license plate that reads "AU BUGGY," AU being the chemical des ignation for gold. Word had reached Elly that Clyde had gotten into a scuffle with a 68-year-old man named Ray. Clyde threw the first punch.

Although Elly is the younger of the two, the news of her friend picking a fight against a much younger opponent roused her maternal instincts.

"All up there was Wild Willie's private vineyard, where he made his wine. He got me high a lot of days passing by his house. If I could slip past his house going up that way prospecting, I was in great shape. If he saw me, though, he was hollerin', 'Come here."