Along the Way

Matt the Rat is the only creature that lives in this aging stone cabin on the sunbaked slopes of the Trigo Mountains. Smokey Knowlton, unofficial historian, concerned conservationist, and lower Colorado River tour guide, first visited it in 1952 when he was a schoolboy.

Between 1860 and 1920, here in what once was the Eureka Mining District, the Riverview Mine Company extracted alternately high and low grades of silver ore.

"You can't see the cabin from the river," Smokey said. "My fisherman father and I got to it by a tunnel that had been hacked through the tules."

In it lived a fellow the locals called "the Watchman," but nobody knows for sure if he had been assigned watchman duties for the property, or if he was just a squatter. One day, as mysteriously as he appeared, the Watchman disappeared.

By 1980 the cabin had become an abstract memento of the past. The walls had toppled and the roof had collapsed. The desert, and wayfarers seeking firewood or collecting souvenirs, had entirely consumed four adjacent wooden buildings.

Smokey, who is based at Martinez Lake, and a tiny caravan of friends and family decided to restore the cabin. They raised the walls from the jigsaw puzzle of flat stone; they rebuilt the roof with timbers from the nearby mine shafts. In 1984 Smokey put a register book inside and placed next to it a small sign that reads, "Bring something instead of taking something away." Remarkably, rampant pillaging practically stopped. Relics of all kinds began to appear. River guides and boaters learned about the cabin. Schoolchildren would remark, "Wow, people used to live like that!" With a couple of tables out front and a shady veranda, it has become a regular lunch stop for river folk.

RIVER RUNNERS GET A STRONG DOSE OF YESTERDAY AT SMOKEY'S CABIN ON THE LOWER COLORADO

Thanks to the register, Smokey learned that, amazingly, between 2,000 and 3,000 people visit the cabin each year.

"People still take a few things," he said, "but what has gotten out of hand is the items that are brought in." He believes some of the things will have to be carted away to keep the cabin looking "authentic." "But the only real problem," Smokey said, "is treasure hunters, who continually dig holes inside and around the cabin." Now, that is illegal. So is camping at the cabin and building fires.

The Riverview Mine has been incorporated into the Imperial National Wildlife Refuge.

Canoeists on the Colorado, who take off from Ehrenberg or spots downstream, stop at the cabin. And it can be reached by land if you have a topographical map and good directions. But the easiest way to reach Smokey's cabin, 10 miles upriver from Fisher's Landing and part of the community of Martinez Lake, is to take Smokey's upriver tour, which focuses on turn-of-the-century miners and mining, paddle-wheel steamboat travel, cowboy and Indian lore, and prehistoric rock art.

"For its historic value, I would like to see the cabin last another 50 years," said Smokey. "Maybe even 100?"

But Matt the Rat, of course, couldn't care less about historical value; with this fellow it's just keep those peanut-butter sandwiches coming.