Mr. Write's Page

Few places in the country are as spectacular and scenic, or as iconic, as Arizona’s Monument Valley. When people think of the desert southwest, this may be the landscape they envision.

The earliest inhabitants were Paleo-Indian hunters, who arrived around 12,000 BC. They were followed by Archaic hunter-gatherers from about 6,000 BC to 1 AD; then by Anasazi farmers through the 1300s; then by Paiutes and Navajos. Today, the place is Navajo country.

As you may know, Monument Valley isn’t a valley, but a plateau. Over the last 50 million years, wind and water have eroded most of the rock, leaving behind the majestic buttes and mesas. In time, they will be gone, too.

Monument Valley came to popular national attention in 1939, when John Ford filmed the movie “Stagecoach” there. Dozens of films have been made in the valley since.

One of the most memorable episodes in the history of Monument Valley is a tale worthy of a Hollywood western: the story of James Merrick and Ernest Mitchell, two ill-fated fortune-hunters of the post-Civil-War years.

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Many of the early Spanish explorers visited the Four Corners region, often clashing with the Navajo and Paiutes, but no expedition reported seeing Monument Valley. Apparently, the first outsiders to find it were Mexican soldiers in 1822.

For the most part, white settlers dismissed the place as ugly and useless. In 1849, one year after the Mexican-American War, an Army captain mapping the area called it “as desolate and repulsive looking a country as can be imagined.”

By 1863, as European expansion was accelerating and the pesky natives were in the way, Army Col. Kit Carson and his men were detailed to round up and relocate the Navajo people — the Diné — en masse. The soldiers marched the captives in small groups 350 miles south to the compound of Bosque Redondo, near Ft. Sumner, New Mexico.

In all, about 9,000 Navajo made the “Long Walk.” At least 200 died on the way.

The internment camps at Bosque Redondo were a disaster. Food, water, and supplies were inadequate, and most of the crops became diseased and failed. The overseers were inept and corrupt. The relocation was costing the U.S. government unexpected millions.

That was unacceptable. The idea was to remove the Navajo to make room for white settlers, not to spend money. Thus, in 1868, to correct the situation, the U.S. relented and signed a treaty with the tribe. A reservation was established on part of their original land, and the Diné set out on the Long Walk home.

When the Army first rounded up the Navajo in 1863, two of the young soldiers serving under Kit Carson were Jack Merrick, a Colorado miner, and Ernest Mitchell, newly-arrived from the east. Merrick and Mitchell became keenly interested in the finely-tooled pendants, bracelets, and other silver jewelry crafted by the Navajo.

Being familiar with the Monument Valley area after months of patrols, they concluded that the silver was being mined locally, not brought in from elsewhere. The Navajo, when pressed for information on the subject, denied that any silver mines existed in the valley.

In the late 1860s, at about the time the Navajo returned to Monument Valley from Bosque Redondo, Merrick and Mitchell mustered out of the Army. They resolved that they would return to the valley someday and find the source of the Navajo silver.

At this point, Historians relate two versions of the story. In one, Merrick went to Monument Valley alone in the late 1870s, discovered a silver lode, and enlisted Mitchell’s help to transport ore samples to the assay office in Colorado.

In the other version, Merrick and Mitchell entered the valley together, carrying the gear of typical fur trappers. While they set lines of traps as a cover, they surreptitiously looked for evidence of mining activity.

In both versions of the story, the men were being watched.

Kit Carson‘s soldiers had apprehended most of the Navajo in the valley, but some resourceful warriors eluded them. That group was led by Hoskaninni, “The Angry One.” When the Navajo returned home from exile in New Mexico, Hoskaninni became their chief.

Hoskaninni soon concluded that Merrick and Mitchell were searching for silver. He went to their camp and ordered them to leave the valley, vowing to kill them if they returned.

As Merrick and Mitchell agonized over their plight -- fearing for their lives, but obsessed with finding silver -- fate intervened. The two men stumbled upon a hidden silver mine with tantalizing amounts of high-quality ore.

With samples in their saddlebags, the two men fled Monument Valley and rode east to Cortez, Colorado.

For the next few months, Merrick and Mitchell traveled around Southwest Colorado with the ore samples, trying to find financial backers. Setting up the mining operation would be costly.

Finally, they succeeded in lining up several investors. But the backers had a condition: they wanted to see a new set of ore samples to confirm the existence of the mine and the quality of the silver.

Merrick and Mitchell had told no one about Hoskaninni's threat, so asking them to return to the valley was a reasonable business request.

In the end, the lure of imminent riches seems to have convinced the two men that the mission was worth the risk.

Cautiously, Merrick and Mitchell returned to the mine and collected more ore samples. There was no sign of Hoskaninni's warriors. According to some accounts, the two men relaxed, concluding that Hoskaninni had not spotted them or perhaps was away from the area.

They were wrong. The following night, as the men rested at the base of a butte, cooking supper over a campfire, Hoskaninni's warriors attacked out of the darkness.

Merrick was shot and killed on the spot. Mitchell was wounded, but managed to escape into the darkness. He fled west across the valley on foot.

Several miles later, at the base of a large butte, he found a crevice formed where a large slab of rock had fallen. He hid inside.

When he emerged at daybreak, Hoskaninni's men were waiting. Mitchell was killed.

Weeks later, word of the deaths reached Cortez. A posse of 20 men rode to Monument Valley and confronted Hoskaninni.

The chief claimed that Merrick and Mitchell had been killed by a band of Paiutes, led by a renegade called No-Neck, when the men were caught stealing water. Graciously, the Navajo had buried the bodies. Members of the posse were shown the burial sites. Hoskaninni said the Navajo knew of no silver mines in Monument Valley.

The members of the posse believed otherwise, and some wanted to search for the mine themselves, but the Diné outnumbered them. They returned to Cortez.

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The present-day Navajo admit that silver mines, do, in fact, exist in Monument Valley. But they explain that, by tradition, only a few select tribal leaders at a time knew their locations. Unfortunately, some decades ago, the last chief who held the secret died before relaying the information to his successor. Thus, the locations of the mines are now unknown. A complete mystery. Yep.

Today, the butte in Monument Valley where Merrick and Mitchell cooked their last meal, and where Jack Merrick went to his reward, is known as Merrick Butte.

A few miles away, the landform that towers over the grave of Ernest Mitchell is called Mitchell Butte.

Those are the Anglo names. I assume the Diné call them something else.

Merrick Butte.

Mitchell Butte.