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Johnny Shoshone Spring

Back in 2012, we visited little-known Johnny Shoshone Spring inside Death Valley National Park. It is a place I’ve been curious about for some time. The spring is not much more than a seep, but what is interesting is that this was a summer camp for Johnny Shoshone, one of the last of the Panamint Shoshone Indians living in the Panamint mountains. Johnny is famous for staking the first claim on the Montgomery-Shoshone Mine over at Rhyolite. It’s reported that Bob Montgomery paid Johnny two dollars and a pair of overalls for that claim. The Montgomery-Shoshone Mine produced five million dollars worth of gold in the next few years.