Clarence Eddy: Poet-Prospector

The colorful life of prospectors of the early American west has been widely celebrated. However, contrary to common opinion, many of these prospectors were educated and highly literate. A good example is Clarence E. Eddy, who was known coast-to-coast in the first two decades of the 1900’s as the “Poet-Prospector.” Of all the prospectors in the transition period between use of burros and of motor cars by prospectors in their search for precious metal, none was more idiosyncratic or unique than the Poet-Prospector. In addition to discovering the famous Lost Packer gold mine in Custer County, Idaho, and the Carbonate lead mine in Death Valley, Eddy and his half-brother Ralph Waldo Beane and uncle George W. Speake were involved in virtually every gold mining boom in the American West from the 1880s through the 1910s. They were especially active in central Idaho and the Death Valley region of southwestern Nevada and southeastern California. It is doubtful that any American prospector of any generation left a better documented trail of his experiences than Clarence E. Eddy. Hundreds of articles were published by and about him in books, newspapers, and magazines coast to coast.

Everyone is asked to pre-register. Non-members of the museum pay $5 plus Eventbrite fee, Members and youth are free.

Lecturer: Gary Eller was born and raised in West Virginia but has lived most of his life in the American West. After completing undergraduate and graduate school in chemistry and several years of postdoctoral experience at Georgia Tech, he embarked on a 30-year career in nuclear science and engineering environment at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has been retired at Pickles Butte in southwest Idaho since 2004. Eller has played American roots music since his childhood in Appalachia. He has sung and played banjo, mandolin and guitar in many acoustic bands. Currently, Eller devotes a major portion of his time leading the Idaho Song Project’s search for historically-based songs of Idaho and performs with the southwest several Southwest Idaho musical groups. In 2020, he was awarded an Idaho Governor’s Award for support of the arts.

Gary has spent several years and countless hours collecting published articles on Clarence Eddy and has published them in a book that will be on sale at this lecture.

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