Nomads of the Badlands

Nomads of the Badlands continues the autobiographical family story Walt Wilhelm started in Last Rig to Battle Mountain. 

’Nomads’ is filled with tales and details vital to the meaningful understanding fo the people, places and times that were the Mojave and Mojave Deserts of the Nineteen-teens.

In August of 1915 in the Hassayampa mining district near Prescott, AZ Sherman and Dora Wilhelm with seven children, in two 1912 era cars left the Ruth Mine.  They prospected for gold across the deserts of AZ, NV, and CA. Rarely sleeping under a roof, they drove through desolate desert country with water holes fifty or more miles apart.  Crossing the deserts with no gas stations, or mechanics they were one of the first to drive cars across the Mojave Badlands. They made their own roads when they weren’t driving in freight wagon-wheel ruts the cars wheel tracks didn’t fit in. Even yielding right of way to freight wagons was treacherous and they pulled off the “roads” into soft sand, frequently getting stuck.

Walt vividly describes how the family lived, hunted for gold,, and prospected the Mojave.