From the album 'Southern California Mines'
Music and lyrics: John Malcolm Penn, ©Radio Flyer Music
For more information: [email protected]

The first stamp mill constructed to process ore from Randsburg was called the Garlock Pioneer Mill and was soon followed by five more to take care of increasing demand. The town of Garlock had only a few buildings but it did have a school, which doubled as a church, and served extra duty as a meeting place for the Garlock Literary Society, considered a positive influence on the town's morals. Garlock’s time was short, lasting from 1896 until 1903.
William Henry Schmidt came to the high desert to help treat his tuberculosis and evtentually filed a mining claim on Black Mountain in the El Paso mountain range where the only access was a rough canyon trail navigated only by burro. He bought two burros that he named Jack and Jenny; which is what male and female burros are called to begin with, and he got the nickname ‘Burro’ Schmidt.
Saying he would never haul his ore to the smelter in Mojave down that back trail, he decided to dig a tunnel through the solid granite mountain, so that he could meet up with Borax road on the other side. Soon, his interest in mining gave way to simply making the tunnel and for thiry-two years he dug and blasted away.
After completing this marvel and testament to individual effort, Burro Schmidt, dressed in overalls patched with gunny sacks and shoes soled with tin can lids, lived on another sixteen years as the proud proprietor of his tourist attraction called ‘Burro Schmidt’s Tunnel.’

State Historical Landmark NO. 671 SITE OF THE TOWN OF GARLOCK
Plaque Inscription: In 1896, Eugene Garlock constructed a stamp mill near this spot to crush gold ore from the Yellow Aster Mine on Rand Mountain. Known originally as Cow Wells by prospectors and freighters during the 1880s and early 1890s, the town of Garlock continued to thrive until 1898, when water was piped from here to Randsburg and the Kramer-Randsburg rail line was completed.
Location: 74 miles west of State Hwy. 395 on Garlock Road, 13.4 miles NE of Cantil post office, Kern County.

Lyrics:
BURRO SCHMIDT
There's light at the end of the tunnel, through the Garlock mountainside
2500 feet he funneled, till he came out the other side

With hammer and pick, bit by bit, 32 years he tunneled away
You must admit, Burro Schmidt, built his tunnel to stay

Right above the Mojave Desert, Jack and Jenny were workin' away
A pair of prospector's burros, that's how Burro Schmidt got his name

Up in the El Paso Mountains, by the Garlock pioneer mill
Burro Schmidt was a diggin', a tunnel through the side of the hill

With a pick and 4 pound hammer, a shovel and some dynamite
In a slow and steady manner, he carved a most incredible sight

What started as a little gold diggin', lookin' for a lost gold vein
You could hear him a singin', "Some folks think I'm plum insane"

"I'm a-gonna dig through Black Mountain, till I come out on that Borax Road
Carry my ore to the Pioneer mill and, ease my burros' heavy load"

Well you can call it pretzel logic, call his thinkin' whatever you will
But most of us play and frolic, and pass away with nothin' to show