Citizen Rainey stood on the bridge of the aircraft carrier Valley Forge many miles from Peg Leg Well. Below him jet squadrons were taking off and landing with dumbfounding precision. Only a few weeks before, the Navy had been, to Mr. Rainey, some vague fleet of ships that he was told was the best in the world. He had never seen an aircraft carrier before, but today he, Joe Rainey, an obscure rancher- miner, was the special guest of the Commandant of the Eleventh Naval District, and the Commander, Air Force, U. S. Pacific Fleet.
The noise of jet aircraft was not new to Joe Rainey for he had lived almost two years in the midst of the Navy’s Chocolate Mountain Aerial Machine Gun Range. He had seen their vapor trails high up in the cloudless sky as the pilots made gunnery runs on airborne targets, and he had watched them come screaming down to release flaming tailed rockets at ground targets only a few miles away from his ranch.
The half million acres of desert and desolate waterless Chocolate Mountains that form the eastern boundary of California’s great Imperial Valley had been posted for years, and frequent flights by naval aircraft had disclosed no signs of human habitation. This federal wasteland had been used since World War I for the training of fighting men, most famous of which was General Patton’s Third Army prior to their grueling African campaign.
The Marines were the last ground troops to use the area, but they pulled down their Camp Dunlap and marched away soon after the end of World War II. Since then it has been the best aerial gunnery range available to West Coast Navy Carrier Squadrons. Cloudless skies prevailing the year around make this area ideal for this type of training.
Joe Rainey had lived in the Imperial Valley since the day in 1917 when he and his tired cow pony had completed the long trek from Fort Worth, Texas. He worked as a ranch hand and did a bit of prospecting which, those familiar with the intense summer heat of the Imperial Valley will tell you, is a mighty difficult way to make a living. Nevertheless he stuck to his work, dreaming of the day when he would have enough money accumulated to buy his own ranch.
At last, in 1940, he realized his dream and bought 800 Angora goats and leased 1000 acres of grazing land on the southeastern slopes of the Chocolate Mountains. He was enjoying life in the desolate wasteland and his business was profitable, but his venture was doomed. The U. S. Army notified him that his land was needed for use as a maneuver area. Joe Rainey didn’t argue. There was a war going on and his land was needed for the defense of his country. Without a second thought, he sold his goats, relinquished his rights to the leased land, and moved out of his small ranch home to the nearby town of Brawley.
During the war years and until 1947 he worked on farms and ranches, or wartime construction projects, but he always retained the desire to get away—back to the great quiet country away from the crowds. Most of all he still dreamed of a small ranch of his own where he and his wife would be free to work and live as they wished.
When the buildings at Camp Dunlap were razed and the last of the Marines removed to other areas, Joe Rainey believed that military use of the area was at an end just as it happened once before after World War I. No tanks, trucks, or heavy artillery rumbled through the area. True, there were occasional planes overhead, but he never gave them a second thought.
Early in 1947 he figured the time was right to make a survey trip to determine where he could reestablish himself. Joe Rainey packed into the barren wasteland until he came to an old abandoned well, squatting among the rugged, muddy colored boulders of the Chocolate Mountains. It was to him an ideal location. Far enough from civilization so that only true friends would visit him, enough growth to support a limited number of goats and livestock, and, most important of all, the well afforded plenty of water. He camped there over night, and under the clear night sky and the crystal stars he made his decision. Once again he would risk his life savings. On this site he would build his home.
During the next two years no man ever worked harder or enjoyed his labors so much- as did Joe Rainey. With no outside assistance and only his own strength and ingenuity, he built a unique twfl room house. A second roof raised a foot above the first served as a natural air cooler for the house. He built access roads, cattle guards, corrals, barns, a chicken coop, beehives, fences and two concrete reservoirs. On top of that he even found time to locate and register five gold, silver, and lead mines. By 1949 he had equipped his house with running water, and built automatic feeding and watering troughs for his 103 chickens, sixteen pigeons, ten goats and four horses.
Joe Rainey’s ranch was not plush by any means, but it was his—all his—and he had built it by himself. Most of the hard work was over, and he had almost reached the point where he could settle back and reap the fruits of his labor. Then in the latter part of November, 1949, he heard the bad news.
Joe Rainey was on his weekly trip to Brawley to dispose of eggs and pick up needed supplies. While there, he stopped in to see his old friend Mr. Glen Walker, a Brawley bank president. In the course of their conversation, Mr. Walker advised him that the Navy, in an effort to intensify air- to-air training, planned to use the entire Chocolate Mountain Range and in order to do so the only road through the mountains, the Blythe to Niland road, would soon be closed.
Mr. Walker suggested that Mr. Rainey make the location of his ranch known to the Navy in order that he and his wife might not be unnecessarily exposed to personal danger during gunnery operations.
The Commanding Officer of the El Centro Naval Air Station was a very surprised person when on December 7, 1949, Joe Rainey’s 52nd birthday, none other than Joe Rainey walked into his office and announced that he had been living in the center of the aerial gunnery range for almost two years. Immediately all gunnery flights over the range were cancelled and a hurried conference was arranged with representatives of the Commandant, Eleventh Naval District, and Joe Rainey to take place in the Planters’ Hotel in Brawley at 9 A.M. on December 9.
From the Navy’s standpoint the fact that a person or persons were living in the middle of their gunnery range was a serious thing. If a man had claims and holdings on the property, no matter who was right, it could take months or years of litigation to get them off the property. In the meantime, what would happen to the Navy’s gunnery training program? The Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range is the most important one on the entire West Coast. If the range were closed even for a few weeks, valuable training time would be lost to Navy pilots.
The conference was held as scheduled. Mr. Rainey came alone to meet with the representatives of the Commandant. He walked in wearing a ten gallon hat and cowboy boots that made him look even taller than his erect six feet. He shook hand all around, looking at each member directly out of kind blue eyes that hid no secrets, yet seemed to seek out from the recesses of another man the foundations for trust or mistrust.
First they discussed Joe Rainey’s holdings. He outlined it all to them and stated that he had about $15,000 of his own money invested there. Besides that, it was his home and he had planned to live there for a long while. Furthermore, he understood that possession was nine points of the law.
The Navy’s representatives pointed out that the range had been posted for over two years and that they were unaware of his being in the area. Since learning of his presence, aerial survey flights had been conducted in order to locate his ranch, and now that it had been determined that both he and his wife were living in the middle of the range, and despite the fact that the Navy had urgent need for the range, not another shot would be fired until he and his family and their belongings were removed—either voluntarily or by due process of law.
It was impressed on Joe Rainey that the Navy’s need for the entire range was urgent and immediate, that jet squadrons were arriving at the El Centro Naval Air Station on Saturday afternoon, this being Friday, and that these Squadrons were scheduled to conduct air-to-air machine gunnery over the entire Chocolate Mountain Aerial Machine Gun Range beginning at 6 A.M. Monday morning. The Navy could not guarantee him fifteen cents let alone $15,000 in return for his voluntary removal from his ranch if he elected to do so. They agreed that possession was nine points of the law and that if he elected to remain there was nothing further they could do other than to initiate action through the courts. However, the Navy would promise, if he would abandon his home and move his stock and equipment from the range, that the Commandant’s representatives would place him in contact with the proper agencies of the Federal government whose responsibility it would be to evaluate his claims.
Joe Rainey thought for a long while. His home, the product of his hands and sweat and all that he had longed for, was at stake. No one could guess what Joe Rainey’s decision would be. The lines of his weathered face suddenly softened, he leaned back and slowly looked at each of those present. Then he spoke, “You fellows say you need the range for National Defense. I believe you. I’ll go. I’ll be ready to move at 1 P.M. tomorrow if you’ll help me.”
Even to naval officers, who are used to packing up their wives, kids and household effects at a moment’s notice and moving to Timbuktu, Joe Rainey’s rapid decision was startling.
There were problems to be overcome if Joe Rainey and his wife were to be moved completely from the range on the following day. In the first place, he had no place to live, and in the second place, he had livestock, mining equipment, and farming equipment that had to be cared for or stored. The Navy agreed to provide a Quonset hut for the Raineys to live in.
Accordingly, the following morning a strange caravan rolled out of the gates of the El Centro Naval Air Station—a moving van, a horse van, a five ton and a three ton truck, a sedan, and a jeep. The caravan moved into the Chocolate Mountains over trails that were barely passable. The moving van was the first to be stopped by the terrain —four miles short of the Rainey ranch. The horse van bogged down about two miles short of its destination, but the rest of the caravan arrived at the site of the Peg Leg Well at 1:00 P.M. as planned.
Mr. and Mrs. Rainey greeted the party which consisted of two officers and fifteen men. The winter day was cold with occasional flurries of rain and snow. It had been a rough journey, but the Raineys had a surprise in store. Everyone was invited to partake of baked chicken, with plenty of good stuffing, gravy, pan biscuits (Mrs. Rainey’s specialty), plenty of hot coffee and goat’s milk. The officers and men felt as welcome as though they had come to spend the Christmas holidays with the Raineys.
When the food was consumed all hands turned to load the personal belongings of the Raineys into the trucks. The only hitch encountered was when one of the colts objected to leaving his mountain home and had to be dragged the two miles to the van.
The last of the Raineys personal effects were packed in their trailer, hooked up to his old pickup truck, and the party was ready to depart from the vicinity of the Peg Leg Well. Joe Rainey paused and looked back. Silently he looked over the product of his labors, and putting his arm around his wife’s shoulders, said reassuringly, “Ma, I may be fifty-two years old, but we’ll make it yet.”
As the caravan crawled away from the ranch and out of the Chocolate Mountains, the Navy members of the party knew they were shipmates with a real American that day—Citizen Rainey of Peg Leg Well.