This well-made 1958 home movie features title cards and shows various Death Valley landmarks. The film begins with a topographical map of the United States that zooms in on an outline of Death Valley and Furnace Creek (0:41). Road into Death Valley (1:38); San Gabriel Mountains in the distance (1:59); an American flag (2:21). Cars driving on the road into the Valley (3:22). Bennett’s Long Camp plaque at 3:33, commemorating 49 Death Valley emigrants who almost died from starvation in 1849. A woman and young girl emerge from a field of long grasses (4:09). Sign marking “Sea Level” (4:42). Burned Wagons Point, where a group of 49ers burned their wagons and continued on foot (4:46). Emigrant Spring (5:04). Black-and-white photo of a 20-mule team in a St. Louis Parade in 1915 (6:00); a woman sits on the back of a wooden wagon train (6:43). Old Dinah Steam Tractor (7:04); 20 Mule Team Canyon sign (7:18). A man picks up a piece of salt (8:27); a roadside well; a woman holds a piece of obsidian (9:23). Harmony Borax Works (9:40); the woman and child enter a silver mine (10:59), look up at a weathervane, and pose in a mining car (11:39). The Famous Bottle House, made of glass bottles (12:15). A girl pets a donkey (13:16); Wildrose Charcoal Ovens (14:06). Shorty Harris Grave (15:28); he was buried next to his friend, Jim Dayton. Val Nolan grave (15:55). Two visitors stand at an overlook and point at distant mountains (17:47). Panamint Mountains above the Badwater Basin (20:10). Elevation Sea Level sign (20:56); Furnace Creek Ranch (21:03). A stagecoach used on Panamint City-san Bernardino railroad 1874-1888 (22:22) and “Borax” Smith’s buckboard (22:36). The Inn at Death Valley (23:36). The girl plays with a white donkey hitched to a stagecoach from the Stove Pipe Wells Hotel (24:28); visitors ride horses in a corral (25:45) and on a trail (27:19). Zabriskie Point sign (27:27); more views of Zabriskie Point badlands (29:16). Family poses with Mushroom Rock (29:26). Manly Beacon Cliffs (30:02). The woman examines a desert nature guide to identify plants (30:56); desert holly (31:15) and other desert plants; cacti at 32:05. A girl crouches next to a salt pool on the Devil’s Golf Course (33:18); Natural Bridge (33:23). The girl next to a Badwater sign (33:46), 280 feet below sea level; two women at the edge of the salt flats; the camera pans to a sea level sign (34:25). Amargosa River (37:45); Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes (37:57). The family walks around the dunes (40:12) and plays in the sand; a girl wearing a Stove Pipe Wells shirt poses for the camera (41:42). A woman next to an Old Stovepipe Well (42:11). Ubehebe Crater (43:08). Death Valley Ranch (43:54). Scotty’s Castle (44:01); a chandelier in the living room (45:31); a tour of the various rooms, including a kitchen (46:21), bedrooms, and bathroom (46:36). Scotty’s grave cross (48:18). End title card: “That’s All” with a skeleton in the desert.
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