The location of a proposed personal and RV storage project off Airport Road, the third storage project heard by the Planning Commission in as many months.
Took a drive up to Bradshaw cabin in the Martin Basin the other day. It was a beautiful autumn day spent with a good friend. When we arrived, I immediately noticed all the changes. I was heartened to see the old round corral in good shape. The meadows looked lush and beautiful, and it was clear that it had been a good water year. I showed him the old catch lot, and where the beautiful Sandhill Cranes raised babies in springtime.
The cabin had a new roof and front porch. The old foot bridges that take you to the spring box and outhouse had been rebuilt, and Les’ old bbq pit was still basically intact. I told my friend about the family of weasels that had lived in the old outhouse and laughed to myself about how one had popped up between my brother’s knees when he’d made his one visit there.
Kris Stewart at Bradshaw cabin 2024
I didn’t go inside the cabin. It’s not ours anymore and frankly, I didn’t want to see the changes. The old interior cabinets, bunks and table used to be painted a light blue and the rock walls were filled with old western prints and notes from my father in law Les about the history of the place and how to treat a buckaroo cabin. I don’t know if his old woodstove (original to 1920) and hand built wood box survive. The pile of construction debris outside told me most of those old memories were likely gone.
The new outfits have done a nice job. The cabin and grazing Martin Basin will live on. I just didn’t want to see the changes. I sent a picture to my friend Carl Fleischhauer who organized Buckaroos in Paradise for the Library of Congress more than 45 years ago. I compared my feelings to visiting my grandparents home after they were gone. It had emptied of magic for me, and I guess I’d just prefer to remember it the way it was, with my loved ones in it. Our family spent significant time most every summer and fall at Bradshaw. It was at the center of our Martin Basin grazing permit and you couldn’t ask for a better spot to headquarter from on the mountain. When we finished there, we’d move onto Cold Springs and finally home through Hardscrabble. Those memories are so real to me that when I close my eyes I feel like I can still see Les, Fred and Patrice there, smell the campfire and hear our horses and dogs.
Les Stewart’s 1936 drawing of Bradshaw and Ninety-Six Ranch wagon and team.
Our ranch built the Bradshaw in 1920. We owned the land it sat on. By the late 1980’s, the USFS had made grazing that riparian zone so difficult that my father in law sold the ground to them but maintained a long term lease on the cabin site. When I went to renew that lease after Fred’s death, I was rejected and told that my only way of keeping the remote cabin was to attach it to my grazing permit. When I sold those permits a couple years ago, I knew that meant the permanent loss of Bradshaw.
My most recent visit was the first I’ve made back there since giving it up. It was nice to see it in good shape but it was a melancholy experience for sure. I’ve driven by the turn off plenty of times but just couldn’t drive in. Part of that is out of respect for the new permittees and part is just out of missing what used to be.
I was glad when we pulled out and headed back to Lye Creek for lunch. I know everything changes and that’s okay; but, I’ll admit to loving the brief feeling I’d get walking back into those places before all the changes and feeling Les and Fred beside me for just a moment in time.
Kris Stewart is a rancher in Paradise Valley, Nevada.