In fact, there does not seem to be a love affair behind William’s effort. He was always an obsessive man and would never hesitate to do something he set his mind to, at any cost.
There was no problem in having an ambitious character, but who would almost waste most of their life just to dig a tunnel?
Let’s try to solve this mystery, starting from the beginning.
William was born in Rhode Island in 1871. He had 6 siblings, 3 boys and 3 girls, but he lost all of them due to tuberculosis before he was 30 years old. He was also struggling with some health problems and thought a change of air would be good for him. He left his hometown of Woonsocket and came to California and stayed there for 2 years.
However, he could not bear to be away from his hometown and came back to Rhode Island about 4 years later. William traveled near Copper Mountain in the El Paso Mountain Range, and that’s where his story began.
William, who was known to have no training in mining or engineering, decided to dig a tunnel with his own efforts in 1902.
During the summer months, he usually worked as a laborer on farms, and when autumn came, he would take his two donkeys, Jack and Jenny, with him and continue his excavation work.
According to some claims, William’s purpose in doing this was to reach the gold mines. However, one thing was certain: this crazy man could not extract any mineral from this tunnel for which he spent years.
William embarked on a crazy task with a pickaxe and a shovel, rarely using a hammer, a hand drill and a few sticks of dynamite during this excavation. He struggled day and night with falling rocks and dangerous traps to dig into this solid granite.
He removed the rocks scattered around, first in his backpack, then in his wheelbarrow, and finally by carrying them over the iron rails he had installed, so that they would not block the tunnel’s path. William was determined to pursue a goal that was contrary to his human strength and patience.
He lived a lonely life for more than 30 years to build this tunnel, which is 1.8 meters long and approximately 4 meters wide.
William, who built a hut near the tunnel and continued his life there, was in a great struggle with poverty. He found a solution to mend his worn-out clothes with flour sacks and his shoes with crushed tin cans.
He would buy and burn as much kerosene as he could afford, but he usually made do with small candles. He had an old forge in his one-room hut and tried to live on simple meals. For what purpose would a person agree to live such a life?
When we take a short trip into the tunnel, we are greeted by interesting details.
As soon as you enter through the open door, you notice some interesting notes and a sign that probably symbolizes William’s mining notes. In addition, there are various candle residues in the crevices of this tunnel, whose ceiling gets lower and lower. Iron ore leaking from the rocks also indicates that these wax residues have a red color.
After a while, the tunnel comes to two different junctions. A glimmer of light on the right and a dark road on the left. After approximately 30 meters of the dark road, the tunnel turns sharply to the right. 100 meters further there is a dead end street.
Exiting the tunnel is possible by following the illuminated path, and the end of the path leads to views of the Koehn Lake Bed and the Mojave Desert.
William, who received the nickname “Burro” because of his two donkeys named Jack and Jenny, left this region after a short time, according to some claims.
Some sources claim that he continued to live in his hut for a few more years. Moreover, there are different opinions about how long it took this crazy man to build the tunnel.
William “Burro” Henry Schmidt, who worked for this tunnel for years, never used it. He died on January 26, 1954, at the age of 82, and was buried at Rand Regional Cemetery in California. It left behind a huge engineering construction and dozens of question marks.
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