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Show 4 SALT FLAT NEWS, MAY; 1975- - ; Can AII This Grandeur Perish? For i years an Oklahoma Creek Indian named Rolling Mountain Thunder followed the Great Spirit trail. As a truck driver, as a preacher , as a cop, as Frank Van Zant, Thunder worked at various jobs and lived in the white man's world, yet he was never really a part of that sixty-fou- r world. Then seven years ago the Great Spirit trail led him to Thunder Mountain, Nevada, where he sensed immediately the presence of the Spirit. The place was , he says, the site of an ancient Indian community , the finest civilization ever known." When his car broke down, seemingly refusing to leave the place. Chief Thunder accepted it as an omen. Next came a gratuitous meeting with a land owner and an " offer he couldn't refuse. In the yean since. Chief his three children: Obsidian Thunder and Ns friends hone Lightning Thunder, Thunder erected several unusual buildings Mountain Thunder, and beside Interstate Highway 80 True Brave ' Eagle Fve found sufficient evident to establish the antiquity of the mountain and its use. We've found tools not many of them because they didnt use that many way back there. But we found enough of them irithis one canyon that we bought ! thats called Sacred Canyon. We found one the archaeologists were here and identified it almost immediately as 11,000 B.C. Its a definitely identifiable type of projectile. And theres a footprint back up on the other side of the mountain; its in rock where it was laid down over a million years ago. So man has always been around there. : And some people, such as near Imlay, Nevada, working en- Thunder. Tony Shearer who wrote the tirely with materials indigenous book Lord Of The Dawn he to the roadside, including diswas researching the tale of carded bottles, hubcaps, guard SALT FLAT NEWS: Is that and hes also an Indian rails. By salvaging boards and your real name; Chief Thunder?. he quit lifetime guy metal from abandoned buildings, i and went through Well, actually, Im officially broadcasting reby trucking in tons of rocks and . Mexico, South America, Rolling Mountain Thunder. But all with it cementing together searching where the point of oricall me Chief Thunder. enormous quantities of concrete. they gin might have been And after Chief Thunder has erected a fan- SALT FLAT NEWS: But you he wrote the book, and two tastic home he calculates, will had a different name before you months after it was published, stand for at least a thousand came here? he stopped by here, and he said years. I used to use a different it scared him. He stopped on the Upon first startled' glance, freeway, and here's the building Fve always been Rollfrom the window of a moving name, but that he saw- - sketched in the Thunder. ing whole the establishment auto, tombs or whatever they call seems to savor ofKrazy Kat; yet SALT FLAT NEWS: Which one them in ' South America and others, presumably grounded in of these peaks is the sacred Mexico. And theres the mounthe architecture of ancient mountain?. tain. America, claim to find among So he said he just stuck his Oh, that rugged, craggy one the maze of flying buttresses," on the carburetor and drove foot there. It was the spirit mounLake City, took a plane to arches, friezes and statuary a up Salt tain or god mountain or someas as old mankind itself. went back to South America and pattern like that long before the thing The roadside spectacle is white man came here. But was to confirm what he thought was it true. And then he came back a called simply the Moruiment and a and it was the dace,' spirit second time armed with pictures is dedicated to the Great Spirit where some people wanted and sketches, and it looked just It is ' the conspicuous part of a place to- be buried. And- then on the like this building. And that retiring community that now other side of it, between Thunnumbers about twenty-sevemountain. most of whom are living in the der Mountain, and Star Peak, And with that voice of his, had the sacred meetwhy, they canside nearby mountains and you know, that he developed as ing grounds, where they met for a yons, attempting to recast their thousands broadcaster, he said, This is of years even before lives in the ancient mold. the place. This is where it all. the Paiutes came in. Thunder started, and this is where its Recently Chief FLAT SALT NEWS: us his Have you coming back to. That which was unusual at spoke with home in the desert, where he found any physical evidence up out there before everything went lives with his wife Ahtrum arid thereof these people? zap is now returning here. And --an- d . . SALT FLAT NEWS: couldn't leave? n, My father. said that a hundred and sixty acres was big enough for a jackrabbit, but not big enough for a man. And that's where the irony of this comes in, because it seems that every bit of land that we fretted and worried about for years to buy up here came in one hundred and sixty acre tracts. .. SALT FLAT NEWS: What quali- fications does a person need to Uvehere? t 1 Oh, the ' only qualifications weve ever had is that they aspire to the pure and radiant heart. Now,' that doesnt mean that they would have to be pure and radiant. Theres no such thing. But that they would like to be a little bit more pure and have a little more radiant heart than they have, you know, and will work for it. such terms that I couldn't turn it down. So I went to work here. - . photo By SALT FLAT NEWS: How do they find this place? Do they read about you? Your car It couldn't get down the. road. I got as far as Carson City, and it began to die and quit Wouldn't run anymore, and we didnt have that much money to afford a big repair bill, so we turned around and started back this way, and it ran perfectly. So, about once a year or two, Muhi w (on 0. Only MfcWrtt . Since 1969, down here. But I moved on the mountain in '68. And since then weve bought these two canyons up there and started scruffing in them, and I thought, that's where He wants, us to Hve, but ' He lets us get places started up there and then He just makes it impossible for me to work in there. And then somebody else moves in. So I guess we're just opening it up for these people who are interested in living the rid traditional ways. anyway. So I built that one place, and . I thought that was enough. Thats one mile up the canyon, and I started to leave. I was just going to drive away and leave it Only I couldnt get away. I got forced back with a full load, and there was a car sitting there on the prairie. And I stopped and asked if they needed any help, and it was the guy who owned the property. And he offered me . - SALT FLAT NEWS: So you've been living here for six years? tirely. I came up here to this mountain in 1959 or 60. And we spent ten days on the mountain and researched it enough to know that it was the mountain. And then we left And I never considered coming up here, because it was too much work, and I was too old then. And right years later, why, circumstances,, visions, and everything, why, I found myself right back here on this mountain right years older and doing it Quet-zalcoa- ti, photo by R. that ' I cant really get out of here to do anything. I can go get a load of rock or something like in getting this place here, it was the Great Spirit en- - NEWS SALT FLAT NEWS: Were you following some kind of cosmic blueprint when you started visit? Well, three-month-o- ld - why, I try to leave again, and when I do, its catastrophic the things that happen. SALT FLAT NEWS: You can't even go to San Francisco for a building here? -- , he said, This is the Thunder Mountain of the legend. In the final days, why, the only survivors shall be at the place that will rise up in the final days. There shall rise up a place called Thunder Mountain in the final days, and the only survivors will be at Thunder Mountain. No, most of them just fall in, off the road. There hasnt been much written about me that I know .of. Some just seem to know exactly what it is, especially those whove worked hard in their life. They know what it is and foreigners seem to know, people bom the old country. . . People from old England and H. I going to Mm awayand IvmjUt couldn't get away. I grt forced, bub with a full load,' and there urn a car tittin there on the prairie. It urn the guy who mated the property. And he offered me weft termethatlcouldnttumitdbwn. i wswpwiy Ha wwwwv We're head'd right Into intellectual poverty Ihat'e worn than being on ahy reunationor won then being in am priton, became you cant breakout of it It'eavoluntan intellectual eiuhvement weft at that federal barbed win fence out there. . |