Paul Bishop—Sixgun Justice

EARLIER THIS YEAR, MY wife and I were able to spend a few days in Death Valley National Park, which straddles the California– Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. With its diverse environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, badlands, valleys, canyons, and mountains, Death Valley is the largest national park in the contiguous United States, as well as the hottest, and the driest. It also has the lowest elevation of all the national parks.

It was my first visit, and we had a great time. I became enamored of the stark, yet beautiful, desert landscape, the shifting sands, the borax mines, and the history Death Valley has played in the Western genre. The visit led directly to the Death Valley full-length episode of the Six-Gun Justice Podcast in which my co-host, Rich Prosch, and I talked at length about the many movies, TV shows, and books inspired by the Death Valley.

One of my discoveries, however, was special enough to deserve a column of its own. I have no doubt, most Saddlebag Dispatches readers are more than familiar with the haunting country and the western hit song “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” The words and music have probably started running through your head with the mere mention of the song title. But there is a great story behind the song I want to share with you, including the series of serendipitous events that led Stan Jones, the man known as “The Singing Ranger,” to pen the iconic tune that opened the door to his remarkable career as a songwriter.

While in the park, I had the opportunity to read about the amazing career of Death Valley’s famous Singing Ranger, Stan Jones. A 1947 article in Arizona Highways describes Jones’s birth this way... One June evening in 1914, while Pancho Villa was busy shooting up a border town, a newborn citizen lustily joined in the din from a little Arizona ranch house about 200 yards away. Stan Jones had just arrived.

Interested to know more, I took the opportunity to visit the ranger station, which was the residence where Stan Jones and his wife were living when he wrote “Ghost Riders in the Sky” while on assignment in the park. To say it was primitive doesn’t do it justice, especially when you take into account the stark realities of the desert and the intense heat in the Valley of Death.

The ranger residence is a short distance inside the entry to the park, near the desolate outpost of Stovepipe Wells. With its two-pump gas station, small motel, restaurant, and gift shop, Stovepipe Wells is the last vestige of civilization before the long, long miles of tarmac leading to the two resorts nestled in the heart of the Valley. Another well-known resort in the Valley is Scotty’s Castle located at Furnace Creek. However, it has been closed for several years due to flash flood damage but is set to reopen in 2022.

Stan’s parents, John and Berta, had roots in the deep South. After marriage and beginning a family in Texas, they moved to Mexico where their family continued to grow while John Jones worked as a clerk for a copper mining company. Civil unrest in Mexico sent the Jones family across the border to Douglas, Arizona, to the home of Berta’s brother, Grover Davis.

Born there in Arizona, Stan was the youngest of seven children. His father was forty-seven at the time, his mother thirty-nine. A surprise to say the least, Stan was termed an “afterthought” baby by one of his nephews. His coming into the world probably played a part as the catalyst for John Jones abandoning his family while Stan was still an infant. His mother would soon obtain an uncontested divorce but discreetly listed herself in the city directory as a widow to avoid the social stigma of the day associated with being a divorcee.

As Stan grew up, he spent much of his free time roaming the surrounding desert and mountains near his home, often “borrowing” one of the local donkeys. He also made a name for himself among his peers for his ability to tell ghost stories. This may have been a latent gift from his father, who had entertained Stan’s older siblings by playing guitar and storytelling in his deep baritone voice.

By age 15, Stan and his “widowed” mother were living in Los Angeles with his older sister Jeanne and her family. Stan went on to attend UC Berkeley in the early 1930s, riding the rodeo circuit during breaks to earn his living expenses. This was followed by a short stint in the peacetime Navy. While his time in the Navy was brief, the honorable discharge he earned would later prove to be a valuable asset.

STAN JONES, THE SINGING RANGER. THE SONGWRITER BEHIND THE WESTER CLASSIC “GHOST RIDERS IN THE SKY.”

After the Navy, Stan bounced around working at a variety of jobs including mining, logging in summer, snowplow driving in winter, and fighting fires for the National Park Service, but none of these occupations seemed to strike him as a career.

In 1944, however, he heard about an open ranger position at Mount Rainier National Park. Being an actual park ranger was something Stan saw as an opportunity to return to the same type of free range adventuring he had loved as a youth. Here was a chance to use his hard-earned wilderness skills, and his honorable discharge status gave him a major advantage when applying for the job.

Once employed as a ranger, Stan started in Mount Rainier but would eventually be assigned to parks all over the western United States—a life that was a perfect fit for his temperament and interests.

During WWII, Stan served as the field director for the American Red Cross in Bend, Oregon. While there he met another Red Cross volunteer, a schoolteacher named Olive. They were married a short time later, and it was Olive who bought Stan his first guitar—a Martin tenor—for a birthday present. The instrument opened up a whole new world for Stan, and from then on, the guitar—and Olive—went everywhere with him as he filled the long nights at remote postings by writing songs.

From his days telling ghost stories to the other kids around Douglas, Arizona, Jones had developed into a natural storyteller. Olive encouraged Stan to combine his musical talents with his love of Old West legends and tales. Following her advice, he began to transform his cowboy stories into cowboy songs.

In 1945, after the war, Stan returned to Mount Rainier with both Olive and his guitar. There, they quickly became popular and active members of the local community. Stan needed little encouragement to take out his guitar to strum while singing his ever-growing repertoire of original cowboy songs. It seemed Stan had finally found his two natural callings—serving as a ranger and music. But he was yet to discover the amazing doors those callings would soon be opening.

The job of a ranger in the ’40s meant doing everything from mundane maintenance chores to dangerous rescues. During his first year as a ranger, Stan dealt with a visit to the park by President Truman, a postwar flood of visitors, mountain rescues, problems with bears, crowds of winter sports enthusiasts, snow removal on roads and rooftops, even crafting innumerable cedar signs for use throughout the park.

Good rangers needed a core of inner confidence, common sense, and a commitment to duty, as it was up to them to accomplish any task the remote areas where they were assigned might throw at them. With his diverse mix of hands-on and wilderness experience, Stan rose to any occasion. His warm, open personality, and a true connection to the outdoors, helped him to overcome any adversity making him the epitome of what the National Parks Service saw as the ideal ranger.

In 1948, Stan and Olive opted to leave the snow and cold of Mount Rainer winters for a new assignment closer to Stan’s desert roots—Death Valley National Park. After moving into the small domicile designated as the Emigrant Ranger Station, the couple again began to make friends with many of the locals, including miners and ranchers from around the area.

Stovepipe Wells, which was a short distance from the ranger station, was the first stopping place for visitors to Death Valley. It’s also where they would often find Stan in his ranger uniform ready to greet them and entertain them with his guitar and his story-based songs.

Along with his more prosaic duties—which included roaming the vast desert monument in his patrol pickup, rescuing vehicles stuck in the sand or with overheated radiators, chasing lawbreakers, searching for lost hikers—Stan quickly became a friendly and knowledgeable authority figure respected by all. Also adding to this perception were Stan’s regular presentations about the park’s natural history, which he would invariably finish by taking out his guitar and strumming a few tunes for the tourists.

There was one rusty nail in what, for Stan and Olive, was a desert Garden of Eden. The officer of the National Park Service in charge at Death Valley was Superintendent T. R. Goodwin—a stickler for rules and regulations with a curmudgeonly personality, which verged on telling everyone to “get off my desert.”

But in 1948, the movie studios suddenly discovered Death Valley, bringing in the likes of director John Ford along with actors John Wayne, Ward Bond, and Harry Carey, Jr. The spartan facilities at Furnace Creek and Stovepipe Wells were taken over as staging areas. While the National Park Service was pleased with the attention from the studios, Superintendent Goodwin was not going to let any violations of Park Service rules occur on his watch. To make sure, Goodwin insisted Stan be present as a technical advisor on any movies using Death Valley as a location.

atan chaffed a little under the purview of the rigid Goodwin, as it went against his easy-going nature. He also quickly found himself bored with what seemed to him to be the tedious and glacial pace of movie making. To keep himself busy during the breaks in filming, he took out his guitar and entertained the crew with some of the original songs he had written—including a little ditty he had penned a year earlier on the front porch of the ranger station called “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

By this time, John Ford and John Wayne had their movie in the can, but St n was almost immediately assigned as the technical advisor on another film—this one starring Randolph Scott—who was convinced “Ghost Riders in the Sky” could be a hit song. At Scott’s urging, Stan committed to try and get his songs produced. In late August, after vetting another film, this one with Gregory Peck—with whom Stan became fast friends—the singing ranger took his two weeks of annual vacation and headed to Hollywood with his guitar on his back and a satchel full of music. Like many a newbie trying to break into the business, Stan gained little traction as he made the rounds of music publishers. The only encouragement he received was when one producer took a shine to “Ghost Riders in the Sky” and said he would see what he could do with it.

When his two weeks were up, Stan returned to Death Valley and his ranger duties. He felt the trip had been a bust and that his music wasn’t going to have any impact outside entertaining visitors to the park.

However, the producer who showed interest in “Ghost Riders in the Sky” was good to his word. Through a series of machinations, the song found its way to Burl Ives who released a version of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” on the Columbia label in February 1949. It attracted some mild attention—enough for Bing Crosby to release a second version a few weeks later on the Decca label. However, neither Burl nor Bing had the golden touch to launch the record despite their reputations.

But in March 1949, a third version, this time recorded by Vaughn Monroe, was released through RCA Victor Records and suddenly “Ghost Riders in the Sky” took off up the charts like an overcharged bottle rocket. In April, with the song still rising in popularity, Billboard Magazine noted Vaughn Monroe’s version was selling at a record-breaking pace. This caused RCA Victor Records to launch an all out publicity campaign—including flying a dirigible over New York City flashing the record title and playing the record over a loudspeaker.

“Ghost Riders in the Sky” remained on the Billboard charts for 22 weeks, including time spent in the lauded number one position. Stan Jones, the singing ranger, was suddenly a sensation. There were articles in Time and Newsweek featuring Stan. And none other than Superintendent T. R. Goodwin was impressed enough to mention Stan in official dispatches when photographers were sent to Death Valley to complete a photospread for Life magazine.

The biggest boon for the song, however, came on a Saturday night on the hugely popular radio program Your Hit Parade. The nationally broadcast show played the top ten songs of the week, and on May 21, 1949, Frank Sinatra introduced “Ghost Riders in the Sky” as the number one song in the country. He then ripped into it as if it was the song he’d been waiting all his life to sing.

The cowboy song, as Stan referred to it, which had started life being strummed by Stan on the porch of Death Valley’s Emigrant Ranger Station, had come a very long way.

But musical success brought a new set of challenges for Stan, who was burning through his annual leave in order to handle all the demands. A tipping point was fast approaching when Stan would be forced to make a choice between his career with the National Park Service and taking a chance on the uncertain allure of long-term Hollywood success.

When RCA announced Vaughn Monroe’s recording of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” had sold an unprecedented 1,800,000 copies in just two months, Stan took it as a sign and resigned from the National Park Service and—with Olive’s support—headed off to take his chances in Hollywood. Success wasn’t long in coming. Gene Autry championed the song creating a starring role for himself in a movie based on the tune—which of course led Autry to release his own recording of “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” which was rapidly becoming iconic.

Some of Stan’s other songs also found homes. John Ford used them on the soundtrack for Wagon Master and Rio Grande, both released in 1950 and featuring Harry Carey, Jr. Rio Grande would also give Stan his first acting experience as a cavalry sergeant. This led to two more brief roles—the first in Gene Autry’s Whirlwind—based on Stan’s song of the same name—and Rex Allen’s The Last Musketeer. Over the next two years, Stans songs would be used in six more films, including The Steel Trap, which was the only non-Western.

When Harry Carey, Jr. was hired for the role of Bill Burnett in The Adventures of Spin and Marty in 1955, he remembered Stan with whom he’d become friends while working on Rio Grande together. On his recommendation, Stan began writing songs for the show and performing them on camera. Stan was also given a small role on the show as a character created especially for him. However, his presence was always in the background. He seldom had a solo camera shot, and aside from singing, had few lines to deliver.

Stan wrote all the songs sung by the Triple R campers during the first two seasons of the serial, except for “Slewfoot Sue.” During the third season—re-named The New Adventures of Spin and Marty—more of Stan’s original songs were used along with those written by others. With his soft-spoken, low-key personality, Stan was well-liked by the folks at Disney and would continue to be associated with the company for many years to come.

The Walt Disney Music Company even released an album Stan created as a tribute to the National Parks service combining his unique mix of spoken storytelling and music. Released in 1958, the cover displayed images of the Grand Canyon and Old Faithful, along with the official arrowhead insignia of the National Parks Service, a photo of a smiling Stan Jones in his full-dress Park Service Uniform, and a message from National Parks Service Director Conrad Wirth—who was clearly happy to have the NPS represented by the singing ranger.

Stan continued to create songs and music for movie soundtracks, including The Searchers, Westward Ho, the Wagons! and The Great Locomotive Chase—two of which were Disney films. He wrote the song heard over the credits for John Ford’s The Horse Soldiers, in which he had an uncredited speaking role as Ulysses S. Grant. In 1960, Stan wrote the music for and acted in a three-part Daniel Boone serial. In the same year, he appeared in the film Ten Who Dared with his Spin and Marty co-stars David Stollery and Roy Barcroft.

The TV series Cheyenne was fronted by a theme song co-written by Stan, who also appeared on screen opposite Clint Walker in one episode. His longest recurring role, however, was as Deputy Olson in the initial season of the 1957 television show, Sheriff of Cochise, for which he wrote the theme song as well as several scripts.

Stan wrote well over two hundred songs, earning seventy-four published songwriting credits on ASCAP. His first two albums, Creakin’ Leather and This Was the West were released on the Disneyland label in 1958 and 1959. Creakin’ Leather was later rereleased as Ghost Riders in the Sky on the Buena Vista label.

“Ghost Riders in the Sky” has become one of the most recorded songs of all time, performed in almost every conceivable musical genre. Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, the Boston Pops, Elvis, the Norman Luboff Choir, The Brothers Four, and Lawrence Welk all had popular versions. My personal favorite is by Frankie Laine. However, one of the most unusual versions was performed by the Australian alt-rock band Spiderbait for the 2007 Marvel live action movie based on the Ghost Rider comic book. It’s a fantastic rock-and-roll version that has racked up over seven million hits on YouTube.

In 1963, Stan passed away in Los Angeles. He was only 49 years old. His last film, Invitation to a Gunfighter, as released a year after his death.

There are two versions of how Stan came to compose his best remembered song. One states he was out riding when a storm came up and was impressed by clouds scudding across the sky that he imagined resembled men on horseback. The second, and the one I think most likely, refers to Stan telling a friend the idea for the song was sparked by a ghost story he remembered being told by an old cowboy when he was twelve years old. Most sources agree the story the old cowhand spun was based on the legend of Stampede Mesa.

The tale takes place in the fall of 1889. Ryker, a tough trail boss, was heading north from Texas, heading for the railheads in Kansas with a thousand head of beef on the hoof. One night, Ryker and his cowboys were looking for a place to camp when they spotted a rider not associated with the crew cutting out a few head at the back of the herd. When confronted, the man insisted some unbranded cattle from his herd had wandered and become swept up when Ryker’s herd passed by his small homestead. He claimed he was simply trying to reclaim his mavericks.

Like his crew and his herd, Ryker was dusty, tired, and cranky and had no patience for this yahoo and told him to wait until morning. There was a storm coming up, and it was promising to be one of those devil-inspired lightning shows filled with lightning, crashing thunder, torrential rain, and howling gusts of wind that, like everything else in Texas, are bigger than elsewhere. When the cowhand complained and demanded his cows, Ryker pulled his gun and ran the bluffer off.

Ryker had chosen to bed his herd down atop a little mesa with sweetgrass on the flat and even sweeter water below. It was the perfect place to contain the herd, and Ryker only saw the need to post a few hands as guards, allowing the others to get some badly needed rest.

When the storm hit, the worst thing that could happen did—the herd stampeded, but not toward the water below. Rather, they ran toward the cliffs along the other side of the mesa. Before Ryker and his wranglers could get the herd turned in their desperate attempt to stave off disaster, seven hundred head of cattle and two cowpunchers had gone over the cliff like lemmings to smash and writhe in agony before dying on the rocks below.

In the aftermath, one of his crew told Ryker that shortly before the cattle stampeded, he had seen the disgruntled rustler—the word well-chosen—who had been trying to cut cows out of Ryker’s herd, waving a blanket over his head and shouting above the noise of the storm, still trying to grab the mavericks he claimed as his own.

Filled with anger and a thirst for vengeance, Ryker and his men chased the rustler down. However, instead of stringing him up—the traditional way of dealing with his ilk—Ryker blindfolded the man, set him on his horse, and tied him to the saddle. One of Ryker’s men then blindfolded the horse. Ryker gave the horse a tremendous slap on the rump, the other wranglers shouting and yelling. The terrified horse bolted and galloped straight over the cliff to his death along with his rider, who suffered the same fate.

Without looking back, Ryker and his crew rounded up the remains of the herd and pointed them toward Kansas.

A year later, another herd was bedded down on the small mesa with the sweet grass on the flat and the sweet water below. There was no storm rolling across the skies that night, but in the small hours of the morning, the cattle were inexplicably spooked and stampeded over the cliff taking several cowboys with them.

What was now known as Stampede Mesa was avoided by every trail boss with any sense. Yet there were those who refused to believe, unable to resist the easy access to grass and water where the mesa was situated. This was the hardest of lessons, as every herd that attempted to overnight there, stampeded for no reason, adding their broken bones—both cattle and cowboys— to the collection on the rocks below the cliffs.

There were those wranglers who lived to tell what they witnessed, and they all spoke of the moment before the herd broke loose, when they saw a stranger on horseback shouting and waving a blanket over his head, riding up on the backs of the cattle, trying to cut out the mavericks from the herd and causing the stampede. Some men said they also saw the specters of the dead cowboys arise from the rocks below on their ghostly horses trying to desperately turn the herd before they ran over the cliff, but they never succeeded.

And while the haunted mesa was almost always avoided, the days of cattle drives were coming to an end as railroads were built across Texas, and without the cattle drives, the need to overnight a herd atop the haunted mesa became obsolete. But the story of the Ryker herd and the rustler he and his wranglers drove over the cliff on his horse in their blind anger has never been forgotten thanks to the lyrics of Stan Jones’s biggest hit—“Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

—PAUL BISHOP is a novelist, screenwriter, and western genre enthusiast, as well as the co-host of the Six-Gun Justice Podcast, which is available on all major streaming platforms or on the podcast website: www.sixgunjustice.com/