CONTENTS:
• Harry's record album
• Desert Rough Cuts
• The Old Mirage Salesman
• DRSB in Arizona Highways
• Full Text of DSRBs etc
• DSRB Printing Plates
• A Kiss For The Desert
  Also:
  
• Misc Oliveriana Gallery
    and Lindblade Photos
    and 49er Images
• HIGH NOONER: Harry Oliver
  and the Wild West Mythos
• back to HOFC index

Pea Hicks [ phix@adnc.com - www.optigan.com ] has graciously contributed .MP3s and .JPGs of the DESERT RAT SCRAP BOOK album, Harry Oliver reading a bunch of his yarns. Pea writes:

I've just converted the entire album to mp3 format and posted the individual tracks. To save space, I encoded these at a pretty high compression setting. I think his voice still comes across just fine. I've scanned both sides of the label and posted those in the same folder. I don't have the original sleeve, unfortunately, so all I have is the info on the record label itself. There's no date, but it looks to be from the late 50's or early 60's. Here's the vital stats on the record itself:

title: Harry Oliver's DESERT RAT SCRAP BOOK
label: John Norman's DESERT RECORDS
       Palm Springs, California
Cat. Number: D-1098/D-1099

DESERT ROUGH CUTS - A Haywire History of the Borego Desert
Los Angeles, Ca. Ward Ritchie Press 1938. A true desert classic with all the excitement of Lost Mines, prospectors and gold. Label on spine. Artists delight!!! Illustrated by WoodCuts by author. 1st ed. Binding is Boards.

"You see now, it's up to me to write these Rough Cuts about my gold findin' friends in theis Desert Valley." —Harry Oliver

from SAN DIEGO HISTORY:
"Borego's Hollywood connection were not all directors. ...the best-known was Harry Oliver (1888-1973), an art director at Fox. He became fascinated with the legends and lore of the Borrego Desert, and in 1938 published Desert Rough Cuts. A Haywire History of the Borego Valley, a fanciful piece that foreshadowed his famous Desert Rat Scrapbook which began publication in 1946." (footnote 26)

NOTE:   This is one item I don't own and would surely love to get or at least read. If anyone has a copy they can part with, or scan, please contact me. --Ric

THE OLD MIRAGE SALESMAN; A Whimsical Desert Digest of Refreshing Nonsense; Heralding the life of the Southwest's foremost story telling Desert Rat, Harry Oliver; Editor, Humorist, Historian, Publicist, Pioneer, Philosopher, Prospector, Showman, Builder, Hermit and Secessionist (Palm Springs: The Printery, 1952)
(Many thanks to Daphne Worsham for selling me that autographed 1st edition, #513 of 2000)

Harry wrote this interesting article, arrayed in a splendid four-page spread, for the March 1953 issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS magazine. I was sent these image scans some years ago, and in 2004 managed to find a couple copies of that issue myself — in Arizona, of course. I'll post larger scans here when I get back from the Yukon to my scanner.

To read Harry's ARIZONA HIGHWAYS piece, click here.

  Folks:   I want to post online as much as I can find of the writings of Harry Oliver, of the texts of Desert Rat Scrap Books and his columns and books and other publications. If you have ANY­THING besides what's listed here, whether as a text file or an image scan or just a scrap of paper please email me. Thanks —Ric

To see the DRSB scans, click here.

Danny B. writes: "You ask how I acquired the printing plates -- you're not going to belief it but I found them at the local dumpground few miles from 1000 palms where harry used to live. Attached is a pic of two plates of the frontpage of the desert rat scrap book newspaper."

Hey Danny:   I know you want to sell these. Do you have any more plates? If so, scan them and I'll post the images here, and some reader may be interested enough to contcact us, eh?   --Ric

A KISS FOR THE DESERT From Harry Oliver (no ISBN) is the only (that I know of) 'bio-graph' of the Old Dream Merchant. Written enthusiastically (if not always expertly) this book is a treasure trove of details about whatever bits of Harry's life he chose to disclose. It is also lavishly illustrated, both with reprintings of Harry's work, and with Ms Stohler's own illustrations. The sketches seem to be Ms. Stohler's renderings of old photos.; Many of those sketches, especially of Harry's architectural designs, are reproduced (without permission) (but also without reproach) on this site. For those interested in Harry's life and work, this book is highly recommended.

NOTE: Ms.Stohler possesses a trove of Oliveriana and has graciously contributed many of the images you see below. Our many thanks to her!