Longstreet Spring and Cabin at Ash Meadows

Longstreet Spring and Cabin at Ash Meadows Overview

Longstreet Spring and Cabin is a short walk from the parking area, approximately 0.2 miles round-trip (320 meters). This boardwalk leads to an old stone cabin built by the gunslinger, Jack Longstreet, a mysterious man of the wild west. Built into a mound above an underground spring the cabin is cooler than outside temps and was used for food storage by Longstreet. The spring pool near this cabin is sometimes called the boiling spring because fine white sand bellows up from the depths giving it a ‘boiling’ appearance. Wheelchair accessible but no bicycles. [From the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service website]

Address

Longstreet Spring and Cabin is located within the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, which is about 2 hours northwest of Las Vegas. Click here to view the Ash Meadow Map for detailed directions.

Hours Open

The Ash Meadows Wildlife Refuge is a day-use area, which is open from sunrise to sunset.

Longstreet Spring and Cabin at Ash Meadows Fees

There is no entrance fee to access Longstreet Spring and Cabin at Ash Meadows.

Longstreet Spring and Cabin at Ash Meadows Amenities

There is an information board (picture at top of post), plenty of parking, and restrooms available at the trailhead.

A Look at Jack Longstreet

Not much is out there about Jack Longstreet and digging around old newspapers and Ancestry.com I have found his name as Andrew Jackson “Jack” and John Andrew with “Jack” as his preferred name. Supposedly, this is not his real name and nobody knows what it was or where he originated from.

I have found references that he was from Tennessee yet his death certificate states Kentucky for his birth. I have found references of him being born in 1834, 1838, and 1843. Again, not much out there but I will keep digging as family history is a passion of mine.

Timeline

1834 – 1843: Born possibly in Kentucky or Tennessee
1880 – Staked mining claims in Northern Arizona
1882 – Opened a saloon and drug store in Moapa, Nevada
1888 – Was in Oasis Valley
1890 – Opened a saloon in the short-lived boomtown of Sylvania
1896 – Longstreet homesteaded in Ash Meadows, building a stone cabin near the spring that today bears his name; the remains of the cabin were destroyed by flood waters in the early 1980s and have since been rebuilt.
December 1899 – Longstreet bought a ranch at Hawes Canyon located on the west side of the Kawich Mountains, east of Tonopah, where he and Fannie moved.
1900 – Census record for Tybo Precinct, Nye County, Nevada lists him as “J. Longstreet”
1906 – He kept the ranch at Ash Meadows until 1906, which is about the same time he sold the Hawes Canyon ranch and homesteaded in the Monitor Range, where he also operated a mine. He resided there until his death in 1928.
1928 – Died in Tonopah, Nye County, Nevada of an infection caused by an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Where Buried

Jack is buried at the Belmont Cemetery in Tonopah, Nye County, Nevada.

Coordinates: 38.58440, -116.87810

Spouse

Jack was married to Fanny BLACK Longstreet (b. 1866 in Nevada – 11 May 1931 in Tonopah, Nye County, Nevada). I found references that she is from the Pauite tribe of Native Americans but also found references to a different tribe that I need to find and see if I can figure out which is accurate.