10 Years Later, This Iconic National Park Attraction Is Reopening to the Public

A wealthy couple. A notorious conman. And a mansion built in one of the most inhospitable environments on Earth—Death Valley. It’s no wonder that more than 100,000 people once visited Death Valley Ranch, a.k.a. Scotty’s Castle, every year to take tours of the 1920s-era home, which still had its original furnishings. 

But when the area surrounding the home experienced a year's worth of rain in five hours on October 18, 2015, causing “a flash flood of mud and rocks … flowing at an estimated 3,200 cubic feet per second,” according to the NPS, Scotty’s Castle was forced to close. Funding and staffing challenges and a fire in 2021—not to mention laws surrounding the preservation of natural and historical landmarks and the COVID-19 pandemic—have kept it closed ever since. 

Until now. More than a decade after it closed, Scotty’s Castle will be reopening for limited tours, according to the Associated Press. 

The History of Scotty’s Castle

Born in Kentucky in 1872, Walter Scott (also known as Death Valley Scotty) was an expert horse rider who spent 12 years as a seasonal rough rider in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, returning to Death Valley in between engagements to work. When he left the show for good in 1902, he went back to Death Valley once again—and began running an ambitious con.

Scotty approached a few successful businessmen and convinced them to invest in a gold mining operation in Death Valley. One of them was millionaire Albert Mussey Johnson, an insurance tycoon from Chicago who invested thousands in the enterprise. When Scott didn’t deliver any gold after several years—according to the NPS, he claimed that “a number of calamities prevented [its] delivery”—Johnson asked to take a tour of the mine himself.

Scotty kept his poker face. When Johnson arrived, the conman took him on a journey through Death Valley on horseback, betting that it would be too much for Johnson—who, besides behind a city guy through and through, had, as a young man, been in a train accident that broke his back (and killed his father). But Johnson fell in love with Death Valley. On that first trip, he stayed for almost a month. And even though he never set eyes on Scott’s gold mine, he became fond of the conman and considered him a friend. 

For 10 years, Johnson returned to Death Valley to see Scotty; his wife, Bessie, eventually came, too. She suggested they build a winter vacation home there so they could “get away from the rattlesnakes and scorpions,” and construction began in Grapevine Canyon in the 1920s. The home started as a few box-like structures before evolving into a Mediterranean-style structure. 

Never one to let an opportunity pass him by, Scotty claimed that he was the one building Death Valley Ranch—using all the money he’d made from his goldmine to foot the $2 million cost, of course. The mine was also supposedly under the property—Abby Wines, acting deputy superintendent of Death Valley National Park, told the AP that servants would go to tunnels under the home and bang pots and pans to simulate the sounds of miners hard at work. 

The Johnsons went along with the story; according to Wine, they found it funny. Yes, Johnson told reporters, Death Valley Ranch was Scott’s home. He was merely “Scotty’s banker.”

Johnson stopped construction on Death Valley Ranch in 1931, when he found out he was building on federal land because of a surveying mistake. Construction never resumed due to the Great Depression, and Scotty’s Castle remained incomplete, though the Johnsons still vacationed there. 

Johnson eventually moved to Los Angeles and died in 1948. Scott was allowed to live at “his” castle until his death in 1954. The National Park Service purchased the property in 1970.       

When Will Scotty’s Castle Reopen for Good?

The flood recovery tours—which cost $35 each—will begin in March, but they’re already sold out. According to the AP, the funds from the tours will go toward the $90 million restoration of the property. The National Park Service anticipates a full reopening in a few years. In the meantime, you can take a virtual tour of the space in 3D here.