A historic wooden tower was accidentally felled by a traveler who used it to winch a vehicle stuck in the mud in California’s Death Valley National Park, federal officials said.
The traveler recently came forward but will not be identified, the National Park Service said in a statement Thursday. It is not clear whether any action will be taken against them.
The concrete foundations for the 113-year-old tower were separated from their connections to the desert floor in Saline Valley, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) west of Las Vegas, on April 19, the park service said.
Saline Valley Salt Tram Tower No. 1 hit the ground, mostly intact, a park service photo shows.
The person eventually called a park service tip line to get to the bottom of the incident and took responsibility. They had used the tower to anchor a winch out of “desperation” while a vehicle was “stuck deep in the mud” not far from a marked roadway, in the words of the park service statement.
“They did not intend to damage the historic structure,” the agency said.
The streetcar included 20 original support towers that made possible the 13.4 mile span from the Saline Valley south to Owens Valley. Built by the Saline Valley Salt Company from 1911 to 1913, the tram ascended 7,500 feet to conquer the Inyo Mountains, the park service said.
The construction costs — about $9.5 million in today’s dollars — nearly sank the company, which eventually leased it to another salt processor, the park service said. It carried salt through 1930, according to the park service.
The streetcar’s 1974 listing on the National Register of Historic Places noted that it is “the steepest streetcar line in the United States” and “one of the most scenic, historic, best-preserved, oldest, and largest of its kind still in existence over is”.
The four northernmost tram towers, including No. 1, are located in Death Valley National Park. In a 2021 structural report, the park service said No. 1’s concrete foundations had “deteriorated beyond repair” and needed to be replaced.
The park service said a “stabilization project” was planned for the four towers before the incident, but it was not clear whether its funding could be used to repair No. 1.
“The park’s resource management team is working to fully assess the damage and create plans for what a responsible recovery of the salt tram would look like,” the park service said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
