The Good Die Young

Johnny L. Powers, Constable of Onyx, died a young man, upholding the law.  He was 27 years, 9 months and 6 days old.

It all started over a pitch fork, a handle broken and haystacks set on fire by an Indian ranch hand, Wampei Jiggens, on the Smith Ranch on the South Fork of the Kern River.  Issuing the warrant, Johnny Powers headed out to make an arrest.  Johnny was a member of the wronged, yet powerful, Smith family.

Johnny Powers, accompanied by Sam Gann, Constable of Kernville, and a deputized trapper, Oliver McCoy rode out to Sage Canyon where on Friday, July 3, 1891, they were met by Chief Kiwowa and his sons, who turned on them with gunfire. Powers and McCoy lay dead, along with three Indians. Constable Gann was able to escape to Cayote Holes, formed a posse and chased after the remaining outlaw band.  Their pursuit took place for two weeks, but rough terrain through the Mojave desert made it difficult to track them down.  Ultimately, Wampei Jiggens showed up in Lone Pine wearing Johnny Powers' hat with his badge pinned in it.  Jiggens was arrested, tried in Bakersfield and served a life sentence.  Johnny's handsome body was hacked up after his life passed out of him.

Johnny rests in his grave with a brass plaque anonymously donated.  His original stone was stolen. A reward was posted for its return, no questions asked.   Ninety-nine years after he was laid to rest, his stone appeared in the back of someone's shed in Twin Oaks, a small town in the mountains once occupied by Piute Indians.  For a couple of decades before its disappearance, the headstone remained undisturbed in the cemetery.  The robbers had smashed the stone into two pieces and the lower part of it was used as a step to the shed.  Breaking his grave marker was yet another assault to the young Powers.  One can only imagine the motives or intent to single him out, but there are no questions asked, at least not out loud.  This original headstone now sits in the Walker Pass museum.  Johnny L. Powers was a grandson to the first white woman in the territory.  He lays peacefully with other members of the Powers family.  Silk flowers are placed by the local churches and historical preservationists of the area.  Johnny's name is engraved, along with other fallen officers of the law, in the Kern County Sherrif's Office Memorial.


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