American author and fisher Zane Grey put Bermagui on the global map for game fishing. Photo: Bermagui Historical Society.
A Californian couple who are diehard fans of American author and fisher Zane Grey are basking in Bermagui’s appreciation of their hero.
Zane Grey was a prolific writer of novels, 103 of which were made into so-called Westerns, movies about American cowboys. He was also an ace angler who put Bermagui on the global map for game fishing.
That is why Bermagui Historical Society has an extensive collection of Zane Grey photographs and memorabilia, including a Zane Grey ashtray and Zane Grey salt and pepper shakers.
Self-described global nomads Dan and Darlene Longacre sold their home in California in 2020.
“We are four years into this trip,” Dan says. “When we are in places like New Zealand and Australia, where Zane Grey was, I want to fish wherever he fished and find his camps.”
Dan started collecting Zane Grey magazines when he was 17. He has no idea how many items are in his collection.
“Thousands. I can’t even venture a guess after more than 50 years of serious collecting,” he says.
The collection includes a lock of Zane Grey’s hair, his admission card to dental school at the University of Pennsylvania in 1893, and a fishing jacket that Grey had made with a special long lapel for all the buttons he won from Catalina Tuna Club each time he broke a record.
Dan and Darlene Longacre around the spot where Zane Grey had his camp on Bermagui headland in 1936 and 1939. Photo: Stephen Mills.
Dan’s interest in Grey began as a child dressing up in cowboy outfits, complete with cap guns.
“I can still smell the smell of those caps,” he says.
As teenagers, he and his brother collected pulp magazines. Then they started collecting first-edition books as an investment.
“We would go to bookshops and outbid each other.”
Dan has purchased from book dealers in England and found a Zane Grey book while travelling in Myanmar.
Their house had a room dedicated to Zane Grey books, and another was crammed with fishing memorabilia. Yet another room was chock-a-block with items related to Grey’s movies: lobby cards, hand bills, posters and half-sheet posters. Things that needed more research were kept separately.
Then there are all the photographs, “thousands and thousands of them”, diaries, and letters.
“Zane and his wife Dolly wrote letters back and forth to each other,” Darlene says. “There is a crazy amount of letters.”
She says the most fun is getting Zane Grey’s diaries over the years and transcribing them.
“She is really good at deciphering his penmanship,” Dan says. “We would rent a cabin as we transcribed to check all the places.”
Zane Grey showing Bermagui lad David Byrne fishing reels. Photo: Bermagui Historical Society.
Their fascination with Grey clearly goes way beyond collecting memorabilia.
“We have done some gnarly walks,” Darlene says.
They have ventured into Death Valley and Utah’s Monument Valley so that Dan could take photographs of Darlene, with Grey’s hat, sitting on the same rock where Grey had taken a picture for one of his books.
These days they are not so much collecting but going where Grey went and finding information.
“It is so fun to see what he saw, and what influence he had, and if anyone cares anymore,” Darlene says. “It is so exciting for us in Bermagui, whereas Batemans Bay only had two pictures and nobody knew anything.”
They met a woman in Bermagui’s pub who said her father had always talked of Zane Grey and how much he did for the community, bringing in the fishing industry.
In New Zealand’s Bay of Islands, there is a Zane Grey Restaurant and Bar. The Longacres located one of the boats – Alma G – that Grey had used and, with great effort, the site of his camp.
Grey was the first millionaire author in the US and a celebrity on the scale of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie a few years ago.
“His celebrity in the day was huge, which is why there are so many little newspaper articles about him. Where he went, what he did, it was a big deal,” Darlene says.
Grey first visited Bermagui in 1936. He made his camp on the headland where Reflections Holiday Park is today. He left the floorboards and uprights from his 10 tents as a gift to the residents of Bermagui. They built a cabin where he could stay on his return.
Grey did return, in 1939, a few months before he died at the age of 67. That second trip was news to Dan and Darlene.
“For us it is like an Easter egg hunt,” Darlene says. “You get clues from his writing because his fishing books are non-fiction.”
Bermagui Museum is interested in any Zane Grey memorabilia that people have.
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