USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 33
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A band of 150 men arrived here yesterday and took the first train by the Pennsylvania Central road on their way to Arizona. At the base of the San Francisco Mountains they intend to establish a colony. Each man takes provisions for ninety days, and his personal outfit of tools and clothing to a total prescribed weight of 300 pounds, transportation for which and for himself to the end of the long journey is furnished by the Arizona Colonization Company -.. a Boston concern-at a cost of $140 per man. At the end of the railroad the colonists are to be joined by the company's engineer, Mr. G. B. Maynadier, who went ahead about a week ago to provide transportation from that point. Mr. Maynadier was the chief engineer of Henry Meiggs' Andes railroad in Peru and is said to be thoroughly acquainted with Arizona. The part of the country in which the proposed settlement is to be made is said to be very rich in the precious metals and at the same time very advantageous for agriculturists. A company is forming in San Francisco with a capital of $10,000,000 to work located mining claims on the west side of the mountain to which the colonists are going. Within about thirty days at least eighty more men, with the families of some of those who have already gone, will go from Boston to join the New England colony, whose organization was begun in August last by a company of which Judge O. W. Cozzens is president; J. M. Piper, secretary, and S. C. Hunt, treasurer.
The Cozzens mentioned may have been S. W. Cozzens, who was in Southern Arizona in the early sixties and who wrote "The Marvellous Country." Depar-
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ture from the East was in the late spring of 1876. Just where any large body of rich agricultural lands could be found near the San Francisco Mountains is something not known today. The mountains, too, are of recent volcanic forma- tion and are thought to be barren of valuable minerals. This was discovered by the colonists, who soon moved on to Prescott, where the expedition disbanded.
One permanent record of the trip has been left, however, in the naming of Flagstaff. How it happened is told in the following article, taken from the files of the Coconino Sun :
A few days before the Fourth of July, 1876, a party of settlers on their way from Boston, Mass., to Prescott, Ariz., were camped at T. F. McMillan's corral, near where the spring on what is now known as John Clark's ranch, just north of town, is located. The party decided to rest for a few days and concluded to celebrate the 100th birthday of our republic amid the pines of Arizona. A suitable pine tree was chosen and cut down, trimmed and smoothed by the carpenters of the party, among them J. A. Wilson, now of this place. The top of the staff was ornamented with a gilt ball. The flagstaff was raised on the morning of the Fourth of July, 1876, with the proper ceremony. A piece of money, a nickel, we believe, was deposited at the bottom of the hole, and the flagstaff was raised and the Stars and Stripes floated from the top during the stay of the party, which was some two weeks longer. Frank Hart and T. F. Millan, who were both in this section at the time, say that the flagstaff stood for several years and finally decayed off at the ground and fell down. But the location was known by all old settlers as "The Flagstaff," and with the advent of the railroad and the locating of a station here it was called Flagstaff.
POPULATING THE FORESTED AREA
While the springs at the base of the San Francisco Mountains for years had been stopping places for survey parties, trappers and couriers, the first perma- nent settlement appears to have been made by T. F. McMillen, in the forest, very near the site of Flagstaff, early in 1876. By July, he had two neighbors, less than fifteen miles away, Frank Hart and James O'Neill. About a year later came John Clark, who settled in Clark's Valley and who shot a great bear right where Flagstaff now is. Clark tells how it took twelve bullets, from a new Henry rifle, to kill that bear, and how its heart was "shot to pieces." Bear, antelope and deer meat was the principal food. Flour was almost impossible to get.
In Fort Valley, seven miles north of Flagstaff, during the building of the railroad was established Fort Moroni, a log house sixty feet in length, head- quarters for the Moroni Cattle Company. This company was controlled by John W. Young (son of Brigham Young), a contractor on railroad construc- tion, who needed in his work both beef and hewn ties. The ranch later was sold to the A-1 Cattle Company.
Flagstaff really started with the coming of the railroad, then being inaugu- rated the great lumbering business that since has been her main business stay.
The Arizona Lumber and Timber Company's great sawmill at Flagstaff had its origin in a much smaller plant established on the same ground in the winter of 1882. The owner of the mill was Edward E. Ayer, whose first trip into the pines of Northern Arizona was by ambulance, when the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad had reached Winslow, further extension delayed by the slow and expensive construction on the Cañon Diablo bridge. Mr. Ayer, an expert timber man, made a contract with the railroad especially for the sawing of ties and bridge timber and soon had his mill. in operation, the machinery freighted by
MAIN STREET OF FLAGSTAFF, UNDER OBSERVATORY HILL, IN APRIL, 1882 Ruins of first tent-houses in foreground
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team from the end of the track. Every tie on the mountain section was turned out at this plant. In a letter from Mr. Ayer, he states :
I owned those mills for several years and finally sold out on his own estimate of its value, taking his paper for the entire amount due in one, two and three years and without security, to one of the most honest men who ever drew breath in the State of Arizona or anywhere else- Mr. D. M. Riordan, an elder brother of the two men who now own the mills at Flagstaff.
Mr. Ayer also writes of a trip that he made in February, 1884, when the Hull boys had blazed a trail to the Grand Cañon and of another trip soon thereafter, during which he, his brother and his wife managed to reach the bottom of the cañou, taking three days and two nights to the trip, guided by Bill Hull and a companion who had found a way down from near the point where John Hance's cabin afterwards was built.
Ayer, now remembered in Arizona only by a few of the old-timers, was a soldier in the California Column in Company E, First California Infantry, and was in Tucson as early as April, 1862, thereafter serving in the guard at the Heintzelman mine, as a member of the escort of Colonel Ferguson into Sonora, as escort from the Rio Grande for the paymaster who brought "the first green- backs any of us had seen," and as a member of General Carleton's escort at Santa Fé, where Corporal Ayer was promoted to be first lieutenant in the First New Mexico Infantry, February, 1863.
Other great mills have been added since, at Flagstaff and Williams, and the timbering industry, under strict governmental supervision no longer is wreck- ing the forests, but has settled into methods of properly using timber that is mature. Another material asset of Flagstaff is her situation amidst wonderful scenery, bringing thousands of visitors annually, many of them guided by Al Doyle, a pioneer who early devoted himself to public service. Flagstaff was much benefited by the construction, in the fall of 1914, of an immense concrete reservoir, built for the city by the Santa Fé Railroad Company, on the southern slope of the San Francisco Mountains, two miles north of the city, at a cost of $165,000. The water comes from an altitude of 11,000 feet and is brought fifteen miles by flume and pipe to the reservoir, from which heavy pressure is afforded for the service of the town and the railroad. An ample reserve is pro- vided of 53,000,000 gallons.
A GREAT ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY
Near the end of a mountain spur, just west of Flagstaff, is the Lowell Observa- tory, which for more than twenty years has had a high place in scientific estima- tion, particularly through specialization in the study of Mars. Early in 1894, Percival Lowell, a Boston capitalist with scientific leanings, became interested in the study of Mars as a planet whereon might be demonstrated the existence of life similar to that known upon the earth. He secured the assistance of Prof. W. H. Pickering, who suggested that Arizona had ideal atmospheric conditions. So to Arizona in March was dispatched A. E. Douglass, a young Cambridge astronomer, who had been with Professor Pickering on astronomical expeditions to Pern and Mexico. Mr. Douglass now is Doctor Douglass, dean of the faculty of the State University of Tucson. He came to Arizona equipped with a small
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glass and after viewing a number of sites in the territory, selected Flagstaff, where observations were begun May 22, 1894.
An eighteen-inch telescope at first was used and with it important discoveries early were made, and the existence of the canals of Schiaperelli, discovered in 1877, not only were demonstrated, but their duplication was established. July 23, 1896, the value of the observatory was enlarged by the mounting of a twenty-four-inch refracting telescope, made by Alvin Clark & Sons of Cam- bridgeport, and since found to be one of the most effective glasses in use. The power of this telescope includes stars up to the fifteenth magnitude. The Lick thirty-six inch glass is only rated up to stars of the sixteenth magnitude and this slight advantage is more than balanced by the superior seeing qualities of the air at Flagstaff. Mr. Lowell is now in personal charge, and after years of investigation of Mars still keenly is searching that planet, confident of the pres- ence upon it of intelligent life and strong in hopes that this theory may become an accepted fact in the scientific world.
WILLIAMS, GATEWAY TO THE CANON
Williams gets its name very naturally from its location at the base of Bill Williams Mountain. According to Fish, the first settlers of the locality were Sam Ball and John Denton, who came in the summer of 1876 and who sold their claim to C. P. Rogers. Other pioneers of the locality were John Vinton Rogers, Judge J. M. Sanford, John Clark and William Ashurst. C. E. Boyce and H. H. Scorse were pioneer business men about the time of the railroad's arrival, September 3, 1882. Williams not only is an important lumbering and stock raising center, but is the gateway to the Grand Cañon.
On Bright Angel Trail, in September, 1913, the Grand Cañon was the scene of a novel Masonic gathering, called to administer the three degrees of the Blue Lodge under primitive conditions. The first degree was given in a tent by the river, the second in a mine tunnel about half way up and the third in an enclosure on the end of a point overlooking the gorge. The greater part of the attendants were from Phoenix, headed by Worshipful Master A. A. Betts.
YUMA'S INTERESTING STORY
The early history of Southwestern Arizona has been given attention else- where in this work, mainly in connection with the pioneer mines and pioneer transportation. The history of the Town of Yuma itself is one of large romance, possibly in this respect even equaling Tucson, as she was set in the middle of a hostile Indian tribe and on the route of the main highway, over which came too large a proportion of the worst of mankind. The early history, which has par- tially been told, was one wherein bloodshed was common. In March, 1866, the little settlement felt called upon to form an organization, and on the record of its membership are found such names as F. Hinton, George Martin, A. H. Wil- cox, H. N. Alexander, H. T. Stevens, A. D. Johnson, I. W. Jones, Gabriel Allen, O. I. Travis, and J. M. Barney, the last named president of the association, which was given the name of the Arizona Vigilance Committee. The records of the committee are all too meager, with notations of the pursuit and capture to various criminals, but nothing said concerning their disposition, except in the
FLAGSTAFF, LOOKING TOWARD OBSERVATORY HILL
LOWELL OBSERVATORY, FLAGSTAFF
This point was selected because of the clear atmosphere, and here Professor Percival Lowell has carried on his remarkable studies of the planet Mars
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case of Joe Bowers, who was turned over to the sheriff of Los Angeles County, Cal.
In the writings of Herbert Brown is found a story concerning the killing, about 1868, of Jas. T. Danna, said to have been sheriff, by a desperate Yuma Indian known as Big Charlie. There was a remarkable duel in which Danna, known as a dead shot, killed the Indian, but himself was mortally wounded by a glass-tipped arrow from the bow of a cousin of Big Charlic. O. F. Town- send, a distinguished pioneer citizen, was acting as constable and participated in what appeared to have been a general melee between Danna's posse and the Indians, Big Charlie's father and mother both having been shot. But the former suddenly came to life as the posse was returning from its work and attacked one of its members with a knife. Townsend was quick to the rescue, however, and killed the Indian just as he was about to drive a long knife into the body of one of the white men. The Indian who killed Danna was arrested, but managed to escape into Mexico, where he led a renegade band. The record tells, "It was found necessary to kill him. The head men of the tribe were sent for, the case stated and his death demanded. All this was agreed to, and to prevent tribal animosities a brother of the condemned man was delegated to kill him. For this purpose a feast was given and as soon as the renegade became drunk his brains were beaten out with a club. The chief of the tribe was named Sebastian. He was a friend of Townsend and followed instructions to the end."
In 1870 the county seat of Yuma County was moved to Arizona City, now Yuma. O. F. Townsend was in charge of the transfer, which was done under the authority of an act of the Legislature. The steamer Nina Tilden, com- manded by Captain Polhamus, took on board all county officials and records and transferred them down river. March 11, 1871, Arizona City was incorporated by an act of the Legislature and February 3, 1873, its name was changed to Yuma. The same year the town corporation was authorized to levy an annual special tax of 50 cents on each $100 of taxable property for the purpose of con- structing a levee against the encroachments of the Gila and Colorado rivers
Among the pioneer residents of Yuma, still active and an acknowledged historical authority of the county, is Miss Post, one of the town's first school teachers, with residence dating back to 1872. The only communication with the outside world was by ocean steamer that got to the mouth of the Colorado once a month. Mail was brought in from San Diego every two days by mud wagon, a light form of stage, that made about 100 miles a day. The American population, in which was included all who were not Mexican, in 1872 embraced just five per- sons who in 1914 still were living in the locality. In 1875 Miss Post partici- pated, possibly was the leading spirit, in the first Christmas tree of Yuma. Not only did each of the children receive an appreciated gift at the tree, but the teacher, equipped with dress patterns, went from house to house showing moth- ers how to cut proper dresses for their girls, and even providing the material where found necessary. Thus it happened that at the Christmas entertainment every Mexican child came forth happy and proud in new attire.
In the log book of the old steamer Cocopah, under date of December 25, 1879, is made record of what was probably the coldest day ever known in the Southwest. Despite the record of Yuma for torridity, it was recorded "it blew a northwest gale and was very cold. It froze all day in the shade. The night
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of December 24 was the coldest ever seen on the Colorado River. The morning of the 25th the river was full of ice, which ran until 12 o'clock."
Floods were a serious menace to the settlement. There was a flood in Sep- tember, 1868. In 1872 the levee on the Gila side was broken. In 1884 the Colo- rado bridge was damaged and a part of the town was under water. The worst flood of all was in February, 1891. There were two distinct freshets from the Gila, four days apart, the first arriving on the 22d. At hand is a local account of the catastrophe, clipped from the Yuma Times, which had issued a half sheet from the Sentinel office :
The sun of Friday morning disclosed a scene of destruction such as is seldom accorded to human eyes. A fringe of houses along the railroad track was all there was of Yuma. But fifty buildings remained out of 350. A single street only was left-along the railroad from the bridge to the round house. Many people have been compelled to move a second time. The large buildings of the quartermaster's department west of town were threatened by the rise in the Colorado and the refugees in them from the first flood moved to the hills. Household goods were scattered in the cemeteries and the living took refuge among the inhabitants of the dead. On the high ground everywhere was piled all sorts of household goods, furniture and merchandise. Many people slept on the ground, while others had improvised tents, surrounded by what they had been able to save. In one place a carpenter was making a coffin for a young girl who died near the convent half an hour before the flood. On the farther side of the sea which rolled over the town stood a solitary house-the one on the mound near Horner's shop. Its occupants were two invalid young men and supplies were sent to them in a boat. Dorring- ton's cottages on First Street were the only buildings in that direction left standing entire.
In the political history of the territory reference has been made to the con- troversy with California over the possession of the land on which much of the business section of Yuma has location, included within an extension of the southern line of California drawn to the junction of the Gila and Colorado. In 1871, Assessor Mark Schaeffer of San Diego County was arrested for trying to assess property on the southern side of the Colorado River, but was turned loose on the California authorities subscribing to an agreement that they would never more attempt to collect any taxes in Arizona. According to John Dorrington, "a suit was immediately instituted against San Diego County to collect $40,000 back taxes, which claim was gladly and willingly compromised by that county." It would appear that internal revenue taxes theretofore had been paid by Ari- zona City business men to the California collector. The whole controversy was settled July 28, 1873, in favor of Arizona by a decision of the commissioner of public lands.
The Gandolfo building and store of E. F. Sanguinetti burned about Sep- tember 1, 1899, with loss of $110,000. During the course of the fire the front of the upper story fell. Beneath it were a half dozen young men, whose bodies were crushed and burned. Their names were: Harry F. Neahr, Richard Wil- son, Julian Presciado, Refugio Rivera, Rudolfo Wilson and James Tapia.
The village council was reorganized early in 1901 with a novel plan for the payment of debts and of salary claims. About one thousand town lots remained at the disposal of the council and these lots for the time were used instead of money for the administration of village affairs. As an example, the village recorder was given two city lots a year and each councilman was to have one city lot for each two-year term
YUMA COUNTY COURTHOUSE, YUMA
5
PUBLIC SCHOOL, YUMA
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Yuma, late in 1904, experienced a bank failure, the Bank of Yuma being closed with only $400 cash on hand and with a deficit of $41,000. The failure appeared to be due wholly to bad management.
Wagon and automobile transportation across the Colorado at Yuma, until recently, has been by ferry, as the railroad in building its bridge in 1878 did not provide for the passage of wagons. This traffic necessity was not filled until the summer of 1915, when the United States Government and the States of Califor- nia and Arizona jointly erected a wagon bridge over the narrow channel be- tween the Fort Yuma and Penitentiary hills.
One of the earliest settlers around Yuma was José N. Redondo, whose descendants still are included within the list of local prominent citizens. He established himself in 1862 in a ranch on the Colorado and about that time dug a canal from the river to irrigate a large tract lying at the junction of the Colo- rado and Gila rivers. In 1871 he started a canal that cost $25,000 before any return was secured from its use.
EHRENBERG, LA PAZ AND PARKER
Northward from Yuma, along the Colorado, a stream on which steamboats have not plied since the building of the Laguna dam, can be found a wealth of interest in the ruins of old mining settlements. There was placer mining along the Colorado only a few miles above the Gila's mouth and copper and gold were dug at many points A few of the old mines, such as the Planet, are still worked, and one of the old placer beds back of La Paz now is having a new lease of life and is to be made profitable by the use of modern machinery.
Ehrenberg still has existence as a crossing point and ferry for automobile travel and is a supply point for mines, but its older neighbor, La Paz, is only a heap of ruins strewn down what was once the business street, where possibly 5,000 people once lived and where was handled, within only a few years, several millions of dollars washed from the nearby gulches. La Paz once was the county seat of Yuma County, but its steamboat landing was poor and so in 1869-70 much of the business went to the new Town of Ehrenberg, three miles up stream, which was favored by deep-water frontage. About fifteen years ago Ehrenberg came into the public eye in an odd manner, when Postoffice Inspector George R. Water- bury visited the village to see why no quarterly reports had been turned in for several years. He found Postmaster Daniel too busily mining to attend to the postoffice, wherein was found mail as old even as four years, some of it having originated in the office, but most of it received from other points. The post- master had even failed to open letters from the Postoffice Department and in the undelivered mail was the commission of his successor. In view of the circum- stances, most interesting was an unopened letter, personally signed, written by John Wanamaker on his departure from the office of postmaster-general, in ap- preciation of "the high class of service that had been rendered by the postmaster at Ehrenberg and thanking him for the support he had given the administration and the Postoffice Department."
The first stake of the new Town of Parker, in northern Yuma County, was driven June 6, 1906, by James Haddock of Los Angeles, Otis E. Young of Wick- enburg and C. W. McKee of Phoenix. Parker had and has large hopes for the future, all contingent upon the irrigation of a tract of several hundred thousand
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acres of rich land wherein she has a central position. It is hoped that the Recla- mation Service will throw across the Colorado a dam similar to that constructed at Laguna. The building of the Arizona and California Railroad brought into existence a number of Arizona towns, including Bouse (from which the Swansea Railroad was completed in February, 1910), Vicksburg, Salome and Wenden.
Early in 1915 a new town, Gadsden, was established in the lower Colorado Valley, twenty miles south of Yuma, at the end of a railroad spur.
THE MOTHER OF ARIZONA COUNTIES
The story of Yavapai, "Mother of Counties," mainly has been told in other subdivisions of this work, especially in those that deal with mining, the Indian wars, politics and personal mention. There remains very little of large value to add. A volume would be required to give the whole of a local history that is of rare interest.
Prescott, twice capital of the territory and one of the most sightly of Arizona cities, has risen over all disaster and now has new prosperity in her mineral fields and in agriculture.
Masonry had an early establishment in Prescott, where Aztlan Lodge No. 1 was inaugurated early in 1865. The fiftieth anniversary of this event was cele- brated by a Grand Lodge session, held in Prescott in February, 1915.
The old courthouse at Yavapai County was built on the authorization of the Legislature of 1877 by the issuance of county bonds in the sum of $60,000, to bear 10 per cent interest and to be redeemed within a period of fifteen years. Provision has been made for a new one, to cost $250,000.
The first financial institution was the Bank of Arizona, started in Septem- ber, 1877, with Sol Lewis at its head. Others prominently connected with this institution in early days were Ed. W. Wells, latterly its president, Hugo Rich- ards, M. B. Hazeltine and Martin W. Kales. In 1879 the last-named was sent to Phonix to establish a branch, that later became the National Bank of Arizona.
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