USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 34
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The Yavapai Club, one of the most attractive features of Prescott, was organ- ized in the fall of 1901, largely through the influence of Frank M. Murphy, who for the uses of the organization erected a handsome building.
PRESCOTT'S DISASTROUS FIRE
Prescott, like San Francisco, has pride in the manner in which she can withstand hard knocks.
July 14, 1900, her business section, around the courthouse plaza, was almost totally swept by fire. The flames demolished historic "Whiskey Row" and left only two of the town's thirty-five saloons. The water supply, in those days, was most meager and little could be done to check the spread of the flames, save to dynamite buildings that were in their path. One energetic individual was discovered just after he had touched off the fuse leading to several dynamite cartridges, which he had placed under the floor of a mercantile establishment wherein were several thousand pounds of mining powder. The fuse was hur- riedly pulled out, and the powder on the floor above was removed before being reached by the flames.
The disaster was taken in almost a joyous spirit. The band stand on the plaza became a barber shop and around it, in the night, arose what the occupants
BUSINESS SECTION OF PRESCOTT AFTER BIG FIRE OF 1900
VIEW OF PRESCOTT FROM THE SOUTHWEST
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called "Dawson City," with a dozen big gambling halls and drinking places, wherein pianos were hammered noisily and where the women singers warbled as cheerily as of yore. Faro lay-outs and roulette tables had been saved, and had no lack of players, and the sheriff served as treasurer for all the saloons and business houses on the plaza. The printers of the town even issued a daily paper, "The Howler," sold at "two-bits" a copy, proclaiming "All the world was a josh, but to us it is anything but a joke, at present." In the heading also was announced that the publication was "Sacred to the memory of Little Willie, gone but not forgotten." Willie was a printing office "growler."
The cause of the fire was the turning over of a lamp by a drunken miner in his room in a lodging house. Practically no water could be secured for fire fighting and the engineer at the pumping station had gone to bed. All offers of outside assistance were refused by the citizens, who handled their own few cases of destitution.
One of the serious losses of the fire was the destruction of the log walls of the first territorial capitol on Gurley Street. Of like historic interest and value were the papers of A. F. Banta, destroyed in the office of the Prescott Prospect. The total loss was $1,066,000. The total insurance carried was $385,000. The insurance rates had been high, running from 3 per cent per annum in the out- skirts to 10 per cent for frame structures in the business section. Before the flames were extinguished most of the property owners had begun preparation for rebuilding. The new structures erected were of much better character than those destroyed, and today the business section of Prescott is as substantially built as that of any other town of the Southwest.
The new Prescott water system was completed in June, 1901, bringing 500,000 gallons a day, pumped under heavy pressure, from Del Rio Springs nineteen miles away, to the city reservoir. The system cost $145,000, but better- ments have more than doubled that expenditure.
JEROME'S CONFLAGRATIONS
Second in importance in Yavapai County is Jerome, seat of the mining opera- tions of the United Verde Mining Company, concerning which much has been told in the mining section of this volume. The town, one of the most prosperous in Arizona, has had a civic existence since 1899, when Wm. L. Munds, a pioneer of the county, was elected the first mayor. In 1894 was welcomed railroad con- nection with the outside world, the narrow-gauge line from Jerome Junction. In April of that year the business section of the camp was almost destroyed by fire. In September, 1898, the camp again was flame-swept. In the succeeding May an incendiary fire once more swept away the business section and a number of homes, despite the efforts of several thousand men, for water was almost lacking. A veracious tale of the last fire gives details of the destruction of twenty- four drinking saloons and fifteen Chinese restaurants.
THE WALNUT GROVE DISASTER
One of the worst disasters ever known in Arizona was the breaking of the Walnut Grove dam, on the night of February 22, 1890. The structure had been built a couple of years before, primarily to furnish water for hydraulic placer mining operations on the banks of the river channel below, though with an idea
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of agricultural development as well. The dam was about 110 feet in height and 400 feet long on the top, tapering downward between two solid granite cliffs to a base that was on bedrock and was 130 feet wide. The dam itself would hardly pass modern inspection. It was built of loose rock and earth, with only the out- side walls laid in mortar. The reservoir above comprised a lake nearly two miles long. The winter of 1890-91 was unusually snowy and wet. When the snows began to melt after a warm rain the Hassayampa reservoir very soon was filled and it began to be apparent that the spillway provided, fifteen feet wide and eight feet deep, was entirely inadequate to carry away the flood waters. This spillway was soon blocked with trees and rubbish and the water began pour- ing over the top of the dam. Its collapse occurred soon thereafter. A wall of water, at first probably forty feet in depth, went roaring down the narrow cañon, carrying death and devastation.
It was told at the time that from the dam a messenger was sent down the cañon to warn every one to get to higher ground, especially at a camp a few miles below, where a diversion dam was being built. The messenger found the ride cold and comfortless and sought warmth and companionship in a little drinking place, where his news scems to have been received with derision, and where he soon drank himself into the same careless condition as his companions. A Prescott writer of the period estimated that not less than seventy lives were lost and that sixty-three bodies were recovered and buried at different places adjacent to the river. Only within the last few months a skeleton has been re- covered, believed to have been the remains of John Silsbee, a noted pioneer musician. Somewhere in the river, too, is a big iron safe, containing $5,000 in coin that was swept from the establishment of Bob Brow, which was in the cañon a short distance below the dam. It is probable that the Walnut Grove dam will be reconstructed very soon under plans that have been made for a concrete arch structure of the same safe type as that built by the Government at Roosevelt.
FEDERAL BUILDING, PHOENIX
CHAPTER XLVII
THROUGH CENTRAL ARIZONA
Settlement of the Salt River Valley-Foundation and Civic Advancement of Phoenix- First Mails and Schools-How Tempe and Mesa Came into Being-Florence and Its Neighborhood-Towns of the Upper Gila Valley and Early Indian Tribu- lation.
The first American occupation of the Salt River Valley, though most tempo- rary, was a hay camp, established by John Smith (who had his name changed by the Legislature to Jolin Y. T. Smith), four miles up the river from the later location of Phoenix. Smith, who had been an officer of the California Column, then was trader at MeDowell and had a contract to furnish forage at the post.
Jack Swilling several times had passed through the valley, but at the hay camp gained proper appreciation of the agricultural possibilities of the region, seeing also the ease with which water could be taken from the Salt River, follow- ing the lines of the ancient canals. So in Wickenburg, in 1867, he organized the Swilling Canal Company, with a theoretical capital of $10,000 and soon the "company" was on the ground, its members' goods brought by an eight-mule team. A start was made on the line of the later Grand Canal, within an ancient ditch, but, for economy of labor a lower site was soon decided upon. The canal thus started, thereafter known as the Salt River Valley Canal, today is the sup- ply ditch for Phonix and its neighborhood.
The name of Phoenix originated several years before any town was established. Swilling, a soldier of the Lost Cause, wanted to name the settlement "Stonewall." Jacob Starer suggested Salina, but John Larsen demurred on the ground that the word meant "salt marsh." Then Darrell Duppa, pointing to the evidences of ancient occupation, suggested the name that was agreed upon.
There has been found an interesting letter written by Thos. T. Hunter, who entered the Salt River Valley about January 1, 1868, and who, on account of high water, had to camp at the Hayden Butte on the south side of Salt River until February 16, after his party had lost W. H. Cooper by drowning. On the north side he found a number of settlers digging the Swilling Ditch and remem- bered the names of McWhorter (who was killed by Indians), "Pump Handle John," "Lord" Duppa, Vandermark, McVey, Jim Lee, Fitzgerald, Tom Con- ley, Jake and Andy Starer, John Adams, "One-eyed Davis," Bill Bloom and Frenchy, who built the first house in the valley, though the structure consisted only of four cottonwood forks set in the ground, with a brush and mud-covered roof. But the succeeding August a large number of new people arrived, includ- ing the C. H. Gray, Greenhaw, Rowe and Patterson families and "Red" Wilson,
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who was considered foolish for prophesying that from within the valley was to arise a wonderful city. Hunter told that the first child born in the valley, of white parents, was the daughter of John Adams, in the spring of 1868. The same household in April of that year furnished the first bride, the eldest daughter of the family marrying a cowboy, William Johnson. The ceremony was performed by the chaplain at Fort McDowell.
Swilling erected a large adobe house on an ancient ruin, near the head of the canal. There were good crops and the following year there was a material accession to the colony. Starer, Columbus H. Gray, J. Ammerman, and some others dug a branch canal, to this day known as the Dutch Ditch, lands still lower lying served by the Griffith Ditch, abandoned within ten years. Mrs. Gray, who still is living on the old ranch home in the southern suburbs of Phoenix, probably was the first white American woman who came into the valley, though Mrs. James M. Gardiner was first in the Town of Phoenix.
In 1870 a small flour mill, owned by W. B. IIellings, was in operation at Mill City, later East Phoenix. The ruins of its adobe building are to be seen a short distance east of the State Insane Asylum. A roadside station had been started by Major McKinney and, near Swilling's, Capt. W. A. Hancock, another California volunteer, had a small store. This store later was moved to the eastern edge of the present townsite of Phoenix, where the postoffice was started, with Geo. E. Mowry as clerk and postmaster.
FOUNDATION OF THE CITY OF PHOENIX
When the ideas of the settlers had coalesced to a degree, a meeting was held at the Moore place, October 20, 1870, and Darrell Duppa, Moore and M. P. Griffin were selected a committee to select a townsite on land yet unappropriated. Han- cock, who knew something of surveying, already had started on the platting of the north half of section 8, township 1 north, range 3 east, and his plans were reported back to the next settlers' meeting.
Thereupon was organized the Salt River Valley Town Association, with John T. Alsap, Jim Murphy and J. P. Perry as commissioners. This plan probably. was that of Alsap, who was shrewd and well versed in the law. The articles of agreement were signed by W. B. Hellings & Co., Darrell Duppa, Barnett & Block, Thomas Barnum, James Murphy, John T. Dennis, W. A. Holmes, Jas. W. Buck, Jacob Starer, John T. Alsap, C. H. Gray, M. P. Griffin, James McElliott, J. P. Perry, William Rowe, McConnell, Daniel, Twomey, C. C. McDermott, Ed- ward Irvine, J. P. Osborn, Andrew Starer, Paul Becker and Jas. D. Monihon.
Hancock's survey, comprising ninety-eight 300-foot blocks, filling a half-sec- tion of land, was completed early in 1871, though a lot sale was held in Decem- ber, 1870. The patent was received April 10, 1874, at a gross cost of $550. The average price received for town lots was $11 for corners and $7 for inside loca- tion. For choice business locations now assessed at $1,500 a foot, as much as $104 a lot was paid. The first house was an adobe on Washington Street, be- tween Center and Montezuma (First Street), where the first county offices were housed. These later were moved to a building on the present South First Avenue, later to be changed to a larger structure on Washington, east of Center, property bought from M. Goldwater, where they remained till the present courthouse building was completed.
ICO& CUS
NEWS DEPOT.
At the corner of Cactus Way. Old courthouse in background
At the corner of First Street
TWO VIEWS OF WASHINGTON STREET, PHOENIX, 1878
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The first lot was bought by Judge Berry of Prescott, on the southwest corner of Washington and Montezuma. The first deed issued by Probate Judge Alsap was on May 18, 1875, to Jacob Starer, for lot 12, block 10, on the corner of Adams and North Second streets, where the Arizona Republican now has its home.
In 1868-9 a horseback mail route ran from Wickenburg connecting with the main route at Maricopa Wells or Florence. There was a relief of horses near Swilling's ranch, where a box had been installed in which was put the mail of the community. In June, 1869, Postmaster Geo. W. Bernard, of Prescott, asked for the establishment of postoffices at Skull Valley, Walnut Grove and Phoenix. The office at the Phoenix settlement was established in 1870, with John M. Olvany as postmaster. Olvany was removed early in 1871 and in his place was appointed Wm. A. Hancock. At that time the settlement had about 300 inhabitants, ex- clusively engaged in agriculture.
William Smith started the first little store on the townsite and Dennis & Murphy, E. Irvine and Barnett & Block soon followed. The postoffice was moved to the Dennis & Murphy store, where George Mowry opened the first mail sack, as Hancock had been appointed sheriff of the new county in February, 1870, and had a deal of surveying work besides. Pete Holcomb was the first butcher.
The first election was in May, 1871, and the campaign was marked by the first bloodshed on the townsite. J. Favorite, candidate for sheriff, was killed by a rival, Chenoweth. The latter was released on examination, but, naturally, dropped out of the political race. To the office then was chosen Tom Barnum.
The first school in Phoenix had its first session September 5, 1872, established under authority of a late common school act, passed by the State Legislature. J. D. Daroche was the teacher, the session held in the courtroom of the court- house, on First Avenue, just south of Washington Street. The first trustees were J. D. Rumberg, J. P. Osborn and Wm. A. Hancock. There was a rapid succession of teachers during the first term, Daroche being succeeded by J. Parker and he by W. A. Glover, employed at a salary of $100 a month.
The district in 1875 awarded a contract for the erection of an adobe school- house, 20x30 feet in the clear, costing nearly $1,000, including the lumber from which the desks and the seats were made. The miller, John Y. T. Smith, gave enough lumber for the floor and, a short time afterward married the school mistress, Miss Nellie Shaver. The building, which was occupied November 8, 1873, stood on North Center Street, about the middle of the east side of the present Central School Block. Mrs. Alabama Fitzpatrick, who followed Miss Shaver, taught only a single term before marrying John B. Montgomery. Soon thereafter the little adobe house became too crowded and another teacher was employed and the South Methodist Church nearby was leased for the use of the primary department.
In the Legislature of 1879 was passed a bill permitting the bonding of school districts, so, on the site of the present Central School and facing on Monroe Street, at a cost of $13,000 was erected a four-room brick building. The last teacher in the adobe was R. L. Long, afterward territorial superintendent of public instruction, his assistant being Mrs. Beverly Cox. The newer building first was occupied in the fall of 1880, with O. S. Frambes and wife serving as the senior instructors. Since that time about $1,000,000 has been expended on
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school buildings within the City of Phoenix, now providing accommodations for about 4,000 pupils.
INCORPORATION AND CIVIC IMPROVEMENT
Phoenix was incorporated February 25, 1881. The first city council had its initial session at the courthouse May 5. John T. Alsap, who had been townside commissioner, had been elected mayor and the councilmen were: T. W. Brown, W. T. Smith, J. M. Cotton and J. H. Burtis. Geo. H. Rothrock, a pioneer pho- tographer, was recorder. The following year Francis W. Shaw was chosen mayor and Jos. H. Campbell became recorder. Other early mayors were Geo. F. Coats and DeForest Porter.
One of the first additions to Phoenix, to the west, was platted by David Neahr, of Yuma, who was particularly notable in his day for the names he gave his children. These names were: "Freedom, Freeson, Freeman, Freeborn, Freeling, Fannie, Freecome, Fida Mary, Freeland and Freechild." In the center of the plat, where the public library now stands, he laid out two blocks, designated as a park. In years later his heirs deeded this tract to Dr. J. M. Evans, but the courts decided that the map filed in evidence gave the city sufficient title to the land Neahr evidently had proposed to dedicate to public uses.
Phonix passed under a commission form of government April 7, 1914. As the first city manager was chosen W. A. Farish, an engineer of the Reclamation Service and an honored Arizonan. Within a year, however, dissensions broke out between the commission and the manager, who, after a formal trial by the commission itself, was removed from office March 16, 1915, this indicating a de- gree of failure in the first commission government experiment tried in the Southwest.
The first city water supply given Phoenix was a distribution system built by J. M. Gardiner and sold by him for $55,000 to Jerry Millay and Thomas Hine, who bonded it for $250,000 and extended the service over about three times the area originally covered. The property then passed into the hands of M. H. Sher- man. The bonded indebtedness of the Phoenix Water Company, held at first by the ill-fated People's Home Savings Bank of San Francisco, passed to a New York trust company. Additional bonds were granted in lieu of interest, until finally the gross indebtedness was in the neighborhood of $600,000. The citizens, seeking adequate water service, determined to install their own water system and issued bonds to that end. Fierce litigation immediately started and a $300,- 000 issue was attacked even while the bonds were in Cincinnati, ready to be turned over to purchasers.
It took three elections to secure municipal ownership of the local water sys- tem. The final election was held December 12, 1906. The Phoenix Water Company would not surrender, however. Backed by a contract for fire plugs that still had eleven years to run, it fought the bond issue at the courts and before the public until, in 1907, finally bought off by a payment of $155,000 for its prop- erty and franchises. Since then about $500,000 has been spent upon the sys- tem, which has proved a financial and practical success.
Phonix had her first street railway in 1887, about the time of the comple- tion of the railroad from Maricopa. The original line was a narrow-gauge, with light open cars drawn by mules and with about four miles of trackage. The
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Woman's Club Building Y. M. C. A. Building
Young date palms in fruit, near the city Business section as seen from a balloon
VIEWS OF PHOENIX
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operating company, the Valley Street Railway Company, floated bonds for $60,000. In September, 1893, the old road was eliminated and in its stead was installed an electrical system, double tracked on Washington Street through the business part of the city. To pay for this improvement and to take up the bonds of the former company, a new bond issue of $250,000 was made, floated by Gen. M. H. Sherman of Los Angeles, the original promoter, who still is owner of the much enlarged Phoenix and suburban electrical railroad system.
In the summer of 1913 was an extremely nasty street car strike, that tied up the local transportation system for a couple of months, with all the usual dis- turbances of such affairs, including stoning and egging of cars. But the very violence of the strike wore it out and service gradually was reestablished. This strike had one important result, for from it, it is claimed, proceeded the first "jitney bus" service ever known within the United States. The strikers bought a few small automobiles and established a service that even yet is maintained within the city. One of the strikers went to Los Angeles and there was the pioneer in a "jitney bus" incursion that at one time included about 1,000 machines.
In Phonix in September, 1910, was inaugurated service by the Overland Automatic Telephone Company, which started with an even 1,000 subscribers and which for a year or more did the greater part of the telephone business of the city. The company's resources proved too small for its business. As a result failure came within a few years. The Bell system supplanted its locally larger rival and a few hundred Arizonans checked off large losses, with only experience as a balancing factor. The year 1910 was locally important as that in which Arizona was given through telephone connection with the Pacific Coast.
Phænix led in street improvement and in the summer of 1911 made its first paving contracts for the expenditure of $200,000.
Late in 1911 Phænix started work upon a new sewer system, to cost $400,000 and supplementing a private sewer system which served the business part of the city and which had been acquired by the municipality.
All of Southern Arizona has widespread celebrity as a region where con- sumption can be cured. As a result its towns have been burdened heavily in past years by an influx of healthseekers. Somewhat relieving the situation in Phoenix is an institution of the Episcopal Church, St. Luke's Home, estab- lished in 1908.
As early as 1893 an organization of the Young Men's Christian Association was effected in Phoenix, with a resident secretary and an educational course. The building of quarters was assured by an eleven-day campaign in April, 1907, in which 1,075 subscribers contributed $102,053. The campaign had been started with the expectation of raising only $60,000. The new structure, which had its formal opening March 1, 1910, is of notable architectural beauty. In the same year construction was started on a group of high school buildings to cost $150,000 and on a handsome building for the Woman's Club.
ABNORMAL NEWS FEATURES
The winters of 1890 and 1891 both were marked by exceptional spring floods in the rivers of Arizona. In February, 1891, a warm rain descended upon deep snows on both the Salt and Verde River watersheds. There was a maximum Vol. 11-17
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flow of twenty-three feet over the crest of the Arizona dam. Canal headings melted away and the water overflowed into lower ground, surrounding the insanc asylum and covering the southern part of Phoenix several feet deep. Within the city the main damage done was the melting down of scores of adobe houses, making homeless hundreds of Mexicans, who then were sheltered in tents on Military Plaza. The Maricopa & Phoenix Railway bridge across Salt River at Tempe was lifted from its piers and much damage was done generally to the railroads of the territory.
The Adams, the largest hotel in Arizona, was destroyed by fire early on the morning of May 17, 1910, with a loss appoximating $200,000. No lives were lost within the building, though it was a veritable fire trap. The guests, who included Governor and Mrs. Sloan, generally reached safety by means of the balconies and adjoining roofs. On the ruins of the old hotel soon thereafter rose a much larger fireproof structure, built of concrete.
Something very close to an insurrection was known in Phoenix, September 16, 1912, while the Mexican population was celebrating its independence day. The time was chosen by a number of agitators for starting a race riot. As well there was disorder between a couple of Mexican factions, culminating at dusk in the stabbing of Chief of Police Moore and Policemen Valenzuela and Wil- liams and in the accidental death of a lad, Scott Price, hit by a wild bullet from the wounded chief's pistol.
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