USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 35
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A Mexican insurrection was threatened in Phoenix in August, 1914, when ten dusky conspirators were arrested, charged with plotting to raise the Indian population against the Americans, to raid the banks, the state capitol and the militia armory and to arm and equip a large force of Mexican insurrectos, who were to march forthwith into Mexico and to fight for an unspecified cause. When the matter was investigated in the courts it was found that the conspiracy was genuine enough, but that the results possible of achievement would have been immaterial.
December 18, 1906, in Phoenix, of consumption, died Nicola Constantinovich de Raylan, manager of the Russian-American Bureau of Chicago, former secretary of the Russian consul at Chicago and a member of the Chicago Hus- sars. Not till placed upon the embalmer's table was it found that the body was that of a woman. The masquerade had been maintained for about twenty years, since de Raylan's arrival from Russia. She had even married twice, to the first marriage being credited the birth of a son before the couple separated. The second wife survived in Chicago. Each insisted that her "husband" was a man. De Raylan's business in Chicago was one of large profit, returning an income of $100 a day. The Probate Court in Chicago threw out the claims of the alleged wife, though backed by a marriage certificate, and decided that the estate, valued at $7,000, should go to Russia to the mother of the dead woman, Seraphina Teiletsky. The mother claimed to have had no knowledge of the reason why her daughter assumed male garments.
One of the notable crimes of Arizona history was the murder, north of Phoenix, in March, 1907, of John Leicht, whose body was found where it had been dumped from a buggy, after a search participated in by hundreds of towns- people. Death had been by means of chloroform. A reward of $1,000 found the murderer, Louis V. Eytinge, in San Rafael, Cal., and thereafter he was
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sentenced to life imprisonment in the penitentiary. Since that time Eytinge has managed to keep very much in the limelight. Though with a criminal record that included forgeries and various other felonies, beside the murder for which he was committed, he has managed to enlist the support of a large num- ber of trade organizations, in various parts of the country, that have made efforts to secure his release. Following out the policy of Governor Hunt, to keep the prisoners profitably and congenially employed, Eytinge has been per- mitted to operate from the prison a mail order school and has also been allowed to serve as sales agent for the personal manufactures of the inmates.
The hard times of the fall of 1914 were given as the cause of the failure of the Valley Bank of Phoenix, the largest financial institution in the Southwest, which was taken in charge by State Auditor Callaghan, November 10. Interested were nearly 9,000 depositors, with approximately $1,800,000 deposits. On investigation, the affairs of the bank were found in bad shape, with holdings of about $500,000 of poor paper. The settlement of its affairs was taken in hands by a committee of depositors, with results considered unique in the history of American banking. A holding company was organized with a capital of $350,- 000, subscribed by the depositors and bank directors. This company took up $800,000 worth of the evidences of indebtedness. The bank then was taken over by a strong syndicate of mining capitalists. The holding company without delay proceeded to realize on the paper held by it with the expectation that its losses would not exceed the capital stock and surplus of the old bank. thus assuring all depositors of practically a full return of their money.
AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRY
In 1883 Felix G. Hardwick received a reward of $500 offered by the Legis- lature for the first bale of commercial cotton raised in Arizona, the solons taking heed that the ancients had found it possible to raise the staple in the Southwest. Hardwick grew 3,390 pounds of lint on five acres of his farm near Tempe and the product was exhibited at the New Orleans Fair and pronounced good. The first oranges were planted in 1888 by W. J. Murphy, Wm. Christy and other Arizona Canal farmers. In 1888 also was the establishment of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, with Henry E. Kemp as its first president.
Near Phonix in 1900 was abandoned an industry on which great hopes had been based. An English company for several years had cultivated 2,000 acres of land in canaigre, an Arizona plant with tuberous roots, especially rich in tannie acid and used with success by Mexican tanners for many generations. The product was shipped to England but apparently without profit.
The idea of a beet sugar factory started late in 1901 when a committee of Phonix business men began the gathering of a bonus of land and of money for a factory, which was established at Glendale, about nine miles northwest of Phoenix. The plant has had several seasons of operation and latterly has been remodeled so as to permit the treatment of sugar cane as well as beets, a change doubling the length of its season of operation and making profit possible of attainment. The plant in all has cost about $1,500,000. As it stands it is now capable of handling the product of about ten thousand acres of land.
In the early days of Southern Arizona the summers were endured absolutely without ice. When the Southern Pacific Railroad came, ice could be had along
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the main line, brought down from the Sierra Nevadas. In Globe, properly to celebrate the Fourth of July, a special shipment of ice was brought in by stage to be served in the thirst emporiums in very small cubes, for it had cost 25 cents a pound. The first ice factory of Arizona was in Phoenix, its machinery started in the summer of 1879 by Samuel D. Lount, brother of a member of the pioncer Walker party. He had a process of his own, probably peculiar to the single factory in which it is still used. Lount's first machine had capacity for making about one thousand pounds per day and this, delivered in a wheelbarrow, sold for 7 cents a pound.
Phoenix was honored in December, 1914, by the annual meeting of the American Mining Congress. Among the resolutions passed was one recommend- ing the establishment of a national department of mines and mining, with a member of the President's cabinet at its head.
THE SOUTH-SIDE SETTLEMENTS
Tempe, about eight miles from Phoenix, now especially well known as the site of the State Normal School, was founded about the same time as Phoenix, in 1871, when Jack Swilling turned from his canal construction on the north side of the river to join with other pioneers in the building of the Tempe Canal. One of the first of the settlers, and the first business man, was Chas. Trumbull Hayden, a Tucson merchant, who in 1871 established a store in a house of willow wattles near the river, across which he placed a ferry. So the first settlement was known as Hayden's Ferry. A short distance beyond was a community of Mexicans that had been named San Pablo. Between the two towns, the Johnsons and other Mormons settled and with their coming, about 1879, the name of Tempe was generally used.
Tempe is assumed to have been named by that erratic genius Darrell Duppa, after the romantic vale of Tempe, in Greece, where poets rusticated and evolved songs of pastoral content. There also is a theory that it came from Jack Swill- ing's discovery of a "tame pea" vine on the river bank, but this is not so plau- sible. At any event, the word is not Spanish and should be so pronounced.
Among the "old timers" who helped in the digging of the first canal, and who farmed lands beneath it, were Winchester Miller, one of the most lovable of men; J. T. Priest, who did much toward securing the Tonto Basin reservoir ; Nathaniel Sharp; Robert Carley, who had the uppermost ranch ; Niels Petersen, who later became the community's wealthiest citizen, and Wm. H. Kirkland, the famons pioneer.
Tempe secured her water system at a cost of $28,000 in 1902, the water elec- trically pumped from deep wells within the townsite to a reservoir excavated on the overshadowing Tempe Butte.
Tempe became of large importance on the construction of the Southern Pacific branch road in 1887, and since has maintained the distinction of being the most important cattle feeding and shipping center within the valley.
The settlement of Mesa, February, 1878, was purely an enterprise of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and therefore has been considered in a chapter devoted to that pioneering organization. It was named and laid out by C. I. Robson, Geo. W. Sirrine and F. M. Pomeroy, to whom the land was deeded by its locator, D. C. Sirrine.
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The town is remarkable for the width of its streets, 125 feet. Each block of ten acres was cut into eight lots and each settler holding one share of stock in the Mesa Canal was entitled to four lots. A school house was built out of adobe and was used also for religious services. The settlement had early incorpora- tion, July 15, 1883, and A. F. McDonald was the first mayor elected. The Mor- mon band of seventy-nine people, enumerated early in 1878, has grown until Mesa now is the second city of the county, surrounded by an immense acreage of fertile land, exceptionally well irrigated by three canal systems, which have a single head at the south end of the Granite Reef dam.
Chandler, in the southeastern part of the Salt River Valley, dates back only to the summer of 1911, the locality then favored by the building of a Southern Pacific branch. At once was started the erection of one of the handsomest hotels in the Southwest, around which has grown a town of many attractions, within a rich farming district.
FLORENCE AND VICINITY
Pinal County embraces mining and agricultural sections, both of them rich and productive. Its county seat is Florence, a town established in 1867. One of its first settlers was a man named Chase, who in 1867 built an adobe house, which still is standing, and who dug an irrigating ditch. In 1868 Levi Ruggles bought the Chase house and ranch and soon thereafter laid off a part of the land in town lots. Ruggles had come to Arizona in 1866 as an Indian agent and around 1873 was register of the Gila District Land Office at Florence.
As early as 1868 was constructed a building used by Joseph Collingwood & Co. as a store. A patent to the townsite was granted in 1882, directly to the occupants of the land. Florence in 1875 was credited by Hodge with a popula- tion of 500, and its industries included a smelting furnace, and three flouring mills, in or near the town.,
Florence in 1879 was officially designated by the Territorial Legislature as lying in the very center of mineralized Arizona. This was in connection with a memorial to Congress wherein was suggested the establishment at Florence of a branch mint, the document reciting the names of practically all the mining districts of Arizona considered as so lying that Florence was easy of access from all. Especial stress was placed by the memorial upon the silver industry, which then was led by the Silver King.
In the chapters devoted to mining will be found especial reference to the Silver King, Ray and other important mines of Pinal County. Some of the towns of the olden time are dead. Especially there was Pinal, which had 2,000 population in 1881, and which expected to become the county seat. About all there was of Pinal, which better was known as Picket Post, was the mill of the Silver King, and when that shut down it died.
The Superior District, now active once more, in the early days had a town- site, that of Hastings, named for a San Francisco clothier. He had a gold mine managed by D. T. Elmore, a spiritualist, who dreamed that there was gold in the rock that he was getting out. A twenty-stamp mill was built at a cost of $60,000 and ran just three days.
Near Florence are the ruins of Adamsville, which the inhabitants had renamed . after Capt. Geo. B. Sanford (bvt. Lieut .- Col.), who commanded at McDowell
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about 1870 and who showed much interest in the Pima Indians. Known to few is the fact that a resident of Adamsville in 1869, a clerk for Nick Bichard, was John P. Young, the veteran San Francisco journalist, editor of the Chronicle and writer of an extensive and charming history of the great coast metropolis. Adamsville had a flouring mill, owned by Bichard, said by Hinton to have been the first built in Arizona.
THE UPPER GILA VALLEY
The first white settlement in Graham County, following the Spanish explorers, the passage of several military, prospecting and trapping expedi- tions, was at old Camp Goodwin, where for several years was stationed a detach- ment of the California Column, which used it as a base for operations against the Indians. Several Mexican families already were residents of Pueblo Viejo (Old Town), the present site of Solomonville, and of San José, a couple of miles up the river, prior to 1873, when the first American settlers arrived in the valley. These were people who for a number of years had been trying to farm near Gila Bend, but had been unsuccessful, owing to the washing away of their dams and headgates, which had been built in the sand of the Gila River banks. They camped not far from the present Town of Safford and the following year, under United States townsite laws, laid off the present metropolis of the county, named after Gov. A. P. K. Safford, who was a visitor to the valley about that time.
Near Pueblo Viejo was a road house, where a man named Munson had a small store. Some energy was introduced in 1876 on the arrival of I. E. Solo- mon from Las Cruces, N. M. He stopped for a while at San José, where the Mexican residents included the Mejias, Montes and Montoyas. Later he moved three miles further down the valley and located where now is Solomonville, after he had bought out and displaced Munson and his roadside inn.
Mr. Solomon went into the valley for the purpose of burning mesquite char- coal for use in the smelter at Clifton, where the mines then were being operated by relatives, the Leszynksys.
Solomon started a store, which soon became the trading post for a large extent of country, though there were only a few white families between that point and Fort Thomas, a military post garrisoned by three or four companies. Solomonville today is not a very large town, yet it rejoices in three names, for the postoffice is known as Solomonsville and the railroad station as Solomon. The court house was moved in 1883 to Solomonville from Safford, which was given the honor at the time of the foundation of the county and which, by a late referendum vote, is to have it again.
The name of Solomonville is said to have been suggested by Bill Kirkland in 1878, on the establishment of a postoffice at Pueblo Viejo. About that time Kirkland is said to have been riding mail between Fort Thomas and Clifton, over a route on which he was in constant danger of meeting Apache war parties. The name of Pueblo Viejo had especial reference to the presence of ancient ruins in the locality.
The early days in the upper Gila Valley were full of danger. The settle- ments were placed in the very center of what had been the Apache hunting
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grounds and on routes which from time immemorial had been used for raids into Mexico. The presence of troops at Fort Thomas and Fort Grant and a degree of military supervision on the near-by San Carlos Reservation undoubt- edly saved the settlers on more than one occasion.
When Mr. Solomon came to the valley, Victorio was making things interest- ing in the locality and at one time thirteen of the Solomon sheepherders were killed by his band, together with destruction of much valuable property. With the herders at that time were a woman and two children. One of the children escaped alive. At another time, over toward Deming, two teamsters in the Solomon employ were killed by Apaches. With them had gone Adolph Solomon, brother of I. E. Solomon, but he became ill on the journey and turned back, while the drivers went on to their death. A similar experience was known by Charlie Solomon, then about 7 years of age, and now a banker in Tucson. He was being sent to Las Cruces, there to join his uncle for a trip to Germany. The driver in whose care he was placed was pressing onward but was compelled to camp by a heavy rain storm, which even prevented the lighting of a fire. The next morning they came upon the scene of a massacre of a score of people, some of them not yet dead, suffering horribly from Indian cruelties. They had thus been left by one of Victorio's bands, which had hurried away into the hills with the stolen horses and cattle. It is probable that a bank president was saved to Arizona by the fact that a fire could not have been lighted at the desert camp the night before.
At another time the family had started for Las Cruces to meet Mrs. Solomon's mother, but sickness again, on the part of one of the children, caused delay on the road. The stage on which they would have gone to Las Cruces on that day was captured by the Indians and all the occupants killed, among them the son of Captain Madden, on his way home from college.
About 1885 Geronimo and his band stole a number of horses at Thatcher. They were pursued by the Wright brothers, through Solomonville to a point about six miles above San José, where they were ambushed. One of the Solomon employees, Nash by name, with several teams was in the vicinity on his way to Solomonville. In the morning he found the bodies of the Wrights and brought them back. Later on the spot a monument was built by the settlers.
Only a few miles west of the settled Gila Valley a frontier tragedy occurred as late as 1890. In the Deer Creek coal fields was found the camp of five pros- pectors whose skeletons and scattered camp equipment told a clear story. The camp had been surprised by Apaches. Four of the men had been killed as they fought, but the fifth had been taken alive and had been tortured and burned at the stake, for under the blackened trunk of a tree was a mere pile of half calcined bones.
Much of the history of Graham County attaches to the work of Mormon colonists. Within the county, however, Safford is recognized as rather a "Gen- tile" city. Its first business man appears to have been J. E. Bailey. D. W. Wickersham was a pioneer school teacher and in 1878 a market for the valley's wheat was afforded by the building of a mill by E. M. Jacobs of Tucson. Pioneer residents especially remembered are E. D. Tuttle, E. T. Ijams, Geo. A. Olney, Peter Anderson and J. T. Owens.
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The Gila Valley now ranks only second to the Salt River Valley in agricul- tural prominence within Arizona. It has prospered to a remarkable degree, especially since the coming of the Gila Valley, Globe and Northern Railroad. It is favored by a large and near-by mining market for its products and also by possession of a hard-working and intelligent class of settlers.
CHAPTER XLVIII
SOUTHEASTERN ARIZONA
Tucson, from Mexican Days to Modern Times-Arrival of the Railroad-Telegraphing the Pope-Current History of Tombstone and Bisbee-Nogales, Successor to the Hopes of Calabasas-War on the Border-Globe and Miami.
The history of Tucson since 1864 is much the same as that of many other thriving communities advancing in civilization and material prosperity. Now she has paved streets, electric cars, three lines of railroads and a university and all the evidence of bustling prosperity. Yet her people take especial pride in the memories of the past and in the distinction of their city as the oldest within the state. The old walled village has gone back to dust and few there are to desig- nate the land marks, other than Samuel Hughes, who came in 1858, "when the town was on the other side of the river and the garrison on this side." Mr. Hughes shows where the wall of the old presidio commenced, at the corner of Main and Washington streets, where the home of J. Knox Corbett now stands, running thence to Church and from Church to Pennington, and from there back to Main. It was twelve feet high and had only one entrance, on the south side. There was always a sentry at the gate and when night came everybody went inside. Outside of the walls there was a village of Pimas and one of friendly Apaches. Across the river, near the village, was a church.
Early day prices in Tucson, on the evidence of G. F. Angelo, indicated living expense not exactly fitting with the low wages of the period. A drink of whiskey cost 50 cents, corn sold at $12.50 per 100 pounds and ordinary muslin cost $1 a yard.
Tucson afforded much entertainment to Capt. John G. Bourke, who visited it in the course of his duty when Camp Lowell was on the eastern edge of the town. He came in 1869. He called it as foreign a town as if it were in Hayti. There was no hotel, but there was at least one boarding house that was honored with the patronage of the governor and other territorial officials. There were no streets, pavements or street lamps; no drainage, and the water was brought in barrels. The garbage piles were monumental and Bourke affirmed in the lower strata one could find arrowheads and stone axes and just above, spurs and other relics of the "Conquistadores," while high above them were stray cards, empty tomato cans, beer bottles and other similar evidences of a higher and nobler civilization. Though there was nothing saintly about the burg, time was de- termined by the bells of the cathedral.
The cosmopolitan character of the place best was shown around the gambling saloons, where there were Americans of all degrees, Mexicans, Chinese and
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"civilized" Indians. Little disorder was to be noted, even though occasionally Slap-Jack Billy would parade himself before the bar of Congress Hall and pro- claim to the world that he could whip his weight in b'ar meat. The flavor of the old town, however, was distinctively Mexican and there were many pretty Spanish-Mexican customs that had been adopted in the daily life of the town. Many of the more prominent Americans had married into the good Mexican fam- ilies and the home life of the settlement thereby was affected. Almost nightly there were serenades, and the fair ladies behind the barred windows were treated with the same round of music, wherein "La Paloma" and "La Golondrina" always had place. Captain Bourke has set down even the words of some of these serenatas, in alternate lines indicating accompaniment on the guitar. Here is a sample :
No me mires con esos tus ojos, (Fluke-fluky-fluke; plink, planky-plink.) Mas hermosos que el sol en el cielo, (Plinky-plink; plinky-plink.) Que me mires de dicha y consuelo. (Fluky-fluky-fluke; plink-plink.) Que me mata! que me mata! tu mirar. (Plinky-plink, fluky-fluke; plinky-plink; fluke-fluke.)
TUCSON'S CIVIC ORGANIZATION
The first move toward civic incorporation was on April 20, 1871, when the county supervisors were prayed to organize the municipality of Tucson. The petition was signed by W. S. Oury, I. Goldberg, S. H. Drachman, S. R. DeLong, P. R. Tully, Estevan Ochoa, Samuel Hughes, Solomon Warner, L. Zeckendorf, H. S. Stephens, E. N. Fish, J. W. Hopkins, Charles Leszynsky, P. W. Cooper, and A. T. Jones. In the document was alleged that the settlement had 3,200 residents, a claim based upon the census of 1870. At the following election, after approval of the petition, the following-named were elected: Mayor, Sidney R. DeLong; aldermen, W. S. Oury, W. W. Williams, Samuel Hughes and Chas. O. Brown; marshal, William Morgan; assessor, W. J. Osborne; treasurer, H. S. Stephens; poundmaster, Juan Elias. Later there was a new charter and the Legislature extended the corporate limits of the Village of Tucson to include four and one-half sections of land, to be designated as the Western Addition.
The naming of the streets of Tucson, according to A. F. Banta, mainly was done in 1873 at the time of the enlargement of the original townsite and the names were suggested, he tells, principally by Surveyor-General Wasson and Governor Safford. Congress Street, then, as now, the main thoroughfare, was so designated because at the intersection of the street with Meyer Street stood Congress Hall, the biggest gambling saloon in the Southwest. Meyer Street was named after Charles Meyer, who had a drug store at the same intersection. Con- vent Street followed naturally as it led to the convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Pennington, Cushing and Simpson streets and Stone Avenue were named after pioneers, all of whom had been killed by Apaches. Franklin Street was named after Banta himself, for Charlie Franklin was the "war" name under which he was known.
old goods
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF TUCSON
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