Wealth Came To Arizona On Rails

Historically, railroads have been tremendously helpful tools in the building of Arizona, far more important than statistics imply. The Twentieth Century began and ended with about 2,000 miles of rails in Arizona, only about one-hundredth of the nation’s total miles. But tracks were all over the Arizona map, serving nearly every sizable city. The only existing county seat never served by rail is St. Johns in Apache County, though an industrial railroad now comes within about 10 miles. The county seats of Bisbee and Prescott lost their rails and the populous communities of Bullhead City and Lake Havasu City are far from a railroad since they were relatively recently settled. Native American reservations have mostly been bypassed by railroads along with other forms of economic development. But in Arizona rail lines sometimes snaked their way into seemingly inaccessible mountains and canyons to bring raw materials to factories, the products of industry to market and goods to stores. In the past, all the big copper companies and lumbering concerns operated their own railroads. And tourists could visit Arizona landmarks or just pass through on two transcontinental rail corridors linking the coasts. Moreover, a number of tourist excursion railroads have come and gone over the years.

Before railroads, slow 20-mule team freight wagons jarred cargo over rocky trails or got stuck in the mud. Remote villages or mining camps often had to transport building materials, supplies and even water on burros. Railroads offered convenience and thereby transformed Arizona Territory. When transportation of heavy products en mass was required, say, tons of copper ore, heavy machinery or building stones, railroads made the task easy and profitable. The speed of rail transportation provided pleasurable travel over great distance and made it possible to rush fruits and vegetables to market before spoilage or transport cattle without great loss of weight. The only difficulty was raising capital to build a rail line and then providing revenue without a concentration of population.

The first railroad to reach Arizona entered in May of 1877 at Yuma. Federal government red tape delayed use of the line at first, but a Southern Pacific Railroad engine finally snuck across the river under cover of darkness on the morning of September 30, 1877. Congress then tried to delay further construction by giving the Texas & Pacific Railroad an exclusive franchise to build across southern Arizona. The bill didn’t pass and the Southern Pacific reached a business agreement with the Texas & Pacific. A year after entering the territory, the Southern Pacific of Arizona Railroad was formed as a subsidiary of the SP and construction resumed in November 1878.

The Southern Pacific crossed the Colorado River and ran down the middle of Madison Avenue in Yuma. The Texas & Pacific Railroad had dibs on the best location for a bridge, between Fort Yuma and Prison Hills, but hadn’t begun to lay rails when the Southern Pacific reached Yuma in 1877. The SP’s first wooden bridge was damaged by flood in 1884 and destroyed by fire the following year. A replacement wooden bridge survived the flood of 1891 but was eventually replaced in stages from 1895-1899 by a stronger steel structure seen here about 1912. Foot traffic also used the bridge, while wagons and automobiles crossed the river on a ferry until 1915. That year a steel highway bridge was placed between the two hills and the single-span railroad bridge still in use joined it in 1923. The bridge pictured here was then dismantled for scrap.

After bridging the Colorado River at Yuma, the Southern Pacific Railroad had relatively easy going across southern Arizona. Staying south of the Gila River, Maricopa Wells offered an abundant water supply for thirsty steam locomotives headed for Tucson. By the time this photo was made, about 1910, passengers could switch trains at Maricopa station and head for Phoenix on the Phoenix & Eastern Railroad, crossing the Gila and then the Salt River at Tempe.

Improvements in track and signals allowed trains to run as fast as 70-90 miles an hour by 1940. This Southern Pacific fast freight is transporting livestock. Through various business maneuvers the SP came to own most of the track in southern Arizona by 1955. But the company fell on hard times and was purchased by the Rio Grande in 1988 and then taken over by the Union Pacific in 1996.

While the SP of Arizona spanned the southern territory by 1881, the Atlantic and Pacific crossed the northern plateau region by 1883. The Atlantic & Pacific was backed by a partnership between the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and the St. Louis & San Francisco (Frisco). Only two rail enterprises would build most of the lines in the territory under various subsidiaries. Mining and lumber companies built most of the other railroads in Arizona.

The second transcontinental rail line to cross the territory entered northern Arizona from New Mexico in 1880. The first major obstacle was Canyon Diablo west of Winslow. Bridging the chasm held up progress for six months. This fragile structure nearly 600 feet long carried trains more than 200 feet above the normally dry stream until it was replaced by a stronger bridge in 1900 and finally the present structure in 1947. This view from about 1888 shows a typical Atlantic & Pacific Railroad passenger train of that time, short and slow. But traveling at 15-35 mph in the 1880s was much faster than by any other means.

The Atlantic & Pacific had to build across the mountainous terrain with difficulty, winding down Johnson Canyon between Williams and Ash Fork in order to come down off the Colorado Plateau. One tunnel, 328 feet in length was necessary, followed by two steel bridges. In this view from about 1909, the California Limited of A&P’s successor, the Santa Fe Railway, chugs slowly uphill, headed east toward Williams. Beginning in 1912 the line was double-tracked and the second track bypassed Johnson Canyon to the north. Thereafter, only westbound trains used the tunnel, coasting downhill toward Ash Fork. The bypass was double-tracked in 1960 and the line through the tunnel abandoned.

Today, most of the track in Arizona is still owned by only two huge companies. There are a handful of small general carrier lines still operating, and a number of short industrial and excursion lines. But rail service by these smaller companies is contracting. Several lines have recently halted operations. And between 1990 and 2008 many miles of track were taken up. Statistics conflict depending upon whether you count only “route miles” or add miles of double track, sidings and yard track, but Arizona now has about 1,900 route miles, of which 1,300 miles are owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific companies.

Bisbee’s Copper Queen mine built the Arizona & Southwestern railroad 36 miles to Fairbank (west of Tombstone) in 1888-1889 and connected with the SPRR at Benson five years later. After Phelps-Dodge acquired the mine, it recreated the railroad as the El Paso & Southwestern in 1901, building to Douglas that year and El Paso the next. This wooden depot was replaced in 1913 by a grand structure that still stands. The EP&SW was acquired by the SPRR in 1924. The name was dropped in 1955 and service ceased by the end of 1961. The tracks were taken up beginning in 1963 and the depot is now home to the Douglas police department.

A Gila Valley, Globe & Northern mixed consist has stopped for its portrait December 1, 1898, the first train over the new line to Globe. There is a combination express and passenger car on the end. Like most Arizona short lines years ago, the railroad from Bowie to Globe and Miami offered passenger, express and general freight service in addition to its primary function transporting ore and copper. The GV,G&N eventually became part of the Southern Pacific Golden Empire, then was sold in 1988 to once again carry the Arizona Eastern name. It is currently a general carrier owned by Iowa Pacific Holdings. (colorized Arizona State University Library photo)

On the Morenci Southern Railroad tracks had to quickly drop in elevation south of Morenci and it was necessary to make five big loops and pass through three tunnels. The train pictured around 1902 is heading south and will soon be on the track seen down in the gulch to pass under the trestle it is on at present. From 1900 to 1922 the narrow-gauge line ran 18 miles from Morenci to Guthrie where it connected with the Arizona and New Mexico Railroad.

The Magma Arizona railroad, built in 1915, connected the Arizona Eastern Railroad at a point NW of Florence with the Magma Copper mine at Superior. It was the last industrial shortline in the US to use steam power. Locomotive No. 5, seen here in the 1960s, had been acquired new and made scheduled runs until 1967. It was last used in 1971 during the filming of the movie How The West Was Won. The Magma Arizona line has been mothballed since 1995.

Three Flagstaff sawmills once operated logging railroads. In addition, sawmills at Williams, Standard (west of Show Low) and McNary operated their own railroads. All these lines are now gone, replaced by log trucks, except the Apache Railroad (see below). This photograph shows a Southwest Forest Industries train shortly after World War Two when steam locomotives and a steam powered loader were still in use.

Apache Railway locomotives 100 and 200 haul a load of logs to the Southwest Forest sawmill at McNary about 1960. The Fairbanks-Morse H10-44 yard switchers were built in 1947. Though the sawmill closed more than 30 years ago, the Apache Railway is still busy connecting a paper mill west of Snowflake with the Burlington-Northern Santa Fe main line at Holbrook.

see:
ADOT, 1978 Arizona State Rail Plan
ADOT, State of Arizona 2007 Railroad Inventory and Assessment
David F. Myrick, Railroads of Arizona series, five volumes 1975-2001.
John W. Sayre, Ghost Railroads and Ghost Towns of Central Arizona (1985)
Russell Wahman, The Historical Geography of the Santa Fe Railroad In Northern Arizona (1971)
Russell Wahman, Narrow Gauge To Jerome (1983)

Lake Havasu City: Arizona’s West Coast Playground

When Parker Dam was completed in 1938 and Lake Havasu began to fill, it not only provided water for California’s west coast cities, it also created Arizona’s “west coast” beaches. Birds flocked to the new habitat and Havasu National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1941 all up and down the eastern shore of the lake. Despite the remote location, a couple from Needles saw the recreational potential and purchased land for a fishing retreat on Pittsburgh Point, a peninsula jutting out from the Arizona shore into the lake’s widest part. Using its wartime license, the Army Air Corps also came to the peninsula in 1943 and bulldozed an emergency landing field big enough for Flying Fortresses. The two gravel runways and 1,030-acres were designated Kingman Emergency Field S6, or “Site Six,” an auxiliary installation for Kingman Army Air Field and the Yucca Aerial Gunnery Range south of Kingman.

The military also recognized the recreational potential. In 1944, it built a rest and recreation facility for airmen on leave. When the war ended, the entire facility was declared surplus and Vic and Corinne Spratt moved from Needles to manage Site Six as a fishing resort. But their attorney had to prove to the military prior ownership of the land. Fortunately, war surplus aircraft were cheap in the 1950s, so guests could fly into what was now called Havasu Airpark, with former army barracks turned into living quarters, grocery, restaurant and bar. There were no roads into the entire area in Arizona except rough jeep trails, but access to the California side had already brought powerboat racing to the lake.

Pittsburg Point seen from the air in the mid-1960s, looking NE toward the Arizona shore that is developing into a new city, and the Mohave Mountains (used to be called the Chemehuevi Mts.). Site Six facilities are in the foreground, with the trailer park and motel recently added. The two angled runways, one now paved, remain from the WWII emergency field. A shorter third runway of dirt, crossing the paved strip, had been added in the 1950s. Bob Petley of Phoenix took the aerial photograph and published it as a postcard.

One day in 1958, Robert McCulloch suddenly flew in and purchased Site Six on the spot. Before the war, he had worked in the aircraft industry. Now he was a wealthy owner of an oil company in Los Angeles that encouraged use of its gas and oil by also manufacturing chain saws and outboard boat motors. He told the Spratts and other landowners that he needed a test facility for McCullough outboards. But when he talked about plans for a fabulous city on Lake Havasu, with private airplanes in every garage and world-class resorts on every beach a lot of people thought he was crazy. Even his business partner, C. V. Wood, Jr., who designed fantastic recreational landscapes at Disneyland thought the idea of an economically sustainable city in the remote desert was naïve, perhaps even risky.

Site Six resort, photographed by Max Mahan about 1965, shows two Lockheed Constellation airliners parked at the terminal. McCulloch added recreational facilities beginning in 1963. In center, right to left, are the circular Lake Havasu Travel Trailer Park, a boat launch ramp, two-story Lake Havasu Motel and parking lot and a cove leading to the McCulloch test facility. The airport was later abandoned, replaced with a strip on the north side of town.

Wood master-planned a city built around recreation and retirement living with chain saw and boat factories for high-paying jobs. McCulloch started networking to acquire 16,000 more acres of land owned by the federal government. Several complicated land deals eventually transferred ownership or provided leased land on which to build a city. In 1963, for a little over $73 an acre, McCulloch purchased 13,000 acres given by the federal government to the State of Arizona. In 1964, Arizona native and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall issued a Lower Colorado River Land Use Plan that recommended expansion of Site Six for recreational use as a Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife concession, after “withdrawal from Wildlife Refuge classification” and transfer to Arizona State Parks Board management. McCulloch Properties, Inc. was created as developer and concessionaire. The following year, the Parks Board entered into a 50-year lease with the federal government for more than 13,000 acres along Lake Havasu’s Arizona shore to create the largest state park. Mohave County even designated the whole area an official Irrigation and Drainage District to facilitate development. In 1986, the US Department of Interior gave Pittsburg Point land to Arizona in exchange for state land taken for the Central Arizona Project canal. Lake Havasu State Park was divided into two units following the land exchange.

In 1964, two Lockheed L-049 Constellations began free flights for prospective buyers who would spend two days touring the town site. Flights left numerous cities like Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles and Dallas. From 1963-1978 a total of more than 2,700 flights brought 137,000 prospective buyers to Lake Havasu City. Lockheed L-188 turboprop Electra airliners replaced the Connies in April 1968. By then, the Nautical Inn resort had opened on Pittsburg Point, along with a state beach and marina. The growing town would soon have two golf courses, together with stores, schools and public buildings on the mainland opposite the peninsula.

Two Lake Havasu City airliners are parked on the ramp about 1965 with the control tower and terminal at right. McCulloch purchased a total of five Lockheed L-049 Constellations between 1964 and 1966 so that at least two could be flying at any given time. The aircraft had been built 1945-1947 and previously used by the US Air Force, Air France, KLM and TWA. One of the planes, N90831 built for military service in 1945, ended up at Pima Air Museum in Tucson, and has been restored to its former TWA livery.

Lake Havasu City still needed some centerpiece that would attract the attention of the whole world. Robert McCulloch hit on an idea when he noticed the city of London England put its namesake bridge up for sale in 1967 because it was sinking into the Thames due to the excessive weight of modern traffic. He and Wood arrived in London in April 1968 with $2.46 million and the deal was an instant sensation. “London Bridge falls to the Apaches,” said the London Daily Express. “Arizona Says ‘We’ve Got It,’” shouted the Evening Standard. By a marvel of modern engineering the bridge that had spanned the Thames since 1830 would be dismantled stone by stone, transported by ship to California and then trucked to the Arizona desert. The Lord Mayor of London helped McCulloch and Wood lay the first stone September 23, 1968 and thousands attended Grand Opening Day, October 10, 1971.

Actually, only the handsome facing stones made the trip to Arizona, still a 10,000-ton load. The rough-cut stone and rubble fill was left in England. Crews built a precisely sized reinforced concrete bridge on dry land where the peninsula narrows. When the facing stones arrived each numbered stone was returned to its place, attached to hangers on the concrete core and cemented in place with bentonite. After the concrete core was completely covered, it looked just like the bridge from London, all five graceful arches wearing a 130-year-old patina of grime. Then, an artificial channel was dredged under the new bridge, making Pittsburgh Point into an island. This view, looking NW, shows the recently completed bridge, English Village and channel with the beginnings of landscaping.

By 1970, the city of more than 4,000 enjoyed a new paved highway connecting it with Interstate-40 to the north and Parker on the south. The Outboard World Championship race with a $60,000 purse was held off shore that year, along with the National Water Ski Speed Championships and the London Bridge Regatta featuring 200 yachts. Hollywood star Charlton Heston won the Celebrity Tennis Tournament held at Lake Havasu City in March 1970. And Lake Havasu State Park drew more visitors than any other that year.

With London Bridge as centerpiece, Lake Havasu City adopted a merry old England theme, a marketing strategy used elsewhere, like Solvang, California’s Danish village and Payson, Arizona’s Swiss Village. Recently, however, new resorts on Lake Havasu have been designed around a south seas Polynesian style.


Tourists leave the English Village on the Miss Havasupai II for a 45-minute ride, probably in the 1980s. They could make a similar trip on the Dixie Belle, patterned after a Mississippi riverboat. The lake was named after the Havasupai tribe, which has a small reservation in Havasu Canyon tributary to the Grand Canyon. There is probably no connection to the boat, but the tribe selects a Miss Havasupai and Little Miss Havasupai at an annual beauty pageant.

Through the 1980s and 90s “Arizona’s Playground” city continued to grow, almost 16,000 residents in 1980 and more than 24,000 by 1990. It passed Kingman and rivaled Bullhead City to become the largest community in Mohave County. College students began coming in increasing numbers to Lake Havasu to party. On a holiday weekend, traffic jams of boats might clog the bridge channel or a popular cove. But as the searing desert sun bleached the old stones of London Bridge, some of the luster faded from the older resorts. Still, a room could cost $100-$300 a night. There would be a $1,000 fine for “illegal camping,” and only one free boat launch ramp. How far removed from the days when Site Six was largely enjoyed by those few families with a private airplane. Recently, employment in the hospitality industry has declined, while jobs have been added to businesses serving the permanent community. Many residents just love the dry heat and access to the lake. Robert McCulloch knew they would. The population has now passed 54,000.

See:
Leonard Downie, Jr. “Two New Town Mirages” The Washington Post (1971) available online at “APF_Fellows” website (Google it)
Economy of Lake Havasu City (2008) Ariz. Dept. of Commerce
Paul Freeman, “Abandoned and Little Know Airfields” (2010) website: www.airfields-freeman.com/AZ/Airfields_AZ_W.html (copy & paste URL)
US Dept. of Interior, The Lower Colorado River Land Use Plan (1964)
Frederic B. Wildfang, Lake Havasu City (2005) Images of America series history

Kingman: Heart of Route 66 Is Still Beating

The county seat of Mohave County is located in a pass between the rugged Cerbat Mountains on the north and the tall Hualapai Mountains on the south, affording passage from the Hualapai Valley on the east to the Sacramento Valley to the west. There the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad laid tracks in March 1883 heading for the Colorado River and built a siding where water could be brought from Beale Spring a few miles north. The town that developed at the siding was named after A & P locating engineer Lewis Kingman. It grew slowly but eventually outlasted four other earlier county seats to become the commercial and social center of northwestern Arizona. Its location made it “Arizona’s Gateway to Boulder Dam” in the 1930s and now the “Heart of Route 66” since the venerable highway became a historic byway.

In 1864 the first territorial legislature created four original counties named for four native tribes, Mohave, Yuma, Yavapai and Pima. Mohave City, the small civilian community at Fort Mohave established in 1859 to protect travelers on the Beale Road from Indian attacks, was made county seat. In 1867, soon after the western half of the county was given by Congress to Nevada, county government moved to nearby Hardyville, another Colorado River port. With Mohave and Hualapai warriors under military supervision, exploitation of gold and silver deposits began in the Cerbat range. The mining camp called Cerbat became county seat in 1873. Within four years Mineral Park had become the newest boomtown to win the title of county seat. But all these communities eventually became ghost towns, while Kingman’s water supply and position on the railroad guaranteed its survival as a supply point. Railroad boxcars brought needed goods faster and cheaper than Colorado River sternwheelers. Kingman was named county seat in 1887 before its population had even reached 300.

This view of Kingman looking southwest about 1916 shows the brand new county courthouse (1915) in center with the two-story county jail (1910) next door on the east. Above and to the right of the courthouse is the Desert Power and Water Company electric plant (1907) that served Kingman and nearby mines. It was replaced with power from Boulder Dam in 1938 and the building now serves as a visitor center. The two-story building with screened porch at left is Elks Lodge No 468 (1903-04) on the corner of 4th and Beale Streets. There was an opera house on the ground floor. The downtown business district is out of view at left.


The relatively quiet community served the needs of miners in the Cerbat range on the north and the Black Mountains to the west, cattle ranchers to the east and travelers along the transcontinental railroad. Kingman Mercantile Company, Central Commercial Company and Lovin & Withers mercantile did a profitable business. The recession of 1893 led to bankruptcy for the Atlantic & Pacific RR, which had to be reorganized as the Santa Fe Pacific in 1897. When prosperity returned, the Arizona and Utah Railroad was created in 1899 with about 24 miles of track heading north from McConnico, just west of Kingman on the Santa Fe, north to Mineral Park and Chloride. The Fred Harvey Company opened an “eating house” in 1902 downtown on 4th Street to serve meals to travelers on Santa Fe trains without dining cars. The next year, the Santa Fe Pacific was absorbed by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. Kingman’s Harvey House didn’t provide lodging but there were several fine hotels in town, including Hotel Beale (1901) and Hotel Brunswick (1909). As the population grew from 600 to more than 800, residents enjoyed telephone service (1894) and electricity (1909).

Harvey girls continued to serve hungry railroad passengers in Kingman until 1932. Fire destroyed the interior in 1952 and the structure was demolished soon after. This well-worn Fred Harvey issued postcard is from about 1908. The view is looking west with 4th Street crossing the tracks in the foreground. The passenger depot (1907) is located out of view at right.

Transportation eventually overtook mining and ranching to dominate the economy. By 1915 the National Old Trails Road was routed through Kingman where motorists could get service and repairs at the Old Trails Garage. In 1926, federal highway officials assigned numbers to replace the named highways and Kingman was then a stop on US 66. Despite deep economic depression in the 1930s, highway travel increased. Automobile travel was a lower cost alternative to the train and US 66 was a direct route from the Oklahoma dustbowl to California. New motor hotels, cafes and gasoline stations appeared at both entrances to Kingman. Paving the dirt highway continued through the 1930s, until autos could drive across northern Arizona on continuous concrete or asphalt by the end of the decade.

The depression years were nevertheless felt in Kingman. The Arizona & Utah railroad, taken over by the ATSF in 1905 and renamed Western Arizona Railway went out of business in 1933. Many gold mines in the Cerbat and Black Mountains had closed due to changes in the Gold Standard.

New Deal stimulus funding also helped build the modern airline industry during the great depression, principally through federal funding of airmail. In 1929, Charles Lindberg designed cross-country airline service flying passengers during the day on Ford Trimotors then putting them into sleeping berths on Pennsy and Santa Fe trains to continue their journey overnight. Port Kingman airport was dedicated that June. Transcontinental Air Transport planes left Clovis, New Mexico at 8:10 in the morning headed for Los Angeles by 5:52 p.m., with fifteen minute refueling stops in Albuquerque, Winslow and Kingman. Their competitor, however, had beaten them into the air. Western Air Express had built its own airport in Kingman and begun flights earlier in 1929. TAT soon merged with WAE to become TWA and continue flights without the trains in Douglas DC-3 airliners. Even before the DC-3, longer-range aircraft had eliminated the stop at Kingman, but not its importance to aviation.

This view of Front Street, looking west, is from about 1928, just after the National Old Trails Road became Route 66. Businesses in the block between 5th and 4th Streets were, the Commercial Hotel, Taylor-Owens Motors Ford dealership, Tarr McComb & Ware Com’l. Co. hardware and mining supply (with green sign above), Citizens Utilities, The Popular Store, Stratton’s Grocerteria, Lum Sing Yow’s White House Café (1899) and finally, Keister’s Kingman Drug Co. on the corner of 4th.

The intersection of Front and 4th Streets is depicted about 1930. To the west across 4th from Kingman Drug Co. is the former Lovin & Withers mercantile building with the round corner. Henry Lovin came to Kingman in 1893 and later served as Sheriff of Mohave County, County Supervisor, state senator and investor in the Gold Road mines. Lovin also owned an ice house, Coca-Cola bottling plant and several homes and cottages. The building was demolished in the 1950s.

This is the business block between 3rd and 4th Streets, looking east about 1940. Another corner drugstore at 3rd, Eaton’s Desert Drug Walgreen Agency, is followed by a cocktail lounge, Gaddis Café, and Old Trails Garage (1915) Chevrolet-Buick dealership, which also sold Signal or Conoco gas over the years. Kingman Drug later became the Walgreen Agency and the Gaddis became the Frontier Cafe. Next is the three-story Hotel Brunswick, built in 1909 and renovated to reopen in 1997. Lockwood’s Café is in the Brunswick but moved shortly after this photo was taken. The two-story Hotel Beale (1901) is at right with the large sign on the roof. Andy Devine grew up in the Beale Hotel after his father purchased it in 1906. Front Street was renamed Andy Devine Avenue in 1955. The postcard was published for Desert Drugs by the Albertype Co., Brooklyn N.Y.

As air, rail and highway travel contributed to Kingman’s growth, the federal government launched a depression stimulus project to build a massive flood control and power dam in Boulder Canyon on the Colorado River. Highway 93 was built from Kingman to the construction site creating a third entrance to town lined with motels, cafes and gas stations. The Gateway to Boulder Dam (renamed Hoover Dam in 1948) was becoming more than just a quick lunch stop. In 1939 Clark Gable and Carole Lombard chose a Kingman church for their wedding, to take advantage of Arizona’s more lenient marriage law. The same year, hometown boy Andy Devine was paid $10,000 to drive John Wayne’s stagecoach before the cameras in Monument Valley.

World War Two brought big planes back to Kingman. A military training base was quickly built on the alkali flats of Hualapai Valley about 5 miles east of Kingman. From 1942 to 1946 about 30,000 bomber gunners were trained at Kingman Army Air Field. And when the war was won, due to its location at a major rail line and highway, the base became Storage Depot 41 of the War Assets Corporation, the largest of five sites across the country. Hundreds of big bombers were flown to Kingman for disposal. A few planes were sold. But by the end of the program in 1948, 7,000 mostly B-17 Flying Fortresses had been scrapped and 70 million pounds of aluminum shipped out.

Some of the 5,400 B-17 Flying Fortresses awaiting salvage are seen in this view from 1947. Hundreds of B-24 and B-29 bombers and P-38 Lightning planes were also scrapped at Kingman. The storage area extended for six and a half miles along the Santa Fe railroad and Route 66 northeast of Kingman.

Transportation has brought awful tragedy to Kingman too. The railroad and highway saw their share of fatal accidents over the years. Air Force training during World War Two was dangerous and there were numerous deadly crashes. In 1944, a bus from the Army Air Field crossing the railroad tracks was hit by a train, killing 28 soldiers. In 1973 a Santa Fe propane car developed a leak and caught fire. Fire trucks responded but the railcar soon exploded in a huge fireball, killing 12, including most of the fire department.

Ever since automobiles took to the road Kingman has been a convenient stop for gasoline, repairs, food and lodging. Mrs. Willie McCasland established the City Café on east Route 66 in 1945, next to a 24-hour Texaco station operated by Arlise Finch. Curteich of Chicago printed this C. T. Art-Colortone view in 1951.

Nationwide chains began replacing locally owned motels in the 1950s when this postcard view of Kingman’s TraveLodge was issued. At the time it offered 32 rooms cooled by refrigeration, with phones, free TV and a heated swimming pool. By 2007 it had expanded to 65 rooms with free continental breakfast and high-speed internet. Norm Mead in Tempe published the card, printed by Dexter Press in West Nyack, N. Y.

A Plastichrome postcard by Petley Studios of Phoenix from around 1965 shows the setting, looking west, surrounded on three sides by foothills. You can see the railroad as it curves through town toward the south and McConnico in the Sacramento Valley. The four-lane highway parallel with the railroad is Route 66, or Andy Devine Avenue. At the lower right corner, Route 66 is turning north to pass by the former site of the airbase and storage depot. Highway 93 is heading through the Cerbat range toward Hoover Dam in upper center.

Kingman continued to grow as traffic increased on Route 66 and Highway 93 after the war. The county seat benefited from the construction of Davis Dam (1942-1953) and postwar development of retirement and recreational communities at Lake Havasu City, Golden Shores and Bullhead City. Duval Corporation opened a copper mine in 1959 northwest of Kingman. Though it discontinued operations in 1981, it reopened last year. The population of Kingman nearly doubled during the 1990s and is now almost 28,000.

See also:
Luis & Paula Vega, 4 Wheel Drive Roads of Mohave County, Arizona (2000) One of the best books on the area in recent years, it goes beyond a focus on geology and mining to explain a lot of geography and history.

Jerome Always Teetered On the Brink

Arizona’s “Billion Dollar Copper Camp” it was called, “America’s Most Unique City,” “Largest Ghost City in America,” “One Mile High With a Fifty-Mile View.” Despite all the accolades Jerome has spent the past 126 years perilously clinging to the steep slopes of Cleopatra Hill both literally and figuratively. After each economic windfall, following each period of prosperity came some new threat to the community, some calamity, often threatening Jerome’s very existence. As a result, life for most residents has been hard.

The centennial year of 1876 brought prospectors to a silver deposit on the eastern slope of the Black Hills overlooking the Verde Valley. Spanish explorers named the Verde River, probably after the extensive greenstone rock formations found in its valley walls. Thirteen mining claims were consolidated in 1882 to form the United Verde Copper Company. The following year a company town was started and a post office established, named after principle investor Eugene Jerome, a New York lawyer and cousin of Winston Churchill’s American mother. The silver would pay the cost of smelting copper, leaving all the copper as profit for investors.

This lithograph shows the United Verde mine and smelter in upper Bitter Creek Gulch in 1884, just above where the open pit is now. At the time copper had recently been added to the original silver workings. In those days the Black Hills were verdant in more ways than one. But by 1900, sulphur-dioxide fumes from a greatly enlarged smelter had killed all vegetation around Jerome.

The remote location hindered development in the 1870s, and even after the Atlantic & Pacific railroad came in 1882, everything for Jerome, for the workers, for mining, had to be freighted by wagon over rough country from Prescott or Ash Fork. Coke to fuel the smelter furnace was shipped from Wales around the world to San Francisco and then by train to Ash Fork. Copper matte was hauled to Ash Fork and put on a train for a refinery in New Jersey. Still, investors on the east coast reaped a profit.

Then, shortly after a railroad branch line reached Prescott in December 1886, passing within a rugged 25 miles of Jerome, the vein of copper ore seemed to run out and the United Verde shut down. As it happened, William A. Clark (1839-1925) with copper mines in Montana had been following the fortunes of the United Verde and purchased the mine in 1888, renewing exploration. As luck would have it, a huge body of rich ore was located deeper and farther down the gulch and the mine reopened in 1890. By 1894, the Santa Fe Railway had taken over the bankrupt A&P and built a new branch line to Prescott. The United Verde then laid rails that year from the Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix Railroad to Jerome, reducing shipping costs and bringing a wide range of goods to stores. As boom times blanketed the community with wealth, the tightly packed business district was swept again and again by fire.

Like many early towns quickly constructed of cheap wood-frame buildings, Jerome was wiped out by devastating fires in 1894, 1897, 1898 and 1899. Fire resistant construction and organization of a fire brigade kept succeeding blazes from destroying more than just a few buildings or single neighborhoods in 1900, 1902, 1907, 1911, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1926 and 1927. In this view a crowd of concerned residents watch the fire of June 6, 1918 that burned 60 structures in the Hispanic neighborhood, leaving 1,000 people homeless.

In 1897 fire started underground in the mine. The copper came in the form of a combustible sulfide ore. Unable to stop the smoldering, miners walled off the burning rock and continued to drill and dig in almost unbearably hot conditions, hoping runoff from summer rains reaching the hot rock would not cause too great a steam explosion. Only creating an open pit and digging out the burning ore eliminated the fire in the late 1920s.

Knowing they were making rich eastern investors even richer, miners asked for a shorter workday and better conditions. The first labor strike in 1902 halted production for several months. Bricklayers struck in 1904, then United Verde shut down in 1906 in order to avoid another strike. Layoffs came with the recession of 1907, but improved working conditions followed the election of progressive state legislators in 1912. Still, the buildup for war production in 1917 brought the worst labor strike yet. Pro-war patriots who supported company management rounded up seventy-five union workers and forcibly shipped them out of Jerome to Kingman that July, two days before the more famous deportation at Bisbee.

This photograph by Carlos Elmer about 1948, published and distributed as a postcard by Bob Petley, looks from the entrance of Jerome in the mouth of Hull Canyon across the Verde Valley toward the cliffs of the Mogollon Rim, with the snow-covered San Francisco Peaks on top of the Colorado Plateau about 50 miles away. At right, Highway 89A leaves the city limit along the Hogback, looping around Mingus Union High School. The school buildings have orange roofs and the smoke stacks of Clarkdale smelter, five miles below, can be seen above the roofs. The high school moved to Cottonwood in 1972.

This view showing most of the town about 1928 looks back from near the high school toward the vantage point on the hill behind the telephone pole used by Carlos Elmer to make the photograph above. The dirt road is Highway 79 (later renumbered 89A) connecting Jerome with Clarkdale, Cottonwood and Sedona. The “J” is on Cleopatra Hill and the United Verde open pit is located just to the right. The Little Daisy mine is farther to the right, out of view. This postcard was published by MacDonald the druggist in Jerome, colorized and printed by CT American Art.

Jerome and its copper mines grew and prospered for forty years, quickly recovering following three recessions. The United Verde was making a million dollars a month as early as 1895. Population in town ballooned from 500 in 1893, a recession year, to nearly 3,000 by the 1900 census and then fell back a few hundred by 1910 after the recession of 1907. United Verde employment rose from 800 in 1900 to more than a thousand six years later. But the underground fire and an inefficient smelter were threatening profits. So in 1911 the United Verde selected a new smelter site down in the valley below Jerome and began open pit mining with huge steam shovels on the site of the old smelter.

Verde Tunnel & Smelter R.R. was the only short line in the US to operate huge Mallet compound 2-6-6-2 locomotives. They were needed to economically negotiate the steep grade between Jerome and Clarkdale. Here Mallet No. 500 is working in the open pit just below the surface plant near the north side of Cleopatra Hill around 1920. The mines were served by several railroads over the years. First came the United Verde & Pacific Railway, a 3-foot narrow gauge line built 26 miles from the Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix in Chino Valley beginning in 1894. It ceased operations in 1920 after the standard gauge Verde Valley Railroad began operations in 1911 between the Santa Fe at Drake and the new town of Clarkdale below Jerome. In 1912, the Verde Tunnel & Smelter Railroad was run 11 miles from Clarkdale to Jerome. It delivered supplies to Jerome and hauled ore from Hopewell to Clarkdale. The United Verde Copper Company Railway operated trains in the open pit and around the shops at Jerome. Steam shovels also moved on these rails. Then in 1922 the Arizona-Extension Railway was built from the United Verde Extension mine haulage tunnel to another smelter at Clemenceau (now inside Cottonwood).

At the beginning of the twentieth century, steam shovels made possible the moving of large amounts of dirt quicker and at lower cost than horse-drawn Fresno scrapers. Beginning in 1918, steam shovels excavated an open pit mine to supplement the United Verde underground workings. In this view from about 1920, the shovel (probably an Osgood 120 model) is loading side-dump cars pulled by a small VT&SRR Rogers 0-4-0 engine to ore chutes in the floor of the open pit. The chutes dumped the ore into rail cars in the Hopewell haulage tunnel under the pit.

Speculative prospecting all around the United Verde ore body over the years found no other large and equally rich deposits, leading most engineers to judge the mine unique. But James S. Douglas, whose father built up the Phelps Dodge operation at Bisbee and had explored the Jerome ore body in 1880, doubted the experts. He bought the Little Daisy mine in Bitter Creek gulch just below the United Verde. And there, in 1914, his prospectors located another rich ore body, even more fabulous than the United Verde. It became the United Verde Extension mine (UVX) and produced $9.9 million in two years, of which $7.4 million was profit. Only four mines produced almost all the wealth taken out of the Black Hills. By far the largest were the UV and the UVX.

The Little Daisy mine is located on the north side of Bitter Creek (the deep gulch in the foreground) at the base of Sunshine Hill. A United Verde and Pacific train is rounding the hill headed for Jerome station. This postcard was probably issued around the time the railroad ceased operations in 1920. The Little Daisy Hotel is the big building on the hill.

Between 1888 and 1922, the United Verde produced 1.1 billion pounds of copper, more than 563,000 ounces of gold and 18.4 million ounces of silver. Revenue during those years amounted to more than $167 million. In 1924, labor costs to produce a pound of copper amounted to less than 3 cents. All other costs, including 2 cents in taxes, amounted to nearly 9 cents a pound. Copper was selling for 13 cents a pound that year, leaving about a penny for profit. Still, stockholders received $3.3 million in dividends in 1924. When the price of copper was highest in 1918, stockholders were paid $5.6 million.

That kind of wealth required hard work and sacrifice. Due to the underground fire, engineers had to devise an air cooling system to drop the temperature in drill holes low enough to permit safe tamping of blasting powder in the open pit. As steam shovels reached the smoldering ore, they scooped it up into dump trucks, which had recently replaced rail cars for transport. The steam shovel bucket and dump beds often glowed a dark red from the heat. One day in 1926 the largest steam shovel in the world, working in the open pit, sliced into an old unexploded dynamite charge left underground. The resulting explosion completely wrecked the machine, killed two operators and injured two more.

In 1920, a recession year, the Arizona highway department put men to work turning the old wagon road across Mingus Mountain from Jerome to Prescott into a modern, though dirt, automobile highway. It would later be numbered Arizona 79 and then US 89A. This 1925 postcard by Curt Teich says “Yaeger Canyon” but it looks like Hull Canyon, the last pass before coming out into the Verde Valley at Jerome City Limit. Yaeger Canyon is the last pass going the other way before dropping down into Prescott Valley.

Each blast underground or in the pit shook the ground hollowed out by years of tunneling. The brick assay office was swallowed up by a collapsing stope in 1899 with loss of three lives. After heavy blasting in 1925 many buildings in Jerome began sliding downhill an inch a month. In 1928, a whole block of business buildings collapsed as the ground underneath gave way. As the open pit deepened, in 1929 the sheer northern wall began sending boulders crashing to the bottom. Engineers placed markers on the rim high above and took daily measures of subsidence. They predicted a large mass of fractured rock would give way in March 1931. Economic depression had curtailed mining by then and the work area was easily evacuated in advance. Sure enough, with a big roar and clouds of dust, a million tons of rock slid into the open pit.

All the while the Clarkdale and Clemenceau smokestacks belched out their sulfurous fumes. Farmers in the Verde Valley claimed crop damage and sued. Investigators found damage to pine trees far away on the Mogollon Rim below Williams. Damage payments were made and the smelters kept operating.

Earlier, government took to cleaning up sin and vice in Jerome. When the town was incorporated in 1899, an ordinance limited the number of saloons to a dozen. The number was reduced to eight in 1911. Presumably the fewer number just did a bigger business. Town government outlawed gambling in 1906 but the ordinance was quickly overturned by the courts. The following year, the territorial legislature outlawed gambling and barred women from saloons as a way to discourage prostitution. Jerome had a thriving red-light district, even though the town council had outlawed women working in saloons in 1905. Open prostitution finally ended across the nation in 1917 as a federal war measure requested by the military.

This is the busy east side of Main Street about 1919. Yavapai Drug Store had recently taken over the building constructed in 1899 for The Fashion saloon. Prohibition of alcohol began in Arizona January 1, 1915, replacing some bars with ice cream and soda pop fountains. Soda became popular in the 1880s as a temperance drink and a healthier alternative to drug store bitters and elixirs. At first, colas were promoted for medicinal purposes, but by the twentieth century they were largely considered refreshments. In any case, The Fashion, on the corner of Main and Jerome Avenue, became an appropriate place for the little girl on the sidewalk.

The same corner is seen here about 1965. In 1953 the Jerome Mine Museum opened in The Fashion building. Across Jerome Avenue is the Connor Hotel (1898) and the Liberty Theater building. Next door to the Mine Museum the building that once housed Fisher’s Bar again serves beer as Paul’s Place. Then comes the Laura Williams Antique Museum where there used to be a barber shop.

The fourth recession was harder and longer than the others. United Verde underground and open pit mining ceased in 1931. UVX reduced production. Work in the pit resumed in 1935 and underground on a smaller scale in 1937. As the Great Depression finally eased another world war loomed and the end was in sight for Jerome. Engineers had located the bottom of the ore bodies in the UV and UVX mines. United Verde underground mining continued but the open pit played out by 1940. The UV Extension was dissolved in 1938 and the United Verde, which had been purchased by Phelps Dodge in 1935, ceased mining and smelter operations in 1953. The population of Jerome, which some say had reached an unofficial 15,000 by 1927, had dropped to 2,295 in 1940 and 1,233 by 1950. Those who could moved on. Many Hispanics, who once represented half the labor force, had to stay. Still, the population dropped to 243 by 1960. A few artists came and the old copper camp was billed a “ghost town” to attract tourism. Trees began to grow again. By 2009 Jerome had become a nice place to visit and live. Cafes, inns, boutiques and more than 30 galleries and studios occupy restored historic structures. But now, will hard times return?

Something about the setting of Jerome has long inspired artists. I think many were attracted to the decay of the ramshackle structures in need of repair, sort of like the nostalgia attached to ancient Greek and Roman ruins. Some saw beauty in all the chaos. And then there is the 50-mile view. Kay Henson Manley produced this drawing during the time when Jerome was being reborn as an artists’ colony. I know nothing about Manley other than she was connected earlier with the prominent Thomas H. Bate photography studio in Prescott.

some sources:
E. M. J. Alenius, A Brief History of the United Verde Open Pit, Jerome, Arizona Univ. of Ariz., Arizona Bureau of Mines Bulletin 178 (1968)

Art Clark & Richard Snodgrass, Ballad of a Laughing Mountain (1957)

Waldemar Lindgren, Ore Deposits of the Jerome and Bradshaw Mountains Quadrangles, Arizona USGS Bulletin 782 (1928)

Russell Wahmann, Verde Valley Railroads (1983)

Herbert V. Young, They Came to Jerome (1972)

The Lost Dutchman Wasn’t Dutch

Jacob Waltz, also called Walzer or Walz, was deutsch, meaning “German.” But that word when pronounced sounds a lot like “Dutch.” So he became known as the Dutchman. After all, Americans more than a hundred years ago seemed to have a more genial attitude toward the Dutch, who were an object of humor, than the Germans, who were thought too gothic. It just goes to show you how little we know about the man and his “lost mine” in the Superstitions.

The Superstition Mountains are dramatic at first sight. The massive hulk of barren rock brooding over the Salt River Valley east of Apache Junction guards a vast region of uninhabitable wilderness, broken by rugged canyons and insurmountable peaks and spires. The mountains were named when Pima and Maricopa Indians told early Europeans that the area harbored evil and only bad things came to those who ventured among the tumbled stones. That was believable when Apaches controlled the area. But long after they were driven to a reservation adventurers still disappeared or were found murdered in the mountains. After so many years the Supes still elicit feelings of fascination mixed with fear.

Fixation on Superstition Mountain began with the discovery of gold nuggets, but the only gold evident in this view are the sun gilded tops of cholla cactus. The photographer in the late 1940s or early fifties manipulated the color very well to capture the drama surrounding the barren rocks. Most people consider the isolated mountain shown here the western-most portion of an entire range by the same name extending far to the east. The Superstitions can also be considered the western limit of the Pinal Mountain range south of Globe.

Miguel Peralta and his family were the first on record to bring Apache gold out of the Superstitions. That is, if their La Sombrera Butte of 1845-1848, lurking over their diggings, is the same as what is now called Weavers Needle. The location of the butte described as shaped like a Mexican hat is a matter of dispute, just like everything else about the Dutchman’s gold. That gold was taken out of the Superstitions, however, is not in dispute.

During the Civil War, when US troops were withdrawn from the southwest to fight elsewhere, soldiers from the Confederate States set up camp in Tucson to protect Americans from Apache raids. After an undersized contingent of union troops returned, King Woolsey (1832-1879) who had come to Arizona from Alabama organized a private militia to track down Apache raiders. In 1864, he led at least three punitive expeditions. Both supportive and critical accounts of those forays exist, conflicting on many points of fact. It was said that he tricked Apaches into eating poison food and on another occasion opened fire on Apache warriors summoned to peace talks. The latter incident, known as the Bloody Tanks massacre, probably took place in the Superstition Mountains. Was Woolsey also looking for gold? In any case, he received a commendation from the territorial government for his efforts, was elected to the legislature, made commander of the territorial militia and went on to help form the Democratic Party in Arizona.

To Native Americans white men always seemed to lose all reason and discretion when it came to gold.

In 1871, after a prospector reported finding gold near a butte that looked like a Mexican hat, “the greatest treasure hunt in the southwest since the days of the Spanish conquistadors. . .was organized. Territorial Governor A. P. K. Safford, a pioneer of Nevada’s Comstock Lode days, set aside his official duties to lead the expedition” (p. 365, Arizona, American Guide Series, 1940). They found no gold and missed the silver that would be discovered a few years later near Globe. They did notice quite a few mountains resembling hats, but it was like searching for Weaver’s Needle in a haystack. Now there is a Sombrero Peak in the Sierra Ancha Mts. NW of the Salt River Canyon in Gila County and a Sombrero Butte in the Galiuro Mts. east of Mammoth in Pinal County.

This booklet issued in October 1940 in Phoenix is only one of hundreds of pamphlets, maps and books published over the years promising treasure to those who brave the Superstitions. Barry Storm (a.k.a. John Clemenson) went on to publish a popular book about the Dutchman story, Thunder God’s Gold, which was made into a movie called Lust for Gold in 1949 starring Glenn Ford and Ida Lupino.

A newspaper article that appeared across the country in 1940 suggested a lost Spanish gold mine discovered in Needle Canyon may have been the source of wealth for both the Peraltas and the Dutchman. (Click on article to see full size.)

Though Jacob Waltz lived in Prescott in 1864 and Wickenburg in 1875, there is no evidence that he joined either the Woolsey or Safford expeditions. But in 1884, he filed a claim in the Superstitions and became well known in Phoenix for spending money derived from gold nuggets. “His mine had become the byword of all the local inhabitants of Phoenix and the nearby towns and villages by his tales and stories of it’s enormous wealth, years before his death. He proved his stories by producing gold in large quantities. His quick trips to the mountain, his return, loaded down with gold. . .kept the downtown inhabitants of Florence and Phoenix in a frenzy and the hangers-on of the Washington Street saloons pried him with questions and watched his every move” (p. 19, Barney Barnard, The Story of Jacob Walzer, 1954; a booklet actually written by Charles F. Higham and issued in more than 21 editions over the years).

After leading annual hikes into the Superstitions, the Dons Club of Phoenix built this monument in Apache Junction in 1938 at the intersection of State Route 88 and old US 60. Recently, a hotel that blocked the view of the mountain from the monument for many years was torn down after the business failed. The original plaque on the base used to read: “Here lies the remains of Snow Beard, the Dutchman who in this mountain shot three men to steal a rich gold mine from Spanish pioneers, killed eight men more to hold its treasure, then died in 1892 [he died October 25, 1891], without revealing its location. Dozens of searchers have met mysterious deaths in the canyons there, yet the ore lies unrevealed. Indians say this is the curse of the thunder god on white men in whom the craving for gold is strong. Beware lest you too succumb to the lure of the Lost Dutchman Mine in the Superstition Mountains.”

It’s probably true that some who followed Waltz into the mountains too close, didn’t return. According to one account, “this cold-blooded character was an ideal type for a real-life murder mystery. For the record, he killed upwards of a dozen men to gain and hold his treasure, one being his nephew, whose conduct failed to please the old man. Others faced his gun in ill-judged turns too close on his trail” (p. 46, Howard D. Clark, Lost Mines of the Old West, 1946). In 1891, Waltz got caught in the big Salt River flood in Phoenix, developed pneumonia and died about seven months later. But not before, on his deathbed, he gave his friends clues to find his cache. It’s across from a cave, near a stone house, in a gulch that runs north and south. You can see Weaver’s Needle from the cave.

Before Waltz’s death, four residents of Lehi, north of Mesa, began working a gold mine northwest of Superstition Mountain. More claims were filed in 1890 and a low-grade but profitable deposit was mined at what was now called Goldfield. A boom town developed with a post office that opened in 1895. The mine was productive until 1912 and then reworked 1950-1952. Some have argued that the Goldfield vein was the source of Waltz’s riches. Others continue to search till their last breath. Twenty adventurers died in the Superstitions from exposure, accident, gunshot wounds or unknown causes up to 1948. A few actually came out with gold, $18,000 reportedly in 1914. The Lost Dutchman became such a tourist draw that the Phoenix Don’s Club used to lead annual hikes into the Superstitions beginning in 1934.

So what is the secret? Is the Dutchman’s mine still lost? Or is it just profitable to continue to think so? Longtime Apache Junction resident and newspaper columnist Tom Kollenbom has probably made the most prudent observation, that the beautiful plant and animal life among the colorful stones in the Superstition Wilderness is more valuable than gold.

Several motels and restaurants in Apache Junction and Mesa have capitalized on the Dutchman legend over the years. State Route 87, or Country Club Road in Mesa, was the main highway to Tucson when this postcard was issued about 1947. The address at 560 South Mesa Blvd. (now called Country Club) locates the motel two blocks south of Broadway Avenue. The back of the postcard describes “a new 28 unit elegantly and completely furnished, insulated, air-conditioned, fire-proof Lodge. All tile kitchenettes and bath. Furnace heat. You will ‘really’ feel at home in Mesa’s Largest and Most Modern, Secluded Guest Lodge.” And then leave a place like that for a hike in the Superstitions? The motel is still in business as Lost Dutchman Comfort Lodge.

Contrast this view of a thinly covered, sun-baked desert, published by the L. L. Cook company of Milwaukee in 1939, with the thick vegetation nearby pictured above about 1949. It’s possible the two views document the difference between Sonoran desert growth on a floodplain versus higher ground, or a difference in climate. A long period of drought ended shortly after 1939 while 1949 fell in the middle of a short wet period. Much of the open space seen in both photos is now built over by housing subdivisions and strip malls. (The blue mountain Kodachrome was color enhanced on the original postcard, while I have yellowed the black & white “real photo postcard” by L. L. Cook.)

There is a tremendous amount of really fascinating information available on the Superstitions and the search for the lost mine. Start at http://lost-dutchman.com and http://www.superstitionmountain.info or http://ajpl.org (Apache Junction Public Library). Hint: copy and paste the web address into your browser to go there.

For some recent history see: Apache Junction and Superstition Mountains by Jane Eppinga (2006) and The Lost Dutchman Mine of Jacob Waltz: The Holmes Manuscript by Thomas E. Glover (2000).

Goldfield Ghost Town museum is located 4.5 miles NE of Apache Junction on the Apache Trail (State Route 88), and Superstition Mountain Museum is at 4087 North Apache Trail. Lost Dutchman State Park on the Apache Trail 5 miles north of Apache Junction, scheduled to close June 3, 2010 due to budget cuts, was created in 1977 from a US Bureau of Land Management recreation site developed in 1972.

Indian Hot Springs Was Really Hot
Among the hot spring resorts of Arizona, Indian Hot Springs on the north side of the Gila River five miles north of Pima in the wide Gila Valley of Graham County, has always been a popular destination. As the name implies, the steaming waters with curative powers had long been open to free access by indigenous families. But when those families were confined to reservations in the 1870s, that opened the springs to commercial development. Ben Gardner channeled the flow and diverted water into pools soon after Ft. Thomas was established by the military about six miles west in 1876. From then on the hot springs were sold as commercial property every few years or so and each successive owner added improvements.

The Honeymoon Trail from Utah brought Mormon families to the Gila Valley, some of whom formed the town of Eden in 1880 two and a half miles south of the hot springs. By the end of the 1890s, the Gila Valley, Globe and Northern Railway had been built along the Gila River, providing convenient transportation to Indian Hot Springs from the depot at Pima. In 1903 construction was completed on a three-story hotel at the hot springs described by one visitor as “a feudal castle lost in the desert.” In 1905, the largest swimming pool in Arizona, measuring 255 by 70 feet, was added and then enlarged to 270 feet and cemented after 1916.

This advertisement appeared in the Bisbee Daily Review August 31, 1910, with a drawing of the “hotel and sanitarium.” At that time Bisbee residents could easily reach the hot springs by rail. (Click on pictures to see full size) There are a lot of typos in the text. “Dropsy” is the archaic term for general edema, usually from a weak heart. Notice promotion of the dual role of health or pleasure.

Indian Hot Springs was now a therapeutic and recreational site for those who could pay admission. By 1912 that included local families with modest incomes, along with those who could afford to take the train or drive their automobile. The resort was only a short distance off the major cross-country highway, US 70. “The famous health and pleasure resort” advertised its 1.5 million gallons of daily flow into pools, tubs and mud baths as a cure for rheumatism. There were four water temperatures available, Magnesium Springs at 81 degrees, Iron and Mud Springs at 116 degrees, Rock Springs at 118 and Beauty Springs one degree hotter. (For more supposed health benefits see: Resources of Graham County compiled by J. H. Vaughn (1888) pp. 15-16.)

Burton Frasher (1888-1955), who operated a postcard business headquartered in Pomona California, published a series of “real photo” cards of Indian Hot Springs in 1936. The photographs appear to have been taken a few years earlier. Fortunately the Frasher family and the Pomona Public Library have made hundreds of “Frashers Fotos” public domain images available on the internet. The amazingly sharp and beautiful black and white photos clearly document much of Arizona from 1930 to 1955.

I haven’t been to the site, and I’m not sure where you would actually immerse yourself in the hot water or have a mud bath. Probably inside, though the hot springs I’ve visited always had outdoor pools. Three “Roman baths” were built at the site in 1903. A big part of the experience is the mental relaxation. There was a resurgence of the hot springs spirit in the hippie movement of the sixties and that was evident at Indian Hot Springs too.

Frasher gives the older dimensions for the biggest swimming pool in the southwest. Local sources say it was enlarged to 270 feet long shortly after 1916.

In the early days this pond offered romantic rowboat outings. Apparently it was stocked with goldfish when this photo was snapped. The Arizona Bureau of Geology and Mineral Technology has identified 45 hot and warm springs in Arizona, with a concentration in Graham and Greenlee counties. (James C. Witcher, “Thermal Springs of Arizona,” Field Notes, June 1981).

The hot spring experience was mostly a Native American and European tradition. What we call a spa today is an entirely different affair. By the 1960s, business at Indian Hot Springs had declined and the latest owners of the property were more interested in farming the acreage. Without commercial value, the beautiful grounds were opened up again for free use by local families. But much would be lost. Around 1966 the health department closed the pool, judging that un-chlorinated water was not fit for swimming. Now the ornate Victorian hotel was even more out of place. When built, the brick and stone building had been advertised as fireproof, but fire of unknown origin broke out in the wooden interior February 24, 2008, completely wrecking the entire structure.

This fine structure replaced canvas “cottage tents,” an adobe building and a small wood house available for up to 60 guests before 1903. By 2008 the 30-room hotel was still being rented to guests, according to a newspaper account, and caught fire after a group left.

See also:
“Eden mansion burns down,” Eastern Arizona Courier 2/27/08
“Burned resort full of history” Eastern Arizona Courier 3/4/08