© Edward McCain >> Click on image to view it larger in a separate window.

By Leo W. Banks

The dirt road sank beneath us, and it took a moment for our bellies to return to their proper locale. My guide, Joe Stevens, explained that the cause of our excitement went by the name Calamity Wash, and even a young scribbler, which I ceased being decades ago, would know enough to ask about its origin.

One day in the late 1800s, a miner came into Wickenburg and bought a barrel of whiskey to haul back to a Fourth of July party. With thirsty friends awaiting his return to their mountain camp, the fellow climbed onto his buckboard and lashed his mules down into the wash, took a sharp turn and heard that barrel thump onto the ground and split open.

Whiskey gone, and there’s your calamity.

The story couldn't be a better fit for Constellation Road because not a word of it happened. A lady named Sophie Burden made it up years ago. But it's perfect because all along its plunging, winding, switchbacking 16 miles, the road passes abandoned silver, copper and gold mines built in no small measure on make-believe.

Men who wanted to strike it rich in early Arizona came to this place in the Bradshaw Mountains, and the residue of their efforts still marks the countryside – from giant head frames and walk-in drifts to shafts so deep you can drop a rock into them and eat a sandwich before hearing the rock land.

In its heyday in the early 1900s, the road blossomed with two post offices and about 20 mine camps, with colorful names such as Monte Cristo and Gold Bar. Some were flimsy tent settlements and others consisted of wood frame homes, with schools, hotels, brothels, even a Chinese restaurant.

I first heard of Constellation Road years ago in a conversation with my pal, the late Dana Burden, son of Jack and Sophie, the aforementioned yarn spinner.

“People went out there with nothing, and those were really tough times,” Dana said. “But if they needed a road, they built one. These people could do anything.”

Dana was born in Wickenburg, where his folks ran Remuda Ranch. He spent his youth on horseback, leading dudes into the backcountry, and later ran a jeep tour company. He knew every rock on every hillside and who put it there.

What I heard in our chat sounded like a by-God story, so I told Dana I'd be out Wickenburg way before long to turn over some of those rocks. He died before I could make the trip.

But he left behind a book called Where the Past Lives — Constellation Road, co-written with Stevens. When I called Joe to ask if he'd like to head to the mountains, I heard the engine of his Polaris Ranger roar to life before he hung up the phone.

He's a retired military man, but his enthusiasm for prowling these mountains takes about half a century off his age.

"Nothing’s more fun than throwing rocks into mine shafts," Joe said 10 days later as we drove into the Bradshaws. "I did that once and a snowy owl flew out. I scared him half to death and he scared me, too. But it was beautiful to watch him just lift out of there. He must've had a 6-foot wingspan.”

Every stop along the way came with a story. At Sayers Station, in King Solomon Wash, we climbed up the hill behind the crumbled remains of a two-story store, bawdy house and post office to a natural spring in the hillside.

It hardly seemed possible to find water in such parched land, but there it was, a window-size hole in a rock cliff, framed by concrete and mortar. That small portal led to a cave containing three feet of natural spring water. An ingenious store owner built the system in 1926 to feed the tanks below, and his engineering feat is still used today.

From Sayers Station, we climbed the famous $17,000 highway. Miner James Mahoney discovered gold higher up in the Bradshaws and needed a reliable way to ship his ore to market from the Gold Bar Mine.

In 1893, Mahoney and four other men built almost 5 miles of road in eight months, a feat of desire only gold could inspire. Prescott's newspaper, the Arizona Miner said the road "could take a team of animals up and never break a sweat."

That sort of hype was a common element in early Arizona mining ventures. So was belief, the boundless human capacity to see what we wish to see.

In the early 1930s, a group of spiritualists ran the Black Rock Mine. They'd been grubstaked $250,000, and every Sunday night they met to ask the controlling spirit how to find its gold. Do you need to guess how this worked out? Not so good.

Even when the ore was right before their eyes, it often stayed put. Joe told the story of Ezra Thayer, a Phoenix hardware merchant and longtime owner of the Monte Cristo Mine.

He oversaw a workforce that in 1915 numbered 20-30 men putting in three shifts a day. They built a shaft that went down 1,100 feet, along with 3 miles of drifts. In addition to gobs of high-grade silver, they found a 6-foot-wide gold vein.

But rather than work these big finds, Thayer blocked them out.

"I don't get it," I said to Joe. "Wasn't he in the mining business?"

We were standing on a hilltop above the Monte Cristo. The gritty Ranger had delivered us there along a ridiculous road that was little more than a rain gash. The setting was perfect. We could see the Black Rock Mine across the valley, looking spooky and ethereal, and below us stood the Monte Cristo’s towering head frame.

A sunset wind shrieked through piles of discarded tin siding, providing an appropriate score for Joe’s words.

"The work was too hard," he said. "It was easier to mine people. Thayer often said his money was safer underground than in a bank."

He was a smart customer, this Thayer. He sold the Monte Cristo in 1926 for a million bucks. New owner C.C. Julian left the ore alone, too, figuring he could make more selling investor shares at $250 a pop on the promise of future return that never came. The million-dollar mine sold again three years later for a pitiful $9,449.

I could hear such stories all day, and Joe could tell them, too. He grew up in northern Wisconsin, son of an engineer in that state’s deepest iron mine. But his ties to the business run even thicker.

His grandfather and great-grandfather were Cornish miners, known as Cousin Jacks, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. These hearty immigrants from Cornwall, England, the many thousands of them who came to this country in 1800s, played a key role in developing mines across Arizona. So it was fitting that Joe and wife, Linda, would spend their graying years in an area rich in mining history.

Gold mothered Arizona into existence, and we can see the literal birthplace above Constellation Road. As we drove higher, Rich Hill occupied a portion of the horizon to our northwest, in the Weaver Mountains.

In 1863, explorers led by Pauline Weaver discovered hunks of gold littering the hilltop that came to be called Rich Hill. Word of the strike, and other gold discoveries not far away, reached Abraham Lincoln, who sent troops to secure those fortunes for the Union cause.

When Arizona became a separate territory in 1863, its official seal became a mountain peak in the Weavers.

Joe pointed to it hovering beyond the windshield, his enthusiasm rising again. “That’s Seal Peak. This is where it all began for Arizona. Look at this country! Look at how big it is!”

As far as we could see, the mountains layered back against the horizon, the road making a perfect roller-coaster until taking its final drop into the Williams Family Ranch, on a bluff above the Hassayampa River.

Joe had called ahead to let Carrol and Roy know we’d be coming, and we all gathered to eat at the long outdoor picnic table beside the main house.

We had a grand time listening to the proprietors talk about life on a working cattle ranch with 20 horses, 21 chickens and 15 dogs. The Williamses also operate a guest ranch, so the collection of humans included vacationers.

One of the guests made himself known by the jingle-jangle of his spurs and the melodic rattle of the silver conchos on his chaps. It surprised me, then, to hear that this cowboy spoke English with a heavy German accent.

Tom Braunmeuller, of Stuttgart, took his first vacation at the Williams ranch in 2006. He returned the following year on a long work leave, trying to control a medical problem that benefited from the dry climate. Feeling strong again, Tom, 41, put himself to work as a wrangler. But don't call that a sacrifice.

"It's something I've always wanted to do, be a cowboy," Tom told me. "I can't do it in Germany. We don't have room like this." He gazed at the mountains beyond his shoulders. They're bigger than everything but his dreams. "It's just so different here, you see.”

Every night Tom retreats to his trailer and hunches over his laptop to write about his day's work. A German publisher has expressed interest in turning his diary into a book about life on a working cattle ranch.

I loved Tom's story. It's about the seductive power of the American West, about the allure of light, space, sky and strong horses, and about the idea of the West matching the reality.

After eating, Joe, photographer Edward McCain and I rode the short distance down to the Hassayampa. The river sparkled in the sun and its water flowed steadily. The racket of our arrival annoyed a blue heron off the water, and away he soared.

In his silent and graceful protest, the bird was beautiful, and so was the canyon. It made me think of a story Joe had told earlier.

After Dana Burden died in February 2006, a portion of his ashes were buried with his dad in Wickenburg. But he wanted the remainder spread over Seal Peak. Accompanied by Dana's sister, Sophie Burden Echeverria, and brother, John, Joe went up in a helicopter with the ashes balled up in Christmas wrapping paper.

When the chopper got over the Peak, Joe stuffed the paper down a ventilation pipe and out into space. But it didn’t open. Joe watched, worried that the wind would carry it far from the hoped-for landing spot. Then, suddenly, the paper burst open and released a shower of ashes.

Dana wanted his remains to land on the slope of Seal Peak so the rain would wash him into his beloved Hassayampa, near the end of Constellation Road, and it happened just that way.

I love that story most of all. For an Arizona original like Dana, whose veins ran with Hassayampa water, there could be no more fitting place to spend eternity.

Editor’s Note: The book by Dana Burton and Joe Stevens, Where the Past Lives: Constellation Road, provides directions and mileage readings to many more spots along the road, as well as maps, photographs, legends and facts about its history. Buy it at many stores in Wickenburg and at the gift shop at Desert Caballeros Western Museum in downtown Wickenburg. Stevens gives tours of Constellation Road through the museum. Call 928-684-2272.

When you Go:

Location: Wickenburg is 58 miles northwest of Phoenix.

Getting There: On Wickenburg Way, the town's main street, which is also State Highway 60, drive two blocks east of the Hassayampa River bridge and take El Recreo street north. El Recreo passes Constellation Park and the town rodeo grounds before entering Yavapai County, where the road turns to dirt.

The drive from El Recreo to Consolation Road and the Williams Ranch, where the road ends, totals 16 miles. Visitors will pass numerous interesting sites along the way, including Calamity Wash (2.4 miles); the junction of Stagecoach Road, which goes right through the desert to Castle Hot Springs Road (4.0 miles); King Solomon Wash (8.8 miles); Sayers Station, tucked into the trees on the right side and the $17,000 Highway, which begins just across from the station (9.1 miles); the Monte Cristo and Black Rock Mines (11.6 miles); an overlook in the Bradshaws that includes Seal Peak in the Weaver Mountains (13.1 miles); on the left, the Gold Bar Mine (13.6 miles); Williams Ranch and the trailhead to the Hassayampa Wilderness Area (16.1 miles)

Travel Advisory: Although an ordinary passenger car can probably negotiate this road, there are a couple of spots, especially through the sand washes, that might pose a problem after rainy weather. It is best to drive a high-clearance vehicle.

Additional Information: Contact the Williams Family Ranch by e-mail at williamsfamilyranch@hughes.net. View their website at www.williamsfamilyranch.com. 

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