ALONG THE WAY

Memories of an Arizona Cowboy Live On in Mayer

DRIVING ON STATE ROUTE 69 south of Prescott, I saw the turnoff to the little town of Mayer and was reminded that seven years had passed since I'd last visited. It got me thinking about old Frank Polk, a cowboy and Western artist who'd spent many years there.

He lived right on Central Avenue in the Mayer State Bank Building, built in the 1880s. It had a big walk-in vault in back where Frank kept his valuables, its walls still plastered with inspection stickers dating to 1918.

At the time of my last visit, I was writing a story on an infamous Prescott madame whom Frank had known and agreed to talk about. Even though in his mid-80s and mostly blind, he still lived alone, a demonstration of the fierce independence and toughness by which he lived his life. He truly was one of Arizona's most remarkable characters.

I wondered: With Frank gone, what had happened to the bank? I feared that it had been razed, or made modern in some horrifying fashion. The sign hanging outside sounded too cute for comfort. It said, "Lynn's Foliage Bank, Indoor and Outdoor Plants and Gifts."

But I recovered after meeting Lynn Turley, the gracious owner. It turned out that I knew her husband, Paul, from my previous wanderings in the Bradshaw Mountains. He once owned the saloon in Crown King, where I'd happily squandered a buck or two while trying to extract semi-interesting quotes from an assortment of shaggy mountain characters.

What I like about Lynn is that rather than disregarding the past in establishing her business, opened in November 2003, she embraced it. On one wall hangs an enlarged black-and-white photograph of Mayer, published in Arizona Highways in May 1960. She also hauled the huge 1890s-era Diebold safe out of the vault for prominent display.

Recently a fellow who travels the world refurbishing safes spotted it through the window and came in to tell Lynn that it had one of the oldest time locks he'd seen. He offered her $15,000 for it, and she politely said no. I like that, too.

There on the back wall hangs Frank's portrait. He's staring down with a face that actor Slim Pickens said "looks like it wore out three bodies." Frank lived a big life, full of calamity and camaraderie, horses and women, booze and big hats.

He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1908, and came to Arizona three years later. As a boy, he worked Phoenix-area rodeos with his trained burro and, at 16, he walked into the Palace Bar on Prescott's Whiskey Row and talked the cow boss for the famed Yolo Ranch, at Camp Wood, into hiring him as a cowboy.

"When I was a kid I pretty much thought that if a guy wasn't a cowboy he just didn't amount to doodley-nothin'," Frank once said.

He worked many of the big ranches in Arizona and Nevada before branching into entertainment, making money by doing stunt work in movies like Beau Geste, with Gary Cooper, singing on the radio, and as a Grand Canyon dude wrangler.

A taste for whiskey plagued Frank most of his life, and he eventually overcame it through Alcoholics Anonymous. But he also used art to reclaim his soul. He joined the Cowboy Artists of America in 1967, and at the urging of a friend, Prescott artist George Phippen, began casting figures in bronze. His well-regarded pieces added to the recognition he'd already earned through his one-of-a-kind woodcarvings of slot machines.

Lynn and I stood in the historic bank building, kicking around Frank Polk stories, and laughing. Humor was his trademark, and with the life he lived, a downright necessity.

After writing his autobiography in 1981, Frank needed a title, but the publisher wouldn't take his first choice because it involved a four-letter word. He wanted to name it after two things every cowboy saw every day—Deep Tracks and Thin . . . uh, cow flop.

But the publisher accepted his second choice, and to my mind, it's the funniest book title ever. A lifelong stutterer, Frank called it, F-F-F Frank Polk, An Uncommonly Frank Autobiography.

It doubles me over just thinking about it. Honest, straightforward, take it or leave it, no cow flop. That was Frank. Lynn's a little like that herself, so it makes sense that she'd be keeping the name of this Arizona legend alive-even if it's in a plant shop.

Arizona Highways Photo Workshops

Learn From the Best

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS PROFESSIONALS will help film and digital photographers improve creative and technical skills. Join small-group workshops to:

Refine photographic techniques in Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly (April 25-29 and Oct. 18-22)

Capture the twisting interiors of Antelope Canyon (Slot Canyons, April 30-May 4 and Sept. 25-29)

Raft the Grand Canyon with photographers Ralph Lee Hopkins or Gary Ladd (Rafting the Grand Canyon, May 7-17 or Sept. 13-23)

Go “on assignment” to the intriguing streets of Bisbee (Bisbee Digital Photojournalism, May 11-14)

See Navajoland through the eyes of Navajo photographer LeRoy DeJolie (Navajo Lands & People, June 5-9; Hunt’s Mesa & Monument Valley, Oct. 5-9)

Experience fall color on the Grand Canyon’s spectacular North Rim (Autumn at the North Rim, Oct. 4-8)

Combine Sedona scenics with the latest on digital workflow from a Photoshop instructor (Sedona Fall Photoshop Seminar, Oct. 27-30)

Helicopter into Havasu Canyon to photograph its world-famous waterfalls and blue-green waters (Havasupai, Nov. 11-15)

For More Information

For a free brochure containing all 2006 workshops and prices, visit us online at friendsofazhighways.com or call toll-free (888) 790–7042.