What! No Place to Go?

BY: JOHN CHARMAN

What! No Place to Go? Read What an Experienced Traveler Has to Say to Those Who Are Missing the Best Things Along the Highways Close to Home

Living perpetually in the sunshine you might eventually forget the shade trees. Residing always in a golden palace you might not ever see the gold. Life, so permitted, is very apt to wallow in monotony. It's your own fault if it does.

That by way of preachment.

You have stayed at home and suffered boredom through many dreary week-ends for no better reason than that you "couldn't think of any place to go." You have wished-how many times?-that you could see the things your neighbors tell about. You have wondered that you've missed them, but have you considered why?

We are prone to think of travel in terms of vacations and lengthy journeys. The far places enthral us, the close we sometimes overlook. If you live in Arizona, there's some attraction almost at your doorstep which you have not seen -perhaps many of them. You think not? You'll be surprised.

When next you need diversion pick up a road map, as I am doing now. There is the answer to your quandary.

All you need to furnish is the energy, the car and the gasoline. The map will do the rest.

I live in Phoenix. I have a Saturday afternoon, a Sunday and a few extra dollars to spend. My eye falls at random on the map, not too far away from home. I see Tucson, the Old Pueblo, second city of the state-126 miles. Nice place. Paved road. Easy drive. Been there, but I'd sorta like to go again. Could stay there overnight and drive a little farther next day. My eye strays on down the little red line which is U. S. Highway 80. Colossal Cave, Benson, St. David, Tombstone-there's a place worth seeing-197 miles. Gleeson off to one side, Charleston on the other. I'm getting a little far afield. Maybe I'd best turn back.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

But wait, here's a road going across the other way-State Highway 82Fairbank, Fort Huachuca, Elgin, Sonoita -32 miles more and a road turning back north, State 83, Greaterville, Vail, and again Tucson. I glance back to Highway 82-Fort Crittenden, Camp Buchanan, Patagonia, Nogales-268 miles by that route. And then pavement, U. S. Highway 89, all the way to Phoenix, through Calabasas, Tumacacori with its ancient mission, Tubac, and along the Santa Cruz river past San Xavier mission to Tucson-459 miles for the round trip.

I drive it in a day and a half, and wish I could have spent a week and a half. I'll go back sometime and pick up the loose ends. From my random selection, here are some of the things I have seen and learned: Tucson, now a city of approximately 35,000 inhabitants and capital of Pima county, is one of the earliest surviving Spanish settlements in the West, dating back probably to the year 1776. It was once the capital of Arizona and superseded the river ports of La Paz and Ehrenberg as distributing center for the territory after the railroad arrived in 1880. Will C. Barnes writes an interesting account of the origin of the name and a summary of the city's history. Hodge and Coues, he says, both agree that the name comes from the Piman "Sluyk-son" meaning a dark or brown spring. Originally it probably was a Papago word. Papagoes say "styuk" for black, and "zone" or "son" for foot or base of a hill, or near a spring. There was a Papago village in the early days just across the valley from Tucson at the foot of what is today known as Sentinel peak, which they called by the name "Styuk-zone." The name has been variously spelled. Arricivita spelled it Tugson; General Cooke in 1846 referred to it as Teuson, and Emory in 1847 spelled it Tucson.

"Franciscans in Arizona" says: "Fr. Marcos visited Tucson in 1549, Kino in 1692; Garces saw it first in 1775. It was called the Presidio of San Jose de Tucson, and is situated six leagues north of San Xavier. A visita of Bac since 1763, it was still without either priest or church in 1772."

Hodge says its "settlement by Spaniards is reputed to date from 1560 but there is little doubt that it became a Spanish settlement not earlier than 1776. Before that time it was a Rancheria probably of mixed Pima, Papago and Sobaipuri peoples. From 1763 itwas regularly visited as San Juan de Tucson by the missionary of San Xavier del Bac. In 1776 the Presidio of Tubac was transferred there and the name San Augustin de Tucson applied. Its alleged great antiquity as a Spanish settlement is a fable."

Records of the U. S. Land Office show that in 1872 the town bought two sections of government land for a townsite, paying $800 a section. Tucson was occupied by United States troops in 1856, and in August of that year a convention was held there to organize the territory of Arizona as a political entity. It became the capital in 1867 and so remained until 1877.

Tucson is situated in the valley of the Santa Cruz river at the foot of the Santa Catalina mountains, a group of beautiful pine covered peaks and a favorite summer resort country. The early Spanish called the range, La Iglesia "The Church", because of its resemblance of a great cathedral edifice. In the northern portion of these mountains Harold Bell Wright set his celebrated novel, "The Mine with the Iron Door."

Twenty miles southeast of Tucson, on U. S. Highway 80, and eight miles to the left of the thoroughfare, on the south slope of Wrong mountain in the Rincon range, is Colossal Cave, a great natural cavern fantastically hung with stalactite and stalagmite formations. It is owned by the state but has been privately operated as a tourist attraction for a number of years. It was discovered in 1879 by a man named Ross. In 1884, a Southern Pacific train was robbed and the bandits were trailed to this cavern, where one was found dead. The others escaped, but in 1902 a party of Tucson people found some old WellsFargo sacks there which proved to be a part of the robbery loot.

About twenty miles down Highway 80 is the town of Benson, another local-ity of much historical interest, and an important early shipping point for the mines to the south. It is reputed to have been named by railway officials for a peddler who made frequent trips through that portion of the country when the territory was young. "An old list of stage station, 1880," says Will Barnes, "shows this town as 'Benson City, William Ohnesorgan owner and keeper of the station, 50 miles east of Tucson.' Capt. Gerald Russell, 3rd. U. S. Cavalry, with eighteen men, had a fight with Cochise and 150 Indians near here in March, 1871. But for a timely arrival of help, he and his men would all have been killed. Azul, famous Apache chief, was slain in this fight."

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

Six or seven miles farther along, the motorist drops down into the valley of the San Pedro river, arriving at the town of St. David, an early Mormon settlement established by four families of Merrills and named for David W. Patton, Mormon apostle who was killed by a mob in Missouri during the religi-ous warfare there in the early part of the century. Artesian water was found in the St. David country in 1888, and the valley is now a highly cultivated agricultural district.

From St. David it is only 18 miles to Tombstone, the "Helldorado" of the early silver mining days. Situated in the Mule mountains, the first of the district's famous silver mines was dis-covered there in 1878 by Ed Schieffelin, who before leaving on a prospecting trip with his brother, Al, was advised not to go, with the admonition that "all he would find would be his tombstone." So Schieffelin named his mine "The Tombstone", and it made both him and his brother wealthy. The name went for the town as well. Though this origin is generally accepted, Max Marks in the Tucson Star a few years ago said, "Ed Schieffelin had no hand in the name. I was present at the meeting. It was held at a place called Water Well, near where Schieffelin's monument now stands. Someone suggested Epitaph, some Graveyard. We finally adopted Tombstone because of the peculiar form of the granite rocks here, which stand out like tombstones in the moon-light."

The story of Tombstone and its landmarks is too familiar for repetition here, but the district produced millions of dollars worth of silver ore. A number of its celebrated mines, which had sus-pended operations because of the low price of silver, have resumed during the past two years. The town is the origi-nal of Alfred Henry Lewis "Wolfville"

in the series of stories which made him famous.

Within a few miles of Tombstone are Gleeson and Charleston, both celebrated cattle and mining towns of the early day. The former was named for John Gleeson who ran cattle there. The latter is a settlement on the San Pedro river near Fairbank. Because of the lack of water at Tombstone, the mill of the Tombstone Mining and Milling Company was located there. In his writings, Lewis called the place Red Dog. The fine old cottonwood trees by the river, which shaded it, still stand, but all that now remains of the village are a few crumbling adobe walls.

Leaving U. S. Highway 80 for State Highway 82, ten miles from Tombstone is the village of Fairbank, lying also in the valley of the San Pedro. Named for N. K. Fairbank, well known Chicago merchant who was interested in the mines of the district in 1882, the community is now the center of a prosperous agricultural and livestock industry.

Not far away is Fort Huachuca, the only remaining United States Army post between El Paso and the West Coast. Here the government has undertaken an ambitious development program during the past two or three years. The post is headquarters for one of the famous negro cavalry units of the service, which recently has been motorized in order to make it quickly available at any section of the international boundary where it might be needed at short notice. The fort is located at the northern end of the Huachua mountains and is only twelve miles from the Mexican border. It was first occupied by U. S. troops March 3, 1877. Lieut. Gen. Leonard Wood came to this camp that same year as a young army surgeon, it being his first station.

In the same vicinity, along the road toward Sonoita, lies the famous Babocamari land grant, the full name of which was San Ignacio del Babocamari. It was originally made in December 1832 by the Mexican government to Ignacio and Eulalia Elias and was owned, 1880 to 1886, by Dr. E. B. Perrin, W. C. Land, I. N. Towne and others, occupied as headquarters for their cattle interests. The U. S. Land Court approved title in Dr. Perrin to 34,707 acres of the total claimed. The name is Papago, meaning unknown.

The next settlement is Sonoita, from which State Highway 83 runs north past Greaterville to Vail, if the motorist wishes to return to Tucson by that route.

Greaterville lies in the cattle country of the Santa Rita mountain slopes, and considerable placer gold is found in the vicinity. It was named for an early settler, but was called Santa Rita in 1873. The vicinity is rich in the legends and traditions of the cow country. Ed Vail, according to Will C. Barnes, says that in 1880, or about that time, a group of his cowboys went to a dance at Greaterville. They were drunk and the local people refused to admit them. They withdrew to discuss the situation. The house in which the dance was held was adobe with a dirt roof. It was winter and cold. One of the cowboys climbed to the roof and dropped a handful of revolver cartridges down the chimney into the blazing fire. That ended the dance.

The village of Vail was established in 1881 by Walter Vail, the man who re-covered from a Gila Monster bite and was killed in a Los Angeles street car accident a year afterward. Vail was a cattleman of the early '80's. He captured a Gila Monster while on a round-up, and thinking it dead tied it to his saddle. Feeling behind him as he rode along to make sure the reptile was still there, he put two fingers into its mouth and the jaws clamped down on them like a vise. It was necessary for him to ride several miles to camp and dissect the lizard's head to release his fingers. Vail became seriously ill but recovered.(Continued on Page 22)