The Pioneers Left It To Us

TO SAY that a bathtub, and a tin one into the bargain, played a role in Arizona history surprises some people. But it is a fact, and the proof can be found in the museum of the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society, University Stadium building, Tucson.

The first genuine sitz (sitting) bathtub to enter Arizona is now leaning against the wall of the Historical Society museum. It is made of tin and looks like an over-sized Mexican sombrero standing upside down. It came into the Territory in 1880 via a devious and treacherous route-from San Francisco by ocean steamer around Lower California to the mouth of the Colorado, up the river on a barge to Yuma., and hence by mulefreight to Phoenix. When this bathtub was finally set up in a special lean-to built to house it, the entire populace of Phoenix paid it tribute to the tune of fifty cents each per bath.

Phoenix was then an obscure cowtown of little significance. But as each of its early citizens took his turn sitting on the small tin seat of the sitz bath-it was impossible to submerge the whole body in this kind of bath-and dangled his feet in a bucket-like affair filled with water up to his knees, he undoubtedly murmured to himself, "civilization at last!"

But the sitz bathtub is a mere detail among the historical objects collected by the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society. Odd and assorted relics, eleven hundred of them, are displayed in the society's museum, and together they give an intriguing and exciting historical account of the youngest state in the union.

For example, there are the camel bones. Few people know that back in 1857, six years before Arizona even became a Territory, camels were brought into the desert country by the U. S. Army to solve a very serious transportation problem. The camels did well and were praised highly, but roads and stages finally made them unnecessary. The camels were turned out on the desert to shift for themselves, and their peculiar smell and shape stampeded the cattle and mule-freight teams. This so infuriated the muleskinners and cowboys that they shot the unfortunate camels on sight. A few of the resulting bones have since been dug out of the desert and given to the Historical Society to prove that the Arizona camel stories are not just tall tales of the West.

On the walls of the museum hang heavy iron stirrups, cumbersome and covered with ornate scroll work, somehow lost by the Spanish conquistadors who traversed Arizona many centuries ago. An old sign reading "Do Not Hitch Here" plainly shows that the parking problem is not exclusively a modern one. In one corner stands an old western plain board cross. The short epitaph crudely scratched on the cross boards with a penknife reads:

Lieutenant Charles Barrett and Comrades

Co. A, 1st California Volunteers Killed April 15, 1862 This cross tells more vividly than an expensive monument of the only battle of the Civil War fought on Arizona soil. This battle took place at Picacho, forty-seven miles northwest of Tucson, between the Confederates who were holding Tucson and the California Volunteers on their way east. History has almost entirely ignored the battle at Picacho, and the cross at the Historical Society is the most important existing reminder of it. But there are many other relics which give the gay side of early pioneer life-the hectic roaring days of gambling houses and saloons, of outlaws and bandits, of music, gaiety and festivals. In a show case can be seen an old silver faro case, and next to it a large pair of ivory dice and Mexican monte cards. These simple looking articles lined the pockets of gamblers and miners with dispassionate alacrity. The pistol of Pearl Hart, Arizona's famous road-agent, is tacked up on the wall next to a white slipper worn by Evelyn Frechette, one of the female members of the Dillinger gang, captured in Tucson in 1934.

The accordion, which was the favorite instrument of Sam Hughes, Territorial representative to congress, can still pump a tune; while a Mira music box, brought in from Mexico as long ago as 1856, tinkles out a spirited polka. There is a beautifully engraved invitation asking the presence of the gentle folk of Tucson to a dance in honor of General Nelson A. Miles, the officer in charge of troops who finally captured the Apache chief Geronimo. It reposes close to a formal invitation issued by the sheriff of Tomb-stone to the hanging of Daniel Kelly, Omer W. Sample, James Howard, Daniel Dodd and William Delaney, robbers who were responsible for killing three people in a hold-up at Bisbee in 1883.

Hanging from a rafter on the museum ceiling are a number of fancy branding irons, the marks of ownership of the cattlemen. One of those, the Diamond Bell, dates back to 1818, and was issued at that time to Ygnacio Antonio Pacheco under the seal of the King of Spain.

Senor Pacheco was then authorized to use the brand "in the vicinity of the Military Fort of San Rafael de Tubac for branding furniture, horsestock, calves and other country property." The name and titles of the official who stamped the seal on Senor Pacheco's document covers a quarter of it and is as follows: "Don Ignacio Bustamante y Velasco, Minister, Treasurer, Proprietor of the principal house of this city (Arizpe, Sonora) and acting Lieutenant Governor of the province of Sonora and Sinaloa." The brand still belongs to the Pacheco family living at the present time around Benson.

Standing in one corner of the museum, looking as sturdy and good as ever, is the first printing press that came into Arizona. It is an antiquated Washington hand press of the old Archimedean lever vintage and was brought to Tubac in 1858. It was made in Ohio, shipped around the Horn to the Port of Guaymas in Mexico and carried by ox-freight to Tubac. It published the first Arizona paper The Weekly Arizonian, in 1859, the name sumptuously sporting two i's dotted with printer's diligence. It soon moved to Tucson, where a new editor dropped the second i in conformity with his notion that the people of the Territory should be known as Arizonans. William Hattich, one-time editor of the Tombstone Epitaph, says, "Despite the protest, the loss of the extra i has been generally adopted and by popular consent and authority of custom the citizenry of the state are no longer required to dot an extra i."

The Pioneers Left It To Us By Allan Lehman

This same printing press was responsible for much of the early journalism of the Territory. It printed the Tucson Citizen, Tucson Star and Bulletin, and in 1880 it rolled off the first copy of the Tombstone Nugget. When better presses were brought into the Territory, the old press still had a fitful and full life printing the many political sheets which died violent and painful deaths as soon as the causes they espoused were won or lost.

THE ARIZONA PIONEER'S HISTORICAL SOCIETY AT TUCSON HAS GATHERED A WEALTH OF HISTORICAL MATERIAL MARKING ARIZONA'S MARCH FROM A WILDERNESS TO THE MODERN EMPIRE OF THE WEST However, relics and mementos are not all that the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society possesses. The society has an (Turn to Page 36)