Frontier Days

FRONTIER DAYS... In the Old West

MY PARENTS LIVED on a farm in Solano County, California, and there I was born September 23, 1857. This farm was located about four miles south of a town called Silveyville. I went to a private school there for about four years.

In our family there were four boys: Charles, Francis, Warren, and Julius, and one girl named Kate. After our father sold the farm, we moved to a town called Dixon. In about 1867 the railroad was built from Vallejo to Sacramento. After this railroad was built, it drew the business from Silveyville to the railroad town of Dixon. Silveyville then became a ghost town and is not on the maps today.

We lived in Dixon for several years and attended the public schools. Our father's business was running a butcher shop in the town of Dixon, and we three oldest boys did the butchering and delivering.

During the summer of 1874 our father decided to come to Arizona. We sold everything and came by train to the town of Vallejo, and there, transferred to a boat, and crossed the bay to San Francisco.

Father bought passage for the family on a boat called Crizaba, which was bound for San Diego. It was a long narrow boat, and when we passed out of the Golden Gate into the ocean, it rocked very much and most everybody became sea sick.

While on this trip we saw whales spouting water high into the air, and whole schools of porpoises passed us. They were jumping out of the water as they traveled along. We spent three days and nights on this ocean voyage to San Diego.

My father bought a band of about 2,000 sheep, out east of San Diego, in a valley called Otey. He also bought a team and wagon, and after a month's stay in Otey valley we accumulated all the things necessary and were ready for the trip to Arizona. In the fall we started on the Overland Stage road.

While on the way, we passed through El Campo, where there was lots of alkali, and the sheep got slightly poisoned. They were sick, but recovered in a day or two and we continued on to Mountain Springs.

We passed Jacumba Springs, which is now a well known resort; but at that time there was nothing there, and it was used as a camping place for wagon trains and travelers along this road and then we continued on down the stage road to Coyote Wells, California. Here, we made camp, and dug into the sand for water. At about three feet we found enough water for the sheep.

Along about two o'clock one morning Frank and I started out on the stage road for Indian Wells. This place, about twenty-two miles distant, was the next water. As we traveled, I remember Frank kept on the north side of the road, while I kept on the south side. It was very dark and I would run to the road every once in a while to see if we were still following it. Some of the sheep ate poison weed-Rattle Weed I guess and would go crazy. We had to leave them there beside the road. That was sure some desert in those days.

distant, was the next water. As we traveled, I remember Frank kept on the north side of the road, while I kept on the south side. It was very dark and I would run to the road every once in a while to see if we were still following it. Some of the sheep ate poison weed-Rattle Weed I guess and would go crazy. We had to leave them there beside the road. That was sure some desert in those days.

Coyote Wells is on the west side of the desert, in California, and when we left Coyote Wells we were right in the desert. When we arrived at Indian Wells we found there was no water; so we had to continue on to New River station where there was a large laguna on what was called New River. The edge of this laguna was very muddy and we could see from some distance, that we were getting close to it. In the meantime, my father and the rest of the family had caught up with us, and were following close.

As we neared the laguna, we had to get ahead of the band of sheep and scatter them out, so that in case any of them mired in the mud at the edge, those behind would not jump on top of the mired ones and trample them to death. We got them scattered all right, and while some of them were mired, we were able to pull them out, and they all got water.

While we were camped there, we had to take turns to guard the sheep. All through the night one would guard while the other slept. There were lots of mesquite trees and in many parts, there were roving bands of coyotes. We saw more quail there than I have ever seen anywhere else. The water from the June floods would back up from the Colorado River, and run down the New River for a good many miles.

DRAWINGS FOR ARIZONA HIGHWAYS BY ROSS SANTEE

ever seen anywhere else. The water from the June floods would back up from the Colorado River, and run down the New River for a good many miles.

The next day we hired a Yuma Indian to guide us. He was dressed according to their latest fashion, in nothing but a breech clout. We left the old stage road and followed down New River, as there were lagunas down along the New River, and plenty of water for the sheep. There was no Salton Sea on the desert in those days.

We got into the country that belonged to the tribe of Indians called Diegueno; so the Yuma Indian guide would not go any farther with us. One of the Diegunos, I suppose a chief wanted us to pay him for the water the sheep drank and the feed they ate. We had to give him some of our sugar and food. We then continued on down the New River to the Colorado River.

When we reached the Colorado River about thirty miles below Yuma, at about ten o'clock in the morning, it was raining very hard. I went up to the house where Hualapai Smith, who owned the ferry boat, lived. This was a mile distance. He would not come down; so we hired some Indians and took charge of the boat.

We could not get the sheep on at first. It was raining quite hard by this time and we were afraid the river would rise; but with the help of the Indians, we loaded some of them on. We had to tie two or three onto the back end of the boat, then they all wanted to go aboard. We got too many on the first load, and the boat was starting to sink just as we reached shore. We jerked out the fence panal and they jumped off, just in time.

While crossing, the Yuma Indians would wade out into the river and pull the boat diagonally across part way, and then, where the water was too deep, they would jump on the boat, and with long poles, they would push the boat about thirty or forty feet, across the deepest part of the river. They would then jump off and pull it to the shore. We got the sheep all across the river before dark. We then crossed the team, and brought the family over.

That night we let the sheep run loose. During the night it turned very cold, and they were wet; so about seventy-five of them died. When we reached the camp on the Colorado River, we rested a while. The team went to Yuma for provisions, and we boys drove the sheep to the east of the town of Yuma. Striking the Overland Stage road, we followed up the Gila River. The rain had made good green feed all the way to Tucson.

While coming up the Overland Stage road, crossing from Gila Bend to Casa Grande, we had to make forty-five miles without fresh water. There were pools of alkali water along the way, and we had to guard the sheep well, to keep them away from this alkali.

When we reached the burg of Tucson, which was not much of a town at that time, we bought provisions at the store of Tully & Ochoa, which was located on Main Street. We drove around Tucson, to about where the Southern Pacific passenger depot is now located, but we kept out of town, on account of the dogs. We reached Tucson about the last days of February, in 1875, and arrived at Calabasas in March, 1875.

My father got a rancher by the name of Mr. Lowe to build a house of adobe, which was a new kind of a house for us. He had adobes made, and soon built a house at a point where the Santa Cruz and Sonoita Valleys come together, and about one hundred yards to the west of the point of the mesa that divides the two valleys, Santa Cruz and Sonoita.

It happened that Tully & Ochoa had a bunch of Mexican sheep, and they had kept them at Calabasas. They had built a good corral; but had moved their sheep away; so we took their corral. We boys took care of the sheep, and would corral them every night. This corral was about one quarter of a mile west of the house, but the wild animals, mountain lion, wolves and coyotes, were so plentiful and bad, that some of us had to sleep at the corral every night.

One night a lion jumped into the corral and killed a sheep. We ran him out before he could eat any part of the sheep but we put strychnine in the carcass of the sheep he had killed. The second night, the lion came back and ate his fill. The poison took effect and he died in the corral. A mountain lion will eat no meat except what he has killed.

Another night a pack of wolves got in the corral and killed eleven sheep before we could run them out. They did quick work.

The sheep seemed to be doing well; so father sent Charles back to California for another band of sheep. Soon after he left on the Overland Stage for California the summer rains began. This was new for us, as in California we did not have rain in the summer. That summer was a very wet summer and all of us but my mother, got chills and fever, and were sick for some time.

After the wool was packed in the long wool sacks, we delivered it to Tully & Ochoa, in Tucson. They had a train of wagons which were pulled by ox and mule teams, with which they hauled the wool to La Junta, Colorado, a distance of six hundred miles, and shipped it to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This wool brought good returns.

The next spring after the first summer spent here, the Apache Indians went up to the top of a high peak in the San Cayatano Mountains, where they would see a long way up and down the Santa Cruz valley. They saw our herds and coming down during the night, ran off all our work animals; taking every animal they could find.

They went up to Pete Kitchen's Potrero Ranch, five miles north of where Nogales is now located, and took eleven head from him and drove them off into the Santa Rita Mountains and probably down to Sonora, Mexico, by way of the San Pedro River.

Pete Kitchen raised hogs and made salt pork, pickled pork and lard He planted corn and harvested it to fatten hogs during the cold weather.

During the first winter spent at Calabasas, father sent to California for some seed potatoes. A few sacks came through all-right, and we planted them with a lot of other things, in the spring. They came up and were doing well; but that summer was a dry one. It did not rain at all, and everything dried up We did not know anything about irrigation then; besides, there was no water.That fall, after our first summer in Calabasas, the grass seed ripened. There were two kinds of pin grass seed. They got into the wool of the sheep and worked through the hide, and lay between the hide and the flesh. This pin grass seed caused the sheep to scratch and rub all the wool off. This caused the sheep business to become a failure in that section of Arizona.

We sold the ranch for three hundred dollars, and sold part of the sheep to a man by the name of Mott. During the fall, of the last season we spent at Calabasas, we went up the Santa Cruz River, to what was known as Hoffman's Bend, now called Buena Vista I think. Before we left Calabasas Frank and I would pack grub and bedding on a pack horse or mule, and go prospecting over the west sideof the Patagonia Mountains. We found copper stained granite a plenty and thought we had found good prospects; but they were worthless. Gen. Pesquieria worked a lead mine there. He used this lead to make bullets, which he used in his fight for Governor of Sonora, against Sevina and another general. While we were prospecting in the Patagonia Mountains Frank and I would make our camps off in small side canyons on account of Indians. This was during the winter and the weather was very cold. This happened during the year 1877 or 1878.

As I have written above, when we sold the ranch and some of our sheep, we moved up into the Salero camp, in the Santa Rita Mountains. Here, we started a small store, and hauled freight for the companies.

We killed sheep and delivered mutton to the different mining camps that season. It was one of the wettest seasons that I ever saw in Arizona. Frank drowned a horse while crossing the Santa Cruz river at Tubac. While in the Salero Camp we would prospect a good deal. Salero Camp fizzled out, and we hired a big ox team and moved everything over to the Mowery camp, and started a store.

There were many prospectors in the mountains, who traded with us in the store. Washington camp had started up at Duquesne, and people from Santa Cruz, Sonora, came and bought goods from us.

We finally sold the store and moved to Harshaw and started a butcher shop. Harshaw at that time was a lively place, and we were doing a good business. The Hermosa mine finally played out and in the summer of 1881 we came to Tucson and started a store on Convent Street. Our store was in a room belonging to John Charleston. We afterwards moved into a store next to the Palace Hotel.

Tombstone was booming at this time. Two stages left the Palace Hotel every day, sometimes with cut rates. We did a good business at this location. We shipped in, by railroad freight, barrels of butter, packed in brine. We got a pair of butter moulds and bought ice. The ice was shipped in by car loads, as there was no ice company here at that time.

We finally bought out Hoag and Armstrong's store after they went broke. This store was in a big red brick building, known as the Pearson Block, located just in front of the Fashion Saloon. Gambling was in full blast in this building at that time.

Some time later we bought a store on Court Street in what was known as the Wedge, next to the Orendorf Hotel. We did business there for a long time. We furnished the miners in Olive Camp, grub, tools, powder, fuses and caps. They took out lead silver ore and we shipped their ore to the El Paso Smelting Works. Out of the returns, we paid ourselves, and the balance of the money we returned to the miners. We made good money in this business.

J. Ivancovich had a little fruit store just west of us, adjoining our store on one side, and the office of Dr. Handy was on the other. One night Ivancovich burned out. It happened about midnight and this fire also burned the office of Dr. Handy, and Dr. Handy was very mad. I was sleeping in our store, and when the fire started I got up and helped to put it out.

At this time, we had collapsible leather buckets with which to fight the fire. There was a ladder on the wall, and we filled these buckets and passed them up to persons who were stationed along on the ladder. They threw the water on the fire.

We finally bought the lot on Stone Avenue where the Montgomery and Ward company and the Southern Arizona Bank and Trust Com pany are now. We built the two story brick building which is now the south half of the Southern Arizona Bank and Trust Company, although the front has been remodeled.

We sold the building and quit the grocery business. We then bought a tract of bottom land just south of "A" Mountain, and brought water to this land, which we took through a deep ditch to about three miles out on the west side of the valley. We irrigated a tract of land on the west side of this valley. This ditch was blasted out through rock for about a half mile, around the foot of "A" Mountain, and may still be seen there on the east side of the highway.

The land down on the west side had too much alkali and was no good, so we finally dug the present canal on east side of the valley, and located the land which is called the Flow ing Wells. This land we cleared and planted in alfalfa. We farmed it for several years and finally sold it for $60,000.00.

After we sold this property, we got a right of way from the Indian Department at Wash ington, and dug another ditch, bringing water from the Black Mountain on the Indian Res ervation, to land about fourteen miles north of the Black Mountain. We cleared the land of the heavy mesquite, and farmed it for several years. We sold it for $135,000.00 cash.

On both of these ranches, we raised thou sands of tons of alfalfa, hay, and hundreds of tons of watermelons and cantaloupes.

When we first came to Tucson, Tully & Ochoa, and Al Zeckendorf had the leading stores in Tucson. There were general mer cantile stores, and Zeckendorf had the biggest store in Tucson.

Right back of them was where old Alek Leven had a big brewery, and in there, is where they used to hold the San Augustine fiestas. They would begin about the sixteenth of September to celebrate, and the celebration would last about three weeks. They would gamble, and there was all kinds of Mexican food served on tables. They had Mexican drinks too.

Charley Brown was the big saloon man here then. There was all kinds of gambling going on in his saloon. There were lots of tables in the back of his place, and they were all filled night after night. There were cow boys from all the surrounding country in there, and miners from all the camps around, especially from Tombstone, which was flour ishing then. One of his favorite games was keno; this is something like lotto. There was plenty of money in this country; so lots of it changed hands in there over those gambling tables.

The roads and streets are now so changed that it is difficult to explain about them, as they were in the olden times. Main Street and Congress Street, was the main business center then. Business came on down to Meyers. Lord and Williams had a general store, and were located on the southeast corner of Main, facing Congress. Mansfield was right north of them, and their store was a book and station ery store.

B. M. Jacobs had a grocery store then, which was located on the corner of Meyers and Congress, where the Economy Drug Store is now located. They afterwards organized the Arizona National Bank.

Charlie Meyers ran the only drug store here at that time and he is the man for whom Meyers Street was named. He was justice of the peace for a while. Old Dr. Handy was the principal doctor.

Marsh and Driscoll built the Palace Hotel. They were cattle men, and George Rafield ran the hotel for a long time. Broadway was called Camp street, and now cuts off part of the lot where the old Palace Hotel once stood. Broadway is now continued on through to Main. Two Frenchmen ran the saloon right in front of this hotel, which was called the French Saloon.

There wasn't much business on Camp Street in those days, old Colonel Durr had a place there where he sold liquors and pickles and all kinds of stuff. He used to call himself Warum Durum. One of the best restaurants in Tucson was the one which was owned by an Italian named Saldini.

R. N. Leatherwood ran the corral where the courthouse is now located. It was one of the biggest in Tucson then. The first fire chief was Jack Bolin. They had the bucket brigade fire department here then, and the fire house was located just north of where the courthouse is now. Tucson and the Territory were lively places in those days.