Florence Cowboy Cradle

Florence COWBOY

WHILE NOVEMBER isn't the only month they have in Florence, Arizona, it is true that the town does look forward from one November to the next, and has done so purposely since 1933. In that year the Florence Junior Parada was inaugurated. November 28th, and 29th, this year will mark the tenth annual showing of this novel roping, riding, wild cow milking event. In the rodeo world the Junior Parada is a unique attraction. The contestants range in ages from five to eighteen. It is a non-professional show conducted in a professional manner, under strict professional rules. Florence is the headquarters for the World's Championship Rodeo Corporation, which accounts to a great extent for the swift movement of the show and the lack of dull moments so common to non-professional rodeos. Each year the best all-around junior cowboy is awarded a World's Champion Junior Cowboy trophy. This trophy is naturally coveted by all the young contestants and the competition is keen, clean and earnest. In 1940 it was won by Frankie Pyeatt, age fifteen. Last year Louie Van Haren, seventeen, corraled the trophy in a field of stiff competition. A junior rodeo bucking professional rules had never been tried. It was nobody's idea. It just happened. When the present grounds were built out east of Florence, professionals and amateurs began using them for practice and amusement. On Sundays boys from town and the surrounding ranches gathered on the fence-rails to watch the grownups, occasionally begging the use of a horse and calf to try theirskill. A number of these youngsters showed such promise that professionals began taking an interest in them, teaching them short-cuts and professional technique. It wasn't long until the juniors had possession of the arena and the grownups were looking on and shouting instructions and encouragement from the fence-rails. About this time the Parent-Teachers Association was frantically searching for means of financing a milk fund for undernourished children, having only what material the town had to offer. Any display of horsemanship or roping skill will find a few folks willing to stop and look in cow-couutry-and Florence is in the cow-country. Without any fanfare and comparatively no advertising the Parent Teach each visitor a guest in a true sense of the word. It is impossible to feel like a stranger or a mere onlooker. Within an hour some committeeman or woman-every one living within a radius of ten miles assumes the obligation of host-has taken you in tow and before you realize it you are acquainted with a lot of swell people and have become a celebrant with the stimulating feeling of its being your own personal Parada of which you are particularly proud. Through the laughter, music and gaiety, the feel of the desert intrudes, the bitter-sweet loneliness inspired by the closeness of great open spaces of ageless desert, cactus covered and primitive. The mind gropes back through the centuries speculating on the human struggles, successes and failures, heartbreaks and happiness, to which the silent, formidable desert has been a witness.

ers Association sponsored the first Florence Junior Parada. That first audience was entirely local and the citizenry went as a civic duty rather than with any idea of really being entertained; they had all seen kids miss calves and fall off of horses. When they left the grounds at sundown every one was enthusiastic over an amazing performance and on the way back to town plans were discussed for the next year's show. The second Parada was sponsored by the American Legion Post No. 9. Since that time the Chamber of Commerce has taken over. The Junior Parada had become an institution. The proceeds still go to the PTA milk fund and each year has seen a more finished show, more features, more fun, and larger crowds. Now eligible contestants from all over the state, in fact from all over the Southwest, enter the Florence Parada to prove how good they are, or to see how good they have to be to win the World's Junior Championship trophy. It is the cream of the yearlings; this year's topnotchers are next year's professionals. As the succeeding years have piled up and the crowds have increased, more attention has been given to the out-of-town visitor. Naturally a hospitable community, Florence considersFlorence is situated on the southern bank of the Gila River which was the northern boundary of the old Spanish territory of Pimeria

CRADLE

Alta. Father Kino carried his cross and teachings of Christianity into this desert jungle of strange plants and trees in 1691. Along the river bottom he found the Pima Indians tilling the rich soil. Their legends told the story of “the ancient people who were not there any more.” Where or when or why they had gone “. . . my legs ain't bowed and my cheeks ain't tanned. . .” yet.

was unknown to the Pimas of that early day. Nor is the present Florence new as towns go these days. A few buildings, yes. But for the most part modern conveniences have merely been installed in the substantial adobe and brick buildings erected during the early part of the past eighty years. The feeling persists that the streets and old buildings have echoed to many previous Fiestas, celebrations, and boisterous Saturday nights when they were newer and the West was younger and Florence was a typical frontier town where rumbling stage coaches and twenty and thirty-mule team freight outfits stopped overnight in comparative safety from marauding Apaches.

The first white settlement in the vicinity was Adamsville, three miles west of Florence. It was founded in 1862. For the most part the population was a hard bitten lot. It was a sort a haven for fugitives from one thing and another.

Then in 1866 Florence proper was established by Levi Ruggles, a Civil War Colonel. The town was named in honor of Florence Mc-Cormick, a maiden sister of the second governor of Arizona Territory, and in time became such a staid community that is was safe for the more intrepid portion of the male population of the town to venture on the streets after dark armed only with a couple of six-shooters.

The early day custom of sending money and gold and silver through the mails was the cause of many stage hold-ups. By the early '80's Florence had progressed far enough that legal hangings were insisted upon-providing of course that the posse didn't pass too many likely looking trees on the way in with the prisoner. The old Courthouse on Fifth and Main Streets has been the scene of many of these legal hangings. Or technically the method employed would hardly classify as hanging. The condemned man was literally jerked into eternity. With the rope securely around his neck, it was run through a pulley and the other end fastened to a heavy bag of quick silver. This was pushed off the platform-and another crime against society was avenged.

Corral was brought to light. Here, in 1890, R. G. Apsey was convicted and sentenced to a long term in Yuma prison for the killing and burning of the body of a ranch hand employed by him. It was generally known that Apsey always hired strangers and that when their wages were due they had a habit of disappearing. He was caught red-handed burning his latest victim in the old corral. The story of the Haunted pals. Both men were famed for their marksmanship and speed with six-shooters. Gabriel was sheriff of Pinal County when he first met Phy. Being in need of a man with such a reputation Gabriel commissioned Phy as his deputy.

The first sign of a break between the two came when Gabriel borrowed Phy's suitcase for a hurried trip without asking for it. Phy resented this and expressed his feeling vehemently. Shortly after this Gabriel felt justified in relieving Phy of his deputy commission and his gun as a result of a severe pistol-whipping Phy administered while making an arrest.

Phy's hatred of Gabriel became an obsession after this. He threatened, and swore he would kill Gabriel. Strangely enough Gabriel, unquestionably fearless and with several killings to his credit, avoided a direct conflict with Phy.

Then one afternoon while Gabriel was having a drink, a friend advised him that Phy was out gunning for him in earnest. Gabriel continued his drinking and said nothing. It began getting dark. The man who stepped from the light into the dark or from the dark into the light would be at a disadvantage. Gabriel took up a position at the end of the bar facing the No old Arizona town's history is complete without the mention of Apache Indians who roamed the desert country in war parties, looking for mischief to get into and dodging United States soldiers. It was near Florence where the Apache Kid shot his way to freedom along with a number of other Apaches who had been convicted at Globe and were being transported by stage to Yuma. The Apache Kid was never caught again, and his murderous escapades thereafter struck terror in the hearts of settlers and travelers throughout the Southwest.

It was also in Florence where the self-styled land baron, Don James Addison De Peralta Reavis laid his claim to a great part of Arizona and New Mexico which he claimed as the result of a land grant issued to his wife's fore-bears by the King of Spain. Here, too, was where his undoing began, when Tom Weedin, a Florence printer discovered the fraud through a watermark in one of the land baron's "ancient" documents. It was just in recent years that Peralta Reavis' claim to the Buttes Dam Site, twelve miles up the Gila River from Florence, was unearthed from its hiding place in a tin can.

What has since become known as Florence's Six-Shooter Classic was staged in John Keating's saloon on Main Street, between what is now Griffin's Drug Store and the Green Parrot. It was typical of old time gunplay. Pete Gabriel and Joe Phy were the princi-

pal doors of the saloon and continued his drinking. Suddenly the swinging doors flew open and Phy crouched in the doorway, a six-shooter in one hand and a bowie knife in the other. Before the doors swung shut behind him his six-shooter roared. His first shot snuffed out part of the kerosene lamps and struck Gabriel in the left breast below the heart and passed through the lung. A split second later Gabriel's gun flash-ed and bucked. The concussion pinched out the remaining lights. The slug struck Phy squarely in the pit of the stomach. He grunted and staggered but did not fali.

The two men wheeled and circled each other in the semi-darkness. The hammer of Phy's gun fell again. The bullet shattered a rib low in Gabriel's right side. Then two fast ones from Gabriel's gun found their mark in Phy's body. Both men were shooting for keeps. Phy fell through the door onto the street and emptied his gun ineffectually. Gabriel staggered out with two cartridges left in his smoking six-shooter. Phy dropped his empty gun and brandished his bowie knife, begging Gabriel to come down on the ground and finish fighting it out. Gabriel shook his head weakly; nor did he use his two remaining bullets. It had all happened in less than half a minute. Phy died of his wounds at two o'clock the Traveling deep in Old Mexico and the Indian country, lumber, bump or drag by, depending on their principle of locomotion. After the parade the town moves out to the arena en masse where a comfortable grandstand has been built. The corrals and pens are crowd-ed with husky stock including brahma bulls and actually wild colts trapped in the surround-ing desert for the occasion. In all about 130 head of stock are used during the show.

There are many laughable tumbles, slips and rope tangles that keep the sympathetic crowd in an uproar Boots are bucked off, little ropers manage to lasso themselves at the crucial moment, many times to the apparent cha-grin and consternation of their mounts. Then again there is roping and riding that commands the admiration, applause and respect of every one. Many a young roper has tied his calf in the Florence arena in 21 seconds; little team tiers have done their work in 23 seconds-good time in any man's show. Small bronc riders have almost matched champions. And the show keeps moving. For variation, mount-ed basketball games, pony express racing and wild cow milking contests are staged. Dances are held both nights at the Women's Club where the floor is good, the music is dance--provoking, and the people friendly and bent on seeing that every one has a good time. Whether one's inclination is to stay up late or get up early, he will find some congenial playmate at large and something amusing to do. No wonder Florence looks forward to November and the Parada!

Following afternoon still cursing Gabriel. Ga-briel recovered and lived many more years to finally die of poisoning at Dripping Springs, near the Pinal and Gila County line where a monument to his memory has been erected in recent years. This is the historically rich, typically Old West backdrop of the fast-moving, streamlined Florence Junior Parada. The Florence Parada attains that desired western atmosphere without effort. Many of the young contestants are the progeny of men and women who lived through the eventful early days in Florence. Horses, singly and in groups clip-clep up and down the streets. Ten gallon hats, boots and jingling spurs predominate on the sidewalk throngs. A highly interesting parade precedes the show each day. Automobiles are taboo; horses, mules and the lowly burro come into their own. Local school bands furnish plenty of grade-A music, cowboys and cowgirls sit their mounts very much at home, skittish cowponies shy and prance and toss their heads, old time stage coaches rattle, and jerkline freight outfits rum-ble. Then more ancient contraptions, originat-NOVEMBER, 1942