CROOK NATIONAL FOREST

Above the shimmering heat waves of the semi-desert land in southeastern Arizona, the hazy blue silhouettes of mountains on the horizons give tantalizing hints of big timber, grass and wildflowers, snow-fed springs and streams, and shady campsites.

True enough, when you see a mountain in this part of Arizona, you see a national forest. In this land where water is life, the mountains hold the finest watershed land, and when national forests were created, they inevitably included the mountains.

That is why the Crook National Forest is in six scattered units, each centering on mountain land. Up around Miami and Globe, it has the Sierra Apache Mountains and Pinal Mountain. South and west of Safford are the Grahams, the Santa Teresas, the Galiuros and the Winchesters. North of Clifton is the Blue Range and the Mogollon Rim. The forest's six units have a total area of 1,423,000 acres.

If General George Crook, the Indian fighter for whom this forest was named, had a personality resembling the forest, he was a rugged individual. The forest as a whole is rough, and many parts of it are precipitous and inaccessible. The lowest point, 2,000 feet, is on the Salt River. Highest is the top of the Grahams, 10,700 feet above sea level.

Within the Crook's boundaries are more than 300 miles of forest roads, graded and drained, and 200 miles of "truck trails." Forest Service horse trails totaling 1,400 miles serve not only the ranger on inspection of his district, but hikers, campers, traveling by horse, hunters and anyone else who has the experience qualifying him to strike into rough and lonely country.

Along the mountain roads the Forest Service has developed eight picnic grounds and fourteen campgrounds for free public use. The picnic grounds are at Marijilda, Noon Creek, Wet Canyon, Turkey Flat, Pioneer Pass, Kellner Canyon, Pinal Mountain and Warnica Springs. Campgrounds are at Engineer Spring, Stray Horse, Upper Juan Miller, Lower Juan Miller, Honeymoon, Granville, Stockton Pass, Arcadia, Shannon, Hospital Flat, Jones Water, Soldier Creek, Oak Flat and Treasure Park. At these places the traveler will find running water, tables, benches, fireplaces, toilets, and in some cases storm shelters and playground equipment. The only restriction is that visitors be cautious about sanitation and the prevention of forest fires.

Deer, bear and javelina provide good hunting in season in practically all districts of the forest. Turkey are plentiful only in the Clifton division near the Mogollon Rim. Recent plantings of turkey in the Graham mountains, an old habitat where they had become practically extinct, have been fairly successful and prospects are favorable for sufficient increase in numbers a few years hence to justify hunting them. Until then, this area is closed to turkey hunting. In the management of game, the Forest Service works in close cooperation with the State Game Department. Several small game refuges have been established on the forest to provide sanctuaries where the game population may build up to desired numbers. Hunting is banned in these refuges.

Mount Graham with a height of 10,700 feet rises directly from the Gila Valley, which is 3,000 feet in elevation. The top, which is fairly flat, supports one of the heaviest stands of timber in the Southwest.

Turkey Flat is along the Swift Trail, 21 miles from Safford. It contains a Forest Service picnic ground, an attractive colony of summer homes, a store and rental cabins.

Pinal Mountain, a 16-mile drive from Globe or Miami, has a Forest Service road reaching to the top of an elevation of 7,800 feet. The top is well timbered and has excellent summer climate. There is a Forest Service campground and picnic ground, as well as a summer cabin colony. Attractions near the Forest include the William Boyce Thompson Arboretum, three miles west of Superior, the only desert arboretum in the United States; and the Gila Pueblo, three miles southeast of Globe, an important private institution for archaeological research.

Part of the Superstition Mountain Wilderness Area extends into this national forest from the Tonto Forest. The Galiuro Wild Area, entirely in the Crook forest, covers 55,000 acres in the heart of the Galiuro Mountains, some of the roughest country in the Southwest.

The Blue Range Wilderness Area, extending from the Crook National Forest northward across the Mogollon Rim and into the Apache National Forest, is the largest area of its kind in Arizona. It covers 217,000 acres. Here the Blue Range, with the Blue River winding wildly through it, makes some of the most beautiful mountain country in the West. The area is closed to roads, logging and human occupancy. It is undeveloped except for trails used by forest fire crews, hunters and fishermen.

Where Coronado and his band of Spanish explorers in 1540 struggled through a strange, rough land peopled only by hostile Indians, modern travelers can now drive in comfort along the Coronado trail, that section of U. S. 666 between Clifton and Springerville. Some high points on the road give excellent views into the Blue Range Wild-erness Area. From the colorful canyons near Clifton and Metcalf, the highway gradually ascends to 9,200 feet elevation in the Blue Mountains and passes through dense, beautiful stands of pine, fire and spruce. Built at a cost of $800,000, the highway is routed along ridges as much as possible and offers a continuous, grand panorama of forest and mountain country.

Ancient tribes once flourished along the Gila River and used products of the forest. When the explorer Coronado passed this way in 1540, he found crumbling ruins of towns along the river, and cliff dwellings in the hills. Remains of irrigation ditches were mute evidence of the first farmers in this area. After Coronado returned to Mexico the area was again forgotten for three centuries, except perhaps for an occasional visit by Apaches from the north.

A few hardy white scouts drifted through here around 1840 to 1850, prospecting for furs and gold. Settlement began around the sixties, and the waters of the Gila and Salt Rivers again were harnessed to irrigation ditches. Cattle came, and in a few years had increased to tens of thousands, and the old story was repeated; the range suffered from overstocking and much of it was rendered worthless.

Cultivation increased rapidly. Soon after 1900, the effects of overgrazing on the watersheds was shown by heavy floods and silt in the rivers. In periods of low water, crops deteriorated or died.

Discovery of silver north of Globe and Superior in the seventies, and a few years later of copper at Globe and Clifton, placed another burden on the forest lands. The mines needed timber, and wood for fuel. For a time, the Globe branch of the railroad used wood in its locomotives. Loggers cut almost any size of tree (“anything that would burn or hold a nail”). Abuses of the forest in that generation reduced the resources available today.

With waters of the Crook National Forest contributing to the reservoirs behind Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River and Coolidge Dam on the Gila River, and to the municipal reservoirs of Duncan and Safford, it is easy to realize that the greatest resource of this national forest is water. Watershed protection has a heavy bearing on timber and range management plans. The prime administrative objective for this forest is to provide a stable flow of water into the Gila and Salt Rivers and to prevent the silting up of the great reservoirs on those streams.

Livestock permittees grazed nearly 24,000 head of cattle on the Crook National Forest in 1945, plus a small number of sheep. Local residents were granted free grazing for 1,400 milk cows, work horses and saddle horses. Our aim in supervising the use of the forest range by these livestock is to control the numbers of stock and the periods of use, so that the available forage receives the greatest possible use withWithout detriment to the land cover.

The forest also has about 1,500,000 cords of wood, mostly juniper and piñon. The absence of coal mines in this part of the state makes these cordwood stands exceptionally valuable to local residents for fuel.

Sawtimber and cordwood are both cut according to management plans providing for leaving reserve stands to insure continuing “crops” of these products, and for cutting practices which do not damage watersheds. Only the mature and over-mature trees are cut, leaving stands of young, thrifty, trees, which with the added sunlight and lessened competition will put on better growth than was possible before.

Questions about the resources and recreational attractions of the Crook National Forest will be answered gladly by the Forest Supervisor and the Forest Rangers on the six ranger districts. Visitors are always welcome. The Supervisor's office is at Safford. The ranger districts and their headquarters are: Mt. Graham district, Safford; Aravaipa district, Klondyke; North Globe district, Globe; Pinal district, Globe; Eagle district, Clifton; and Clifton district, Clifton.

The Crook National Forest takes in some of the roughest and most inaccessible areas in the state. The Forest contains 1,423,000 acres.