SULPHUR SPRINGS VALLEY

The Sulphur Springs Valley stretches out like a great giant of sun-kissed land in the lower southwestern section of Graham County, down through Cochise County to the Mexican border. This great valley is bordered on the north and eastern side by the Graham, Dos Cabezas, and Chiricahua Mountains, and on the west, by the Galuiro, Winchester, Dragoon, and Mule Mountains.

The Sulphur Springs Valley is one of the most interesting sections of Arizona. This is, indeed, a broad statement knowing Arizona's past, present, and future possibilities, but the Valley is rich in reminders of the past, with a bright shining present, and a future with a promise of opportunity.

The Valley's history is a story of pre-historic people, Indians, soldiers, outlaws, adventurers, prospectors, cattle barons, and farmers. All of these are actors in the Valley's pageant of progress.

With all the drama comprising the history of Arizona, Sulphur Springs Valley claims a great heritage, and an exciting history with all the tragedy, drama, romance, and adventure that was ever woven in the annals of the West.

Not until 1860 was the great valley christened, “The Sulphur Springs Valley.” The late John Rockfellow said the Valley had springs in the northern section, and though the water was strongly impregnated with sulphur, it was a favorite camping place for outlaws and prospectors.

Long before the government started its emergency program of soil conservation, erosion defacing the great valley disclosed her hidden secrets of ancient history.

We are told that, “Once upon a time,” not too long ago, school children during recess time were playing near the White-Water Creek, when one little boy saw the exposed tusk of an Imperial mammoth embedded in the wall of the creek bed. Archaeologists from the University of Arizona, at Tucson, hurried to the location. During the weeks that followed, interested spectators flanked the opposite bank and watched the careful handling of the bones as they were unearthed, but only the workersrealized the potential value the land concealed.

The Valley's history has been pieced together with the geological events of the past. E.B. Sayles, archaeologist at the University of Arizona, tells us, “Here people lived 10,000 years ago when White-Water Creek was a running stream connecting lakes and ponds, and animals now extinct in Arizona, such as, the mammoth, the dire wolf, and the camel, were hunted there. People continued to live in the Valley for thousands of years. For a long time the climate was hotter and drier than today, but all during these thousands of years wild plants continued to supply most of the food until corn, beans, and other cultivated plants were introduced. Then the life of those early farming people was disturbed by the coming of the Apache Indian. When the Spanish explorers arrived in 1540, the Valley was no longer the home of farming people.” Records do not show how many generations passed allowing the Apache the freedom and the domination of the Valley. This tribe did not live in wickiups, but in caves, and moved from mountain to mountain seeking game and wild roots.

The Valley was the hunting ground of Cochise, the great Apache chief, when he was on the warpath, and later when he became the trusted friend of the white man.

Prospectors from the gold fields of California drifted into Arizona lured by the tales of her mineral wealth, but the Apaches, like soaring eagles, swooped mercilessly down upon them, and turned the Valley into a bloody battleground.

The sands of the Valley, stained with blood, bleached bones, and charred wagon wheels, recorded the history of those men who dared to venture into the Valley which Geronimo and Mangas Coloradas, and their warring renegades, claimed as their own and fought viciously to hold.

After the Civil War the people from eastern states wanted new land to farm, new land to graze their cattle. “Go West,” echoed across the crippled states.

President Johnson sympathized with the people so sent General Crook into Sulphur Springs Valley to subdue the Apaches, but the Apaches were not easily subdued. Years of fighting resulted until the year of 1886, when the Apaches outnumbered, surrendered.

The few settlers and soldiers who watched Geronimo and his ragged followers march across the Valley to Camp Bowie, where the Apaches were to be exiled to Florida, witnessed one of the territory's historic events. The door that was closed to the warring Apaches, was opened to prospectors, home seekers, cattlemen, and farmers.

During the years of strife, Louis Prue, a soldier in Crook's army, while riding through the Valley saw the beauty of the land with its countless miles and miles of fertile soil affording knee-high gramma grass. Prue visualized a great ranch with large herds of cattle, fields of grain, and a home on the range.

The land with its obvious possibilities attracted Louis Prue, the first settler and cattleman in the Valley, after his discharge from the army in 1871.

In the 70's and 80's the old-time cowman started the trail herds, an endless stream of cattle from Texas and Mexico into Sulphur Springs Valley which afforded thousands of acres of palatable vegetation, and a mild climate. These owners of the trail herds became the first cattle barons with romance and wild west history woven about their lives. They were men of courage and of vision, butas they glorified in the weaith of the Valley, they never once dismissed the thought that they were trespassing in Apacheland.

Colonel Henry C. Hooker, who came into the Valley in 1873, was the first cattle baron. He called his cattle domain "Sierra Bonita." He is the one man given full credit in making Sulphur Springs Valley the first home of the white-faced Herefords in Arizona. He imported the finest Hereford bulls which in its course of time literally and completely bred the Longhorns from the Valley.

At one time Colonel Hooker's ranch supported twenty to thirty thousand head of Herefords. The first year he was in the valley he brought several thousand head of cattle from Texas, and sold them to the government for its military posts, and to feed the Indians the army was trying to hold peacefully on reservations.

The other large cattle ranches listed in the early history of the Valley were the "76" and the Eureka. The "76" ranch house built in stockade fashion was originally a station for the Butterfield stagecoach. The Eureka, once consisted of 90,000 acres with lusty filarce which had the reputation of supporting one of the finest herds of cattle in Arizona. Today these three great ranches are still viibrant with life, although the open range has been divided by fences, and their pedigreed Herefords fatten at feeding pens, and acres upon acres of the once open range land are now under cultivation, planted to hay, and grain, yet annually many hundreds of Herefords fatten on the range.

Seventy-five years ago the cattleman and the cowboy dominated the Valley, as cattle raising was its only industry.

It was an unfenced land covered with thick grass, not only sufficient to feed great herds of cattle but to fatten them for market. It was a cattleman's paradise.

The progress of advancing years and the barbed wire fence have changed the colorful life of the Valley's open range. The romancers of today mourn the passing of the old West. They say the frontier and her cowboys are gone. But where there are cattle there will be a round-up, with cowboys and horses, although today each outfit works for himself on a modified scale.

During the early 80's the game of life in the far southeastern corner of Arizona was played fast and furious. Thus it was that a weathered-stained cabin in Sulphur Springs Valley, known as the "Robber's Roost," was a rendezvous for gamblers, cattle rustlers, and outlaws, such as John Ringo, Curly Bill, and Frank Leslie.

The Valley's wind and time have obliterated the outlaw's trail from Tombstone across the Valley's floor that led to another rustler's retreat at Galeyville.

Tied in with the history of the Valley was the coming of the Southern Pacific railroad in 1880, and from that advancement the Valley became the proud parent of many small but flourishing towns.

Willcox was its first born and became the railroad center for the Valley. Annually forty to fifty thousand cattle pass through the shipping pens. Today, Willcox has large commercial feed lots which meet the need of the rancher for fattening cattle into choice meat.

Willcox sits on a large reservoir of pure soft water ninety feet below the surface offering ample supply for her cattle, and for irrigating thousands of acres of profitable producing land of cotton, sorgum grains, hay and vegetables.

State Highway 86 passes through the town, and, with an elevation of 4,163 feet, Willcox temperature is never too hot nor too cold.

Sulphur Springs Valley is eighty-six miles long and thirty-five miles wide at its widest point, and is divided into two sections, known as the upper Valley, and the lower Valley. The upper Valley extends from the Pearce Mountain in Cochise County to the Graham Mountains in Graham County. In this area there are 285 farms and forty-five thousand acres under cultivation of which six thousand acres are planted in cotton. In 1956 the upper Valley produced over eight thousand bales of cotton. The cotton grown in the Valley command a premium for its quality, as it grows one of the finest short staple fibre. The upper Valley realized $1,500,000 in cotton alone, while the cotton seed amounted to $100,000. There are two cotton gins in the upper Valley.

With abundant water for irrigation and the Valley's rich fertile soil, this area produced thirty-nine thousand tons of sorghum grain (maize and corn). The smaller grains such as, wheat, oats and barley's production was eighteen thousand tons. Over six thousand tons of hay were raised in the upper Valley with a value of more than two hundred and eighteen thousand dollars.

The lower Valley extends from the Pearce Mountain down through the heart of Cochise County to the Mexican border. Elfrida is the important agricultural center of this area. There are 151 farms, and thirty-five thousand acres under cultivation.

The principal crops of cotton, hay and sorghum grain for 1956 brought the farmers $2,800,000. One thousand head of cattle were pastured in the fields after the harvest.

The cotton crop in the lower Valley had its banner year in 1956. Six thousand two hundred and ninety-six bales were ginned at the Elfrida gin, while one thousand bales was shipped to Deming, New Mexico, as the Elfrida gin could not handle the surplus. This area realized more than $1,250,000 in cotton.

The sorghum grains were valued at $1,220,000, while the hay's value ran $300,000.

The Swisshelms, a range twelve miles long, runs parallel with the lower Valley with cultivated farms on both sides.

Grizzle's peach orchard located on the south side of this area produces tons of fine peaches all summer. There are several large dairies in the Valley and most of the milk is shipped out of the county.

Besides the Valley's rich acreage of cotton, sorghum grains, and feed crop, chili is another valuable crop. Three hundred tons of dried chili were packed and shipped from the Valley, and six hundred tons of green chili was canned at the Canyon State Cannery near the air-base last year. In the fall of the year the Élfrida area displays a vivid red picture of long trays of chili drying on the ground or long ropes of chili hung on racks. There are two dehydrating plants in the Valley, which lately has been approved by the Pure Food Laws as a perfect method in processing the dry chili.

Highway 666 passes through the Valley, and paved county roads lead to the beautiful canyons of the Chiricahua Mountains, where three modern guest ranches are to be found: the "El Coronado" in Turkey Creek, "The Silver Spur" and the "Faraway" ranches in Bonita Canyon, where Nature's spectacular carvings of stone are awe inspiring. On the floor of the Valley the "Swisshelm," the "76," and the "7" guest ranches welcome visitors and guests.

Douglas is the largest town in the Valley. It is in the extreme southern section which borders Mexico. Douglas has a population of 15,000, at an elevation of 3,995 feet. It is the copper smelting center of the Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation, which operates copper mines at nearby Bisbee. When running full blast the smelter handles more than 660,000 tons of ore and concentrates annually, and employs 700 men. Douglas also boasts of a cannery, a packing plant, a dress factory. In later years Douglas has become an important tourist and travel center and an international trading area.

Another hill that rises from the Valley's floor at Paul Spar in the southern section also adds wealth to the Valley's resources. This hill yields 80% pure lime, which allows the Paul Lime Plant to produce thousands of tons of lime that is shipped to the smelters and mines in southern Arizona.

True to her history of tragedy, romance, and prosperity, the life of the Valley has been everything but dull. Not only her cattle and farms have added wealth to the state, mining has been an active industry.

About 1896 the small town of Pearce was placed on the map. The origin of this town is like reading a page torn from a prospector's fantastic dream book. One day, James Pearce, a cowman, with nothing to do but sit in the warm sunshine, perched on a ledge of rock watching his cattle graze, picked up a rock and hammered it on the ledge. To his amazement the rock showed gold. Immediately he staked his claim and called the place Pearce, and his claim, "The Commonwealth." In eight years' time, that small hill produced $30,000,000 in gold.

From the outside world it wasn't long before prospectors were rushing to the Valley, and Gleeson and Courtland came into existence, and once were teeming with excited miners and businessmen. They are now ghost towns, although Gleeson's claims have been reactivated and ore is being shipped.

No longer are the eagle and hawk master of all they survey, for today men in airliners with the swiftness of huge birds with shining wings land at the Valley's airport.

Through the ages the giant Valley has been a strange land, but Time has brought many strange changes to her passing parade of pre-historic people, her Indians, soldiers, outlaws, prospectors, cattle barons, and farmers.

Sulphur Springs Valley still has a story to tell. The drama of its historical days is dimmed by the Valley's promise of the future for better agricultural and industrial progress. The blessing of the land is the abundance of water, and the mild climate, and the farmers and cattlemen rejoice over these great gifts.

There is magic in this Valley as one witnesses the great expansion, and while gazing through the rising haze of the Valley's freshness one sees that the land is alive and beautiful with its cultivated fields of cotton, hay, grains, food products, and grazing land which gives proof that the Valley's surplus will reach toward greater heights.

One only has to consider the growing population of the state, and the unlimited opportunities for further development from the raw products the Valley produces from her range and from her farms.