Bill Williams Mountain Men

Each year in early January there is a burgeoning of beards in the town of Williams which, more surely than the appearance of the robins, heralds the coming of spring. In many Arizona communities if twenty men stopped shaving, it would be scarcely noticeable; but in Williams it is noteworthy, for the twenty faces going to weeds belong to some of the most prominent citizens of the area, who are preparing for the high point of their year-the annual ride of the Bill Williams Mountain Men from their home base at Williams to Phoenix, where they rendezvous at the Jaycee World's Championship Rodeo.

Among the members of this group can be found representatives of a diversity of professions and occupations. There are restaurant owners, motel keepers, ranchers, oil distributors, filling station men, and garage men; the professions are represented by a physician and a dentist; other members work for the natural gas company, the telephone company, the Navajo Ordnance Depot, Coconino County, and the town of Williams; there are two builders, a bartender, and a welder; one member is a Coconino County Supervisor, and another is the local. Justice of the Peace.

This group of men, organized in the fall of 1953, conducts monthly business meetings throughout the year, sponsors dances and steak fries, and is active in many other ways. Their familiar buckskin suits are frequently seen in parades and at rodeos in many parts of the state; but the one big event each year is the long ride to Phoenix.

The announced objectives of the Mountain Men are printed on the title page of their magazine, which is published once a year. These objectives are as follows: "To promote the traditions and customs of the Western Pioneers and, more particularly, the Mountain Men who explored the territory of the West during the period of western expansion and early development of the United States; to emulate the costumes and appearance and to further the general knowledge of accomplishments of the Pioneers of the West and Mountain Men; to perpetuate the lore, memory, and romance of the Mountain Men and Pioneers."

In line with their objectives the Mountain Men wear uniforms of buckskins which are authentic copies of the garb of the old trappers of Bill Williams' time. These distinctive fringed garments are made from either deer or elk hides obtained from animals which unwisely appeared in Mountain Men's gunsights during hunting season in the Bill Williams area. Since there are very few good tailors of buckskin left in the country, most of the Mountain Men, with some help from their squaws, have made their own suits.

The fur hats favored by the group are of coonskin, coyote, fox, wildcat, or mountain lion hide.

Because the old flintlock rifles required that the Mountain Men carry black powder instead of cartridges, each of the modern Mountain Men carries a powder horn which he has made himself. Possible bags of buckskin hold flints, steel, tobacco, castor bait for luring beaver, good medicine charms, and other prime necessities of life for the trapper. And of course no Mountain Man is ever without his skinning knife. The Bill Williams men have made their own knives, usually from old files, and they are long, heavy, and exceedingly sharp.

The shaggy ponies which carry the Mountain Men on the long ride from Williams to Phoenix are not by any means scrubs or casual acquisitions. Each one is a tough and durable denizen of the high north country around Williams and must be able not only to carry a man or pack over the rough trail to the desert but also must be able to eat and thrive on anything from dried buffalo grass in the high country to desert forage in the southern part of the state. The cold of the northland causes their coats to grow long and shaggy, and the Mountain Men do not attempt to curry them. As are their masters, these ponies are rugged individualists, and during the ride there is always a great amount of lively activity in the early morning before every Mountain Man succeeds in convincing his trusty mount that it is time to hit the trail again.

One of the reasons for choosing the month of March for making the ride to Phoenix is that for most of the men March is the best time of the year in which they can afford to take two weeks off without neglecting their businesses.

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