The Back Road From Jerome To Williams

Perkins family have had a cattle grazing permit in the area since before the turn of the century. Their herd is an interesting mixture of Texas Longhorns, White-faced Herefords and Brahmas. They may not look like the well-manicured specimens we see at the stock shows, but they are good "doin'" cattle and well able to fend for themselves.

Perkinsville is a sleepy little whistle stop whose bucolic quiet is interrupted only once a day by the rumble of a single-track choo-choo on its way to or from the flagstone quarry at Drake. This line is a spur of the Santa Fe which runs up from Clarkdale and is not to be confused with the United Verde and Pacific, which blew its final blast in 1913.

The area around Perkinsville has a pleasant timeless atmosphere about it. At the east end of this inviting valley we see the majestic red sandstone cliffs at the entrance to Sycamore. Along the western fringe of this picturesque hollow there are tall cottonwoods and sycamores watered by the cool depths of the Verde River, which flows quietly south on its way to join the Gila just outside of Phoenix. There is excellent fishing along the banks of the Verde. It makes a perfect spot to pitch camp and spend the night. If you do, don't fail to go over and meet Nick Perkins and his wife Evelyn, a former school teacher . . . Nick runs the cattle outfit with the help of his sons and is widely known as a lion hunter. The bleached bony claws of many of these predatory marauders are tacked up on the wooden sides of a shed, perhaps as a warning to others of their breed to stay away from the Perkins cattle herd. Mrs. Perkins is quite an amateur archeologist and has an extensive collection of Indian artifacts she has gathered in her "back yard," which fans out many miles in all directions.

As we leave Perkinsville, the dirt road starts a gentle climb out of this peaceful valley. It isn't long before we get into the stone quarry area, a source of some of that beautiful Arizona flagstone which is shipped out to all parts of the country. A sign at the entrance to one of the open pits attracted our attention. It read, "Golden Buckskin Quarries, Paul B. Sogg, proprietor-A. A. (Spike) Beach, manager." We stopped to see the boys, but they weren't working their quarry that day. However, we did see a big pile of flagstone a little further down the road alongside an efficient-looking rock cutter. We talked to a friendly lady whose husband ran the cutter. She showed us where we would find an old Indian dwelling on the top of a rolling hill which overlooked her house. We climbed up to investigate. The stone walls were still standing and we found a lot of arrowhead clippings and broken pottery in the area, but no Indians. Guess the market for flagstone was pretty small in those days.

Eastern part of Arizona and along its eastern boundary close to the New Mexican border. We noticed a gradual change from the cedars, manzanita, cactus and junipers of the valley to stately ponderosa pine and evergreen oaks. As we continued our climb, the countryside became more rocky and the earth was a dark rich brown compared to the beige-colored soil of the low country. We made our little trek in the fall of the year. The leaves were just beginning to take on their brilliant hues marking the gradual transition to winter. The aspens were a flaming yellow against the deep green background of pine and piñon. We saw wild turkey, covies of quail and a good many deer running off in the distance; for it was hunting season, when all men are enemies. We car-ried nothing more lethal than a camera, but we heard the staccato report of rifle fire, often close at hand. We passed many hunters' camps and noticed several large bucks, gutted and hanging from trees. The land is pretty flat on the vast plateau on top of the Mogollon Rim. We spied a sign to our right pointing the way to Whitehorse Lake, a fishermen's hideout we had visited on another trip. Workmen were preparing the road for eventual paving as a continuation of the hard-surfaced section leading out from Williams past theski run on Bill Williams Mountain. We could plainly see the zig-zag on the mountain which criss-crosses its southern slope leading up to the ski run, so we decided to drive up the steep incline and take a look around. The view was breathtaking in all directions. A peace and quiet hovered over the enormous stretches of timberland which seemed to fill the great void between Williams Mountain and the wide circle of the horizon which surrounded us. Here we were alone in the world. Our only remind-er of the existence of others was a thin vapor trail turning to faint wisps of white in the clear blue above our heads. The remaining few miles into Williams were un-eventful as the hard-topped road led us back to civiliza-tion. Williams is rich in attractive motels plus a half dozen good eating places. We were ready for both. It had been an exciting and captivating day. We had seen many things which would never enter the conscious-ness of the super-highway traveler. We decided then and there to make the same trip over again, but perhaps starting from Williams next time to retrace our steps back to Jerome. We planned it for the coming summer, as that lush camping spot in Perkinsville along the Verde was fresh in our minds. We plan to camp there for at least a couple of days, maybe longer if the trout take a notion to rise to our flies.

Autumn in Arizona By Joyce Rockwood Muench

Each season, like a new book rolling off Nature's four-color press, is a classic. When the title is Autumn and the locale, Arizona, you can count on a "fine" binding. The text, of course, is a reprint of an ancient manuscript, but every picture-plate will be fresh, engraved especially for this 1959 edition.

Reviewers write their personal comments only after the issue is on the stands. If you want to see each page, with ink still wet and colors glowing, you must view for yourself the uncut sheets, before they're bound and placed as the latest "Book of Days" on Mother Earth's long shelf.

Autumn in Arizona is no brief footnote to summer, nor yet a hurried preface to a long chapter on winter. The time of color begins up in the mountains toward the closing days of September and continues at length to lower elevations. December may be showing on the calendar before the last willow, sycamore or cottonwood, along some winding dry wash in the desert, spells out the final word of the treatise.

Acknowledgements are always in order and will help us to know where in the text we'll find our special interests.

Arizona is redundant with mountains, to whom credit must go for some of the biggest spreads of seasonal brilliance-the high plateaus in the north; the San Francisco Peaks that mount to 12,670 feet in Humphrey's Peak; east to the White Mountains, topped by Baldy Peak's 11,590-foot point; and, treading from northwest to southeast down to the Mexican border, some thirty ranges, punctuated by tips poking to 11,000 feet, though their average height is a cool four to six thousand feet above the distant sea level.

Deep-set canyons and widespread lowlands can't be ignored on Autumn's roster, though you may find them scattered through the text in lighter print and later than many more commonplace lands make mention of the season.

For your introduction, turn to the roads. Every high-way winds somewhere to the mountain haunts of aspen, oak, maple and sycamore.

If you've been lucky enough to come west across the continent on U.S. Highway 60, you're not even across the New Mexico border before the White Mountains fill the pages with their glow, and other routes (U.S. 666 south on the Coronado Trail, as well as state routes, down to unnumbered or unlettered single tracks) offer to guide the car deeper into strongholds of Autumn delight.

These mountain groves might have been specially placed for the vacationer, partial to a spot near running