Tonto Natural Bridge

Ponto Natural Bridge

AT LEAST ONE APACHE INDIAN FAMILY still returns religiously each year to Tonto Natural Bridge to comfort the lonely spirits of their ancestors who departed this life without benefit of Apache burial. Mike today is a very old man; even his daughter is no youngster. But still the story of what happened is vivid. The Apaches had for many years used as home the little valley where nature had carved a great natural bridge. No matter where the fortunes of hunting and war led them, each spring they would return faithfully to the peaceful retreat below the great Rim to raise their crops and worship their gods. As the years went on, however, more and more white men moved into Apache territory, driving the Apaches from one retreat and stronghold after another, ruthlessly extending their domination over the land. And at last came the day when Mike's people met white soldiers in battle, far from their ancestral valley. Only a handful of Apaches escaped the decimation: Mike's mother, her very young son and a few old men. Wearily the survivors made their way back to the valley of the natural bridge. There they sustained life as best they could, and year after year have the spirits of their honored dead stayed on in the last earthly home they had known. There is no place of rest in the hereafter for the spirit of the Apache who crosses into the next life without the traditional rites of tribal burial. And so Mike, his daughter and her offspring, as the only lineal descendants of those who died, return each year to offer what comfort they can to the restless souls at Tonto Natural Bridge, Arizona.

Despite the presence there today of a hotel, guest cabins, a swimming pool, automobile roads and handrails along the trails leading to viewpoints from which the wonderful bridge can be studied, it is easy to succumb to the charm and mystery of the place. Is that sound the murmur of the stream, the sighing of the breeze or the restless whispering of Apache spirits? David Gowan, first white man known to have succumbed to the charm and wonder of the place, came upon it in 1877 when he slaked his thirst at the sparkling spring and rested from his wanderings as a prospector. The towering, colorful bridge sculpted by centuries of nature's careful craftsmanship intrigued him and eventually he laid white man's claim to the property. For years he played hide-and-seek with the Apaches and finally his prospector's heart wearied of being bound to one locale. Yet his canny Scottsman's nature rebelled at the thought of relinquishing so interesting a property to strangers.

In the 1890's, after the last chapter of the Apache Wars had been written, an English newspaperman heard from Gowan the story of his interesting bridge. The resulting release came to the attention of Gowan's nephew, David Goodfellow, in Scotland. Goodfellow wrote his uncle, addressing the letter simply, "Davey Gowan, near Flagstaff, U.S.A." The U. S. Post Office came through, delivered the letter, and in 1898 Goodfellow and his family arrived to relieve Gowan of the burden of developing the property.

IN 1948 THE GOODFELLOW FAMILY sold Tonto Natural Bridge, by then acknowledged a world-famous natural wonder, to W. J., George W. and Glen L. Randall, in whose ownership it remains today. It comes as a surprise to many that, like Meteor Crater, Tonto Natural Bridge is privately owned and not a national monument or park. The bridge is 183 feet high. Its tunnel is 400 feet long and 150 feet wide. It is formed of travertine deposited over the ages from the waters of the spring. On top of the bridge is a five-acre fertile field once tilled by the Apaches and perhaps by their predecessors before them. Nearby caves are former Indian dwellings. The hotel building, designed in what might be described as the Staunch American Utilitarian school of architecture, features large, high-ceilinged, gracious rooms, sparkling cleanliness and appetizing, homecooked food served ranch style. A limited number of accommodations are also offered in separate cabins. The bridge and the lovely valley surrounding it have long been favorite subjects of painters and photographers. Groups and organizations frequently sojourn to Tonto Natural Bridge for relaxation and inspiration, while many a weary businessman has made a practice, Apache style, to return there regularly to restore his spirit.Tonto Natural Bridge is reached via Arizona 65 twelve miles north of Payson. Information may be obtained by addressing Tonto Natural Bridge, Room 403 Arizona Savings Building, Phoenix, Arizona or by telephoning Phoenix, AL 8-6706, or Tonto Natural Bridge, Arizona No. 1. That's right, Tonto Natural Bridge 1. It's a mighty small settlement!

"TRAVERTINE DEPOSITS TONTO NATURAL BRIDGE" BY RICHARD CONGER. (Lower left) Photo taken beneath the arch of Tonto Natural Bridge, three miles off the highway between Pine and Payson.

"THE STREAM THAT MADE TONTO NATURAL BRIDGE" BY DARWIN VAN CAMPEN. (Lower right) Taken along the stream at the base of Tonto Natural Bridge (between Payson and Pine) looking east through the bridge. The little stream under Tonto Natural Bridge, flowing perpetually "in the shadow" of a world famous wonder, is scenically worthy in its own right.

PAYSON COUNTRY / FROM PAGE 11

Bear Canyon Lake, recently completed, is situated on Forest Service Road 89 a mile and a half from Promontory Point. This 65-acre lake is of limited access; that is, the camper must park, walk in the last half mile or so, backpacking his gear if he plans to stay overnight or longer. Plans are to maintain it this way, thus limiting its use to those who prefer this sort of location.Construction is already well along toward completion of Chevelon Canyon Lake, which will be the largest of the group with a surface area of some 200 acres. Rather remote, the lake, which should be usable during the summer of 1966, is another designed for limited access. Good camp sites will be a bit more difficult to find, as the lake is created in a deep canyon and thus has many steeply sloping shores. Situated in the Sitgreaves National Forest about eighteen miles northwest of Heber, it is reached via Forest Service Road 169, about ten miles south from the Chevelon Crossing Campgrounds. Vehicles can be parked within half a mile of the lake, the last part of the journey being on foot.

FEW MILES EAST OF WOODS CANYON LAKE and hard by Arizona 160 will be built Willow Springs Lake, an 88-acre body of water of easy access and graced by abundant nearby accommodations. A campgrounds proposed at Canyon Point, only a short distance away, will provide campsites for a hundred families, including running water, toilets, fireplaces and tables. This is the last of the Arizona Game and Fish Department lakes planned in the immediate future for this complex.

There is one other newly created lake on the Rim in the Payson country, however, and this is undoubtedly the most beautiful of all. It is the result of a complex water exchange and conservation program in which the Phelps Dodge Corporation, largest producer of copper in Arizona, gains the right to use certain waters from the Salt River watershed in its operations in the CliftonMorenci area in exchange for creating and operating the Blue Ridge Project.

In essence what happens is this: All waters arising above the Rim in this area drain into the Little Colorado system, thence to the Colorado. Those originating below the Rim drain into the Salt River. The Blue Ridge Project, however, puts Little Colorado water into the Salt. Blue Ridge Dam, 150 feet high and 500 feet long, impounds the waters of East Clear Creek and General Springs Canyon. Since the reservoir lies below the level of the top of the Rim, the water must be pumped up and over the Rim and delivered through a pipeline to a generating plant at the point where the water enters the East Verde. Power generated at the plant runs the pumps, while the water delivered affords a regulated flow in the East Verde and equalizes Phelps Dodge accounts on the Salt River watershed.

Water impounded by the Blue Ridge Dam backs up some five miles in East Clear Creek Canyon and three miles in General Springs Canyon. Both are rather narrow, steep gorges, and thus the arms of the V-shaped lake created are long, winding and not wide. Total surface area is some 325 acres. While there are many miles of shoreline, not many good campground sites present themselves, for often the access road is several hundred feet above the lake, and the land falls sharply between.

A recreational program, complete with as many facilities as possible, is in the formative stages and should be under construction soon. Meanwhile, Blue Ridge Reservoir promises some of the finest trout fishing in Arizona. The waters are fresh and cold and deep, and the lake bottom offers many rocky crannies and the banks many gnarled root shelters where the trout can grow fat and old dodging all but the most skilled anglers.

Fishing, while it is perhaps the most definable of the lakes' attractions, is by no means the sole purpose of the Payson country's Rim lakes. Created as recreational lakes, all are situated in the most delightful forest surroundings. Each is bordered by tall pines, firs, aspen and deer brush, or scrub oak with occasional cypress, juniper, manzanita, pinyon and barberry at lower altitudes. In season wild flowers abound, among which the brilliant blue lupine is a favorite. Wildlife is plentiful and birds are beautiful and varied. The sky is a deep azure referred to by oldtimers as Arizona blue, the air clear and fragrant.

For fisherman and nonangler alike the whole scene is one to refresh the spirit and relax the tensions of nervejangling city life. A day spent just lazing on a blanket of pine needles beneath a towering Ponderosa beside a lake is not a day wasted; rather it is the most wonderful of wonder drugs, even though it is as old as nature itself.

Zane Grey's heroine, Lucy, in Under The Tonto Rim, reacted to the spell of this very country. "Though she stood amid deep forest," Grey wrote, "yet she could see the Rim in two directions, and the magnificent looming tower stood right above her. It marked the bold entrance to the canyon. In the other direction Lucy looked down a slant of green, darkly divided by the depression made by the gully, to the rolling forest below, that led the eye on and on to the dim purple ranges. A cry seemed to ring out of the remote past. It stung her mind to flashing, vivid thought. Her immediate ancestors had lived a few hundred years in villages, towns, cities; the early progenitors from which her people had sprung had lived thousands of years in the forested wilderness, barbarians, nomads The giant seamy-barked pines, rough and rugged, were more than trees. They had constituted a roof for her race in ages past, and wood for fire. The fragrance, the strength of them, were in her blood. Likewise the cedars, the junipers, the gray and white sycamores down in the gully, the maples and oaks, the patches of sumach, all that spread colorful protection around her. Deeper than sentiment, stronger than education, this passion claimed her for the moment."

In its constant efforts to protect and preserve the essential elements, both tangible and intangible, that comprise the forest's values, the U. S. Forest Service daily faces a myriad of relatively minor decisions to be made within the broad guidelines of the laws. For instance, should motorboats be allowed on the Rim lakes? National statutes probably never got around to considering the point; but the wise administrative dictum was no. Perhaps the erosive effects strong wakes have on shores weighed heavily, perhaps considerations of safety and of the disturbing effects on fishing of loud motors. But surely a telling consideration was the preservation of the primordial peace which makes these lakes meccas even for the nonfishing members of the family. Only electric motors not exceeding one horsepower may be used and this probably is a conscious concession to office-bound muscles.UNDOUBTEDLY IN YEARS TO COME other lakes will be added to the seven already existing or planned on the Rim in the Payson country. To those who knew the Rim country only ten or twenty years ago it is a virtual miracle so many lakes already have been created, and present accomplishments are the promise of more to come. Even in dry Arizona the water has been found! A word of caution though. Not all the spots now shown on the maps as lakes are lakes! It may seem odd that the state is busy building new lakes when for years maps of the Rim have carried such entries as Lake No. 1, Lake No. 3, Alder Lake, Deer Lake, Carr Lake and many others. The answer is that these latter are old sinks, cienegas and dry lake beds that constituted landmarks on early military maps, in this case those showing the route between Fort Apache and Camp Verde. Accordingly they were of considerable value to later cartographers and still are valuable as landmarks to those familiar with the country. For the average tourist, however, they are always disappointing and frequently unrecognizable.

Lakes, however, are far from the only attractions created in the forests for recreational enjoyment. In the Payson country some 1,500 miles of trails for hiking, riding or packing criss-cross the forest and lead the person hardy enough to use them from the majesty of mighty mountains to the serene stillness of the desert. All such trails are reserved for foot traffic. They are well marked, and most are designed so that even the inexperienced hiker can enjoy them without over exertion.

THE QUESTION MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED by those who have visited the Payson country for the first time and succumbed to its many charms is, "How can I establish a summer home here?" There are many factors in the answer, of course; but facts that should be known include the following: By far the largest part of the Payson country is National Forest land. It is set aside for the conservation and wise use of water, timber, livestock range, wildlife, mineral resources, recreational resources, scenic beauty and whatever other values it may possess for the common good. All of these use potentials must be considered and none suborned to the special advantage of an individual. Certain areas, however, have been judged best suited for use of summer homes. Accordingly, tracts have been set aside and permits have been issued to individuals allowing the use of the land for a specified period usually about twenty years for summer home purposes. The permittee must build to certain specifications and must maintain his home according to fixed standards. He pays the government a specified fee each year for use of the land, while he and his neighbors participate in associations which provide water and road maintenance on a cost sharing basis. Electricity in such areas generally is available from commercial companies. It should be emphasized here that at present all such summer home areas on the Tonto Forest in the Payson area are full. There are no more permits to be let, and no more land is going to be opened up for such use in the foreseeable future, according to Forest Service officials. Thus the only chance anyone has of finding a summer home in such an area is to search out an individual who must, for some reason, relinquish his permit and sell his improvements. In such a case the Forest Service usually will go along with the deal, providing the prospective new permit holder is a reasonably responsible person who can be expected to fulfill his obligations of fee payment and property maintenance according to fixed regulations.

THERE ARE NUMEROUS CAMPGROUNDS throughout the area provided by the Forest Service. Most of them provide running water, toilet facilities, benches and tables, fireplaces and sites suitable for pitching a tent or parking a camp trailer. Up to date lists showing locations, facilities and any special regulations are easily available at any ranger station and from almost any service station or store in the area. New ones are added frequently, while programs of expansion and improvement at the older grounds would make any list presented here obsolete almost before it reached print. The big country is always a challenge.

Second, there is a certain amount of patented (deeded, privately owned) land within the boundaries of the National Forests. In the entire Tonto Forest, which has some 2,900,000 acres, there is a total of only about 70,000 acres patented. These are either old homesteads which have been proved up, thus vesting ownership in an individual, or they are areas acquired by individuals through land exchange programs. This latter is a provision in the administrative prerogatives of the Forest Service whereby an individual acquires title to privately owned land within or contiguous to a National Forest somewhere in the state and trades it to the Forest Service for acreage of equal value in a land exchange area of another (or the same) National Forest. It gives the individual the chance to obtain land made desirable by proximity to such improvements as roads, water and electricity, while it gives the Forest Service the chance to eliminate interruptions in its land holdings which present problems in forest management.

ANOTHER MAJOR PURPOSE of the land adjustment procedure, of course, is to allow for the orderly and inevitable expansion of communities. While the Forest Service professes its readiness to enter into such exchanges, however, it is becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish them for the simple reason that there is progressively less acreage available.

Thus the present owners of patented land are the lucky ones. Many of them have already undertaken the development of their land; in fact, there are some fortyone private subdivisions in the Payson Ranger District of the Tonto National Forest alone. Obviously they offer a wide diversity of property. Inquiries addressed to the Payson Chamber of Commerce will bring more details; but a couple of words of advice might be in order here. First, the prospective buyer will do well to see before he buys. And second, he should be sure of water supply, roads and the availability of electric power and telephone (if he wants these latter two services).

boy scouts experience real pioneer

Aside from the almost unlimited attractions of scenery, climate and outdoors activities, the Payson country of today possesses quite amazing cultural and community resources. Nearly forty-five years ago, away back in August, 1921, the Payson Women's Club formed with a primary object of founding a town library. What progress was made in the next eleven years was scuttled when the local bank went broke in 1932, taking with it some $500 of the Women's Club's hard-earned cash.

The ladies (all thirty-two of them, garnered from a total population of little more than 150!) persevered, however, and soon acquired a property on Main Street occupied by three buildings: a shed, a "detached powder room," and a larger structure formerly occupied by an enterprising Frenchman who ran a combination bakery and moonshine dispensary.

By 1951 they were able to lay the cornerstone of the nucleus of their present building, and within a decade their success in building their cherished library was such they won national recognition for accomplishment. Today their book collection of Arizoniana is commendable and also a good reference section. The library is growing fast, and the town's use of it is growing faster.

Meanwhile, Payson tackled the extremely difficult task of founding a fully accredited hospital. It required the hard, dedicated work of many people and the exceptional generosity of a few who were financially able, and there were many problems to be solved. Today, however, Payson possesses an exceptionally well-equipped, small, community hospital which is far superior to what might be expected in a town its size.

As more people poured into the Phoenix area, the influx of weekend and summer visitors to the Payson country begat, in the last few years, a veritable boom in Payson. It brought the many subdivisions; it forced improvements of highways and secondary roads; it established new businesses and expanded old ones; and it swelled the permanent population of Payson. This, of course, threw new burdens on local schools, which met the challenge with sound expansions of their elementary and high school facilities. But these burdens were so great there were no resources available to fill the needs of the nursery school set.

It was here that MRS. NAN PYLE, already a benefactor of the library and hospital, came to the fore and established a pre-school facility that is truly outstanding. Housed in a circular building ("so there are no corners in which the shy youngster can hide from himself and his problems"), the charming little school is equipped with every imaginable toy and teaching aid, including a large aquarium, a marvelous model railroad, and an outdoor highway system for little automobiles in which the youngsters learn not only the rules of the road but the need for law as the protector of the individual. It was Mrs. Pyle, also, who founded what easily might prove to be a major asset and attraction for Pay-son. Daughter of old Eastern families, educated in fine schools on the East Coast and in Europe, she brought to Arizona an extraordinary background. She was trained in music, painting, puppetry, the dance, sculpture, farming, horsemanship, animal breeding and a number of other similarly improbable fields. Here she married Lewis R. Pyle, who had arrived in the Payson area October 11, 1890, and hasn't been far afield since. Cattleman, forester, mule-skinner, rancher, he says he's looking the country over carefully before making up his mind whether or not to stay permanently.

Life in a natural setting laboratory

Mrs. Pyle found what so many others among them Zane Grey have found of peace, inspiration and fulfillment in the Payson country. But she recognized something that is often overlooked, that the kind of people who originally opened up this country and the ones who are attracted to it today very often are basically highly creative. She figured she would build an art studio and offer to share it with her fellow townsfolk.

There were some who scoffed, of course; but not for long. Many people came, most of them shy and a lot of them the most unexpected sorts, to accept her offer. Soon, in 1963, the Payson Art Center developed, and Mrs. Pyle provided instructors in drawing, ceramics, oils, water color and sculpture. Two large, modern studios were built and equipment installed. Soon, with a minimum of organization, the center was being used by people of a wide range of ages throughout most of the year.

Late in 1964 the attention of Arizona State University was directed to the facility and arrangements were made for ASU to offer a summer extension program there in the summer of 1965. The five weeks' curriculum included drawing, painting, ceramics, crafts for the elementary teacher, developmental social experiences in early childhood education, and children's literature.

So successful was the initial program that the university plans to run two five-week summer sessions in 1966 at the Payson Art Center. The courses are offered for credit or audit. Full information and schedules may be obtained by addressing Director, Summer Sessions, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. Results to date make a long continuing alliance between the Payson Art Center and Arizona State University seem probable. Already there is talk of expanding the variety of course offerings greatly in the near future and making this an established summer extension center. Indeed, some visionaries foresee when the undertaking will grow into a year-around extension center for ASU.

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY'S INTEREST in the Payson area is not new. For more than a decade it has maintained Camp Tontozona near Payson as a versatile facility. In September it is used as the site for early football training, when weather in the Valley of the Sun is too hot for strenuous conditioning and practice. At other times of the year the camp is used for student leadership conferences, offering a pleasant, quiet, invigorating environment in which students get away from the bustle of campus life and iron out problems. Again, it is used for field training in the earth and life sciences, for which the natural setting constitutes an ideal laboratory.

Interest in the earth sciences jumped considerably in the Payson country when the Tonto Forest Seismological Observatory was opened four miles outside of Payson. An operation of the Department of Defense's Defense Atomic Support Agency, it is the largest seismological observatory in the western world to date.

It is designated an experimental station for the testing of many types of seismological equipment and systems. While many of its activities are classified as defense information, it conducts basic research in seismology, with emphasis on determining the differences in the characteristics of natural earthquakes and those caused by nuclear explosions. Providing daily seismic information to the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, D.C., it occupies thirty-six square miles on the Tonto National Forest and operates ninety-five seismometer circuits, more than three times as many as were in use when it first opened.

The Payson site was chosen for the $3.5 million facility as the seismologically quietest of twelve site studies throughout the country. That means it had least seismic noise, the noise that results from minute vibrations in the earth caused by weather changes, movement of heavy equipment, nearby heavy motor traffic and so on. There are no nearby railroads, pipelines or power plants, some of the most disturbing influences on delicate seismic detectors, and Payson is situated on a good solid base of granite and thin sediments.

Access to the Observatory is, of course, limited, but patrolling the fourteen miles of roads penetrating the installation's 23,000 acres is very little problem. The instruments in use around the clock are so delicate they can

Of the three, the Mazatzal Wilderness Area is the largest and the most accessible. A good system of trails penetrates the eastern portion of it, and the Mazatzal Highline Trail rims along the tops of the Mazatzals from near Sunflower north to the East Verde. It is about thirty miles in length. Another trail crosses the northern end of the area, starting at the end of Forest Service Road 406 on the East Verde and ending at Forest Service Road 69 on Tangle Creek about ten miles southeast of the Tangle Creek Forest Service Administrative Site. It is about twenty-five miles in length. In the wilderness areas game is bound to be more plentiful than in more populated areas, while unexplored Indian ruins also are less likely to be disturbed. It should be pointed out, however, that there are strict federal and state laws prohibiting disturbing such ruins without a permit. Such permits are granted only to qualified personnel of accredited institutions. Amateur pot hunters,' by removing or displacing artifacts can and too often do make it impossible for the professional archaeologist to reconstruct accurately prehistory. While it may be more plentiful in wilderness areas, game is by no means limited to them in the Payson country. Animal life ranges from the scorpion, Gila monster and kangaroo rat of the desert to the elk, antelope, bear and mountain lion of the higher elevations. The variety is great. It includes, in addition to the species named, the omnipresent coyote, the bobcat, javelina, deer, fox, porcupine, badger, beaver, turkey, eagle, quail, dove, big horned owl, squirrel, chipmunk, jackrabbit and cottontail and other mountain and desert wildlife.

Let it be said promptly and loudly for the benefit of the timid that people tend to exaggerate greatly the danger from scorpion and rattlers in Arizona. "Scare-the-Dude" has been a popular campfire game since the days of the mountain men. But just remember, common sense and ordinary precaution prevail a lot more against wilderness dangers than they do, for instance, against traffic at Central and Adams in Phoenix or in Times Square in New York. In summary then as though anything so vast, so various and so timeless could be summarized the Payson country is a wonderland of peace and inspiring scenic grandeur. Fishing, hunting, hiking, camping, trail riding, photography, painting, boating and touring are only the more obvious delights it offers. For the botanist, the zoologist and the geologist, the plant collector, the bird watcher and the rock hound it is a never-ending, rewarding hunting ground. For the family it is not only a blessed refuge from summer heat but a fulfilling setting for growing, learning and exploring together. It offers, as Zane Grey suggested, the opportunity for Space Age man to return to his ancestral home in the forest and there to rediscover eternal verities.

CLIMATE COMPARISONS