We Hope You Liked Apache County

BY: R.C.

If you have been patient enough to have stayed with us since page one in this tour of Apache County, we hope we have whetted your curiosity and traveler's appetite enough for you to pursue for yourselves some of the highways and byways our tour conductor, Jo Jeffers, has dangled before us so invitingly and with such tantalizing promises of travel pleasure and scenic delights to be realized and savoured not in the pages of a magazine but in on-the-spot viewing. If this sounds like a blatant travel plug, don't misunderstand us, it is!

Apache County is a skinny county hardly more than fifty-five miles wide at its widest, but what it lacks in width it makes up in length, stretching some 270 miles from the Utah border on the north southward along the New Mexico border to a place where the Black River makes its southernmost bend before it swings westward to join the White to form the Salt.

People-wise, Apache County is not numerically impressive. The last official count we have gives the county an estimated population of 46,500 as of July 1, 1968. This compares with the official U. S. 1960 census count of 30,438, which count in that year gave us the rather startling figures that the county had 6,835 white persons and 22,814 Indians. The county seat, St. Johns, has an estimated population of 1500, (McNary is slightly larger) and has always been a favorite community of ours because one of our esteemed photographers, Wayne Davis, whose work is much with us this issue, was born there and lives there. People-wise, we can honestly say, Apache County is not overcrowded, and, perhaps, that is its greatest charm.

Scenery-wise, Apache County is big, big, big, containing large slices of two Indian reservations, the lands of the White Mountain Apaches and the Navajos; a big slice of one of America's outstanding National Parks Petrified Forest and the surrounding El Desierto Pintado, so named by the first Spaniards who came through in 1540, and a descriptive name we have not improved upon when we call it in translation The Painted Desert (in case you are interested the Navajos in their own poetic way call it Halchitah, "amidst the colors"; a canyon wonderland encompassed within the boundaries of Canyon de Chelly National Monument; big slices of Sitgreaves and Apache National Forests and everything imaginable in between including lakes; trout streams; empty spaces; sculptured, eroded and wind-swept landscapes; dreamy distances; a history hallowed river, the Little Colorado; and wonderful people.

We hope you have liked our brief presentation of Apache County. We know you'll love old Apache when you know it better.

May all the miles down which we have directed you in this issue be miles full of smiles and happy travel miles for you and yours.... R.C.

TUMBLEWEED

God and the wind blew a tumbleweed as far as here, where my street begins. In the fall of night I carried it home. Tomorrow using a can of paint I will gild its round secrets. Hung from my living room ceiling I picture it fragile and fair as snowflakes. God and the wind wanting to borrow my can of paint are planning to decorate holidays; days ahead.

DESERT GUILLOTINE

All day the sky has ripened, Growing brighter and the sun, Shimmering nervously, slips closer Toward the jagged horizon, Which leans against the final blue With the arrogance of a sharpened knife Now the span is ending, and The sun begins to flush with A deeper fear. And yes, the purple ridge Of the mountains rises higher, Like an evil blade The black tomahawk falls And the sky splits like a ripe fruit, Flooding our thirsty sands with The spattered stains Of its final, crimson scream.

PHOENIX NIGHTS NOW AND THEN

Innumerable colored lights scintillate Across the jeweled velvet night Where once candles softly gleamed From lonely desert homes.

THE WORD

You spoke light, expanding light, scattering a million galaxies of prismed stars, shattering night.

AN ARIZONA DAY

I shall remember this day: A sky bell-flower blue, Air clean and crisp With daisy-yellow sun. A day larger than a day, A signal one, With mountains marching Across the back-drop of the world.

GOIN' FISHIN'

"Now what are you doin'?" I asked my friend Jeb, "I'm repairin' to go fishin' tomorrow," he said.

"Repairin'," I said, "Why you silly old goat, "Repairin' means fixin' something that's broke."

"If repairing means fixin,' that's what you said, "Then I'm FIXIN' to go FISHIN' tomorrow," said Jeb.

Yours Sincerely "PRESCOTT'S FAMOUS FLYING GRANDFATHER:"

I am sending you a clipping from the Prescott COURIER, dated Feb. 11, 1969. It tells about our famous "flying grandfather," Max Conrad, trying to circle the globe in his Piper Aztec by way of the North Pole to the South Pole and his meeting with a copy of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS in the strangest of places.

OF GLORIA MAXSON:

I have here your ARIZONA HIGHWAYS for Feb., 1969. I have always enjoyed this magazine very much indeed, but I was especially thrilled when I came to the page, "I Sing of Desert" by Gloria Maxson. The little writings enhanced the illustrations and the arrangements and photographs complemented the writings.

I was especially pleased to find this. When Gloria was in the fourth grade I was privileged to be her teacher. Even at this early age she was writing fluently and with rhythm and imagination. It is very gratifying to find that she is still using and enjoying this creative ability.

OATMAN STORY: CONTINUED

I was away from home more than three months the last part of 1968 and am just now getting at my magazines. As I was sorting them and came to your Nov. issue, I had to take time out to look at that as am interested in birds but when looking inside found another article even more interesting "The Oatman Story,"

I have the book "Captivity of the Oatman Girls," and have read it many times. In the front is written Mrs. Lucinda Crump was my grandmother and Mrs. Rozetta Stone my mother, each the oldest daughter in the family. As I have no daughters and the oldest son and family do not care to read I shall give the book to my youngest son as he and his children like to read.

Also in the book in my grandmother's hand writing is the following: "This goes to Rosie Stone and her family to be kept in the family. Mr. Oatman is Rosie Stone's great uncle by marriage." Then in the back is a newspaper clipping of the death of Lorenzo Oatman at Red Cloud, Nebr. Oct. 8, 1901, age 64 years.

Now you see why that article was of so much interest to me.

BACK COVER

"NELSON LAKE NEAR US 666" BY WAYNE DAVIS. This lovely little lake is located near Nutrioso on Nutrioso (noot-ree-oh-so) Creek in Apache County. It was named after Edmund Nelson, a farmer and rancher, who first used the waters of the creek in 1891. Lake capacity is about 500 acre feet. Anglers coming early in the season to this lake generally are rewarded with good trout catches. Nutrioso is a small village at the south end of Dry Valley and was settled in the 1870's by Mormons. The name came about in a curious way. Settlers there in early days killed a nutria (Spanish for "beaver") and an oso (Spanish for "bear"). 4x5 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f/11 at 1/25 sec.; 270mm Tele Arton lens; late afternoon in mid-September. "CANYON CARVING CANYON DE CHELLY" BY WAYNE DAVIS. This view of Canyon de Chelly National Monument was taken from the White Sands Overlook on the Rim Road. This area is in the Navajo Indian Reservation in the northern part of Apache County. "Chelly" is pronounced Shay. It is a Spanish word for the Navajo name for the area: tseyi, meaning "among the cliffs." Navajos living in the canyon today are called ceyini, "Canyon de Chelly people." 4x5 Linhof camera; f/16 at 1/25 sec.; 150mm Symmar lens; side lighted on a late afternoon in October.