Saga Of The Vulture Road

Saga Of The

Grand Avenue, which bisects Sun City, generally follows the route taken by the eight-mule teams that hauled freight from Phoenix to Wickenburg in the 19th Century. This desert freighting trail was called the Vulture Road.

In 1863, the German minerologist, Henry Wickenburg was prospecting in the hills overlooking the Hassayampa River. He decided it was time to move on but his little “Arizona Nightingale” (burro) had other ideas. Wickenburg muttered into his grizzled beard, “Maybe a well placed rock will change your mind, or, at least attract your attention!” He let one fly, then another, but both fell short of their mark. He picked up another rock and noticed that it was unusually heavy for its size . . . heavy with gold! As he staked his claim, a lone vulture eyed him from a nearby perch. Thus, the greatest gold discovery in Arizona came to be called the Vulture Mine.

The first town in Maricopa County mushroomed on the west bank of the Hassayampa where arrastras were set up to crush the ore from the Vulture. In October, 1864, this settlement was officially named Wickenburg, Territory of Arizona and by 1866 it was one of the largest cities in Arizona and missed being chosen as the capital by only two votes.

In 1864, John Y. T. Smith set up a hay camp in the Salt River Valley to supply the Cavalry at Camp McDowell. Jack Swilling, a Confederate soldier turned prospector, visited the camp in 1867. The idea of using the prehistoric Hohokam Canal System to support agriculture in the Valley struck Swilling. He organized the Swilling Irrigation Canal Co. and convinced Wickenburg miners to invest in the project which would lower their food and forage prices. Henry Wickenburg “blazed” the 54-mile Vulture Road in 1867, hauling men and supplies to the canals. Within a year wagons laden with produce were rolling to Wickenburg.

Among the canal builders was the English scholar-adventurer, “Lord” Darrel Duppa. Commenting upon the ancient ruins and canals in the Salt River Valley, he said, “A city will rise phoenix-like, new and more beautiful from these ashes of the past.” Thus, a gold mine named after a vulture led to the founding, in 1867, of Phoenix, named after the bird which symbolized resurrection in Egyptian mythology.

Other canal companies were established. By 1882, the Grand Canal was supporting a flourishing agricultural industry on the reclaimed desert east of Phoenix. Inspired by this success, the Arizona Canal Co. was formed to construct a waterway from Granite Reef, north of Mesa, to the arid plain west of Phoenix. William J. Murphy, who had just completed a stretch of the Atlantic and Pacific Railway (now the Santa Fe) in northern Arizona agreed to construct the Arizona Canal in exchange for proceeds from any water rights he could sell. He completed the 32-mile waterway and its 20 laterals in 1885 (the work took three years); then headed east to entice Illinois farmers to settle the new 38,000-acre irrigation district.

The Arizona climate started to attract winter vacationers from the east in 1896 when “snow birds” started the migration to Castle Hot Springs. There, centuries before, the Tonto Apaches had discovered hot “medicine waters” flowing from a mountainside. The venerable spa operates to this day on the site of the winter residence of the Territorial Governor, 24 miles east of Morristown.

By 1909, the Vulture Road had become a “grand avenue.” The Santa Fe now carried freight to Wickenburg, Flagstaff and points east. The Greenhut-Clarke-Wagoner Ranch was one of the largest shippers of cattle in the Valley. Peoria farmers were prospering. A few of them were beginning to experiment with cotton, a crop the Indians had cultivated by primitive means. The Agua Fria Water and Land Co. was developing 40,000 acres on the west bank of the Agua Fria River. This project was to bring about the construction of Carl Pleasant Dam 18 years later.

Vulture Road

It was incredible to think that in 1858, the Congress of the United States had accepted a report about the Arizona desert which said, "The region is altogether valueless. After entering it, there is nothing to do but leave."

R. P. Davie, a business adventurer from Marinette, Wisconsin was impressed by the growth and the potential of the area. He bought and leased thousands of acres between the New River and the Agua Fria and developed a deep well pumping system to irrigate his acreage which lay just beyond the end of the Arizona Canal. Following the example of the founders of Peoria, he platted a townsite named after his home town. Davie envisioned a city of industrious farmers and tradesmen when he wrote, "The men in charge of the destinies of Marinette are master craftsmen when it comes to the making of prosperous communities. We know how to take good soil, good water rights and good climate; get good people there; get the people united and busy. We are doing this at Marinette." Soon Marinette could boast a store, a boarding house and a few homes. The United States Post Office, Marinette, Arizona opened the year that the Territory achieved statehood, 1912.

Davie made his only mistake in 1918 when he gambled the future of Marinette on the sugar beet. By 1920 it was decided that the soil could not produce a sweet enough beet and Davie lost heavily. He sold his holdings May 14, 1920 to the Southwest Cotton Co. (a subsidiary of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.) for one million dollars, and the town of Marinette became a company compound. The affairs of Marinette were administered from Litchfield Park, seat of the Goodyear Cotton empire which had been established in 1916 when submarine warfare cut off the supply of long staple cotton from Egypt.

In 1936 the Marinette Ranch was sold to the J. G. Boswell Co., also of Litchfield Park. Under this banner Marinette produced as never before, but it produced crops, not people. As machines replaced men in the fields the population of the town dwindled. Finally much of the townsite was planted in cotton and lettuce. Progress had turned Marinette into one of the nation's most prosperous plantations rather than into the city envisioned by its founder.

A newspaper article comparing the Arizona town to Marinette, Wisconsin in the early 1950's said, "Marinette (Arizona) is all but gone now. Progress which built one town from a trading post to a population of 15,000 all but obliterated the other." By 1960, little more remained of the town than the sign on the Santa Fe right-of-way bearing the name, Marinette.

About five miles southwest of Marinette there is a sign on the Luke Air Force Base railroad spur bearing the name "Webb." Webb, Arizona was a construction camp established in 1941 by a young builder from Phoenix when he was awarded the contract to construct Luke Air Field for the U.S. Army Air Force. Today Luke Air Force Base is the largest facility of its type in the world.

While Del E. Webb was constructing a new community at Luke, he was building an organization that would master the art of community development. This was to have a profound influence upon the history of Marinette where, in 1959, the Boswells released cotton acreage to Webb to build a motel, shopping center, medical clinic, recreational complex with craft shops and art studios and a model home show. Orders were taken for four hundred homes and apartments during the opening month, January, 1960.

Whatever became of Marinette, Arizona? It became Sun City, Arizona - America's Most Famous Resort-Retirement Community.