The Council Called CAMP

If you chance to be on the Mogollon Rim in July you may glimpse a procession straight out of the past century: riders filing along the lip of a spectacular escarpment and led by a boyish-appearing individual on a wise white mule. This group will not be General Crook's officers; rather, most of those comprising it will be members of today's Council on Abandoned Military Posts (CAMP), undertaking a memorial journey over what they stubbornly insist is, or ought to be, "Crook's Trail," leading from one historic soldier post to another. "We feel this route has been misnamed the Zane Grey Trail," growled Robert E. Yount, who has the best of credentials as soldier, civilian and cornerstone of CAMP, as the organization is known in all 50 states. "This is the road Crook built in 1871-1872 to pass between Fort Whipple, at Prescott, by way of Verde to Fort Apache. The 200-mile ride this summer will commemorate its construction, the significance it held for the state's history, and how we feel about it."

Yount himself will not be the man on a mule, white or any color. Although a one-time cavalryman, his mule-riding days are over, if they ever in fact existed. The rider will be 37-year-old Marshall Trimble, president of the Arizona Department of CAMP, and astride his mule they will breathe as much nostalgia as the pair of them can manage. The ride will be typical of CAMP undertakings. It is an organization of Civilians interested in military things, history buffs, Old Soldiers, and others who simply enjoy outdoor rambling and eagerly seize upon any pretext for indulging this hobby. The organization's growing membership will hold its 10th annual national convention in Tucson late this month. About four or five years ago Yount idly researched forts, past and present, along the Colorado River, and inevitably came across the record of Martha Summerhayes. She wrote a book which is considered by enthusiasts to be a classic of the Southwestern frontier. It relates her experiences accompanying Jack Summerhayes, her 8th-Infantry lieutenant husband, on a harrowing tour of Arizona duty back in 1874. In its course Martha, her husband, and a good part of the regiment went up the Colorado River by paddle-wheel steamer that torrid August, and overland from Fort Mohave to Fort Apache, later visiting other sites important to the 19th century military. As Yount (who was to become national president of CAMP) read and envisioned the sufferings of soldiers of that period, the notion struck him to restage the trip on its 100th anniversary or, if not exactly duplicate it, at least retrace the course. And what better vehicle to organize and conduct such a trek than CAMP?

"After talking with some of our members, we decided to do it," Yount recalled. "The general sponsors were the Arizona and the Gila Departments(the two CAMP sections in Arizona) and the Mohave Department, which includes southern California and southern Nevada. We made stops along the way at such populated places as Blythe, Lake Havasu City, Needles, Kingman, Prescott, Camp Verde and Fort Apache. Speakers at each stop addressed groups of 50 to 200 people, the largest crowd, understandably, turning out at Camp Verde to hear Senator Barry Goldwater." Goldwater, a noted history and Arizona-enthusiast, is life member of CAMP.

Yount believes the 1974 Summerhayes Trek was a significant educational experience for the communities it visited as well as those individuals brushed by it one way or another.

The Council on Abandoned Military Posts was an Arizona creation from the beginning and the brainchild of Phoenix journalist Lloyd Clark. Clark, a colonel in the Army Reserve, now lives in Bisbee. Living as a youngster near the famous Fort Davis in west Texas, he had been distressed seeing that fort crumbling almost day-by-day into the soil from which it had been built. He believed something should be done to preserve it. In fact, this has been done, although not through CAMP but the National Park Service which has to some extent restored it and made Davis into a Southwestern showplace. Clark, with no way to read the future, could not foresee this, however.

He brooded about the fate of many a post which once had resounded to the iron hooves of Cavalry horses and piercing calls of drill sergeants. He thought of organizing something to “locate, memorialize, restore, preserve and pub-licize military establishments which no longer serve the roles for which they were created.” That would include most of the Army sites in Arizona which, after our various wars, had more such sites than almost any other state. Yount has a list, from War Department rec-ords, “of 110 sites within Arizona, rang-ing from overnight camps that became important in the official records to some that served as permanent posts.” They run the gamut from the present mud flat near the confluence of the San Pedro and Arivaipa rivers that was Old Camp Grant, which John G. Bourke who back in 1871 felt himself sentenced to and considered “the most thoroughly God-forsaken” post of all, to bright and bustling Fort Huachuca, the thriving electronics center near Sierra Vista, modern and up-to-date in every way except architecture and tradition. Huachuca today is the largest military post in Arizona by count of personnel.

“Only about 35 of the sites were of any military importance,” Yount con-cedes, adding, “From my personal experience, any post where I had to spend the night was important to me!” Fort Huachuca is a special case on another count, the veteran soldier points out. It is very active indeed (and its commander, Colonel Arthur V. Corley, is president of the Gila Department of CAMP), but it counts for council purposes as an “abandoned” post because it once had been abandoned, even if briefly.

Clark, enthusiastic with ideas for an organization devoted to the care and nurture of once-thriving soldier posts, sought converts.

The initial public announcement of the new body was made at the annual meeting of the Western History Association (a singular aggregation of professional and amateur historians) at El Paso on October 15, 1966. The Council swiftly drew a like enrollment: profes-sionals and buffs in about equal propor-tion, “a hardy stable of members, cutting across professions, ages, colors, sexes and other artificial profiles,” Hart recalls. “There were no barriers or pre-requisites for membership other than an interest in becoming a member.” CAMP soon commenced its own publication program to bind its people together, keep them informed, and tell anyone who reads their publications what the organization was about. It now publishes the monthly Heliogram, a news sheet edited by Hart, and the quarterly Periodical, a name chosen more or less by default because nobody could come up with a better title that everyone would accept.

The first regular annual meeting cemented Arizona's stake in the organization: it was held at Fort Bowie, just off Apache Pass in the southeastern corner of Arizona on the 105th anniversary of the incident which set Cochise on the warpath (and, incidentally, touched off 25 years of events which have attracted, intrigued, and confused history and frontier fans for more than a century).

CAMP is represented now not only in every state but through its military membership at least - foreign countries as well. Arizona was the first state to boast a Department of its own, and is the first to have two, being divided along the Gila River into the Arizona (Phoenix and the north) and the Gila (Tucson and the south) Departments because Arizona's rolls had grown to unwieldly size. The portioning helps make council activities more manageable and under better control of those belonging to it. CAMPers are concerned about more than formal Army posts.

"The concept includes military ‘sites,’ explains Yount. ‘In fact, we classified the Queen Mary (tied up off Long Beach, California) as an 'abandoned military post' because it was used as a troop transport in World War II, and there is a section of the ship still maintained in its military status.' The council is worried about identification and preservation of all military sites, from Spanish presidios to Air Force, Naval and Vietnam-period posts. Restoration as such is a very costly thing and the body simply does not have the resources to do much about it. Marshall Trimble, who is president of the Arizona Department, believed that identification rather than rebuilding is the thing, at least for the present.

"As our Arizona population increases, the threat to abandoned military sites rises proportionately," he says. "The necessity to do something to preserve them keeps pace. Some of these are on ranch property, others on National Forest land or other government holdings, where anybody can go in. It's even risky to spend a lot of time and money to fix something up there, because some yahoo will come along with his rifle and shoot it up."

This, he admits, presents CAMP with a quandry: naturally, the group wants to make the sites better known, and bring to attention many that have been dropped from living memory; yet, it also desires better protection for them.

Trimble thinks political leaders are in a position to help. "We need good public relations, all right. We want more publicity about what we are doing, and why, and the problems involved. And maybe we ought to focus public attention more on better-known sites such as Fort Lowell at Tucson, and Fort Bowie, where there is some protection. With regard to less-well-guarded places, we could mark them in some way, identify them for the serious student and future generations, while not specifying their locations too precisely. There's a conflict involved, to be sure."

Trimble believes that the Crook Trail ride this summer will be worthwhile in itself, and also as a public relations promotion to make CAMP better known among people who ought to be aware of its interests and purposes.

Dr. Eldon G. Bowman of Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, as chairman of the Trails Committee of the Grand Canyon Council of the Boy Scouts, is directing a marking project for the old Crook route. His volunteer youth plan to complete their job by July 4. They are erecting markers each mile of the 200-mile course from Camp Verde to the White Mountains, and clearing the roadway as they progress. This is a hefty task, since, for nearly a century, the trail has not felt the hoof of a mule, the rumble of a freight wagon, or anything else but the cautious tread of deer, lion, and hunter.

The ride is open to almost anyone with a saddle animal, a calloused seat, and historical determination, Trimble says. He adds that making the trip aboard a mule was his own idea. "That animal did more to civilize the West than anything else. He is a very authentic creature.

"That's what we want to bring to people: authenticity in this Bicentennial Year. Our events should not only dramatize the past but recreate it so people can know what their ancestors did and how they did it. CAMP seeks to present not a fictional view of history, but the raw, tough, bulldog tenacity, the experiences and the heroism, that converted Arizona and the rest of the continent, too from a raw wilderness to something approaching a peaceable, comfortable society."

Bookshelf

by Donald M. Powell Charles F. Lummis, the Man and His West. By Turbesé Lummis Fiske and Keith Lummis. University of Oklahoma Press, 1005 Asp Avenue, Norman, ΟΚ 73069, 1975. 230 pp. $17.50.

Archeologist Edgar Lee Hewett once described Charles Fletcher Lummis as author, editor, explorer, barbarian, artist, archeologist and ethnologist, librarian, linguist, humanitarian, philanthropist, teacher, preacher and entertainer. He was a turn-of-the-century renaissance man who coined the phrase "See America first," and brought the beauty of our region to the awareness of thousands. We have waited nearly fifty years for a sympathetic biography. Now here it is, and it's good.

Lummis was not an Arizonan; he was California based. But he explored extensively in the northern part of Arizona; he was correspondent for the Los Angeles Times during Geronimo's last campaign, and he wrote enthusiastically of Arizona's scenic grandeur.

His literary career began early (he was still a student at Harvard) when he printed his Birch Bark Poems, inspired by a summer in New Hampshire, on thin films of birch bark. He sent copies to his literary idols and received encouraging praise in return. A number of copies of this unique volume survive in libraries today.

Late in 1884 Lummis left Chillicothe, Ohio, where he had been managing his father-in-law's farm to cross the country on foot to California, a journey of 143 days which he later described in A Tramp Across the Continent. It gave him his first glimpse of New Mexico, Arizona, and southern California, and it made him a confirmed Southwesterner.

Lummis went to Los Angeles to work for the Times, and in 1886 he was sent to Southern Arizona to cover the last outbreak of the Apache wars. Perhaps because other interests took precedence he did not turn these experiences into a book. His dispatches, however, were published in 1966 in General Crook and the Apache Wars, edited by his daughter Turbesé.

When he was stricken by a paralysis in the 1880s Lummis returned to New Mexico and his friends the Chavez family. There and later at Isleta he gradually regained his health about which he also wrote a little book, My Friend Will. During this time he explored widely in the northern Arizona and New Mexico canyonlands, becoming intimately acquainted with the living Indians and the ruins of the civilizations of their ancestors. In 1892 he joined Adolph Bandelier on an expedition to Peru. After his return he began construction of his famous home in the Arroyo Seco, El Alisal, named for the giant sycamore in the courtyard. It was at this time he organized The Land-marks Club which was instrumental in the preservation and restoration of the great chain of California missions then fast falling into ruins.

The next twenty years were the high point of Lummis' activity as, with the dexterity of a juggler, he kept a half dozen careers in motion. In 1894 he began a fifteen year stint as editor of the magazine Out West which he turned from a chamber of commerce promotion journal to a magazine of national reputation which encouraged and published the writing and art of such later outstanding personalities as Mary Austin, Sharlot Hall, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Maynard Dixon, and Ed Borein. During this time he also organized the Sequoya League to promote better understanding of the Indians, and to ameliorate their lot. From 1905 to 1910 he was librarian of the Los Angeles Public Library, and the reports he wrote have become landmarks in library literature. He was also writing, publishing, making myriad friends, completing construction of El Alisal and entertaining baronially at his weekend "noises."

Over the years Lummis made a host of warm friends and admirers. Out-spoken, sharply candid some even said arrogant hating sham and pre-tense, he also made a goodly number of enemies. Opposition from some of these caused a break with the Southwest Museum not long after its opening. His last years were spent in a lengthening shadow. His three marriages had failed. Years of pushing his mind and body to the brink of exhaustion took their toll. Though he continued his many activities his biographers remark rather sadly he had outlived the community's need for him.

As a writer Lummis was at his best when he was most personal, and it is his own words that give this biography its special flavor. Before his death he was engaged on an autobiography As I Remember which remained unfinished. His daughter, Turbesé, and his son, Keith, have used it extensively, quoting it whenever possible and supplying bridging passages. It is lively reading and a fitting tribute to the man who became known as "Mr. Southwest."

Reptiles and Amphibians of the American Southwest. By M. M. Heymann. Doubleshoe Publishers, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1975. 77 pp. $4.95.

A handy new book for the amateur naturalist and anyone who likes to explore the Southwest's deserts and to call things by their proper names. Sixtyeight species of lizards, snakes, turtles and tortoises, frogs and toads and our one salamander are described and pictured. These are not all the desert species, of course, but the most common ones found in our Sonoran Desert and adjacent grasslands and woodlands.

Heymann provides excellent brief descriptions, and each specimen has been photographed in color against a light background for easy identification; the photographer is M. J. Fouquette of Tempe, Arizona.

Turquoise Treasures: The Splendor of Southwest Indian Art. Photography by Jerry Jacka. Text by Spencer Gill. Graphic Arts Center Publishing Co. 2000 N. W. Wilson, Portland, Oregon 97209, 1975. 96 pages. $19.50 hardcover; $9.95 soft-cover.

The current interest in turquoise and Indian jewelry has caused a spate of publications. Of them, this is surely the most beautiful. Gill provides the introductory text, a running account of turquoise, where it's found, and its use in Indian jewelry in the Southwest. Text pages are divided in two columns, allowing Gill to provide annotations on the use of turquoise in other parts of the world throughout history.

Jacka's photographs, richly repro-duced in full color, are dazzling. A few show early silver and turquoise work, but most illustrate the work of the finest contemporary craftsmen Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Pueblo. Readers familiar with Jacka photographs which have appeared in ARIZONA HIGHWAYS will need no further recommendation.

Yours Sincerely

Editor: This is the first letter I have ever written to any magazine editor, but the February issue of your magazine arrived in the morning's mail, and once having started Larry Toschik's superb story I was unable to put it down until it was finished.

Mr. Toschik is not only an artist with his brush but a poet with his pen. His beautiful words made a story as vibrant as the country about which he writes. You have to see Arizona with your own eyes to believe its varied and awesome splendor, and my husband and I relived again in memory our visit there in Mr. Toschik's brilliant portrayal of its wild-life in word and picture.

Editor: After receiving my first three issues of a gift subscription in rapid succes-sion, I felt that I must write. I was expecting a lot but I was simply over-whelmed!

Being native born to Mesa and spending a good deal of my childhood in various parts of Arizona, I find that the beauti-ful paintings and photographs make me homesick. It is my dream that one day we will retire to Arizona.

I really enjoyed the January issue and the Christmas issue was special, but. the February issue was something else. The paintings and sketches by Larry Toschik were fantastic.

I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed the February issue. I know we can expect a full year of enjoyment from your fine magazine.

Editor: You may not appreciate this letter and then perhaps you will. I have been reading and admiring over the years your ARIZONA HIGHWAYS and always loved the pictures of the extraordinary scenes and colors that exist nowhere else, probably in the world, and in no other magazine.

So today I receive the February 1976 edition and find pictures of Arizona animals, which exist in most parts of North America. Interesting, but this copy runs a very poor second to earlier issues and, to say the least, I'm badly disappointed. I recently subscribed for a friend in New York City and intended to subscribe for another friend. Now I think I'll wait to see if future editions come up to your former expertise. Those old ones were beautiful, extraordinary, and showed the real Arizona. The format was out of this world.

UNDER WATER

Editor: I was greatly surprised to see your back cover photo of the January, 1976 issue and its caption, "A red sandstone canyon carved by nature in the Lake Powell area dwarfs hikers." Anyone who has hiked and enjoyed the splendor of these canyons knows, sadly, that this canyon had been under water for ten years. The rising waters of Lake Powell have covered many such beautiful spots since 1963.

I feel it should have been mentioned that this nature carved canyon will no longer "dwarf hikers" unless they're equipped with scuba gear or diving bell. Your photography is outstanding but in the future please give your readers the full story when you picture the scenic wonders that have been lost to Lake Powell.

35mm COLOR SLIDES

This issue: 35mm slides in 2" mounts, 1 to 15 slides, 40¢ each, 16 to 49 slides, 35 each, 50 or more, 3 for $1.00. Allow three weeks for delivery. Address: Slide Department, Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85009.