HARQUAHALA AND BEYOND

HARQUAHALA & BEYOND: A Tale of Two Valleys

O'BRIEN'S OUTBACK: William Howard O'Brien, farmer, rancher, venture capitalist, is sixty-two, has dark hair, even features, and Irish-blue eyes that twinkle with amusement and flash when he's excited about something, which is often. The "Outback" is an enormous rectangle of desert, mountains, farms, ranches, lost mines, and ghost towns that stretches westward from Phoenix, to the Colorado River, arbitrarily enclosed on the south by Interstate 8, on the north by a line drawn from Wickenburg, on the west by the river, on the east, by Phoenix and environs.

It's not all Bill O'Brien's Outback. He owns and farms a piece of it in the Harquahala Valley and runs a ranch on seven hundred square miles of public lands. O'Brien, actually, is one of a sprinkling of people living and/or working in that often beautiful, even awe-inspiring, western land. We call it O'Brien's Outback, however, because he's a symbol of that big region, presiding, as he does, over so

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Just one and a half hours west of Phoenix, the 3000-foot-high Eagle Tail Range looms above the Harquabala Valley. Named for natural rock structures resembling eagle's plumage, the mountain supports spiny growths of saguaro cactus and ocotillo, scarletflowered candlewood. Below, the valley harbors cholla and hedgehog cactus and creosote bush. In spring, brittlebush ignites with yellow blooms, and purple scorpionweed, prickly poppies, penstemon, red brome, globe mallow, desert marigold, and owl clover carpet the region with blossoms. Jerry Sieve photo

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This map shows only a selection of points of special interest. For a detailed map, showing all the important highway and interstate systems, write or call for a free copy of our colorful 1985 Arizona Road Map: Arizona Highways Magazine, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009; (602) 258-1000 And he subscribes to and practices a philosophy of respect toward that land. Summed up: if you take from the land, you have to give back. Bill O'Brien takes... and he gives back. He takes from the soil by growing things on it, now mostly jojoba, the end product of which is a highgrade oil. Bill grows it mainly, we suspect, because he wants to help prove the merit of a new agricultural commodity suitable to arid land. O'Brien also cherishes and tries to protect the living things of the Outback. Once, some years back, he sold off some of his land for ranchitos and wrote into the deeds a provision that the land was then and forever to be a bird and wildlife refuge. “If somebody said, ‘I don't want to be in a bird and wildlife refuge,’ he couldn't buy it,” Bill says simply.

O'Brien also is the proud possessor of a Johnny Horizon Award from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. When he put in an airstrip to accommodate his Cessna 180, he saw a dump nearby, dug a hole, scraped the trash into it, and filled it in. One day a couple of guys in neckties and small-brimmed hats, looking like FBI, came and said, “You the man dug that hole?” O'Brien thought he was going to be arrested. Turned out they were there to award him for cleaning up the desert.

And, finally, O'Brien is involved in a number of things there in the Outback which, if you're drawn to this lovely, wild slice of Arizona, you might just want to see, or at least know about.

Like the Harquahala Valley itself. It's a shallow bowl, bisected by I-10, its sides formed roughly by the Harquahala Mountains, the Big Horns, the White Tanks, and the Eagle Tails (of which more later). Bill says “Harquahala” is Indian for “water there high up.” And it was sweet, saltfree well water which, in the 1950s, lured

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Arizona Highways (ISSN 0004-1521) is published monthly by the Arizona Department of Transportation. Subscription price $15 a year in U. S. and possessions, $18 elsewhere; single copies $1.75 each, $2 each outside U. S. Please send subscription correspondence and change of address information to Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85009 or call (602) 258-1000. Second class postage paid at Phoenix, Arizona.

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4/Arizona Highways Magazine

The Last Water Hole

There's that truism about how water doesn't run uphill. And then there's the Central Arizona Project, the exception.

Slicing diagonally through the Harquahala Valley and, in fact, the whole great western outback, the $3.5 billion CAP will-when finished-bring Colorado River water to Arizona's growing cities and thirsty farms. The water will be ladled out of Lake Havasu, pumped 824 feet up and over the Buckskin Mountains, and sent sluicing through aqueducts into the central and southern deserts. (The aqueducts are being fenced much of the way so that bighorn sheep and deer looking for a drink won't fall in. They'd never get out because the concrete walls are nineteen-feet high.) The statistics are staggering. Total lift: 2909 feet (more than a half-mile via fourteen pumping plants between Lake Havasu and Tucson). Length of aqueduct system: 333 miles. Amount of electricity needed in a normal year to deliver the water: 2863 million kilowatt hours, or enough to power 233,200 homes.

Maricopa County is first in line for CAP water.

A century of engineering dreaming come true, the Central Arizona Project is said to be the largest single water delivery project ever authorized by the Bureau of Reclamation. The section shown is just west of the Harquahala Valley, near Brenda. James Tallon photo Indeed, water from the Project has already been pumped into the Harquahala, which, as it were, sits at the head of the ditch in the western part of the county.

President Reagan will preside at a November 15, 1985, celebration on completion of the first leg of the CAP and delivery of water to Phoenix. The president will push a button which will open two six-foot flood gates, delivering a rush of Colorado River water to the City of Phoenix's Union Hills Water Treatment Plant.

Then come Pinal and Pima counties. When all the canals, dams, tunnels, and pumping stations have been completed in 1991, and the H2O finally flows, Arizona will have begun to drink from what Governor Bruce Babbitt aptly calls its "last water hole."

A TALE OF TWO VALLEYS

farmers out of the fast-urbanizing Salt River Valley so they could keep farming, population boom or no population boom.

"One day this area could become another Salt River Valley," said Stephen Martori, a Harquahala pioneer, who came to be known as its "lettuce king."

It almost has. Today some 30,000 acres are in cultivation, producing not only jojoba, but also grapes, grains, alfalfa, cotton, and almonds. The latter is grown on 2800 drip-irrigated acres.

Then there's the Eagle Tails, a spectacularly jagged range lying across O'Brien's land (and, incidentally, giving the spread its name-Eagle Tail Ranch). Look closely at a portion of the Eagle Tails' profile and you can see the trailing edge of an eagle's tail feathers.

Near the northeast end of the range sits Courthouse Rock. There the Clantons, of OK Corral fame, are said to have conducted a three-minute drumhead trial of some rustlers who stole their cattle. Which is to say, cattle they had stolen previously.

Back in the Eagle Tails is an unnamed canyon absolutely chock-a-block with petroglyphs. Those are the enigmatic symbols carved in rocks by prehistoric Indians along about the time of Marco Polo. The canyon is almost inaccessible. Photographer Jim Tallon and I had to be taken in via jeep by Bill O'Brien's friend, Peter Barbey, banker and anthropological buff. (There are more accessible petroglyphs at Painted Rocks State Park near Gila Bend, and we'll get to Gila Bend in a moment, because O'Brien is involved there, too.) In and around the Eagle Tails are place names bestowed by O'Brien, some of which are even beginning to show up on survey maps. Like O'Brien's Anvil. Andthere's Sada's Wash, after his wife. And Brownell Peak, after his friend, Ron Brownell. And Tortuga Mountain, so-named by Sada. Tortuga is Spanish for turtle. Sada raises turtles.

Out in the Eagle Tails also lies Bill O'Brien's lost/found gold mine, a fabled dig known as the Lost Frenchmen. Legend has it that in 1867 two Frenchmen pulled up with their pack team at a general store in Yuma and deposited 8000 dollars worth of freshly-dug gold. Then they left and were not seen again. It's told that some local hangers-on saw the gold and followed them and maybe killed them. Or perhaps they were done in by Apaches. The mine was never found...until one day when Bill O'Brien was out looking for stray cattle. He came on a concrete cistern and a half-mile away a shaft dug deep into the side of a steep desert slope.

Is it really the Lost Frenchmen? "I'm not sure," says Bill. "But I've flown every canyon there, and I haven't seen anything else like it." He even checked and found no claim had been filed on the Lost Frenchmen, and so he filed his own.

Finally, there's Gila Bend. If Bill O'Brien and R. W. McComb and Donald E. Weaver, Jr., have anything to do about it, Gila Bend is going to be a tourist attraction.

Dick McComb is town manager of Gila Bend. Don Weaver is chief archeologist of the Museum of Northern Arizona at Flagstaff. These two men, and O'Brien and others, plan to create an archeological park, built around the Gatlin site.

That's a major archeological dig, named for early owners of the land in question and located two miles north of Gila Bend. Those venerable desert dwellers of preColumbian times, the Hohokam, lived

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(LEFT) Mexican poppies bedeck the slopes of Saddle Mountain in the Harquahala Valley. Spring wildflowers abound during moist years but disappear quickly in dry times. The range once was treasured by amateur rock hunters as a source of an opal-like gemstone. Surface material, which once littered the area, long ago disappeared into collectors display cases. Larry Ulrich photo (ABOVE) A tiny barrel cactus finds a comfortable niche among the sharp-edged rock slopes of the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. Nature study is permitted in all areas, as is hiking and camping. But removal of any plant life (alive or dead) is illegal. Willard Clay photo

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Text continued from page 6 here a thousand years ago. What makes the site significant is two things: it's one of the westernmost of the Hohokam settlements, and it has a perfectly splendid platform mound. A platform mound-"pyramid," as it's sometimes called - is a series of circular walls or "cells" built one on top of another and filled in with earth to achieve a desired elevation. Why an elevation? Nobody is sure. Possibly for religious ceremonials. "It may relate back to Mexico and the whole idea of temples and elevated places being sacred," conjectures Don Weaver. Dick McComb says the Gatlin Site "plugs a hole in the history of the Hohokam people."

The site was partially excavated back in the 1950s. Then money ran out and the digging stopped. To protect the mound and its artifacts, everything was covered over with plastic sheeting and earth. But not before Bill O'Brien found out about it. He and his wife Sada rode up on horseback one day while the excavating was going on. "I asked if I could help, and they gave me a shovel," says Bill. "It rained, and I ruined a neat hat. But it's so superinteresting that I want to be a part of it."

Working closely with McComb and the city fathers, they have envisioned the

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(LEFT) Irrigation water from deep wells, and now the Central Arizona Project aqueduct, has transformed the vast Harquabala Valley from a dry desert plain to a Garden of Eden overflowing with cotton, cattle, lettuce, pistachios, apricots, grapes, and more. Photo credits, counterclockwise from top, Jerry Sieve, James Tallon, John Walker, James Tallon, Herb McReynolds. (RIGHT) Predating modern farmers by over 1000 years, the Hohokam civilization cultivated the fertile banks of the Gila River south of the Harquabala Valley. Today rock writings and ruins of their villages, fortresses, and lodges dot the deserts of Central Arizona. Illustration by Libba Tracy Gatlin Archeological Park, to in McComb's words "make history pay off for Gila Bend." A grant was obtained from Arizona State Parks to bring in Weaver and his museum for the development of a Gatlin Site "research design." Phoenix architect Gerald Doyle, who specializes in historical restorations, is in on the planning. Weaver's colleague, Laura Graves Allen, collections manager for the Muse-um of Northern Arizona, is helping McComb set up a small museum at city hall to show visitors what the Gatlin Site plans include.

Given the commitment of a hard-charger like Dick McComb and a practical dreamer like O'Brien, it could very well materialize. A Papago village might be installed there. Jeep tours could be taken with Papago guides to nearby Butterfield stage stations along the Gila River and to Fortaleza, a prehistoric fortified hill four miles northwest of town, with stone ram-parts to keep the enemy at bay. There's also the petroglyphs at Painted Rocks State Park and the route near there of the Mor-mon Battalion, that hardy troop which, during the Mexican War of the 1840s, hacked a wagon road from Santa Fe to the Pacific...the ground that felt the boots of Kit Carson...the location, near Painted Rocks, of the Oatman Massacre-a family of nine ambushed by Indians. Two sisters survived both sold into slavery-one dying in captivity, one rescued.

Another point of interest in the Harqua-hala Valley is Agua Caliente, not exactly a ghost town, rather a ghost resort. It was once a popular spa. Its hot springs attrac-ted a wealthy clientele that included early-day governor George W. P. Hunt. The hot springs dried up, and Agua Caliente went the way of the old mining camps. But the shell of the once luxurious twenty-two-room hotel is still to be seen. So are the remains of a swimming pool that General George Patton's troops put in during World War II while on desert training nearby for the North Africa campaign.

You get to Agua Caliente by leaving 1-8 at Sentinel, west of Gila Bend, and going northwest about a dozen miles. A pair of Phoenix lawyer-brothers, John C. and Coyt Hughes, bought Agua Caliente in 1975. John's son, John K., who's in real estate, says some renovation has been done on it, not to put it back in business but simply because "it would be a shame to let it go." The Hugheses have respect for fine old things like ghost resorts.

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Arizona Highways Magazine/11

BY BOB WHITAKER Harquabala's Pioneer Observatory

It was a tough climb for C. G. Abbot that hot spring day in 1920, as he led his pack mule up the tortuous five-mile trail to the summit of 5600-foot Harquahala Peak. Atop this remote Arizona peak, some 100 miles northwest of Phoenix, Abbot found his "Shangri-La."

In the clear desert air, he could see the volcanic plug of Castle Dome Mountain jutting up eighty miles to the southwest, with the rugged profile of the Hualapais standing out an equal distance to the north. For this pioneer astrophysicist, the amazingly clear air and cloud-free mountain peak would prove the perfect setting for a solar-radiation observing station to match a similar facility being constructed on a mountaintop in Chile. The two observatories would measure the sun's energy and its influence on plant and animal life on Earth. The Harquahala observatory was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution. Today, the weathered remains of the long-abandoned observatory are preserved and protected by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Eventually, the original building will be restored.

The Harquahala astrophysical observatory operated for five years, feeding information to scientists on the Earth's climate. Life wasn't easy atop the milehigh peak. Water was collected off roofs or brought over primitive trail by burros. Requests for provisions were signaled at night by Morse-code flashes to the tiny hamlet of Wenden.

Little remains inside the decaying observatory building today, but archeologist Fran Miller discovered a few of the original devices for measuring the intensity of the sun's radiation. These and other artifacts will go into an exhibit to be built at the site commemorating the tenacity and energy of these early Smithsonian astrophysicists.

Bob Whitaker is a Phoenix-based free-lance writer who specializes in the outdoors.

WELLTON-MOHAWK VALLEY:

About ninety miles to the west of the Harquahala lies the Wellton-Mohawk Valley, a monument to the modern miracle of reclamation. Framed by the Mohawk, Gila, and Copper mountains, and a topographical feature known as Castle Dome, the 65,000-acre valley was first farmed by gutty enterprisers in the late nineteenth century. They drew water from the Gila River, but the Gila sometimes flooded. And between floods it had a nasty way of disappearing because of upstream diversions for farms.

Seeking a more durable supply, the farmers drilled for water and got it. Well water, however, brought up salt. All that could be grown in salty soil was Bermuda grass seed, and the world can use only so much Bermuda seed.

Thus in the 1940s was born the Wellton-Mohawk Project, a splendid forty-two-million-dollar undertaking of the Bureau of Reclamation, to bring in clean, fresh water from the Colorado River. It's pump-lifted 187 feet onto the desert. An eleven-million-dollar drainage system has been put in to take excess water back to the Colorado, and a desalting plant is being built at Yuma to keep salt from splashingover into Sonora, Mexico.

Everything's up-to-date in the Wellton-Mohawk Valley, prompting visitations last year from representatives of thirty-five nations. The land is laser-leveled to minimize water consumption, and a “neutron probe” utilizing radioactive isotopes measures the amount of moisture in the soil and forecasts irrigation requirements.

The first farm to get Colorado River water was that of Harold Woodhouse, who'd left Garden Grove, California, in 1925 with a Model T, a trailer, and two mules. “You'll probably be back,” said a banker as he drove away, “and those mules will be in front.” Today the Wood-house farm-considerably larger-is being run by Harold's son, Bob, and grandson, Robbie, and there are grand-children coming up behind. The Wellton-Mohawk has that kind of stability. The Woodhouses fly not one but two airplanes and have their own private radio station for intra-farm communication.

The Wellton-Mohawk also has Arizona's largest cattle-feeding operation, the McElhaney Cattle Co., feeding-as of the moment of writing-no less than 87,000 head. “We own about a third of them,” said Gary Oden, who runs the place.

Doesn't the pervasive odor of 87,000 cattle munching sorghum-laced alfalfa, not to mention the inevitable aftermath, get a little much? “To us,” says Oden, straightfaced, “it smells like money.” Longtime Highways contributor, Joseph Stocker's credits include Reader's Digest, Parade, Family Circle, and National Wildlife. He is an avid bicyclist and swimmer.

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ARIZO

Being something of an almanac... a calendar...and a guide to Zane Grey. Owen Wister. Bret Harte. Mark Twain. If you call these writers old friends, then you'll want to meet up with them again. And also make some new friends in Tucson, November 14 through 17, when the Tucson Public Library hosts the conference "New Southwest/Old Southwest" at the Westward Look Resort. Part of "Writers of the Purple Sage: Origins of a National Myth," the project explores the interaction of past, present, and future in the Southwest's unique regional writing. Conference speakers include Edward Abbey, Rudolph Anaya, David Lavender, Tony Hillerman, Larry McMurtry, N. Scott Momaday, John Nichols, William Eastlake, and Anne Zwinger. For more information and registration, call Judy Lensink, 791-4029.

WRITERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE AMERICA'S UNCLE SIMMERS IN PHOENIX SALSA

America's most trusted newsman, the avuncular Walter Cronkite, subjects himself to the slings and arrows of his outrageous colleagues this month in a "Roast for the First," benefit for the legal defense fund of the Society of Professional Journalists/Sigma Delta Chi. The SPJ/SDX holds its seventy-sixth national convention in Phoenix, November 13 through 16, and the roast, featuring a panel of veteran journalists firing away in what promises to be a humorous battle of wits, is but one of many programs scheduled. The convention is expected to draw more than a thousand journalists and students from all over the United States. And after they've seen Phoenix in November, none will want to go home.

An Arizona aside: When the SPJ/SDX began at Indiana's DePauw University in 1909, the late Eugene C. Pulliam was one of its charter members. Pulliam later became owner and publisher of a large chain of newspapers including The Arizona Republic and The Phoenix Gazette and was a major force in Arizona's development.

A SPUR FOR HASHKNIFE COWBΟΥ

The prestigious Western Writers of America Spur Award for best nonfiction of 1984 went to Hashknife Cowboy: Recollections of Mack Hughes, by Stella Hughes, with illustrations by Joe Beeler. The book was published by University of Arizona Press with the encouragement of Arizona Highways. This magazine featured a chapter from Hashknife Cowboy in the September, 1984, issue. You can order the award-winning book, for $18.50, postage and handling included, from Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009.

WHERE THE JOBS ARE

Arizona will experience the fastest growth in employment in the nation-a 32.2 percent increase by 1990, says the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The next fastest growing states will be Nevada with 25.6 percent, Florida with 24.4 percent, Alaska with 24.2 percent, Colorado with 23 percent, and Utah, 22.1 percent.

OPEN ROAD TO ZUÑI HEAVEN

Recently U.S. District Judge Paul Rosenblatt granted a temporary restraining order preventing Northern Arizona rancher Earl Platt from interfering in the Zuñi Indian tribe's pilgrimage to "Zuñi Heaven," a sacred area consisting of two small mountains and a dry lakebed northwest of St. Johns, Arizona, where they seek "strength, wisdom, guidance, and long life for all mankind." The federal government set aside 10,000 acres encompassing the sacred land and relies on "voluntary agreement" of property owners in the area to let the Zuñi cross their land.

But the Platts objected, claiming the Zuñi cut fences, polluted water, and left gates open. Platt's neighbors filed affidavits saying they have never experienced any problem with the Zuñi pilgrimage.

ROTC POLO PONIES

The University of Arizona had a topranked polo team from 1922 to 1942. The ponies came from the U.S. Army's ROTC program, and the team earned expenses. The only money the school contributed to the team was $10.50 for a barrel of balls. The polo field was located where University Hospital stands today and a helicopter pad now covers the old stable site.

BRING WAMPUM

Just in time for holiday shopping, Pueblo Grande Museum, 4619 East Washington, Phoenix, kicks off its ninth annual Indian Market. Over 100 Indian artisans display and sell their work-everything from pottery to Kachinas to basketry to paintings-all at terrific bargains. In addition, the market provides Indian food and entertainment by Indian dance groups. Shop the Indian Market Saturday and Sunday, December 14 and 15. For information telephone 275-3452.

NIQUES FAIR GAME

Attention game poachers: stay clear of Arizona! Not only do poachers here face a court fine, but now the Legislature has empowered the Arizona Game and Fish Commission to charge violators for the animal. A Glendale, Arizona, man recently paid the court 1285 dollars for possession of a javelina and two deer. Then Game and Fish slapped him with a bill for 400 dollars for each deer and 200 dollars for the javelina-a grand total of 2285 dollars. For that kind of money he could have bought a few freezers full of filet mignon. The man also lost his right to fish and hunt in Arizona for five years and must take a hunter safety course before he can get another license.

Morning Star Band, Kawambe, the White Eagle Aztec Dancers, the Apache Spirit Dancers from Sacaton, Ballet Folklorico Primavera, Zum Zum Zum, plus La Mascarada, a music and dance extravaganza with costumes and masks by El Zarco Guerrero. Food and games also are part of the festival. For information, call 833-5875.

November 8 through 10: Fountain Hills. Fountain Festival of the Arts. An art show and auction plus refreshments surrounding Arizona's largest man-made fountain. Telephone 837-1654.

November 8 through 10: Wickenburg. Four Corner States Bluegrass Festival. Fiddles whine and banjos twang as the Southwest's top bluegrass musicians keep Wickenburg hopping day and night. Telephone 684-5479.

November 16 and 17: Glendale. Thunderbird Invitational Balloon Race. Nearly 100 balloons lift off from the American Graduate School of International Management's campus. Food and drink from all over the world delight earthbound spectators. Telephone 978-7208.

December 1: Tumacacori National Monument. Tumacacori Fiesta. The old mission comes to life with Native American and Mexican American singing and dancing, fiddlers, plus Indian and Mexican foods, crafts demonstrations, and an open-air Mass. Telephone 398-2341.

November 30 through December 2: Tempe. Old Town Tempe Festival of the Arts. Streets are closed in Tempe's restored downtown, and every type of art, craft, and entertainment fill Old Town for a weekend of fun and holiday shopping. Telephone 967-4877.

For a more complete calendar, free of charge, please write the Arizona Office of Tourism, Department CE, 1480 East Bethany Home Road, Phoenix, AZ 85014. All telephone numbers are within area code 602.

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER WEEKEND ADVENTURING

November 3: Mesa. Tenth Annual Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Festival. An afternoon filled with arts and artists from the indigenous Southwestern cultures celebrates the Spanish and Latin American tradition of exalting life by honoring the dead. Performing at the festival will be Walt Richardson and the