SAN BERNARDINO RANCH

Storm clouds lift to reveal the wide sweep of the San Bernardino Valley. As far as the eye can scan, mile upon mile of rolling grasslands tumble and merge into the distant purple of the surrounding hills. Fresh after summer rains, dense canopies of mesquite mingle with desert scrub in a spreading tangle of green. The landscape seems endless.

But if the expanse of country enthralls, the sense of history is equally panoramic.

From my vantage point on the Mesa de la Avanzada, “Mesa of the Advance Guard,” I survey a vista that for thousands of years has greeted a succession of wayfarers. Centuries before the first white explorers discovered the land now called Arizona, this fertile valley served as a major corridor for migrating Indians. In time, the grasses and streams attracted wandering Athabaskan peoples, the Apaches, who would prove so troublesome to Anglo-American pioneers. Next to arrive were the Spanish, in an imperial procession of conquistadores, missionaries, soldiers, colonists.

Indeed, the list of those who are believed to have traveled through the San Bernardino Valley reads like a who's who of Arizona history, so inextricably linked is this land with the state's early exploration and settlement.

Did Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions traverse the San Bernardino in 1536? Some historians think so. And how about Coronado in his 1540-41 expedition to the “Seven Cities of Cibola”? That, too, was probable.

Father Eusebio Kino, that tireless Jesuit missionary, is said to have reached the valley in 1694 during one of his expeditions throughout New Spain. Certainly Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, who founded San Francisco, headquartered here in 1773. The valley's strategic position prompted the Marqués de Rubí, Spain's representative, to advise construction of the San Bernardino garrison in 1775 that operated as a presidio until 1780. In 1846 the famous Mormon Battalion passed through. And 1849 brought a continuous flood of pioneers and prospectors who traveled the southern route in search of the goldfields and promise of California.

And then came Texas John Slaughter.

Of all the historic personages associated with this southeastern region of Arizona, it is John Horton Slaughter whose name remains synonymous with the San Bernardino. Confederate soldier, Texas Ranger, cattleman, Slaughter was a man of his times who embodied the frontier spirit that helped settle the West.

Born in Louisiana in 1841, Slaughter was three months old when his family moved to Texas. During a lifetime that bridged both the pioneer and modern eras of the growing Southwest, Slaughter garnered a reputation as a fearless gunslinger able to hold his own against any man. He also was remembered as a master tracker of anyone he judged a criminal.

Not a large man, Slaughter made up with skill and caution what he lacked in physical size. He stood about five feet six inches tall, but his accuracy with the double-barreled shotgun and six-gun increased his stature considerably. What's more, those eyes his wife Viola described as brown and “bright, with much laughter in them,” could fix a man with a steely glint that brooked no argument. “Hit the road,” was Slaughter's typical response to outlaws and other shady characters. As sheriff of Cochise County, he upheld order with the threat, “get out of Cochise County or get killed.” Most of the outlaws, who knew Slaughter as a man of his word, wisely chose to get out.

When Slaughter first moved to Arizona, it was under somewhat dubious circumstances. In New Mexico, he was accused of murder, although he maintained he killed the man in self-defense, and for a time he headed a list of undesirables whom the governor of New Mexico Territory itched to see arrested.

Whatever the circumstances, Slaughter's past deeds were soon exonerated. In 1886 Tombstone Democrats, seeking a man of courage and tenacity, convinced Slaughter to pursue election as sheriff. Until then, Slaughter had enjoyed a rather easygoing relationship with a number of outlaws; but once elected, he readily accepted his new responsibilities as keeper of the peace in a town where, five years earlier, Wyatt Earp and his men won their famous shoot-out near the O.K. Corral.

Indeed, in his two terms as sheriff-he was reelected in 1888-Slaughter did a remarkable job of ridding the 6200 square miles of Cochise County of lawless elements. At one time, the Tombstone jail was so filled with his prisoners it was labeled “Hotel de Slaughter.”By the time his second term ended in 1891, Slaughter had become an Arizona legend, a man of significant prestige who

San Bernardino Ranch

(LEFT) Authenticity: the fruit of the restorers' labors. At San Bernardino, workers scraped layer after layer of paint from the walls to find each room's original color, and interviewed old-timers to restore the original floor plan.

Although ranching has always been hard work, there was time for play on the San Bernardino. (CLOCKWISE, FROM FAR RIGHT) John Slaughter enjoying one of his favorite pastimes-being with children. A summer picnic with residents of the ranch. The children cooling off at one of several artesian wells that watered the lush grasslands. Joe Lee May, responsible for cooking for as many as 500 ranch employees and guests.

Underwritten by the Johnson Historical Museum of the Southwest, a private organization in Sun City dedicated to preservation of Old West history, the Slaughter ranch house project is a testament to the restorer's art.

Begun in 1982 and completed in 1985, the restoration was accomplished using Slaughter family photographs (of which there are a surprisingly large number), archeological and historical surveys, and the skillful direction of Gerald Doyle, a Phoenix historical architect. How do you tell, for example, what the original interior wall colors were? For Doyle the answer lay in scraping away layer after layer of wallpaper and paint until he reached the lime plaster. Only then could he know that the color immediately covering the plaster was original. Similar procedures were used in determining floor restoration.

Unfortunately, no interior photographs were available, but the floor plan was based on interviews with people familiar with the house, as well as Doyle's examination of the structure and foundations.

For its time, the ranch house was of an unusually gracious and open design. Up to that point, Arizona's territorial architecture had been mostly patterned along Spanish-Mexican lines. But the Slaughter Ranch introduced a decidedly Anglo-American flavor that may have been influenced by Slaughter's own southern background.

The main house consisted of six rooms on either side of a wide hallway, with a pantry, kitchen, bathroom, and cowboy dining room. The gathering area was a large living-dining room with a built-in china cabinet Slaughter ordered through a Sears, Roebuck catalog. Sears also provided the window in the far right corner of the room. Beneath the hipped roof with its imported redwood shingles was a porch extending the length of the south side. The turned columns of the porch today are exact replicas of those in use in Slaughter's time.

As my footsteps sound through the silent house, I think of the people who once called these rooms their own: John and Viola Slaughter; Grandma Howell; the family friend Edith Stowe; Bat, Slaughter's black servant; the grandchildren, foster children, and countless guests.

What kind of life did they experience, and what conditions did they have to conquer?

Despite the wealth of natural water, those days at the San Bernardino must often have been hard. After all, on a working ranch there are constantly chores to be done and mouths to be fed. During its heyday, as many as 500 people lived and worked at the ranch, including about 200 Chinese vegetable farmers.

Yet we know there were playtimes, too. The Slaughters loved picnics and would frequently ride into the nearby foothills for an evening's fun and a moonlight serenade. And the large pond, installed by Slaughter as an irrigation reservoir, was a summer swimming pool for all the ranch children.

Besides the main house, the ranch compound contained several other interesting buildings. Follow the cinder path to the car shed. The gun-toting sheriff moved into the twentieth century with ease. He is known to have owned at least six cars, including a 1912 Cadillac. The car shed holds a fully restored 1915 Model T Ford. Curiously, however, he never learned to drive.

North of the car shed is a large granary. Adjacent are the cook's room and commissary. Slaughter Ranch cooks were usually Chinese, the best known among them the temperamental Joe Lee May, who allowed no one in his kitchen save Viola and her mother. The commissary stocked necessary supplies for this self-contained community.

On the west side of the compound are two stone structures: the washhouse and the icehouse. The washhouse was used to iron clothes; the icehouse, to store 300pound blocks of ice hauled forty-five miles from Bisbee by freight wagon. Outstanding in the memories of ranch visitors were the large bowls of ice cream Viola would bring from the icehouse as a children's treat when chores were done.

San Bernardino Ranch

He was one of the founders of the smelter town of Douglas in 1901. He deftly handled real estate and banking concerns. From 1892 to 1920, he added to his San Bernardino acreage, developing artesian wells and cultivating some 500 acres of farmland.

He reentered public service when in 1906 voters elected him as Cochise County representative to the 24th Territorial Assembly in Phoenix.

The San Bernardino was probably the first private home in this part of the Arizona Territory to have a telephone. In 1896 Slaughter acquired the Army Signal Corps line that had been strung from Tombstone to the ranch. When he left the ranch in 1921, telephone service ended and was not reestablished until 1983.

"You get a sense of a very remarkable man," observes Harvey Finks, volunteer treasurer of the Johnson Historical Museum of the Southwest, who has logged thousands of hours in the ranch restoration project. "But he was never a careless man. He lived during very difficult times and knew what he had to do to stand up for what was right. At the same time, he always believed he would die peacefully in his bed, with his boots off."

The courage that marked Slaughter's tenure as sheriff did not wane with age. As the story goes, in the fall of 1915, Slaughter saw Pancho Villa's army pillaging his ranch below the border. Now seventyfour years old, he saddled up to confront the intruders. Pancho Villa should have known better. When Slaughter returned, he carried twenty-dollar gold pieces in his saddlebags in payment for the damage.

At its most prosperous, the Slaughter Ranch bustled with people and produce. Daily baking needs included thirty-four loaves of bread, as well as biscuits, cornbread, rolls, pies, cakes, and cookies. The garden included a vineyard and a strawberry patch, and there were orchards with figs, apricots, and apples. Meat and milk came from the ranch cattle, but butter came in wooden tubs from town.

And there were always children at the ranch. The Slaughters took in several orphans. One of Slaughter's favorites was the Apache child known as Apache May, or "Patchy," whom Slaughter brought home one day after a reprisal raid against a hostile camp. The girl lived with the Slaughters until she died from burns received in an accident when she was about six years old.

That the ranch household ran as smoothly as it did is a testament to the management skills of Slaughter's second wife, Viola. Slaughter married his first wife, Eliza Adeline Harris (called Addie), in 1871; they had four children, of whom two died in childhood. In 1878 Addie died of smallpox. When Slaughter married Viola in 1879, she was more than happy to be mother to his two children. She and Slaughter spent forty-three years together.

With the murder of his longtime friend Jess Fisher in an attempted robbery at the ranch in 1921, Slaughter decided to move into Douglas. Less than a year later, on February 16, 1922, the eighty-one-year-old Slaughter died as he had predicted: quietly in his sleep. Viola lived for another nineteen years, until April 1, 1941.

Five years before she died, Viola Slaughter sold the San Bernardino Ranch to a family friend, Marion Williams. His family held title until 1968, when the place was bought by Paul and Helen Ramsower, the last private owners. They, in turn, sold the ranch to The Nature Conservancy in 1980.

The historic significance of the Slaughter Ranch was recognized on August 7, 1964, when a preserve of about 180 acres, including the ranch buildings, was entered on the National Register of Historic Places as the San Bernardino Ranch National Historic Landmark. In 1982 the Johnson Historical Museum of the Southwest and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to purchase the Slaughter homesite. Of this the Johnson Museum took title to about 131 acres. Already it has spent more than three-quarters of a million dollars on the property and the restoration work goes on.

The rest of the acreage is now known as the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, operated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This unspoiled area, so loved by Slaughter, is a haven for mule deer, javelina, and at least 216 species of birds.

Concerned about the education of the ranch children, John and Viola operated a school-Slaughter School District No. 28-from 1902 to 1911. The building no longer remains, but it probably stood across the pond from the main ranch house, near a grove of cottonwood trees.

Ranch ruins today include the Howell House, about 330 feet north of the international boundary fence. Then there is the Mormon House Ruin, located southeast of the main ranch buildings. Thought to be the home of a Slaughter employee, the adobe structure straddled the border so that two wives could be legally housed-one in the United States and one in Mexico. Other points of interest are the corrals, the cemetery, and what is left of the U.S. military encampment established here in response to the Mexican revolution. Located on top of Mesa de la Avanzada, the Slaughter Ranch Outpost was an auxiliary of Camp Harry J. Jones during its twenty-three year existence, 1910 to 1933.

A closer look at Slaughter reveals a man of intriguing versatility and scope. In his lifetime, Slaughter witnessed the abolition of slavery, the opening up of Arizona, the end of Apache hostilities, and the gradual taming of a territory.

Always at home in the saddle, Slaughter was just as comfortable in the boardroom. As one of the directors of the International Land and Improvement Company, Of particular interest are two species of endangered fish, the Yaqui topminnow and the Yaqui chub, which refuge manager Ben Robertson is reestablishing in the springs and ponds. In addition to the fish, the large pond at the ranch complex has the distinction of claiming its own species of snail, the San Bernardino snail. Another exciting aspect of refuge management is the attempt to re-create the cienegas, or marshes, that characterized the area in Slaughter's time. If the project succeeds, the grassland, much drier and less green today than it was a hundred years ago, will gradually be returned to its former lushness. And so the Slaughter Ranch will remain a symbol of pioneering history for generations of Arizonans to enjoy and remember. As I look over the grassy valley once more, I recall words attributed to Viola Slaughter during an interview at her Douglas home in 1937: "I shall never forget the first sight of the ranch from Silver Creek-the valley stretching out before us, down into Mexico, rimmed and bounded by mountains all around. Nor shall I forget the thrill of knowing that it was all ours, our future lay within it. It was beautiful. I shall look down over that valley several times before I am 105 and recall all the happiness our work, struggles, and play gave us at the San Bernardino."

Spoken by the woman who stood alongside one of Arizona's most illustrious figures, those words are a fitting tribute to an era we will not experience again. An era of exploration, expansion, and change; of outlaws ousted and cattlemen kings. An era of the man called Texas John Slaughter and his ranch in the lovely San Bernardino Valley.

Selected Reading

The Southwest of John H. Slaughter, 1841-1922, by Erwin A. Allen. A. H. Clark Co., Glendale, California, 1965.

The Cochise Quarterly, Volume 15, No. 4, Winter, 1985. Cochise County Historical and Archeological Society, Douglas, Arizona.

Arizona Ranch Houses, by Janet Ann Stewart. Historical Monograph Number 2, Arizona Historical Society, Tucson, 1974.

Gateway to history-the entrance to John Slaughter's San Bernardino Ranch.

San Bernardino Ranch National Historic Landmark is sixteen miles due east of Douglas, in Cochise County. From Douglas follow 15th Street out of town-it becomes the Geronimo Trail. Stay on the Geronimo Trail for a direct, easy drive to the ranch, which you will enter through a white gate beneath a large Z representing John Slaughter's cattle brand. Officially opened to the public in April, 1985, the San Bernardino Ranch National Historic Landmark welcomes visitors every Saturday and Sunday, from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. It is open Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday by appointment only. You are asked to leave a donation of two dollars per adult and fifty cents per child under twelve years. Visitors to the main ranch compound can also walk (driving is not allowed) to Slaughter-related ruins nearby. These include the corrals, the cemetery, the Howell House, and the Mormon House. For a broad view of the main house and the valley, climb the wooden stairs up to the old military encampment just northeast of the ranch, on the Mesa de la Avanzada. The perspective is well worth the extra effort.

If you prefer a more sedentary approach, head for the ranch commissary to watch up to six hours of Walt Disney's rendition of the life and times of Texas John Slaughter. No additional donation is necessary. As of now, the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge is closed to the public because of inadequate visitor facilities. But there are plans to provide a parking lot as well as nature and hiking trails. The deli-cate ecology of the area dictates that no camping or motor vehicles be allowed beyond the main ranch compound. For an appointment at the ranch, call (602) 558-2474. Ask for Bob or Brooks Clark, the husband and wife care-takers. For historical information about the ranch, call the Johnson Historical Museum of the Southwest at (602) 9334333 and ask for Harvey Finks. The address is P.O. Box 1897, Sun City, AZ 85372.