Charles Poston, Father of Arizona

After a century of frequent overgrazing by “alien” animals, much rangeland in the Southwest has been virtually denuded of nutritious grasses. Now, ironically, there's a strong movement afoot to utilize those same alien grazers as agents in restoring the health of natural grasslands.

(THIS PANEL) Grama and love grasses on the Buenos Aires Ranch, now a Fish and Wildlife Service refuge.

(INSET) “Welcome” sign greets hunters at a ranch near Wickenburg. With holistic management of grassland, game populations tend to increase.

HOLISTIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT: The Ecosystem Doesn't End at the Fence

TEXT BY JAN BARSTAD PHOTOGRAPHS BY RON AND JAN BARSTAD Every afternoon, Peggy Knight rattles through a Date Creek Ranch pasture in a little blue truck, chased by 150 cows. For anyone who believes that cows are all brisket and no brains, the scene is instructive: Peggy and Phil Knight have trained their Braford cattle (a Hereford-Brahma cross) to come when called. Usually Peggy doesn't have to call: when they hear her approaching, the cattle gather in anticipation, then follow at a run as she

Peggy Knight and busband Phil are owners of Date Creek Ranch (ABOVE AND BOTTOM). This ranching family is working to rescue a Joshua tree and buckwheat brush rangeland northwest of Wickenburg through the application of a technique developed by Zimbabwe wildlife biologist Allan Savory. Holistic Resource Management or HRM is seen as a specific tool for solving severe problems associated with desertification. (OPPOSITE PAGE) An HRM group in n Northern Arizona meets to brainstorm a rangeland problem at the Metzgers' Flying M Ranch near Mormon Lake. Though the scene at Date Creek may appear frivolous, it has a serious purpose: no less than the rescue of the Joshua-treeand-buckwheat-brush rangeland northwest of Wickenburg. The Knights are two of a growing number of ranchers who seek to bring Arizona's overgrazed ranges back to health by means of a technique called Holistic Resource Management. Its advocates describe it as a technique or a model, not a system. HRM is a flexible tool for solving problems, primarily those associated with desertification of rangelands. It was devised in the 1970s as the Savory Grazing Method by Allan Savory, a wildlife biologist from Zimbabwe. SGM became HRM in 1984, when Savory founded the nonprofit Center for Holistic Resource Management in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The principles of HRM are based on Savory's observations that wild grazing herds in Africa, sweeping through a grassland, leave behind trampled vegetation and seeming devastation; yet lush grass results after the next rainy season. In the American West, where fencing and overgrazing by domestic livestock are common, Savory reasoned that a rancher could establish a grazing "cell" with paddocks, through which he could move his cattle to simulate the movement of wild herds, and bring back the grass. But a rancher's grazing ecosystem doesn't end at his fence line. Savory incorporated a concept called "holism" to provide for the ecosystem. Holism rests on the belief that the determining factors in nature are wholes, not parts. "An ecosystem is a series of interrelationships among plants, animals, soil, water, and human beings," Savory says. "Change one part and you affect the rest."

Holism is one of four important keys missing from typical thinking about the ecosystem, Savory believes. Second is time: overgrazing is caused, not by numbers of animals, but by the length of time the growing plant is exposed to them. Third is recognition of the difference between "brittle" and "non-brittle" environments. Brittle environments (Arizona, for example) are characterized by unreliable, poorly distributed rainfall and slow, top-down plant decay; simple, unstable plant communities form when the land isn't grazed, and widely-spaced plants separated by bare ground result when the plants are overgrazed. Non-brittle environments (such as the northeastern United States) recover quickly with rest; brittle environments may recover well at first, then slip back toward instability.

Third is recognition of the difference between "brittle" and "non-brittle" environments. Brittle environments (Arizona, for example) are characterized by unreliable, poorly distributed rainfall and slow, top-down plant decay; simple, unstable plant communities form when the land isn't grazed, and widely-spaced plants separated by bare ground result when the plants are overgrazed. Non-brittle environments (such as the northeastern United States) recover quickly with rest; brittle environments may recover well at first, then slip back toward instability.

Fourth, the two kinds of environments respond differently to the effects of herding animals. Brittle environments react favorably when churning hoofs open the soil to water penetration and trample in seed and organic material.

With holism as an integrating concept, Savory began to develop and refine "the Model."

An HRM rancher will often ask another who's puzzling over a problem, "Have you

HOLISTIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

run it through the Model?” The schematic Model is a device for setting goals and describing a desired landscape, and determining the production needed to achieve both. It also describes how the ecosystem functions, the tools available to improve it, and the guidelines for testing the tools' effects on the ecosystem, society, and profit margin.

Use of the Model isn't limited to grazing. Bob Archuleta, land operations officer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Window Rock, put it to work on Navajo Indian Reservation fish ponds.

“The fish we stocked in our highcountry ponds were dying in winter, and we couldn't understand why,” he explains. By use of the Model, he could follow the water cycle. The ponds iced over, and snow cover kept sunlight from penetrating through the ice. Without light, underwater plants couldn't produce oxygen, and the fish died. To keep the ponds from freezing, Archuleta installed windmills that turn underwater propellers. Now the fish live through the winter.

Ranchers interested in HRM start by taking a core course, “HRM in Practice,” at Albuquerque or certain other Western locations. Savory and the center staff teach use of the Model, goal setting, team building, and brainstorming. They also teach planning, including the all-important technique of biological planning.

Grazing cells were first designed as a series of pie-shaped paddocks with a hub for water. But size of the grazing area is more important than shape, along with number and growth habit of plants, number of animals, and the length of time they may graze in each paddock. The rancher monitors plants, animals, and soils to time the move to the next paddock.

Most important is planning. Savory admonishes his students, “Don't play cowboy. Do your planning on paper.” “Plan, Monitor, Control, Replan” is the HRM motto. Ranchers must plan for such crises as drought and fire as well as for normal conditions in order to avoid unpleasant surprises.

Planning pays off. When June bug larvae infested the Flying M Ranch near Mormon Lake in northern Arizona, the grass on thousands of acres died. Herb Metzger and his family could weather the disaster because they knew where they had extra forage. When Date Creek Ranch faced expectations of drought, the Knights located sources of inexpensive feed. They were able to cancel the order when summer rains came in time, “but we had sources if we'd needed them,” says Peggy Knight.

HRM arrived in Arizona via Spurlock Ranch near Navajo, in the northeastern part of the state. Brothers Pat and Ted Spurlock heard Savory speak before a group of ranchers, and Ted went to Africa to learn the method. In 1979 the Spurlocks developed the first Savory grazing cell in the United States. Others followed suit: Flying M, Bar T Bar, Date Creek, ranches in southeastern Arizona, the San Carlos Apache tribe, and the Navajo tribe. The U.S. Forest Service experimented with goats in chaparral country (see "A New Look at an Old Range Management Technique," Arizona Highways, March, 1987).

HRM schools now attract nearly a thousand participants yearly: farmers, ranchers, foresters, wildlife specialists, environmentalists, and agricultural extension agents. Tribal communities and third-world countries send delegates for instructor training, and the center offers a degree program in resource management. In 1987 the center's membership stood at 1,600 individuals and families worldwide. HRM branches have formed in eight states; Arizona's now has 184 members.

HRM has its critics. Some environmentalists believe that the only solution to overgrazing on public lands is removal of all livestock. Since only two percent of U.S. beef is raised on the Western range, they argue, all of it could be raised on wellwatered pastures east of the Mississippi. Wildlife advocates blame cattle for using forage needed by wild animals and also for destroying habitat, especially along streams. Others contend that large grazing mammals have not been a part of the Southwest's natural ecosystem for the past 12,000 years. Some academicians and government land stewards see intensive grazing as the road to final ruin of the range and accuse Savory of convincing ranchers they can double and triple-stock their ranges without controls. Some call him the "guru of grass," a derisive title that makes him wince. One scientist flatly calls the center's schools a scam.Many sportsmen feel locked out of public lands by ranchers' fences; and traditionalists just want to ranch as their fathers did. Tonto National Forest Supervisor Jim Kimball questions any grazing scheme that might cause a setback to gains made on forest lands. "Seventy percent of our allotments have improved through better management," he says. "There are HRM operations on the Tonto, but I'll wait and see. The returns aren't in yet."

Nick McDonough, supervisor of ApacheSitgreaves National Forest, says bluntly, "If our HRM operation doesn't do better, we won't start another."

On the other hand, the Arizona State Land Department has a written policy governing use of HRM techniques on its trust lands, one requiring ranchers to attend the center's schools before starting HRM projects.

Defenders appear in unexpected places. Dr. Robert Ohmart, professor of wildlife biology at Arizona State University and riparian habitat specialist, believes that HRM has real potential and is pleased that riparian areas are distinguished from other habitats because they require different management.

Steve Gallizioli (now retired from the Arizona Game and Fish Department), long outspoken about overgrazing on public lands, says simply, "HRM is ecologically sound."

At Salt River Project, Water Rights Division Manager Bill Warskow heeds Allan Savory's warnings about deteriorat-ing watersheds, one of the most pressing land problems faced by growing human populations. "We've lost about 190,000 acre-feet of capacity in Roosevelt Lake, from erosion off the watersheds, since Roosevelt Dam was completed in 1911," he says. "That's 2½ times the capacity of Saguaro Lake." The problem isn't drought but a change in the type of plant cover caused by man's management of watershed vegetation. Warskow estimates the replacement cost of that much water at nearly $57 million."

"Reservoir capacity is decreasing at a time when Arizona's cities need increasing amounts of water," he points out. "HRM may be a tool we can use to halt erosion on the upland areas that catch most of our rainfall." Arizona's overgrazing problems date back a century. During the early years, ranchers overstocked with only profit in mind. Government agencies established control over some range practices, but today's ranchers are left with a legacy of damage and anger. Those who believe that Holistic Resource Management can repair the damage work with agencies and environmental groups to plan wise resource use. Don Charles, planning for his allot-ments in Prescott National Forest, includes on his planning team a soil scientist, forest rangers, and representatives of Friends of Prescott National Forest, the Sierra Club, and the Audubon Society.

HOLISTIC RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

"We have to keep reaching out," Charles says. "It's taking time for people to believe we want to work with them." He belongs to Yavapai Management Club, whose HRM members support one another and give tours to interested groups. HRM ranchers in southern Arizona formed a manage-ment club last spring.

At Date Creek Ranch, the Knights have posted signs at their gates, welcoming hunters and asking for cooperation for their project.

The Metzgers at Flying M see many more elk on the ranch these days, and the Spurlocks also have witnessed an increase in types of use. "Since our cattle are restricted to the cells," Pat Spurlock says, "we have more than enough acreage left over for wildlife and recreation."

Near Sasabe, in southern Arizona, cattle made way for masked bobwhite quail and pronghorn antelope when the old Buenos Aires Ranch became a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuge in 1985. Biologist Steve Dobrott and Assistant Manager Rees Madsen opposed grazing until they attended an HRM Core Course last November. A wildfire destroyed a lot of mesquite on the refuge last year; now they ask the question, "How can we maintain the grass that came back after the fire?" They wonder if grazing might reestablish natural desert grassland, their goal for Buenos Aires.

Paul Martin, professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona, thinks so. Bones of extinct bison, mammoths, horses, and camels are a substantial part of Arizona's fossil record. "It is just possible," says Martin, "that the large terrestrial mammals, which also evolved [with grasses) during the Miocene, caused the evolution of grasslands."

Mammoths and other large grazers disappeared from Arizona 11,000 yearsago. Martin believes they were hunted to extinction in less than 1,000 years by a late arrival to North America-man. "The natural prairie ecosystem of the last interglacial can be written off," he declares. "If there is to be large herbivore diversity on rangelands of the future, it will have to be supplied by alien animals."

There's an irony. One hundred years ago, ranchers supplied Arizona with "alien animals" and botched the job. Now HRM ranchers believe the alien animal must be a tool to restore Arizona's rangeland. Animal predators once chased mammoth and bison. Now cattle belonging to the Knights and other HRM ranchers chase feed supplement trucks to cause the "herd effect" needed to repair the range.Phil Knight wonders if the repair will be completed during his lifetime.

"Probably not," he laments. "You can still see tracks on the desert near Yuma where General Patton's tank crews trained more than 40 years ago." Nonetheless, he and the other HRM ranchers and their children intend to keep at the job until it's done.

They trust it won't take 11,000 years.

Freelance writer Jan Barstad holds a master of science degree in botany from Arizona State University.

Ron Barstad is a computer engineer and freelance photographer.

Selected Reading

"The Ungulate Jungle," by Edward Abbey; Northern Lights, July-August 1985.

"In Defense of Running Cows on the Public's Lands," by Cecil Garland; Northern Lights, July-August 1985.

"Saving the Brittle Lands: Holism and the Health of the Commons," by Allan Savory; Northern Lights, July-August 1985.

by John Myers Myers By turns, he functioned as a lawyer, explorer, miner, author, and politician. In between, he was an authority on desert reclamation, a student of Oriental religious philosophies-and enough of a gunslinger to be included in a list of the Southwest's classic pistoleers.

At one extreme of his character, he also was a man whose vision and enterprise earned him recognition as the "Father of Arizona." At the other, he was a wild-eyed promoter with a gift for building empires in the clouds.

Charles Debrill Poston was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, on April 20, 1825. Having read for the law, he secured a post in the Supreme Court of Tennessee in 1845 and was admitted to the bar. In September of 1848, he returned to Kentucky and married Margaret Haycroft, member of a prosperous and politically influential Hardin County family.

Unfortunately, characteristics that qualify a man to foster a frontier territory are not necessarily the ones that make for a satisfactory mate or parent. In 1850, a few months after the birth of his daughter, Sarah Lee, Poston placed his family in the care of his in-laws and went West to seek his fortune. After three years, however, he was no more than a minor government official at the customs house in San Francisco.

At that point, rumors were filtering north concerning the proposed Gadsden Purchase, prompting Poston and some friends to dream up a scheme for exploit-ing the anticipated new section of the United States south of the Gila River, the name of which they understood to be "Arizunca."

Complicated beyond belief, the plan stemmed from the execution of Emperor Agustin of Mexico in 1824. His family, the Iturbides, had been indemnified by a grant of land in northern California. When Mexico lost this region in the war of 1846, the Iturbides were given the option of choosing Baja California, Sinaloa, or Sonora as the locale of a new grant. Poston and friends proposed to buy the grant, subject to the provision that it be located in northern Sonora, perhaps even extending to the Gadsden Purchasetract.

As none of the schemers had money, they attracted investment capital by extolling the supposed mineral wealth of Arizunca, which they proposed to tap; they would also create a seaport, to be located somewhere on the northern shores of the Sea of Cortes so it could be used by Americans as well as Mexicans. Volunteering to check out the terrain, Poston set sail on February 20, 1854, aboard the British brig Zoraida with mining engineer Herman Christian Ehrenberg. The Zoraida never reached Mex-ico; it was driven aground without making port. When Poston and Ehrenberg finally arrived in northern Sonora, their hopes for a deep-water port proved fruit-less. They then pro-ceeded north to

Charles Poston

investigate the mineral wealth of the region they learned was called Arizona, and which, with ratification of the Gadsden Purchase, had just become part of the United States Territory of New Mexico. On June 1, with 15 Americans and Mexicans plus 22 mounts and pack animals, they set out.

Astonishingly, they actually found something. In the mountains framing the Santa Cruz Valley, the adventurers uncovered ore veins that Ehrenberg pronounced very rich. But Poston found something more: a country that would inspire him for much of the rest of his life. Before reporting back to the syndicate of investors, he insisted on exploring all of it.

In the early summer of 1854, the land so recently transferred by the Gadsden Purchase contained no more than 300 Mexicans, one Scottish rancher, and no Americans except occasional transient trappers and outlaws. The only towns were Tucson and the mostly abandoned presidio settlement of Tubac. To these officially recognized communities the exploratory party was about to add a third, started without benefit of any settlers at all.

Leading his party toward California, Poston came to the Colorado River. Ferryman L. J. F. Jaeger wanted $25 each to take them across, a sum considerably more than Poston felt able to pay. After a hurried conference, Ehrenberg, the engineer, got out his surveying instruments while Poston jotted down figures. Intrigued, Jaeger asked what was afoot, and learned the intrepid group was laying out a townsite to be called Colorado City. The ferryman became the initial-and for many years the only investor. But Poston's expedition had free transportation across the river. To this confidence game a long-flourishing communityevolving from Colorado City to Arizona City and finally to Yuma-owes its beginning.

It was at this juncture that Poston made the acquaintance of a man with whom he was to become closely associated: Maj. Samuel P. Heintzelman, builder and commander of Fort Yuma, perched on the bluffs on the California side of the river. Poston continued on to San Diego and then traveled by sea to San Francisco,

Charles Poston

where he reported his Santa Cruz mineral find to the investors. To capitalize on the discovery, Poston and Ehrenberg were next sent east.

What took place in Manhattan was a promoter's dream come true. Meeting with Thomas Butler King (who had been customs collector in San Francisco during Poston's clerkship there), the two visitors negotiated the formation of a corporation called the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company, capitalized at a million dollars.

Of this outfit, to which Samuel Colt of revolver-making fame also belonged, Major Heintzelman was president. Col. Charles D. Poston, who may have first assumed the military title at this time, was designated commandant and company agent. Ehrenberg was named topographi cal engineer and surveyor.

Proceeding to San Antonio, Poston recruited professional miners, a force large enough to fight their way, if need be, across Comanche and Apache country. On May 1, 1856, they began their trekarmed, to use Poston's words, "with Sharpes rifles and the recklessness of youth.

No serious interference occurred until the expedition reached what is now Arizona. The silver seekers were biv ouacked in the San Simon Valley when Alessandro, an aggressive Apache leader, rode up at the head of a considerable band. Poston made a deadline of rope and announced he would shoot the first to cross it. Alessandro backed down.

By late August the travelers were in Tucson, and shortly thereafter were setting up headquarters of the mining enterprise in the deserted barracks of Tubac, 45 miles to the south. Soon numbers of Mexicans began moving up from Sonora proper, seeking employment. By Christmas of 1856, a settlement of about a thousand people the first community in Arizona to thrive under strictly American auspices had come into being.

Poston's duties were not only industrial but political. As a deputy recorder of Doña Ana County, he was the only representa tive of territorial government at Tubac. "As alcalde of Tubac under the government of New Mexico," he wrote, "I was legally authorized to celebrate the rites of matrimony, baptize children, grant divor ces, execute criminals, declare war, and perform all the other functions of the ancient El Cadi."

His two years of field duty with the company were idyllic. "We had no law but love," the alcalde later recalled, "and no occupation but labor. No government, no taxes, no public debt, no politics." When not working, Poston hunted game, lolled in the shallow waters of the Santa Cruz River while he read, swapped visits with Sonoran families, and studied the Indians.

The years also were prosperous ones. In a December 1856 report to the company, he voiced an optimism that proved justified. Rich silver veins had been discovered to the east of the Santa Cruz Valley, and even richer ones to the west. A mine officially named the Heintzelman (locally known as the Cerro Colorado) was producing ore that netted the enter prise $500 a day, despite the high cost of shipping it to San Francisco or Kansas City for processing.

Twenty miles or so due west of Tubac was an old Spanish colonial estate called Arivaca, which the commandant pur chased in the name of the company. Author J. Ross Browne referred to the hacienda his friend Poston built there as "Poston's hotel." Everybody taking a look at Uncle Sam's new acquisition of territory seems to have stayed there. "We were never a week without company," Poston declared, "and sometimes had more than we required; but nobody was ever charged anything for entertainment, horse-shoeing, or supplies on the road."

In 1857, the first U.S. troops sent to protect settlers from the Apaches arrived in Tucson. Among them was Second Lt. George W. Bascom, who subsequently turned the peaceful wilderness into an Apache war zone. On the accusation of a drifter so befuddled by drink he could find Neither a boy who was dodging his horsewhip nor some stock he had put out to graze, Bascom arrested Chief Cochise and several other Apaches while they supposedly were under the protection of a flag of truce. The chief managed to escape, but the others were hanged-and Arizona's settlers were the principal victims of the extended crusade of reprisal that followed, now notorious as the Apache wars.

Military reinforcements helped for a while, but by the time Poston had returned to Arizona in June, 1861-after a year in which he swapped places with Heintzelman while the latter was on a leave of absence from the Army-the Civil War was causing panicky federal administrators not only to withdraw Union troops from most Southwestern posts but to destroy their installations.

With that one check removed, Apaches and Sonoran bandits swarmed in, killing and looting. As a consequence, most Americans quit the district, but Poston and company geologist Raphael Pumpelly remained in the hope of protecting company property while waiting for guards that Samuel Colt had promised to send. Not until Tubac had been sacked by Apaches and Poston's brother John had been murdered by Mexican mine workers did they head for the Sea of Cortes. There they failed to catch a States-bound ship and turned north toward the lower Colorado River.

Somewhere in the vicinity of Colorado City, the party nearly fell into an ambush set by Arizona badman "One-eyed Jack" and a fellow fugitive called Williams, both of whom they had picked up along the way. Fortunately Poston got the drop on Williams and dismissed him with words recorded by his companion: "Pumpelly and I have considered that it wouldn't be safe for you to go on to California. The last man you killed there hasn't been dead long enough. You may keep your outfit, but you had better go back and join your friend, One-eyed Jack, down there by the river. You can't kill us, and you can't get our silver."

Back east, the Civil War brewed on, and Poston could no longer stay away from the excitement. But after a year's stint serving as a civilian aide to his friend Heintzelman, by then a general, Poston had worked out a scheme that would make it feasible for him to return to the Southwest.

The strategic importance of the region, which federal forces had all but abandoned, had in the meantime become apparent. One factor that eventually won the war for the North was California gold. An all-weather overland route of transport, much faster than shipping bullion via the

COMING YOUR WAY IN THE MONTHS AHEAD

Kick off the glorious season of bright autumn days with a feast of travel adventures: to the wide-open spaces of the Arizona Strip country and to the piney wonders of the Bradshaw Mountains. Continue southward to a Tucson barrio to learn the legend behind the shrine of El Tiradito. And take a close-up look at Arizona's cousins of the whooping crane: the marvelous sandhills. In September.

Follow in the footsteps of Spanish explorers and Indian traders, retracing the trails and byways of centuries past. Pause for a personal introduction to some of the strange and beautiful plants that exist on our desert. Strange-and wonderful, too-are the ways in which arid-land animals deal with the relentless heat of summer. Finally, visit several of Arizona's older communities where historic preservation efforts are in full swing. In October.

For a change of pace-and scenery-the Highways staff invites you to help Wickenburg celebrate its 125th anniversary; listen to an insider's view of the architectural legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright; share the adventures of some notable Jewish pioneers; and observe the remarkable creatures found in a talented artist's backyard. In November.

Give an Arizona Highways subscription. Use the enclosed order form or call (602) 258-1000 or toll-free (within Arizona) 1-800-543-5432.

Arizona Highways Heritage Cookbook

Taste the flavors of Arizona's heritage in an exciting new cookbook. Available in September, Arizona Highways Heritage Cookbook features more than 200 recipes from the state's Indian, Mexican, pioneer, and cowboy traditions. All seasoned with historical photographs and anecdotes. 176 pages. Hardcover. $12.95 plus shipping and handling. Reserve your copy today for holiday gift-giving and meal planning. Just complete the attached return envelope, or write or visit Arizona Highways, 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009. You can place phone orders by calling (602) 258-1000 or dialing toll-free (within Arizona) 1-800-543-5432. Orders will be shipped after Sept. 15, 1988. RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY!

Arizona Highways Heritage Cookbook

Charles Poston

Panama of pre-canal days, was eminently desirable. The only route of this description ran through the southwestern portion of the Territory of New Mexico, where the few American settlers who remained were holed up in the walled city of Tucson. And they tended to favor the South.

Poston's plan? Divide New Mexico and make the western part a new Territory of Arizona. Having himself been a political officer of New Mexico's Doña Ana County, he was able to convince President Lincoln that the region in question could not be administered effectively from Santa Fe.

The bill to create Arizona Territory became effective on February 24, 1863. As the proposer of the new structure, as well as the only one in Washington who had actually seen the country, Poston expected to receive a high office, but was fobbed off with the minor post of Indian agent.

Colonel Poston was an angry man, as he had reason to be; but for the few months he was on duty he did his best, commenting later, "I wound up the Indian service with a loss of about $5,000 out of my own pocket."

But while he was looking out for the Indians, he was also looking after his own interests. In a very short time-after first exploring the headwaters of the Verde River with a party of Pimas and Maricopas-he captured the most highly prized post in the territory, that of congressional delegate. On May 26, 1864, he was on his way to Washington once again.

Going by way of San Francisco and Panama, he ran up a travel expense of $7,200, an amount that appalled the congressional watchdogs. "Poston, how is this your mileage is $7,200 and mine is only $300?" asked the chairman of the committee on travel.

"Frank," Poston shot back at him, "what is the price of whiskey in your district?" "About $2.50 a gallon," the other replied. "Well," Poston said, "it is $15 a gallon in Arizona." Impressed by this logic, the chairman certified the account.

Referring to his position of territorial delegate to Congress, Poston remarked: "Nothing is expected of him but silence and very little of that." He had an opportunity to address the House of Representatives only once, but that speech Although both mining executive and alcalde of Tubac, Poston found himself with plenty of time to hunt game, visit with Sonoran families, study the Indians, and explore. In the Santa Ritas, the prominence called Elephant Head doubtless captured his attention.

made history. Urging the federal reclamation of arid lands, he was the first to call the government's attention to the possibilities of irrigation. He also arranged for the creation of more military posts and the resumption of mail service in southern Arizona. So satisfied was the territorial legislature with his work that it drew up a warmly worded commendation.

But he was not reelected. For the next three years, he traveled widely and wrote for the New York Tribune and other metropolitan papers. In 1867 he publisheda volume titled Europe in the Summer Time.

Then, in 1868, Poston found an opportunity to write about even more distant places. When his friend J. Ross Browne was made minister to China, Poston determined to see the mysterious East himself. Secretary of State Seward needed a special envoy to present the Emperor of China with the recently ratified Burlingame Treaty. Poston got the assignment as well as the roving post of commissioner of the United States in Asia.

After a tour of Japan, Poston and Brown proceeded to Peking, where the former went through the formality of presenting the treaty, which among other things granted China the right to establish consulates in the United States. From China, Poston went on alone, exploring several islands including Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). In February, 1869, he was in Calcutta. What especially interested him about India were the ruins of vanished civilizations; he also was fascinated by the religious philosophies he encountered. Buddhism was the first of these, but at Bombay he became absorbed in the tenets of the Parsee community.

Of Persian origin, the Parsees had clung to their ancient faith of Zoroastrianism. Before leaving Bombay, Poston became a Parsee initiate under the sponsorship of the son of an Oriental philanthropist. That in turn led to journeys through southwest Asia. Presumably his duties as U.S. commissioner then came to an end, and presumably he made a suitable report.

Poston did not return home, however, but roamed around Egypt for a time and then moved on to Greece and Italy.

In 1871 Poston arrived in France, where he wintered in the old royal suburb of Versailles. It was probably then, when he was seemingly otherwise at loose ends, that he prepared a volume called The Parsees for the press. Supplemented by a group of dispatches he had sent out from Japan, China, India, and Persia, this dissertation on the Bombay Zoroastrians was published in London in 1872. Later that same year, he reissued it, together with new supplementary matter, under the

title The Sun Worshippers of Asia.

That literary venture was his introduction to a four-year period of editorial work and law practice during which he lived at 25 Queen Anne Street in London. But by 1876 he was back in Washington, once more pressing for the development of the arid Southwest. He was successful to the extent of helping to push through the Desert Land Act of 1877, an important measure that had the additional effect of bringing Poston to Arizona again, this time as land office representative in Florence.

There wasn't much in the way of government business in Florence, but Poston was never at a loss for something to do. Seeing a chance to propagate the Parsee religion, he published an American edition of The Sun Worshippers of Asia and selected a nearby butte as the site for a Zoroastrian temple. His own resources didn't enable him to do more than start a road up to the chosen location, but he wrote to the Shah of Persia requesting funds in the name of Zoroaster.

For a congregation he looked to the Pima Indians, about whose native beliefs he was informed enough to know that sun worship was at their core. But the Pimas refused to bone up on Parsee liturgy; and meanwhile the Shah, explaining that most Persians had come to revere Allah more than Sol, also declined his request.

But while others might have admitted defeat and been despondent, Poston already was carrying out another project that launched Arizona's native literature. He accomplished this with a narrative poem titled Apache Land, which he finished in Florence in 1877 and pub lished in San Francisco the following year.

The work, in which Poston refers to himself only as "the Chief," reveals the strength of the author's passion for Arizona and his feeling about his rightful position in it as a sort of western Bonnie Prince Charlie, a man whose vested rights in the region had been usurped.

Of the fortune that once had allowed him to live like a prince, the last was spent on publishing Apache Land. After the disruptions of the Civil War, the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company never got its holdings back; and Poston, although he never ceased to create grandiose schemes, did not score again with any of them.

He spent four years at Florence, where the idea of putting a "heathen temple" on a hill above their array of churches horrified many of his neighbors-so much so, in fact, that they persisted in protests that finally cost Poston his job.

From Florence, Poston moved to Phoenix, where his principal occupation became mine promotion. But by 1882 he was living in Tucson where, for reasons unknown, editor James Whitmore of the Tucson Citizen published observations about the colonel that he resented. When the newspaperman emerged from the hotel where he breakfasted next morning, he found an armed Poston waiting for him. Poston fired "to chasten rather than injure" and Whitmore fled back into the hotel and out through a window of the men's room that opened on an alley.

Poston, delighted, intimated to a representative of the Arizona Star that he wouldn't fire wide the next time, an occasion that would occur only if Whitmore repeated his error. He didn't.

Three years later, Colonel Poston was the American consul at Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, from which he moved in 1887 to serve as U.S. military agent in El Paso, Texas. Evidence that he had retained his zest for huge enterprises is found in a scheme he tried to promote there for diverting the waters of the Rio Grande into a 50-mile irrigation canal.

Poston then practiced law briefly in Washington, but in 1890 he was in financial difficulties and back in Phoenix serving as Arizona statistical agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Even the meager support offered by this job was pulled away a year later, though, and he was left to whatever resources a man of 66 could find in a community where he had no established profession.

Undismayed, Poston responded by writing reams of indifferent verse and by homesteading a barren sandstone formation near Tempe known as Hole-in-theRock, familiar today to frequenters of Papago Park. In 1893 he mailed Christmas cards that bore both his likeness and the name of his picturesque but unarable holding.

Indeed, Christmas was always important to him. The most striking section of his book Apache Land is the description of the barbarically lavish way in which Christmas was celebrated at his hacienda in Arivaca. He also wrote a piece entitled The Christmas Tree, preserved only in an address he delivered in Phoenix on December 21, 1896, in praise of eggnog. He covered the four-decade-plus span of his connection with Arizona, marking the varied circumstances under which he had downed his holiday drinks. Written when he was 71, the account is at once one of the most original and merriest bits of autobiography ever penned.

Charles Poston

to him. The most striking section of his book Apache Land is the description of the barbarically lavish way in which Christmas was celebrated at his hacienda in Arivaca. He also wrote a piece entitled The Christmas Tree, preserved only in an address he delivered in Phoenix on December 21, 1896, in praise of eggnog. He covered the four-decade-plus span of his connection with Arizona, marking the varied circumstances under which he had downed his holiday drinks. Written when he was 71, the account is at once one of the most original and merriest bits of autobiography ever penned.

A more orthodox contribution to the annals of Arizona was a book he wrote two years earlier, in 1894, called Building a State in Apache Land. It was serialized in the Overland Monthly, a San Francisco publication. Poston carefully used the term "state," not "territory," in the title. That was typical of his attitude toward Arizona. He signed the manuscript "President of the Arizona Historical Society," an organization he founded. In fact he had himself become a historical relic-a holdover from those long-ago days when the Gadsden Purchase was news. Yet the wonder stirred by the land he regarded with a mystical devotion never deserted him. Historian James McClintock, who knew him well, wrote that Poston never lost his optimism or the alertness of intellect that enabled him to make his visions sound excitingly practical.

His energies, though, failed him at last; and by 1899 he was almost destitute. A proud man, he could not bring himself to ask for help. But a member of the Arizona Legislature became aware of his plight and managed to arrange a monthly pension of $25, later raised to $35. It was a trifling return for his services to the territory, but the words that accompanied the action were fine recognition indeed, particularly the final sentence: "And from the above and many other well-known facts, Charles D. Poston, among all other pioneers, was preeminently the moving spirit, and in fact may truly be said to be the Father of Arizona."

Poston lingered another three years, increasingly feeble but still garrulously entertaining. He moved out of the old Lemon Hotel and in 1902 was living by himself in an adobe hovel on East Monroe Street in Phoenix. On June 24 he fell suddenly ill, returned to his home, suffered a stroke, and died.

He was buried in the old Christy Cemetery near the Capitol. Four years later, the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution supplied a headstone that took note of his historical importance. But he was not to rest easy in that grave. In 1925 his remains were transferred to the summit of the hill northwest of Florence, now called Poston Butte, where he had once hoped to raise a temple for sun worshippers. A pyramidal monument is visible to travelers on U. S. Route 89 who stop to read a roadside historical marker and then look to the west. His final resting place looks out over the land that became, a decade after his death, a full-fledged state of the Union-as he always knew it would.

The late novelist John Myers Myers taught at Arizona State University. His nonfiction included The Alamo, Doc Holliday, and The Last Chance: Tombstone's Early Years.