Joseph B. Girard: Army Doctor and Artist of the Frontier

J.B.G. Army doctor and frontier artist JOSEPH Β. GIRARD

Arizona seldom fails to impress its guests. What is true for visitors today was true for Arizona's early settlers and the soldiers of the frontier Army. "We were astonished at the character of the country in which we found ourselves," First Lt. C. C. C. Carr recalled after his 1866 scout in the eastern Arizona mountains. "We felt all the excitement of explorers of an unknown land and enjoyed in anticipation the surprises in store for us whenever we moved from one place to another."

A number of Army officers recorded their experiences in letters or subsequent memoirs, but one talented young doctor used a much rarer technique. He sketched scenes in the field, and years later converted them to watercolor paintings, thus capturing and preserving some of the special atmosphere of early Arizona.

The medical officer, Joseph B. Girard, was born in France and came to the United States just as the Civil War flared. In 1867, at the age of 20, he joined the postwar Army as an assistant surgeon and was sent to Wyoming, where he spent his first five years of military service.

In 1872 Girard was transferred to Arizona's Camp McDowell, a run-down post about 30 miles northeast of an infant settlement known as Phoenix. McDowell did not have a good reputation among military people. From a distance, it looked more like mounds of dirt than a functioning fort. The post's adobe buildings, hastily constructed in late 1865, were by 1872 expected to collapse at almost any time without provocation.

Not only were McDowell's quarters unfit to occupy, but the camp seemed permanently isolated in Yavapai Indian country. Mail service and delivery of urgently needed supplies and equipment were at best spotty. Freight rates were very expensive. More than one mule train Headed for McDowell had been attacked by Indians or washed downstream in one of Arizona's notorious flash floods.

Maj. Andrew J. Alexander, one of Camp McDowell's post commanders who preceded Girard's arrival, found the troops "demoralized by escorting and extra duty and almost totally devoid of discipline and military appearance...."

Of all Southwestern posts, McDowell offered some of the most uncomfortable conditions, and medical officers were not exempt. Girard's responsibilities seem to us today like a collection of often unre lated assignments. He was expected to deliver babies, record outside temperatures, extract arrows, set broken bones, treat bullet wounds (many accidentally inflicted), maintain comprehensive sickness records, and while administering the only medical facilities in central Arizona, also find time to document the area's indigenous plants, animals, and birds.

Between October and December, 1872, for example, Girard shot, identified, and reported to Washington some 40 bird specimens found near the post and in the surrounding lower Verde

Isolation and insects notwithstanding, the mountain setting of Camp Apache was spectacular. The scenery, according to Upham, was "of such grand description that the eye never tired of resting upon it." Sunsets inspired similar language. Often, Upham noted, the evening landscape "was tinted with gorgeous prismatic effects, seldom equalled elsewhere."

Girard's Camp Apache sketches later led to two watercolors, each presenting a different view of the fort.

Then in May, 1874, Girard was transferred from remote Camp Apache to the territory's largest and liveliest town: Tucson. The Army had been stationed in downtown Tucson for more than a decade. This did not promote harmonious relations between civilians and soldiers, although the proprietors of the beer halls did not seem to mind. But the year before Girard arrived, most military operations were moved east of town to the present site of Fort Lowell.

downtown Tucson for more than a decade. This did not promote harmonious relations between civilians and soldiers, although the proprietors of the beer halls did not seem to mind. But the year before Girard arrived, most military operations were moved east of town to the present site of Fort Lowell.

In October of 1874, Girard married Louise Oury, daughter of one of Tucson's pioneer settlers, William S. Oury, at that point the sheriff of Pima County.

As Camp Lowell-as it was called until 1879-was a new post, Girard here again helped to document the geology and natural history of the area. He found the nearby Rillito River interesting and noted that its waters "cease to run above ground about a mile below camp and do not rise again until they join the Santa Cruz." Girard made sketches for two pastoral scenes, one of which was of the Rillito, but it is unknown if his work dates from this time or from 1882, when he again saw service at Fort Lowell.

Girard's painting of Camp Lowell in 1875 is a view from the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains, north of Tucson. The camp seems dwarfed by the distant purple Santa Rita Mountains, an effect often lost today because of air pollution.

Other works portray a rundown mill outside of Tucson's town limits, the crumbling walls of an old adobe mission, a dusty street framed against the Tucson Mountains, and finally the town itself, viewed from the west.

In 1876 Girard left Tucson for an assignment in the Department of the East. To travel eastward from Arizona was best done at that time by going west, via Fort Yuma and the port of San Diego. The journey appears to have given Girard the inspiration for two Arizona paintings, one of Picacho Peak and the other of Fort Yuma.

Picacho Peak is a distinctive butte jutting out of the desert between Tucson and Phoenix. Girard's painting reproduces the view from four or five miles northwest of the mountain. At one side in the watercolor appears part of the Overland stage route as well as the thick vegetation in the pass between the mountains. The pass often hid Indian warriors.

Fort Yuma, established in 1850, remained Arizona's chief supply depot prior to the coming of the railroad. Girard's watercolor presents an impressive post high on a Colorado River bluff, with the crimson of an American flag contrasting with the desert tans and browns.

The versatile physician was promoted to colonel in 1902. His service in the intervening years ranged from Manila to San Antonio. While chief surgeon for the Department of Texas, several years before reaching mandatory retirement, Girard began to create his paintings, using his wealth of sketches as reference material. The Arizona watercolors date from 1901 to 1910.

Dr. Girard retired from the Army in December, 1910, some two weeks after the completion of his last painting, "Fort Yuma, 1876." He died at San Antonio in 1918, but his watercolors remain-carefully rendered scenes from Arizona's colorful past, to charm and enlighten succeeding generations.