Back Road Adventure

The unpaved road from Pima to Klondyke passes through a landscape almost as wild as the events that unfolded there. The events are strange in one case haunting - but seem even more remarkable because of the virtually unknown terrain where they were acted out.

Pima is a very small town, roughly 170 miles east of Phoenix and 10 miles northwest of Safford. In the late 1880s, several of the town's prominent residents, were accused of holding up a stagecoach carrying a $28,345 payroll for soldiers stationed at outlying forts.

The robbery occurred 21 miles northwest of Pima, just off the Klondyke Road. Far removed from any community, the victims and their assailants were the only witnesses.

Klondyke Road meets U.S. Route 70 six miles west of Main Street in Pima. Turn left, or west, off Main and cross the railroad tracks to Klondyke Road. The rolling terrain on either side of the road is covered with creosote and catclaw bushes, but after about 16 miles the landscape changes and some high rocky hills appear on the left. A large home, the only residence visible in the area, is on a hill on the right.

In a cavity between the large hills on the left, Maj. Joseph W. Wham, paymaster from nearby Fort Grant, and 12 cavalrymen were stopped by a boulder that apparently had rolled off one of the hills and blocked the path of the stagecoach they were escorting. The stage contained a chest with the military payroll.

Wham's men put aside their rifles and were trying to move the boulder out of the way when a barrage of gunfire rained down from the breastwork of rocks above them. Several of the soldiers were wounded, none seriously.

Eventually, nine men were arrested for the crime and tried. All were acquitted. The loot was never found.

Five miles after leaving the robbery site, Klondyke Road goes over a high point, and suddenly the entire Aravaipa Valley comes into view, an emerald blanket rolling north against the tablelands of the Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness.

Klondyke Store, the only business to be found in the area,

Is 18 miles from the robbery DARK MYSTERIES,

Site. A mile away from the DEADLY SHOOTINGS

store, the Bureau of

Land Management

has a small campground with

lavatories, water, and some

picnic tables. The entrance

to the Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness is 10 miles beyond Klondyke Store.

HAUNT THE OLD KLONDYKE ROAD

Snacks, gas and at least one fascinating book can be purchased at the store. Shoot-Out at Dawn, an Arizona Tragedy, by Tom Power and John Whitlatch, tells one version of the shootout in 1918 that put coauthor Power and his brother, John, in prison for 42 years.

In 1918, Jeff Power, always known as "Old Man Power," was living in a shack at his mine in the Galiuros with his two sons, Tom, 24, and John, 26, and a family friend, Tom Sisson. On February 10, four lawmen rode up to Power's cabin to arrest his sons for evading the draft. Old Man Power didn't think that was a very good idea.

On that crisp morning, Old Man Power was shot and killed by the lawmen in the doorway of his cabin. He had his hands up, but the lawmen thought they were up because he was reaching for a gun. When the shooting ended, three of the four lawmen, as well as Old Man Power, lay dead.

Sisson and the Power brothers fled south and were subsequently captured in Sonora, Mexico. They were brought back to Arizona and sentenced to life in the state prison at Florence.

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

Back-road travel can be hazardous if you are not prepared for the unexpected. Whether traveling in the desert or in the high country be sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and your gear includes at minimum the appropriate clothing and footwear, food and water, medication, first-aid kit, sunglasses, water-purification tablets, shovel, maps, compass, tools, spare tire, and a tow chain.

And let someone at home know where you're going and when you plan to return.

Sisson died in prison in 1957. John and Tom Power each served 42 years before they were paroled in 1960. In 1969, Gov. Jack Williams signed full pardons for them.

Today, members of the Power family lie buried on a hill facing the mountain wilderness where they lived as children. The cemetery is roughly a half-mile southeast of the Klondyke Store. Five gravestones with the following inscriptions can be found: "T. J. [Jeff] Power Sr. [Old Man Power] 1918-Shot Down With Hands Up in His Own Door."

"T. B. Power [his son] 1894-1970-Poisoned in L.A., Calif., Died at Sunset, Ariz." (John Power was convinced for unknown reasons that Tom Power was poisoned, and that the poisoning led to his death later in Arizona.) "John Grant Power [the elder son] Sept. 11, 1892-April 5, 1976Rest in Peace."

Off to the side is the grave of Jeff Power's mother, Martha Jane Power, always referred to simply as "Granny," whose headstone notes that in 1915 she was "Killed by Runaway Horse and Buggy Accident."

And most mysterious of all, the gravestone of Ola May Power, Old Man Power's daughter, who died at the age of 23. Her marker says: "O. M. Power 1917 - Poisoned by Unknown Person." The doctor who examined Ola's body found she had some dislocated vertebrae in her neck, and that she was black from the chest up. No one ever established the exact cause of her death. The cemetery is on a ranch 3/10ths of a mile east of the Klondyke Store.

Be sure to stop at the ranch house to ask permission to visit the cemetery.