Along the Way

long the Way

There is an old quotation: "For every man and woman there is a little moment in history." Let me tell you of Lillian Wykoff's moment. Dam! Bam! Bam! Somebody was knocking on our front door in the middle of the night with enough force to pop open my six-year-old eyes.

LILLIAN WYKOFF AND THE NIGHT THE DYNAMITE TRUCK CAUGHT FIRE

I heard my parents' voices, then footsteps as they scurried toward the door. I slipped out of bed and padded after them. The deputy framed in the front doorway was huge: huge broad-brimmed hat, huge gun belt, holster, and pistol. "There's a dynamite truck burning on the level just above," he announced.

"We'll leave right now," my dad replied.

"Don't do that, the streets are blocked," the lawman said. "If it blows, you'll be safer inside. Crawl under your beds and stay there." Then he was gone.

Now, 55 years later, I'm standing on the cracked sidewalk at the edge of Clark Street in Jerome's small residential and business district, looking down at the gutter where nitroglycerine ran like rainwater on the night of December 8, 1936. A few feet beyond is the spot where the parked truck, loaded with 15 tons of explosives, burst into flames.

The driver, on his way to the local mine, had stopped for late-night coffee. The brakes, hot from the trip down from the top of Mingus Mountain, had ignited the truck's bed. Within moments, the dynamite was blazing.

I turn my head and look downhill to the area where our rented frame house was located. I estimate the distance. Four hundred feet no more than that.

Jerome is an old mining town on the side of steep Cleopatra Hill. Its houses and stores, accessed by narrow switchback streets, hang precariously on the rocky slopes.

During the night of the dynamite-truck fire, there were several thousand sleeping residents in the tightly packed neighborhood around the blaze. A two-lane road entered Jerome on the uphill side, went out on the downhill side. The burning truck blocked this critical thoroughfare.

What would 15 tons of exploding dynamite do to a compact little community like Jerome? "Blow it entirely off the mountain," an explosives expert stated later.

Directly across the street from where I am standing are the remains of the United Verde Apartments. They survived the fire but were boarded up when Jerome, in later decades, slipped toward ghost-town status. So hot was the fire that it melted iron railings in front of the apartments. Frightened tenants scattered in every direction.

I look to my left. About 130 feet away is the small frame telephone office where night operator Lillian Wykoff, young and recently married, gave an extraordinary exhibition of grace under pressure.

When a man lunged into her office and told her that a dynamite truck was blazing nearby, Lillian stepped outside to take a look. Then she returned and activated the town's emergency alarm whistle.

Outside, people in nightclothes raced by, some shouting, "Dynamite!" Some yelling, "Run for your life!" Lillian could have run. Just outside, a set of concrete steps led downhill to Main Street, alevel below. From there, she could have run away into the night. Instead she took a seat at her plug-in switchboard. Something told her that her services would be needed.

During the early stages of the fire, she fielded incoming curiosity calls, awakened town officials, and called neighboring communities for additional help.

Then came her critical task. The fire fighters asked her to try to rouse officials of the Apache Powder Company, 250 miles away in Benson. Lillian was successful, and for the balance of the ordeal, it was her task to relay messages between the parties.

At one point, a fireman stuck his head in the doorway and shouted, "Tell 'em the sticks are melting, and nitro is splashing out of the truck! What should we do?"

While garish patterns of firelight danced across the switch-board, Lillian listened intently to instructions from the company official, then calmly passed them on. A huge tire on the truck exploded, then another.

Later, a police officer said, "Each time one of those tires went off, we were certain we were goners."

Throughout the dark predawn hours, Lillian continued as a conduit between the dynamite experts and fire fighters.

Four hundred feet down the hill, my small sister and I were wrapped in blankets under our beds. Harry Amster, Jr., my first-grade classmate, crouched behind a concrete retaining wall about 100 yards from the fire. Young Stan Wykoff, Lillian's cousin by marriage, sat on his porch and watched the fire with his family. His father, a miner, had said that hiding wouldn't do any good if the load went off. Geraldine Thomas, who lived in the United Verde Apartments, ran up the rocky hillside with a friend who carried a bowl of goldfish.

Miraculously, the dynamite did not explode. When the sun came up and crews began the delicate task of cleaning up the bubbled nitroglycerine, Lillian realized she had failed to call her husband. He had slept through the night and all the commotion.

My recollection of the experience consists of the deputy's visit and waking up the next morning on the hardwood floor. But, as told by my parents, I have carried the details of the event in my memory for more than half a century.

Now, as I revisit the scene, the thing that impresses me most is the incredibly short distance that stood between the petite telephone operator and 15 tons of blazing dynamite.

Later, Lillian was presented with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company's Theodore Vail Award for heroism. I wish that I could thank her personally. But that is not possible. She passed away more than 20 years ago.

Today Jerome is undergoing a renovation. Historic buildings are being restored. Tourists wander the labyrinth of narrow avenues to visit museums, restaurants, and art galleries.

Perhaps, someday, a plaque will be placed on Clark Street at the site of the dynamite fire. A simple commemorative tablet telling of Lillian Wykoff's courage. That would be nice.

Letters

TOO MANY QUIBBLES Arizona is like heaven on Earth, and Arizona Highways makes me feel connected to that place so far away, but so close to my heart. Therefore I must tell you the thing that saddens me most is some of the letters your readers send in. I'm sure you are accustomed to criticism, but I find most of it petty and trite.

I know some people will find negatives in the most positive of situations, so I am truly thankful that their disease doesn't alter Arizona Highways' pages of enjoyment for the 99 percent of us who find nothing but a positive experience when we open the cover of your monthly treasure chest.

Kim Messana Chesterfield, MI

COVER COPY BEGONE

I notice the increasing use of "printed words" detracting more and more from the beautiful cover photos. Indexes look so much better inside.

Rebecca Hennigan Hilton Head Island, SC We agree that cover photos look better without cover lines. Unfortunately, when we omit cover lines sales flatten and readership declines. We sincerely wish it wasn't so.

AGAINST ACTIVISM

In the September '92 issue you published a letter from Tom Garcia regarding activism in behalf of Indian sites. He and I have apparently both enjoyed the magazine with no activism involved. In contrast to Mr. Garcia, I wish to continue to enjoy your magazine with no activism in-volved.

I don't necessarily disagree with the cause Mr. Garcia espouses. I just don't care to have it preached to me from my magazine.

Tom Cressey Glastonbury, CT

OWL OMEN

How ironic to view the owl on the cover of September's magazine and then to come across the article regarding my tribe's Sunrise Ceremony for a young girl's advancing into womanhood. Many Native Americans, in-cluding many Apache people, have traditionally considered owls as bad-luck omens. For instance, if you hear an owl hooting in a tree next to your house, someone in your fam-ily will die.This is not a complaint; just a comment on how two sub-jects, each seemingly the op-posite of the other, should be featured in the same issue of a great magazine.

Sue Marie Stevens Phoenix

OFF-ROAD VEHICLES

It is regrettable that Arizona Highways should jump on the off-road vehicle-bashing band-wagon, bringing the expected response from persons whose experience of our western deserts is probably limited to reading your hitherto excellent magazine. The tracks on the Blythe in-taglios (August '92) were made by the tanks of General Patton's army in World War II. While this points up the fragility of the desert, I feel that the responsibility should be placed where it belongs. Eric J. England Yorba Linda, CA Bureau of Land Management archeologists confirm the tracks around the intaglios were made by rubber-tired vehicles, not tanks.

PICKY, PICKY, PICKY!

You seem to have acquired some subscribers recently who are not interested in the total Arizona experience. I guess baseball, rocks, and Christmas don't exist in Arizona. As a subscriber for something over 40 years, I have found some articles more interesting than others, but respect other people's interests. I have always found something of interest in every issue. Being a lifelong rail fan, I shudder to think what the response will be to an article ("Dream Tracks on the Verde," October '92) on a "train." Ken J. Kral Oakland, CA

HIDING HISTORY

In regard to the "Left for Dead" letter (September '92), to say that we should suppress certain parts of history to "promote healing with the Native People" is ludicrous and dangerous. We cannot ignore history. It happened, and no amount of editing will make it go away. And the danger is that this attitude lets those responsible escape accountability for their actions, be they dead or alive. I'm sure the leaders of the Nazi death camps would love for their deeds to be suppressed for the sake of "promoting healing and understanding."

I feel that articles like "Left for Dead" (February '92) are good because they show the harshness of life on the frontier as well as the cruelly unfortunate effects of hatred and racism on both sides.

Wayne Graham Anchorage, AK

A VOTE FOR ROCKS

One look at your beloved rocks is as inspirational as any church visit. From the Chapel of the Holy Cross in red rock country of Sedona to the natural arches on Lake Powell, nothing can compare. The defiant walls of the Grand Canyon, the sandstone cliffs... I could go on and on. Never, never stop printing pictures of your precious rocks.

Marie Steele Hendersonville, TN

Arizona Highways 3