Clifton's Struggle to Survive

Charles Spezia looked west. Down Chase Creek Street, which used to be Clifton's main thoroughfare. Then he shrugged. "A lot of the old buildings are in horrible condition," he said, "and it's almost terrible to ask a tourist to look at them. But I try. They are wonderful old buildings." He's right. They truly are wonderful old buildings. And they're in horrible shape. When they were erected around the turn of the century, they were splendid structures, brick and stone and metal creations that proudly bore the names of their builders on hammered copper and steel facades which still look down on the narrow street. Each had a purpose then. And a personality. Zorrilla's Meat Market. Hoeye Barber Shop. The Cascarelli Building. The Old Buffet Bar. The Lyric Theater. Most of them are empty now. Boarded up, sagging, lonesome. There's a saloon in the Cascarelli Building. Other ventures have tried in other buildings, but most fail, and their demise casts a deeper gloom along the deserted street. A few blocks south, the Reardon Hotel sits vacant, also suffering the indignities of old age and neglect. On the other side of the railroad tracks that divide the town, the city's oldest building still shows the ravages of the flood of 1983. Like a caretaker guarding a ghost town,

Struggling Clifton Envisions Great Things from Its Past

Spezia makes an effort to keep the buildings important. His grandfather was an Italian immigrant who designed and built many of them. Spezia has salvaged one, turning it into a historical museum, where he talks about the town's past in great detail and distributes copies of the walking-tour map he developed to preserve the street's history. Despite Spezia's dedication, and despite the potential seen by many who pass through, Clifton is hardly a tourist mecca. And yet tourism could offer a partial solution to the town's ongoing economic problems.

The movement is under way. But these things take time. In the fall of 1991, Clifton joined 11 other communities served by U.S. 60 and U.S. 70 to launch a joint tourism venture known as the Old West Highway. Chambers of commerce or similar organizations in Apache Junction, Superior, Miami, Globe, the San Carlos Indian Reservation, Pima, Thatcher, Safford, Duncan, Clifton, Morenci, all in Arizona, and Lordsburg, New Mexico, united in an effort to entice some of the estimated 8,000 travelers who use the 203-mile stretch every day to stop and spend some time. And some money.

For some, it's a natural.

Apache Junction sits amid a wealth of tourist attractions: the Superstition Mountains; the Lost Dutchman Museum; the Apache Trail, which snakes its way through the Superstitions; adequate lodging; and a close proximity to the Phoenix area. Globe boasts the Besh-Ba-Gowah Indian ruins and the Cobre Valley Arts Center, both restored through countless volunteer hours;

360 motel rooms and easy access to San Carlos Lake; the Apache Trail; Coolidge and Roosevelt dams; and the Boyce Thompson Southwestern Arboretum near Superior. Safford, Pima, and Thatcher benefit from Mount Graham, a towering land mass with unlimited tourist potential. And in 1993 ground was broken for Discovery Park in Safford. It will center around a museum dealing with the lore of Graham County.

But whether Clifton shares in the hoped-for tourist bonanza depends on a variety of scenarios that are just starting to be played out. The community definitely has the charm, a sort of rough-around-the-edges quaintness that could easily become an attraction in itself. It's located in a canyon with small neat houses gracing the sidehills and a main street, Coronado Boulevard, that winds along a river and past old Victorian manses before turning either to Chase Creek or to the equally old sector across the railroad tracks. There's history galore. Some say that Geronimo, the fabled Apache warrior, was born in the immediate vicinity. Others say he wasn't born in Clifton, but lived there off and on through his image-forming years.

The lure of the mines and the lore of the railroads, the legends of treasure lost in the hills, and the tales of bravery and courage are all available to tourism promoters.

But there are some major detours on this pathway to success.

For one thing, Clifton isn't even on the Old West Highway; it's on U.S. 191, about 35 miles north of the featured route. Besides that, the chamber of commerce that entered into the agreement went broke shortly after. But worst of all, there's the problem of money. Hal Ward recognizes this, and he agonizes over it. In his cluttered office at The Copper Era, a weekly newspaper he edits, Ward looks at cold, hard facts every day.

"We're still suffering from 1983," he said. "First, they lost their jobs, then they lost their homes."

The copper miners who comprise the bulk of Clifton's work force went on strike when their contract with Phelps Dodge expired. Many never returned to work, even after the strike was settled. After that the San Francisco River flooded and decimated the community. Much of the damage is still evident.

"There hasn't been much done because nobody could build in the floodplain," Ward said. "So we've been at a standstill. But now the Army Corps of Engineers is ready tobuild a levee to protect us from future floods. The money's ready; they're set to go."

Under the proposal, the corps will construct the levee and, as part of the project, will also build a recreational vehicle park. "They build it, then turn it over to the community," said Clifton Town Manager Mark Fooks. "The park will have 360 spaces. At $9 or $10 a night, it would make Clifton a hub for tourists. Those RVers just love finding new places to tie up at. The park would bring them to Clifton and keep them long enough so they'd go look around instead of pulling out the next day, Fooks believes. "There's plenty here; we just have to develop it."

The people do come, but they don't stay. A lot of them are headed for the Coronado Trail, U.S. 191, a scenic drive that winds through the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest to the north. It's a serpentine route, filled with so many switchbacks and hairpin turns that only the heartiest would even consider returning to Clifton once they've maneuvered it. And some stop at Morenci, up the hill four miles north of Clifton, to look at the Phelps Dodge open-pit copper mine.

The mine is spectacular in scope, second in physical size only to one in Utah. A rectangle, it measures 2,500 feet deep and has a 14-mile perimeter. Tours let visitors get close to huge shovels that scoop up 56 cubic yards of ore in a single bite and deposit it into trucks that can haul 240 tons of ore at a time.

The tours last about three to three and a half hours, but groups can request shorter junkets. So Clifton casts an envious eye toward those who pass through but spend their tourist dollars elsewhere. And there are those who realize the potential.

CLIFTON. ARIZONA

A $500,000 restoration of the old Southern Pacific Railroad depot is a prime example. Before work could begin, five feet of silt from the 1983 flood had to be removed. The project was time-consuming, but now the city has a community center, tourist information outlet, art gallery, teen center, and offices for a volunteer chamber of commerce, where Walter Mares sits in the unpaid boss' chair and meets with Fooks to discuss direction.

"The depot could be the key to any tourist industry we establish," Fooks said. "We've also started talking to the Southern Pacific about a spur line that exists between Clifton and Duncan, hoping to entice the railroad into allowing regular runs again. We could run shopping trains into Tucson and New Mexico. It would bring us people."

But that's in the future. Mares talks about the past. Geronimo and Teresa Urrea (see Arizona Highways, March '94), "the Saint of Cabora." Both of them may be resurrected, in a sense, to bring new life to Clifton.

"We're trying to be tasteful and sensitive to the memories of these people," Mares said while describing the marketing of both. He envisions an annual observance of Geronimo's role in Clifton's history, and the city printed T-shirts denoting its claim to his heritage.

Teresa Urrea's contribution to Clifton is only now being explored. She moved to Clifton early in this century after she was Accused of fomenting revolution and ordered to leave Mexico. Believed to be a miraculous healer by many, and regarded as a saint by the Yaqui and Mayo Indians, she traveled the United States as part of a "medical company" and had thousands of followers.

A fete to honor her was inaugurated in April and drew people from as far away as Washington, northern California, and Texas. Work crews toiled diligently to clean up the old cemetery which holds her remains, and the community had honorary postcards and T-shirts printed for the occasion. Mares predicts the celebration will become an annual event.

Fooks looks to a far costlier vision: the realignment of U.S. 191 from Sanders through Clifton. In other words, taking some of the curves out of the Coronado Trail.

"It'll cost between $50 million and $80 million, but once it's done we'll have a direct route between interstates 40 and 10," Fooks said. "It will be only the second north-south route across Arizona. And all those vehicles will pass through Clifton. Can you imagine what three shifts of hungry truckers every day will do for our economy?"

But the project won't ruin the trail, Fooks insists. "There would be only a few spots that need to be straightened," he said. "The interstate would belong to the federal government, and the Coronado Trail would become a county road."

Early in 1994, Clifton dedicated a Black Hills Back County Byway program, backroads that carry visitors and locals through the surrounding wilderness. "We have bighorn sheep, deer, elk, and beaver in the area around us," Mares said, "but no endangered fish. In fact, you can catch a catfish right in the middle of Clifton in a very healthy river. Wilderness. And history. That's what we have to sell."

The restoration of Chase Creek also is vital to any tourism hopes, Fooks said, but he estimated it'll take at least $1.5 million to do it. "The town is developing an infrastructure around those old buildings, and we believe there is some investor money taking a good, hard look at us."

He paused, then added, "We have everything. We just need to clean ourselves up."

And two miles north of Clifton, in a canyon that can only be described as beautiful, June Palmer is doing just that.

She returned to Clifton in 1989 to buy the family estate built by her grandfather in 1901 and save it from utter destruction. Palmer's heart must have sunk when she came back to the magnificent place where she spent her childhood. The walls were full of bullet holes and paint splatters. Vandals had broken windows and used the sashes for firewood, and Nature herself had turned against the estate, causing leaky roofs that eroded some of the thick adobe walls. Working alone or with what hired help her budget can accommodate, she has restored most of the house to its original condition and converted it into a bed and breakfast facility. Unable to afford advertising, she opened for business anyway in 1993. And in that first year of operation, she had 100 guests. "The people will come to Clifton," she said. "We just have to give them a reason."

WHEN YOU GO

To reach Clifton from Phoenix, take the Superstition Freeway (Interstate 60) past Apache Junction, where it becomes U.S. 60. Take U.S. 60 through Globe and continue on U.S. 70 through Safford, then pick up U.S. 191. For additional information, contact the Greenlee County Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 1237, Clifton, AZ 85533; telephone (602) 865-3313.