Along the Way

Long the Way The Arizona That Might Have Been Wasn't Pretty but Full of Hope

Tornado, Arizona, achieved its maximum growth on Sunday, March 20, 1927, when it was little more than one week old. There were nine tents scattered around the Tornado metropolitan area, a mountainous place 80 miles southeast of Phoenix. A reputable historian has said that five of the tents contained hot-dog stands.My own research indicates that one tent was in fact a wellstocked country store. And we can assume that at least one tent housed a bootlegger selling liquor, for Prohibition was in full force in 1927.

Within days Tornado vanished. You won't find it on maps, in place-name guides, or in directories of Arizona ghost towns.

Tornado became part of another Arizona that has fascinated me of late: the Arizona that might have been. It wasn't always pretty, but it was always full of hope, and it helps define the Arizona that is.

My newspaper job amounts to relating Arizona's past to its present. People call me a “history columnist,” but I prefer to think I'm a reporter who reports change after it has had time to settle.

Almost every week, I find reference to yet another town that tried to be: Copperopolis, Los Reales, Greenwood, two Virginia Cities, Liscum, Liveoak, Nugget, two Oros. For every Phoenix or Flagstaff or Yuma that clung to the Earth and prospered, a dozen towns bloomed and faded.

Without leaving the pavement, you can visit some of Arizona's more substantial former boomtowns: Bisbee, Jerome, Tombstone. If you're equipped for backcountry travel, you can find more rustic destinations. Most of them are remnants of the Arizona that was.

Tombstone. If you're equipped for backcountry travel, you can find more rustic destinations. Most of them are remnants of the Arizona that was.

It's more difficult to track those places that were mostly wishes. Evidence of their existence shows up most often in the uncritical newspapers of their times, which declared each new prospect a potential Comstock Lode, another Bisbee. Well, almost every place.

All my life, I traveled U.S. Route 89 across the head of a place called Fools Gulch, on the face of Yarnell Hill, 90 miles north of Phoenix. I never knew it had a name until recently.

Then I found an 1896 newspaper story about the “lively little mining camp” of Fools Gulch. Its developers had been warned they were fools to look for gold there. Yet Fools Gulch was within sight of the rich Congress Gold Company Mine, which President William McKinley visited in 1901 to see what a real gold mine looked like. And the Gulch was not far from Rich Hill, where in 1863 prospectors pried thousands of dollars worth of gold from the surface of the rocks with their pocketknives.

Fools Gulch was not Rich Gulch. The town vanished quickly; its post office lasted less than a year.

I figure that a state that has so much sunshine, and such unworldly beauty in its terrain, inspires a perpetual, sometimes giddy, optimism. Hope, if you prefer. A sense of could-be. The promise of low-risk adventure in the sunlight.

Arizona has not bragged on this perpetual hope in the same way it boasts of scenery and temperate climate, and that is probably wise. What I have written so far reeks of failure.

Hope created a hospitable climate for swindlers. Some of Arizona's ballyhooed mines were stock frauds. Promoters had a saying: “The vein is in Arizona, but the pay streak is Back East.” Philadelphia and Chicago and St. Paul knew little about Arizona, except that it was supposed to have a lot of gold. So a promoter could print handsome certificates and send salesmen into the streets with penny stocks. He paid himself a large salary for “managing” the mine and took kickbacks on contracts for equipment and supplies.

The boldest of these enterprises, the Spenazuma Mining Co., transported prospective investors to its “mine” until a newspaperman exposed the scam in 1899. Easterners stayed in a posh camp and viewed gold samples that the promoters had purchased from neighboring mines.

Even if a stock mine actually contained ore, the promoter was afraid to mine it. Should the vein peter out, he would be out of the stock business.

There apparently was some gold at Tornado, but the real hope lay in stock sales. A gold boom was on in neighboring Nevada, which in 1927 suffered a new outbreak of gold fever, and that fever spread easily to Arizona. Tornado's marketable (and ironically prophetic) name came from a nearby peak, which had been christened for some nearly forgotten storm.

There also were some hardnosed geologists and mining men in the crowd, however, and they had nothing to say to reporters at day's end. Why did Tornado have five tents devoted to selling hot dogs and soda pop? To serve a rush of wouldbe investors, prospectors looking for placer gold, and people who were simply curious.

A newspaper reported on events there March 20, 1927: “Dainty high-heeled slippers, silk hose, and afternoon dresses trudged alongside of hobnailed boots and rough clothing today as 2,000 men, women and children scouted the hills surrounding this camp in search of souvenirs and claims.” By April Fool's Day, Tornado had (forgive me) gone with the wind, becoming part of the Arizona that might have been.