Event of the Month

EVENT OF THE MONTH You're Welcome at Crown King's Ninth Annual Sky-high Chili Cook-off

If the 10th Annual Crown King Chili Cook-off this month is like the nine cookoffs before it, somebody's going to end up with pie in his eye.

Crown King's Chili Cook-off, which takes place high up in the Bradshaw Mountains, raises money for the town's road fund in what has been, to date, an energetic but generally losing attempt to maintain the rural town's rutted and rudimentary unpaved streets. Efforts to collect for the road fund and put on the chili cook-off illustrate Crown King's relaxed attitude toward things that might make other people tense.

"They have these chili cookoff contests everywhere. And you have to go by the rules," says Kevin Grover, who owns the Crown King Cafe, one of the town's two eateries. Grover and saloonkeepers Paul and Lynn Turley add a semblance of sanity to the otherwise freeform chili cook-off organizational process.

"Here," says Grover, "participants bring two gallons of chili and a ladle. If you come, you get all the chili you can eat, and beer for you and a guest. The time is noon till whenever. Judges are whoever wants to. Spectators help themselves. It's real loose."

Last year's judges picked winners from 37 pretty unusual entries. More than 400 residents and flatlanders from Phoenix consumed all the chili in short order. And the road fund cleared nearly $700. "It was the biggest chili cook-off we ever had," Grover says.

At 6,200 feet, Crown King is one of those isolated mountain retreats insulated from urban ills like smog and traffic congestion by its remoteness in the outback at the end of 29 miles of bone-crunching dirt road made memorable by four hairpin curves.

Crown King boasts a permanent population of 65, and there are some 300 cabin owners who come occasionally. Some of the cabin people, like us, show up almost each weekend, others arrive once a summer, and a few drop by every decade or so.

Now about that pie in your eye.

Not long ago, the six children attending the town's two-room red schoolhouse held a bake sale that didn't quite sell out. So volunteers offered chances for a pie-throw at the annual chili cook-off. Grover and his pals agreed to act as victims, taking pies in their eyes, so to speak, to enhance the school's financial situation.

"Crown King is a pretty family-oriented place," Grover says. "Peaceful. Relatively crime-free. Kids. Almost as many dogs as people. It's the kind of place where you don't try to cause trouble."

Some of the scheduled events in Crown King include the World's Shortest Parade in which the town's three fire trucks and a homemade float travel the length of the downtown, a distance of about 250 feet. Also there's the Casey-Turley One-Hole Open Golf Tournament. Golfers compete by pushing golf balls down a steep, spiraling twomile lane, then plunking the balls into a tin can buried next to the cafe at the end of the course. If a ball rolls off the road, which happens frequently, players ante up a dollar. Last year's low score was 46.

Activities like these appeal to the independent-minded people who either live in or visit Crown King, says Jack Riedl, owner of the Crown King Store. Riedl says he won the Crown King Chili Cook-off one year by psyching out the judges. "There was this Spanish guy there. So I put in some green chiles. And a guy drinking beer. So I threw in some beer." The storekeeper can't quite recall what the rest of his ingredients were, or why.

But Grover says he knows for a fact that some chefs stir in elk, deer, or javelina meat.

Grover's red-bean chili calls for throwing in red pepper and chili powder "until you're ashamed of yourself; then adding a touch more." To Grover's knowledge, "Store-bought chili has never won."

The everyday and the ordinary are ingredients you just won't find at the annual Crown King Chili Cook-off.

WHEN YOU GO

This year's Crown King Chili Cook-off will take place October 14, beginning at noon and ending when everybody wants to go home. Admission is $6. To reach Crown King from Phoenix, about 70 miles, take Interstate 17 north to the Bumble Bee turnoff where you pick up 29 miles of dirt road, some of which is hard driving, that takes you to Crown King. To inquire about the cook-off, call the Crown King Saloon at (520) 632-7053.