Trek into Our Mining Past

THE MYSTERIES OF MARTINEZ CANYON

The road to Martinez Canyon, near Mineral Mountain northeast of Florence, can jiggle the fillings out of your teeth. You must travel a rocky, washed-out four-wheel-drive track, but it's worth the trip. With steep, jagged canyon walls ranging in color from gray through golden brown to red, this secluded oasis with its towering trees and saguaros has a sense of isolation. Today Martinez Canyon is a haven for birds, but once the canyon resounded with dynamite blasts and the rumble of ore wagons. Three mines - the Martinez, Columbia, and Silver Belle - produced enough silver and lead to support the settlement of Belle Aire. Peter Villa Verde, a former state representative and local historian from Florence, has made the trip with photographer Bernadette Heath and me. We park at the entrance to Martinez Canyon and Peter crawls up on a large speckled-gray boulder overlooking Papoose Spring.

MARTINEZ CANYON

Peter grew up in this secluded canyon, and he remembers sitting on the same rock as a child. This is his first trip back here since his father died in 1992, and memories bubble up in him like water from the spring.

Wandering around, I find Peter wasn't the first one to sit on these stones. Fiveinch-deep grinding holes, their sides worn smooth by repeated friction, show Native Americans ground seeds into meal here.

We follow the cold, clear stream up the canyon. In spots it gurgles over mossy rocks, then dives back underground only to pop up again farther along. The water nourishes massive Arizona ash trees, and I sink to my knees in dry leaves. A late fall has extended the golden display into January, and the sun highlights the tops of the cottonwoods.

The canyon appears solid rock, but cactuses, catclaw, mesquite, and native grasses eke out survival along the steep sides. Saguaros march up the slopes of Mineral Mountain, where they stand silhouetted against a sky so blue it seems to come from a can of spray paint instead of nature. The contorted range, faulted and fractured with side canyons and ledges, bristles with spires and spines of reddish rhyolitic lavas. The basalt and rhyolite cliffs have eroded into whimsical shapes, caves, and peek-aboo holes. The top of the the ridge looks as if a giant knife had sliced it into deep ravines.

These deep cracks stir my curiosity, but I am not brave enough to explore their dark recesses.

A homemade ladder dangles from one of the high dark crannies. We rest while Peter tells a story about it. His father, Pete Villa Verde, built the ladder after he found a silver bar partially buried in the sand of the creek. Pete figured the bar to be part of a treasure stolen by the Apaches and hidden away in the remote canyon. He spent years searching likely hideaways, but never found any treasure.

We continue to a cave eroded back into the wall about 20 feet. During the canyon's mining heyday in the late 1800s, this cavity served as a cantina or saloon. I'd seen an old photo of this cantina. Back then, the front of the cave was rocked up, leaving openings only for a door and one small window. A row of stones about two feet high and an iron door in the back of the cave are all that remain. I slowly pull open the door and peer into a dark 40-foot tunnel. Legend says loose women attached hooks to the tunnel walls to hang beds for their murky bordello.

Another story claims irate bartenders threw drunks into this dungeon until they sobered up. I venture inside the tunnel a few yards only to have the blackness and narrow walls close in on me, and I hurriedly back out.

Out in the sunshine, I notice a rosebush clinging to the canyon wall. I wonder if it was planted by a miner's wife, or, maybe, one of the women from the cantina.

Painted on the cave is "Silver Bell saloon where 17 men were killed," then the writing fades away. Peter doubts 17 men died in the fight, but the local cemetery holds at least two of the combatants.

On up the canyon at Villa Verde Camp, we find a couple of houses. The red house, where Peter's father lived, is shaded by an imposing cottonwood. The view from the porch is both glorious and frightening. Like a scene from an old Western movie, the sharp canyon walls are pocked with hideyholes and fissures. It doesn't take much imagination to picture Apaches and outlaws lurking there.

In contradiction to that rough scene, the stream trickles peacefully over smooth cobblestone at the base of the porch.

Nearby, a small white rock house, all that remains of the original Villa Verde house, holds a dark memory for Peter. The Florence Blade Tribune of August 3, 1951, tells the story, headlined "Mother and Two Children Almost Swept Away When House Battered by Water."

"Villa Verde's wife Connie, and two young children, [Peter and his sister, Sylvia] were huddled together on a bed in their home when a four-foot wall of water whipped into the house," the story said. "The terrible force lifted a nine-cubic-foot electric refrigerator and banged it against the door 10 feet away."

"Terrified that the structure would be swept away, Mrs. Villa Verde sought refuge on top of the icebox until rescued.

"Force of the water was so strong that the children's pants were torn from their bod-ies. The mother and children were bruised by the battering.

"Mrs. Villa Verde said the flood came without any warning. There was no rain but hailstones 'almost as big as doorknobs' fell for a few minutes. Some rain was reported at the mine further down the canyon. It [the flood] hit the canyon at 4:30 and 20 min-utes later was all over."

(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 38 AND 39) Martinez Canyon once boomed with the miners' dynamite blasts, but today a visitor is more likely to hear birdsong or the shuffling of four-legged animals in the brush. (RIGHT) A small rock structure is all that's left of the house where the Villa Verdes lived when the flood came.

(RIGHT) Lush vegetation lines the stream running through the Villa Verdes' old homestead. It was somewhere along this creek that Peter Villa Verde's father found a partly hidden silver bar, a tantalizing hint of what might be a fabulous lost treasure.

MARTINEZ CANYON

Only six years old at the time, Peter remembers the experience. He says, "When the water got as high as the bed we were sitting on, Mother jumped in and braced herself. She then told me to jump to her. I didn't want to so Mother screamed, 'Jump!' and I did. I went under the water, but she pulled me right up and placed me on top of the Coca-Cola icebox.

"Mother then yelled for Sylvia to jump. Sylvia jumped, but she missed Mother's arms and disappeared. The water was so muddy we couldn't see her. The swift current swept Sylvia toward the door, but at the last minute her arm came out of the water. Mother lunged for her, grabbed her arm, and got her up on the icebox. I still re-member the muddy taste of that water, and I had nightmares for a long time afterward."

Later, in Florence, when I asked 76-yearold Connie Villa Verde about the flood, she went silent, then shuddered. "It was awful," she said. "Big pieces of wood and mine timbers kept slamming into the house. The wooden addition washed away. We huddled on the icebox and prayed until the water went down.

"The cook from the mine managed to save some food-bread, cereal, and canned milk, I think - and we ate that. After three days, the children and I and three miners started to walk to Florence. Along the way, we saw so many dead cows. All we could find of our jeep was the windshield. We didn't have much food left so the children each got a slice of bread. We were almost to the Gila River when we met some county men com-ing in to rescue us. I never wanted to go back into Martinez Canyon after that."

The flood ended mining in Martinez Canyon. Pete Villa Verde remained as caretaker of the property, and his wife moved to Florence where their children could attend school. Peter spent his weekends and summer vacations with his father in Martinez Canyon, but his mother could never bring herself to return to the scene of her terror.

We amble up the canyon. In spots we can find the old Sinkton Toll Road, built before the turn of the century to transport ore to the charcoal ovens at Cochran and to Price Station on the Gila River. In other places, we're forced to climb over multicolored rocks that have rolled to the bottom of the creek bed.

We come to a cavern Peter calls Manuel Ceremonial Cave. It is higher up the wall and much larger than the cantina. Inside, the shady cavity is cool, the ceiling and walls smoke-stained from centuries of fires. Peter remembers that a Tarahumara Indian worker lived several summers in the cave, and a pioneer family had a child born here.

The view, framed by the cavern opening, is spectacular. Across the streambed, maroon mountains rise in craggy ridges. The sun turns a nearby slab of rock to an unearthly glow of orange and gold.

Reluctantly, we leave the cool retreat and continue on to the mill. Its massive timbers still stand dark and strong. Peter's father built the track for ore cars that spans the creek. An Ingersoll-Rand steam engine bolted to the floor was manufactured in New York and hauled into the canyon by mule. Now it is a silent reminder of when Martinez Canyon thundered with the sounds of machinery.

Just past the mill, the canyon forks. We speculate a rock outline might have been a miner's house. A few footings are all we've found of the town of Belle Aire, and history books recorded little more about the place.

We take the left fork, up Telegraph Canyon. Here, dark red earth from a mine is piled high on the hillside. We can see portions of the tramway that carried the ore. This is the end of our trek, and we must retrace our route out of Martinez Canyon. The light and shadows have changed the color of the canyon walls so much it looks like a different site.

Peter says, "I never get tired of this place. Each season and each time of day is beautiful in its own way."

I ask Peter his dream for Martinez Canyon. He quickly replies, "A regional park. It needs to be protected. This may be the most intact historic area in Arizona. Its central location between Phoenix and Tucson, rich history, flowing river [the nearby Gila], natural scenic beauty, and diversity of wildlife destines this area to be a regional park which the Arizona Trail will pass through. Can't you just see it?"

I can. Although the canyon might lose some of its peaceful solitude, it does need to be shielded from relic hunters and vandals. Until it can be preserved, mysterious Martinez Canyon keeps its scenic ruggedness concealed at the end of a teeth-rattling trail.