AUTUMN'S GOLD AND CRIMSON

FALL COLOR

Try These Tips on How to Find the Choicest Viewing Spots When you think “Arizona,” full color may not be the first image that comes to mind. For polychromatic splendor, the state is most known for its rocks: the layered sandstones of the Grand Canyon, for example, and Lake Powell’s bulles and pinnacles, and Sedona’s read rock country.

Yet, for those who know where to look, autumn in Arizona is a movable feast of color. Trees in the higher elevations of the northern part of the state will be the first to change, usually in early to mid-October. In southern Arizona, fall color may last well into the middle of November. Here's a roundup arranged from north to south, of some of Arizona's best bets for fall color. The North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park comes first. Arizona trees and shrubs that turn red in the fall include bigtooth maples, scarlet sumacs, squawbush, Virginia creeper, and such isolated vining plants as Western virgin's bower, Arizona grape, and even poison ivy. And they all grow on the North Rim. Autumn arrives early at the top edge of the Grand Canyon with peak color usually occurring around mid-October. Some displays can be seen from a vehicle. Soft golden hues of aspen leaves frame the long alpine meadows along State Route 67 entering the park, and sumacs and squawbush often prefer roadside habitats. But seeing the splashiest colors requires a bit of hiking. A favorite hike is the North Kaibab Trail, which drops down Bright Angel Canyon to Roaring Springs. After a short distance on this trail, you will see brilliant displays of bigtooth maples in Bright Angel and other canyons spilling off the Rim.

FALL COLOR

Hordes of southern Arizona "leaf peepers" travel to Flagstaff every year to drive through Hart Prairie or to ride the Arizona Snowbowl ski lift to marvel at golden aspens blanketing the slopes of the San Francisco Peaks. For less crowded viewing, try the Arboretum at Flagstaff, where the color-shifting foliage of aspens, maples, sumacs, Virginia creeper, and currant bush can be spectacular.

Oak Creek Canyon along State Route 89A north of Sedona is another prime northern Arizona spot. Slide Rock State Park, where bigtooth maples line the canyon bottom, offers ranger-led walking tours in October. Although crimson maples can be seen from the creekside road, another way to appreciate their bursts of color is to hike the A.B. Young Trail up to the rim and view them from on high. The trail begins at the Bootlegger Campground along State 89A about nine miles north of Sedona. Another popular fall hiking trail is the West Fork Trail, about 11 miles north of Sedona on State 89A.

A motor excursion across the Mogollon Rim via State routes 260 and 87 from Camp Verde through Strawberry, Pine, Payson, Show Low, Pinetop-Lakeside, and on to Alpine leads through pockets of autumn splendor. For noteworthy side trips, drive north 13 miles from Payson on State 87 to Houston Mesa. Tonto Natural Bridge State Park, between Payson and Pine, is another worthwhile stop. And adventurous travelers can saddle up at Pine and ride horseback through autumn leaves along the 14.5-mile Highline Trail.

The Boyce Thompson Arboretum near Superior puts on a fall show, highlighting such colorful trees as Chinese pistachio, honey locust, Arizona ash, Fremont cottonwood, black walnut, and sycamore. A fairly easy hiking trail along a cliff offers a bird's-eye view of the display.

In southern Arizona, numerous mountain canyons are justly touted for beautiful color. In the Santa Catalina Mountains, Bear Wallow and Marshall Gulch are easy to access. Bigtooth maples turn crimson from midto late October at Bear Wallow, a wooded basin located near Milepost 22 on the Catalina Highway northeast of Tucson. Marshall Gulch, about 28 miles up the Catalina Highway just beyond Summerhaven, features a show of golden aspens and the scarlet hues of bigtooth maples and numerous vines and shrubs. To see aspens, take the Aspen Trail; for maples, take the Marshall Gulch Trail along a bubbly mountain stream. Another favorite southern Arizona destination for fall hikers is the South Fork Trail in Cave CreekText continued on page 33 (PRECEDING PANEL, PAGE 22) Aspens signal the change of seasons in Arizona's high country. DAVID ELMS JR. (PAGE 23) The arching white trunks of Arizona sycamores contrast with the brilliant red leaves of bigtooth maples in Ramsey Canyon. MARK S. THALER (LEFT) Bigtooth maple leaves lie scattered across the black igneous rocks lining Workman Creek in the Sierra Anchas range. GEORGE STOCKING

FALL COLOR

(OPPOSITE PAGE) The remote depths of Rattlesnake Canyon in the Galiuro Mountains yield an autumn display of golden-leafed Arizona sycamores and flaming red sumacs. JACK DYKINGA (ABOVE) Aspens line a mountain lane through Lee Valley south of Greer. DON B. STEVENSON

FALL COLOR

(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 28 AND 29) Sunrise lights the vivid fall colors of bigtooth maple trees in Cave Creek Canyon. MARK LARSON (LEFT) Late afternoon sun and the lowering clouds of an approaching thunderstorm combine to give these White Mountain aspens an incandescent glow.

DON B. STEVENSON

FALL COLOR

Continued from page 25 Canyon near Portal in the Chiricahua Mountains. The two-mile trail leads to Maple Camp, named for stands of bigtooth maples that turn crimson, usually in November.

The Swift Trail, State Route 366, passes through canyon niches of scarlet maple as it travels from U.S. Route 191 to Mount Graham in the Pinaleno Mountains near Safford. Aspen gold comes in at the higher elevations, and here and there the roadside turns crimson with sumacs.

To see maples and aspens, try Ramsey, Carr, and Miller canyons, all in the Huachuca Mountains near Sierra Vista. All three canyons can be reached via roads that run east from State Route 92 south of Sierra Vista. Of the three, Ramsey Canyon, the site of a Nature Conservancy preserve, is the best known.

Not to be missed is the gradual softening to yellow of the cottonwoods along the San Pedro River near Sierra Vista. State routes 82 and 90 cross the river through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. Another way to see color along the river is to ride the San Pedro and Southwestern Railroad, an excursion train that operates out of Benson.

Madera Canyon, in the Santa Rita Mountains about 45 minutes south of Tucson off Interstate 19, is another good bet for displays of sycamores, sumacs, Virginia creeper, and aspens.

If your timing's just right, you can follow autumn's colorful trek from the high country up north to the canyons of the south near the Mexican border. A movable feast, yes one for the soul as well as the eye.

Editor's Note: Rock slides closed Catalina Highway in July. Pima County Transportation Department reopened a dirt road for local and emergency use only, but expect to have a temporary, two-lane paved highway open in October. Call (520) 741-4900 for current road conditions.

For updates on fall colors throughout Arizona, call the following numbers. All are in Area Code 520 unless noted as a toll-free 800 series.

Kaibab National Forest (North Rim): 643-7395.

Coconino National Forest: Flagstaff, 527-3600; Sedona, 282-4119.

Tonto National Forest: Payson, 474-7900.

Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest: Alpine, 339-4384; Lakeside, 368-5111; Heber, 535-4481.

Coronado National Forest: Tucson, 749-8700; Nogales, 281-2296; Douglas, 364-3468; Sierra Vista, 378-0311; Safford, 428-4150.

Madera Canyon's Santa Rita Lodge: 625-8746.

Sedona Chamber of Commerce: (800) 288-7336.

Arboretum at Flagstaff: 774-1442.

Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park: 689-2723.

Flagstaff Snowbowl: 779-1951.

The Lynch

The only sound in this fork of Black Canyon is the steady sigh of wind moving through the canopy of ponderosa pines.

In a clearing lie three graves, side by side. On top of the graves, handfuls of wildflowers wilt in the August sun. My friends and I are here because of something that happened long ago.

Simple stone markers commemorate the grisly events of August 11, 1888, when three young cowboys were hanged in circumstances that to this day remain something of a mystery.

For more than a century, the story of Stott, Scott, and Wilson has been told and retold by those who live in Arizona's Mogollon Rim country. No one knows for sure who murdered James Stott, James Scott, and Jefferson Wilson in such a cowardly manner, or even why they died. Robert Carlock, in his book The Hashknife, called the lynching “the ugliest, most dastardly act of the so-called Pleasant Valley War.” By most accounts, the three friends were casualties of the senseless blood feud between the Grahams and Tewksburys, which had escalated into a full-scale range war by 1886. Stott, Scott, and Wilson were assumed to be friendly with the Graham faction. There is little doubt that the men who murdered them were Tewksbury allies. With heads twisted grotesquely, faces distorted and swollen, the limp forms rocked and turned as a storm front moved over the Mogollon Rim.

THE “DUDE” THEY MOCKED BY WRAPPING HIS NECK IN A RED BANDANNA

Jamie Stott, 24, the tallest of the three, wore a red and white plaid shirt his mother made for him on her last visit to his ranch. The pockets of his Levi's held a knife, some coins, and three white pearl buttons he'd been meaning to sew back on a shirt. Under the noose was a red bandanna the hangman had placed around his neck to mock him for being a “dude” and a “tenderfoot.” On his ring finger he wore a gold band, a gift from his father, who had lost a hand and an arm saving a workman at the New England woolen mill where he was superintendent.

One of Stott's partners in death was a short, well-built man, his clothes trail-worn and dusty. The son of a prominent Texas family, James Lane Scott III, 26, looked every inch the cowboy that he was. Before he went to work for Huning and Cooley in Show Low, he was a foreman for the Aztec Land and Cattle Company, known locally as “The Hashknife Outfit.” Old hands called him “The Kid.” Once he had a pleasant, open face. Once he loved a pretty girl from Woodruff named Nellie Cross. Jimmy Scott didn't start fights, but he didn't back down from them, either.

Beside the fair-haired Texan was a short, stocky man known as “Jeff” or “Billy” Wilson. No one knew where he came from or much else about him. In 1888 you didn't ask questions. He was sometimes mistaken for the Billy Wilson who was arrested by Pat Garrett with Billy the Kid, and he made the most of the error. He was a wagon cook for the Hashknife, and helped out at Jamie's'The Ugliest, Most Dastardly Act of the Pleasant Valley War'ranch between roundups. A witty fellow, he would have had a comeback for the cowboy humorist who suggested that Jeff's cooking provided a motive for the hanging.

THE MERE HINT OF SUSPICION COULD GET YOU KILLED

Author Carlock pointed out that the Hashknife, the largest cattle company in Arizona, had moved onto its range “politely and legally,” but settlers along the Mogollon Rim held another view. A few Hashknife cowboys with a reputation as “quick trigger men” joined the Graham faction to keep the sheepherders out of Pleasant Valley. These cowboys and their friends were suspected of horse stealing and cattle rustling. As Stott, Scott, and Wilson would learn, suspicions were enough to get a man killed in Arizona Territory.

ing of Stott, Scott, and Wilson

James Warren Stott was born September 13, 1863, in North Billerica, Massachusetts, the youngest child and only son of James and Hannah Stott. His father ran the Talbot Woolen Mills. The owner of the mill, Thomas Talbot, was a shareholder in the Aztec Land and Cattle Company. Following his graduation from Wilmot Academy in New Hampshire, Stott bid good-bye to his family and headed for Texas, where he hoped to realize his lifelong dream of becoming a cowboy. Through the Talbots, he found work on a horse ranch, where he was soon running mustangs.

According to his letters, collected by Leland Hanchett Jr. and published in his book Black Mesa, Stott was learning the ropes. "I can catch them around their necks when they are running or by their feet, throw them down and hold them there, and I expect to have some wild horses tobreak in a day or two," he wrote his sister Hattie in November, 1883.

Raised a strict Baptist, he was not the typical Texas cowpuncher. "There is nothing here to do except drink and go to dances, and as I never drink or dance, I have not been away from the ranch yet," he wrote.

Female companionship was scarcer than entertainment. "All the girls here are sauerkraut and look like regular old squashheads," he wrote. He found company in his horses and a puppy he bought for 50 cents.

After working on ranches for two years, Stott grew taller and tougher, and became a good shot with a rifle and six-shooter. In the spring of 1885, he took his pay in horses and set out for Arizona to work for the Hashknife. When he reached Holbrook on October 13, 1885, he learned the outfit was not hiring any more "young gentlemen" with family connections. Stott was forced to accept money from his father while he looked for a place of his own. He found a mountain meadow with permanent springs and convinced his father it was a good investment. They bought the homestead rights to 160 acres around Aztec Springs. His neighbors helped him construct a log cabin, barn, corrals, and fences. With $1,000 from his family, he bought mares and range cattle, keeping meticulous records of all his transactions.

The first hint of trouble came in February, 1886, when Stott wrote Hattie: "The Aztec Co. had a little war all of itself the other day with the sheep men, and guns and six shooters were used pretty plenty for a short time. I had an invitation to join the war party in the Aztec part but declined as it was something I had no business with either way, and if I had any fighting to do preferred to do it for myself."

It was an iron-gray horse purchased from a man named Workman that put Stott's reputation, and life, on the line. When the horse was stolen from Stott, he went after it. He wrote Hattie on February 8, 1887, that he had gone to the Tonto Basin to recover a horse "someone had taken over there and did not want to give up."

One month later, Apache County Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens arrested Stott and Hashknife cowboy Tom Tucker on a horse stealing charge. The justice of the peace in Globe determined the horse's original owner was Jake Lauffer, but ruled, "There seems to be an entire lack of evidence to convict."

Stott and Tucker were released, but suspicions had been planted in the minds of some prominent citizens of the Tonto Basin who called themselves "regulators." Their aim was to rid the area of horse thieves and cattle rustlers one way or another.

Stott was well-liked by his friends and neighbors, but he made one dangerous enemy: Deputy Sheriff James Houck, a sheep rancher, Tewksbury ally, and friend of Owens. Holbrook resident Sam Brown, renowned for his bluntness, described Houck as "a bad man with long hair."

Houck had boasted publicly that he would run sheep at Stott's Aztec Springs Ranch someday, and he bad-mouthed Stott to anyone who would listen. Their feud came to a head one night in a Holbrook billiard parlor when Stott told Houck if he wanted to make a fight of it to "go and heel" himself a cowboy expression, and a polite way of telling someone to get lost.

STOTT TOLD HIS SISTER HE'D STAY OUT OF TROUBLE IF HE COULD

Stott's mother and sister Hattie were concerned enough about events in Arizona to visit him at his ranch later in July, 1887. Staying with Stott was Lamotte Clymer, a recovering consumptive from Los Angeles. It was the last time they would see their son and brother.

In October, 1887, Stott wrote his sister that he intended to stay out of the trouble in the Tonto Basin "as far as I am able." Ominously, he said that he had given his address to Frank Ames, Aztec land agent, "so if anything should happen."

When someone ambushed and shot at Jake Lauffer and two other men on August 5, 1888, Houck put the finger on Jamie Stott, Jimmy Scott, and Jeff Wilson.

Scott had had his own run-in with Houck. According to respected lawman Joe McKinney, a friend of Scott, Houck carried a grudge against Scott for "calling his hand" one night in Holbrook when Houck was "shooting his head off recklessly."

When Scott rode into Pleasant Valley August 9, 1888, to pick up a pet horse he had loaned to Louis Naeglin, the regulators took him prisoner, holding him at the Perkins Store for two days on a trumped-up

charge of the attempted murder of Jake Lauffer. Scott guessed his fate when his captors forced him at gunpoint to mount his horse, tied his wrists together, and rode him out toward the Stott Ranch.

At the ranch with Stott were Clymer, Alfred Ingham, another consumptive, and Jeff Wilson, the Hashknife wagon cook. Stott was in high spirits. In just three months, he would have title to his homestead.

Daylight outlined the ridge east of the ranch when Jim Houck and two other men rode through a grove of cottonwoods and willows to the cabin Jamie Stott had built with his own hands and dreams.

Stott was coming out of the cabin when Houck met him with a loaded Winchester. He "threw down" on Stott, according to The St. Johns Herald, and ordered him to put his hands up, saying he had a warrant for his arrest.

Stott told him "that was all right, and that he was willing to go with him whenever and wherever he wished," an eyewitness reported. Stott then invited Houck to stay for breakfast. His invitation must have unsettled Houck, who no doubt hoped he would resist arrest.

Just then the regulators rode up with their prisoner, Jimmy Scott. Stott invitedthem all to breakfast, as he knew most of them. While he was cooking, he asked Houck to see a copy of the warrant. Houck said he had left it at Bear Springs, some four miles west, where his party had stayed the night before. After breakfast, the men "sat around for an hour or so chatting and laughing before taking their departure," according to Clymer.

Just then approximately 25 armed men rode up with their prisoner, Jimmy Scott. Stott invited them all to breakfast, as he knew most of them. BECAUSE OF HIS KINDNESS, STOTT WAS MADE TO SUFFER AND DIE

Houck arrested Wilson, but Clymer and Ingham were spared. There were no charges against them. The regulators took their three prisoners down the Old Verde Road 20 miles to its junction with the Canyon Creek Trail to Pleasant Valley. There they stopped and hanged Stott, Scott, and Wilson from a pine tree. Houck would later claim not to have been there.

Clymer stayed at the ranch to do the chores while the semi-invalid Ingham made his way to Holbrook to report the abduction, probably stopping at a neighbor's ranch for help.

On the same day Ingham arrived in Holbrook, Houck rode into town with the story that he had arrested Stott and Wilson at Aztec Springs for the shooting of Jake Lauffer. Wilson, he claimed, had been involved somehow in the robbery of the Watkins Store in Pleasant Valley. His prisoners, he said, had been taken from him by a band of masked men.

On August 15, rancher Sam Brown, Justice of the Peace A.F. Banta, Hashknife executive Frank Ames, and Deputy Sheriff Hook Larson arrived at the site of the hanging. The fly-blown bodies had been hanging in the heat of August for four days. The men cut them down, wrapped them in woolen Army blankets, and buried them in a nearby clearing where the ground was soft enough to dig.

The Stotts received a telegram from Hashknife cowboy J.P. Burdette on August 16 telling them of the hanging. The elderly couple left for Arizona the next day. Sam Brown drove them to the Aztec Springs ranch, where they gathered their son's personal belongings. They settled his affairs and left Arizona behind them. They were religious people who believed in a higher justice than man's.

En route home, Hannah Stott wrote to her daughters: "Oh dear, when I think of what I have left, not earthly goods, for that is of no account, but the body of my dear, dear child.... One thing is certain, he is free and safe from evil men now. They have done their worst to him."

Despite pleas from the Stotts and Scott's relatives in Texas, the perpetrators were never identified, much less brought to justice. Judge D.G. Harvey wrote to the Stotts: "It is one of those crimes that is very hard to fathom, as undoubtedly every participant swears his life to secrecy."

Harvey concluded: "I am fully convinced, after a thorough inspection of Jamie's books and papers, that he purchased and paid a good round price for every head of stock on his range, but do think he was imposed on by designing parties and through his kindness he has had to suffer."

Just as he had once boasted, Jim Houck ran his sheep on Stott's ranch in the years following the hanging, and for a time he was quite prosperous. According to The Arizona Republican, he died by taking strychnine in Cave Creek in 1921 at the age of 74.

A monument to Jamie Stott was erected in Lowell, Massachusetts, by his family five years after the hanging, according to researcher Leland Hanchett Jr.

The local newspaper there reported that Jamie Stott's old schoolmates "manifested deep regard for his memory, and still tell how well liked by all was the merry-hearted, good-natured boy, whose happy disposition and gentlemanly manners made him such a general favorite."

On August 9, 1997, nearly 100 people, including myself, had walked to the gravesite of James Stott, James Scott, and Jefferson Wilson to honor their memories. Leland Hanchett Jr. tells their story; cowboy poet Dee Strickland Johnson recites a eulogy; we sing old cowboy songs; and we observe a moment of silent reflection as Western artist Steve Taylor plays the harmonica.

May they rest in peace.