Archive All Issues February 2000

HARDSHIP AND HOPE IN THE WILD WEST

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This month's Great Place is the rugged land of cowboys, warring Indians, gold-seekers and dream-filled entrepreneurs - country eventually named Cochise County. Tales of fierce bravery and astonishing foolishness intertwine to weave the lore that fascinates the world today.

Featured in the February 2000 Issue of Arizona Highways

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado's expedition into the heart of the Southwest in 1540 first explored the vast territory along the United States' border with Mexico. Nearly three and a half centuries after Coronado's passage through these Huachuca Mountains, the United States Army established Fort Huachuca near here to serve as an advance outpost in Apacheria.
Francisco Vasquez de Coronado's expedition into the heart of the Southwest in 1540 first explored the vast territory along the United States' border with Mexico. Nearly three and a half centuries after Coronado's passage through these Huachuca Mountains, the United States Army established Fort Huachuca near here to serve as an advance outpost in Apacheria.
BY: GEORGE H.H. HUEY

GREAT PLACES HARDSHIP AND HOPE IN THE OLD WEST

When the Arizona frontier opened to newcomers, fearless stagecoach drivers and railroad men led the way. Then came the fortune-seekers.

Freedom and boundless opportunity lured rough, hardy Americans in the mid-1800s to tangle with and eventually settle - the wildest Western territory in the land.

This area, now called Cochise County, attracted pioneers for differing reasons: A visionary stage company owner built a route to the California goldfields; Texas cattlemen filled its grasslands with vast herds; the mineral-rich earth drew greedy gold diggers; and later, the remote country proved a haven for outlaws, a tonic for the sick and offered a new start for the woebegone. But many early residents died at the hands of the Apaches, who raged constantly through the land known also as Apacheria. Stagecoach station manager Jim Tevis spent many years warring with Chiricahua leader Cochise and his men, yet lived to write horror stories about it. Others were not so lucky.

Later, after the arrival of the railroad, Willcox, Bowie, Bisbee and Tombstone flourished on astonishing mining strikes as adventurerers migrated to the area armed with rifles, shovels, pickaxes and big dreams. Soon, the area produced more tall-sounding tales as early Arizonans made and lost vast fortunes. Big ideas drove them to ranching and rustling, hard-rock mining and smelting, risking their lives and “civilizing” the heart of Arizona’s frontier West.