FRONTIERSMEN ON THE BUTTERFIELD TRAIL

When Cochise, the feared chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, refused to leave the Butterfield stage station in Apache Pass, young station manager Jim Tevis grabbed him, and with one hand entangled in his long black hair and the other on the belt of his breech cloth, threw the famous warrior out the door and into the dusty corral. Cochise was mortified. Hot with anger, he told the 22-year-old Tevis, "You have made me look like a boy before my people." Cochise challenged Tevis to a duel to the death: Cochise was to be armed with his long wooden lance and Tevis with his two sixshooters, riding horseback toward each other from 50 yards. Tevis said he "did not relish the proposition of facing Cochise with a lance in his hands." In his book, Arizona in the '50s, Tevis, who could speak Apache, said he told Cochise "with all the courage I could muster" that he would not "fight you unless you start the duel." Tevis said he knew that if he succeeded in killing Cochise, the vengeful Chiricahuas would wipe out the station "and kill every one along the [Butterfield] line and aboard the coaches." Although Tevis dodged the 1858 duel, Cochise became his sworn enemy. Three years later, after Tevis quit as station manager, he was captured by Cochise and tortured over an open fire. When Lt. George Bascom tried to arrest Cochise in Apache Pass early in 1861 on false charges of kidnapping a Sonoita settler's stepson, the Apaches started an all-out war against Americans. A few months later, the Civil War began and federal troops were or-dered out of Arizona to fight in the East, leaving the miners, set-tlers and stage stations defenseless against the rampaging Apaches. These confrontations and their violent aftermath grew as American pioneers migrated into southern Arizona following the Gadsden Purchase. For $10 million, the U.S. had bought a huge strip of land south of the Gila River that Congress hoped would give the nation a year-round railroad route connecting the East Coast to California - and give Arizona a much-needed market for its gold and silver ore. The route of the railroad had been surveyed and would cross southeastern Arizona between the Pinaleno and Chiricahua moun-tains at a place the mapmakers, with public relations in mind, named Railroad Pass.

Established in 1862 to protect Apache Pass, site of a permanent spring and former route of the Butterfield stage, Fort Bowie guarded one of the most hotly contested pieces of real estate in the world during the conflict with the Chiricahua Apache Indians. GEORGE H.H. HUEY In 1861, with the Civil War looming, Cochise on the warpath and no soldiers for protection, the Butterfield line folded. During the three years that the Butterfield operated, Indians had killed 168 people along the line.

But business interests in California were impatient for new roads that would open trade to the Eastern states and improve mail service. Railroad construction was far in the future, they argued (actually two decades in the future), while a wagon road could be built in a year or two. Arizona settlers, throttled by the high costs of Eastern manufactured goods that had to be shipped by boat around Cape Horn, enthusiastically backed the plan.

Congress responded by authorizing the construction of not one road but two: the Leach Wagon Road and the Butterfield Overland Mail Route. To the rising optimism of the small American community in Tucson, it looked as if progress and prosperity were finally coming to the isolated Southwest.

Construction of both routes began in 1857, and by the next year the roads moved across Arizona. The Leach Wagon Road was designed for wagon trains hauling freight and immigrants, while the Butterfield road was intended for stagecoaches hauling passengers and mail. Both routes would enter Cochise County through Railroad Pass and would parallel each other across the Sulphur Springs Valley to the San Pedro River.

The Leach Wagon Road would hug the north side of the valley between the Galiuro Mountains and the Willcox Playa and reach the San Pedro River about 15 miles below where the town of Benson is now located. The Butterfield Overland Mail Route would veer into Apache Pass at the north end of the Chiricahua Mountains because of the water hole there and then meander through the Dos Cabezas Mountains. After crossing the Sulphur Springs Valley south of the Willcox Playa, the routes cut through to Dragoon Springs near Cochise Stronghold before dropping down to the San Pedro just above Benson.

Here the two roads would diverge; the Butterfield continuing to Tucson while the Leach, because the government mandated the shortest possible route to California, would bypass Tucson and head down the San Pedro to hook up with the Gila River Trail. Of the two routes, the Leach was the better road, averaging 18 feet wide on the straight stretches and 25 feet wide on curves. To provide drinking water a day's journey apart, the builders improved the flow of springs and dug earthen water catchments in washes. The Butterfield road, to obtain water, detoured into the mountain canyons where the springs were often guarded by Apaches.

Both roads ran right through the heart of Apacheria. Cochise was the principal chief of the western branch of the Chiricahuas, while his father-in-law, Mangas Coloradas, was chief of the Mimbrenos, the eastern branch. The Chiricahuas had warred against the Spanish and Mexicans for 350 years, interrupting trade and communication between the colonial settlements in Arizona and New Mexico.

Initially, the Apaches adopted a quasi-friendly attitude toward Americans filtering into the area, even trying to enlist the best armed soldiers into joining them on raids into Mexico. But the truce, if you can call it that, didn't last, and the Apaches gradually increased their attacks on the isolated American farms and mines that sprung up in the Sonoita and Santa Cruz valleys south of Tucson.

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To obtain peace with the Chiricahuas, both the Butterfield and Leach road builders placated the Indians by giving them corn and traveling to Tucson to develop the mine that bore his name. Others included Louis O'Shea, stagecoach guard, and driver Brad Daily. As the passengers and crew sat down for dinner, Tevis saw that Cochise remained in the room.

"I knew something had to be settled right there," said Tevis. "I told him kindly in the Apache tongue... that he must go out and he told me very frankly that he would not go, and I immediately other gifts. The Butterfield also paid the Apaches to supply firewood to the Apache Pass stage station.

When Tevis took the job as station manager at Apache Pass, he was already a seasoned Indian fighter and a veteran of a South American military campaign.

The Butterfield had a hard and fast rule that no Indians would be allowed in the station when a stage arrived. Earlier a recalcitrant Apache the employees called "Dirty Shirt" had refused to leave the station and was ejected by Tevis. The angry Apache threw his lance at the station manager, narrowly missing him. The fight ended when Tevis grabbed the Apache by the hair and banged his head against the stone wall of the corral."

"Dirty Shirt was one of Cochise's warriors, and when Cochise heard what I had done, he planned revenge," Tevis said.

The next stage to come in from the east had as one of its passengers Lt. Sylvester Mowry, an Army officer and entrepreneur "performed the same operation upon him that I had upon Dirty Shirt," he said.

Tevis said Daily, who had a great fear of the Apaches, fell backward off his three-legged bench when Tevis threw Cochise out the door.

"Tevis, what have you done? Call him back and tell him he can stay," Daily cried. When Tevis refused, the passengers and crew left their uneaten dinners, jumped into the stage and fled the station."

"Lt. Mowry told me afterward that he never had ridden faster on that trip on the Overland stage, and the time taken was only four hours to Dragoon Station, a distance of 40 miles," Tevis said.

Cochise and Tevis tangled several more times, but the Indian leader failed to carry out his death threats, perhaps because Tevis had become good friends with two Apache sub-chiefs, Esconolea and Old Jack.

Esconolea practically adopted Tevis after the latter gave sacks of corn to Esconolea's band during the heavy winter snows and

The long-promised railroad was being built across Arizona, and Tevis knew a reliable supply of water for its steam engines would mean a train depot on his land.

Bitter cold of 1857-58. Old Jack, recalled Tevis, was won over when he agreed to drink tiswin with him. Tevis, who hated the yeastlike taste, said he was drunk for two days afterward. But he continued the binges from time to time because he "found it a good antidote for fear. I always believe it was the means of saving my life. They never knew how scared I was." Tevis confessed he greatly feared Cochise. At one council meeting, Cochise told him he "would soon put an end to all American interference by killing every American in the Territory. As for me, he was going to burn me alive and dance while I was burning. As he was saying all this, his face lit up as though it was going to be a great pleasure." Tevis left the Butterfield late in 1859 after he killed Dirty Shirt and the brother-in-law of Cochise in a hand-to-hand knifefight about a mile from the station. He joined a group of gold miners at Pinos Altos, New Mexico, just east of the Arizona border, and fought Mangas' Mimbrenos as an officer in the Provisional Arizona Rangers. In 1861, with the secession of Texas and war imminentin the East, Butterfield abandoned the line. Cochise boldly attacked any remaining Americans, ambushing them as they abandoned their posts. In one bloody week in late April, nine Americans were ambushed near Stein's Station just inside the New Mexico border. The lucky ones were killed while fighting; those caught alive were hung upside down and burned alive. During the three years that the Butterfield operated, Indians had killed 168 people along the line. A short time after the Stein Station Massacre, Tevis and two friends were captured by Apaches while skinning a bear they killed near Pinos Altos. The Indians turned the three over to Cochise, who whooped with joy when he rode up and recognized Tevis. Cochise said he would show Tevis how he was to die. That night the Apaches strung the two companions of Tevis by their feet from a tree, while a fire was built beneath their heads, burning them to death. Tevis, bound hand and foot, began screaming and Cochise knocked him out with a blow from Tevis' own six-shooter. By the end of the second day, Tevis' arms and legs were so swollen that the ropes binding him could hardly be seen. Cochise ordered his men to support Tevis, as he was unable to stand, and hold him over the campfire. "They kept me there until my boots were burned and my feet blistered. When my boots dered his men to support Tevis, as he was unable to stand, and hold him over the campfire. "They kept me there until my boots were burned and my feet blistered. When my boots were pulled off the skin pulled off with them," Tevis said.

On the third day, Cochise left the trussed-up Tevis, lying on the ground with ants and flies feeding on his burned feet, to join Old Jack and Esconolea and their warriors in a big tiswin drunk in celebration of Tevis' capture. "It would be useless to describe the agony I was in," Tevis said later. That night, one of Esconolea's men came over and offered to

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watch Tevis so that Cochise's guards could go to the tiswin party. When the guards were out of sight, the man cut Tevis' bindings and carried him off because Tevis couldn't walk. Esconolea, the man explained, had given orders to rescue Tevis but couldn't be there himself as he had to throw off suspicion by drinking with Cochise. Tevis, put on a horse by his savior, rode safely to Pinos Altos, where he eventually recovered from his burns. He is believed to miles from Apache Pass. Unable to do much mining because of the threat of Indian attacks, Tevis filed on a home-stead in the San Simon Valley below Apache Pass and dug a well, hitting water at 80 feet. Water, in arid Arizona, was liquid gold. The long-promised railroad was being built across Arizona, and Tevis knew a reliable supply of water for its steam engines would mean a train depot on his land. The railroad arrived in 1881, and Tevis' be the only person to escape alive after being tortured by Cochise. He later joined the Confederate troop of Capt. Sherod Hunter and participated in the occupation of Tucson. Tevis was the last rebel soldier to leave Tucson, barely getting out of town before the first Union troops galloped in. Later he commanded an Arizona unit and was badly wounded in the Trans-Mississippi Campaign. Tevis returned to Apache Pass in 1880 to find the old stage station still standing. Stagecoaches and wagons, however, now stopped at Fort Bowie, which the Army had built south of the Apache Pass springs. It had been 20 years since Cochise began his guerrilla war, and Apache attacks remained as bad as ever. Now Geronimo and his band had Cochise County in an uproar. Despite the danger, Tevis reoccupied his old quarters in the abandoned station, planning to develop some gold mines he had discovered a few land was soon enriched not only with a depot, but a hotel, telegraph office, post office, freight house and livestock corrals. A small town, named Teviston, sprouted beside the tracks. But late that year a Southern Pacific superintendent named Bean with visions of undeserved immortality asked Tevis what he thought of renaming his town Bean City. "We have beans three times a day, every day of the year, and we are tired of even the name of Bean," Tevis told him. So the railroad changed the name to Bowie, after Fort Bowie, and that's the name the town bears today. Phoenix-based Bob Thomas advises readers to visit such places as Apache Pass and Dragoon Springs to really get a feel for what the West was like in the tumultuous days of the Apache Wars.