DESTINATION

destination Tour the Legacy of Famed COCHISE COUNTY LAWMAN and RANCHER JOHN SLAUGHTER

ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHILDHOOD EXCURSIONS was a visit to the John Slaughter Ranch, a sprawling range in Arizona's southeast corner on the border with Mexico. The 1890s ranch has been restored to replicate life during Territorial days. I remembered it as an oasis of trees, wildlife and artesian-fed ponds, so I had confidence that my preteen children would like the place. The road east out of Douglas into the San Bernardino Valley quickly changes from pavement to a rocky dirt road. Twenty minutes later, after looping through some low hills, we spotted the ranch entrance, a tall metal gateway bearing John Slaughter's Z brand.

A former Texas Ranger and pioneer Arizona cattleman, Slaughter was elected Cochise County sheriff in 1886. In the years after the famous Earp brothers left Tombstone, he did such a good job ridding the county of outlaws that a local newspaper took tocalling the county jail the "Hotel de Slaughter." After two terms, Slaughter retired to his ranch, two-thirds of which extended into Mexico. Originally a Mexican land grant named El Rancho de San Bernardino, the 65,000 acres were purchased by Slaughter in 1884 from descendants of the grant owner. Slaughter died in 1922, and the ranch, now about 100,000 acres, operates under the direction of a family corporation. In 1937, 115 years after the old land grant had formed the ranch, the property was divided along the international border and sold separately. The Nature Conservancy bought the 2,330 acres remaining in the United States in 1980 and sold it two years later. The major portion went to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, while the ranch grounds went to the Johnson Historical Museum of the Southwest, which began its careful restoration. Upon arriving, my kids immediately ran up a grassy slope edged with cottonwood trees andtopped by a pond. I grabbed a walking tour pamphlet at the check-in station and met John Lavanchy, a transplanted Indiana farmer who manages the ranch along with his wife, Norma.

The kids and I explored the outbuildings, which include a shed protecting a restored 1915 Model T Ford, a cowboy bunkhouse, a granary and an icehouse, all built with the volcanic rock called malpais.

The commissary building, where the Slaughters once sold food and other necessities to travelers, now houses chairs and a VCR showing videos of Walt Disney's "Texas John Slaughter," a vintage TV series based on Slaughter's life.

Inside the main house, we saw a hutch, which the Slaughters had mail-ordered from the Sears Roebuck catalog, and their dining table, used to lay out meals for the many visitors the family often welcomed. The kids also examined the kitchen with its array of old-fashioned bottles, wanted to play the pump organ in the living room and remarked that the iron-framed beds looked too small to hold their 6-foot-2-inch daddy.

People often were smaller in those days, I said. John Slaughter was a bantam-rooster type who grew a beard to hide what he termed a "fish mouth." The photos lining a long hallway showed us that Slaughter smoked cigars, wore a vest and was usually armed, even after he'd retired as sheriff.

The 1-acre house pond, developed by Slaughter for irrigation and domestic purposes, now harbors three endangered fish species-the Yaqui chub, Yaqui topminnow and Yaqui catfish. We didn't see any of the deer or bobcats that Lavanchy says come to drink from the pond, but we did see birds,

OTHER THINGS TO DO IN COCHISE COUNTY

Area codes are 520.

AMERIND FOUNDATION The museum houses one of the finest private collections devoted to the study of Southwest Indian cultures; Dragoon, 586-3666.

COCHISE STRONGHOLD Used as a refuge by Chiricahua leader Cochise during the Apache wars and now part of the Coronado National Forest, the area features interpretive and hiking trails; Coronado National Forest, Douglas Ranger District, 364-3468.

COPPER QUEEN HOTEL Stop in for lunch or spend the night at the "Queen," built at the turn of the 20th century in Bisbee, then the largest mining town in the world; Bisbee, 432-2216.

DOUGLAS/WILLIAMS HOUSE MUSEUM Experience the home life of an affluent Douglas family at the turn of the 20th century; Douglas, 364-7370.

FORT BOWIE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE A 1.5-mile hike through historic Apache Pass leads to the ruins of the fort made famous during the Apache wars; Willcox, 847-2500.

FORT HUACHUCA MILITARY MUSEUM Discover the fort's history from its beginnings as an 1877 Army camp to its present operation as an information center and intelligence school; Sierra Vista, 533-5736.

GADSDEN HOTEL The opulent lobby, with its white marble staircase and stained-glass murals, recalls the days when the hotel hosted the rich and famous; Douglas, 364-4481.

KARTCHNER CAVERNS STATE PARK Approximately 3,500 feet of trail open this "living" cave to visitors who prefer guides and lighted paths to solo spelunking in dark tunnels; Benson, 586-CAVE.

QUEEN MINE TOURS Ride the old ore-car rail system back into copper-mining history; Bisbee, 432-2071.

SINGING WIND BOOKSHOP Browse classic literature of the American Southwest at this unique shop located on an active cattle ranch; Benson, 586-2425.

including vermilion flycatchers.

A path led us to the top of a small rise called Mesa de la Avanzada. There the kids jumped from rock to rock, eventually noticing some of them are aligned in rows and squares. These were the foundations for buildings of an Army outpost that guarded the ranch and its valley from raids by Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution, 1914 to 1917.

From the mesa's height, I could see a silvery-white spire, one of the remaining original markings along the international border, and, a few miles farther south, trucks rolling along the Mexican highway to Janos, Chihuahua. To the east and north, the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge protects endangered fish species and other wildlife, including almost 300 species of birds. After eating lunch at one of the picnic tables under the cottonwoods, the kids walked the pond's perimeter to stalk the frogs that line its banks. As they explored the nearby barn and petted the goats and horses, I thought about the hardy people who lived on the ranch when hostile Apaches were still a threat. Although my kids didn't think about it, Slaughter's ranch did work its magic on them. As we headed back to Douglas, they made me promise we'd visit the ranch again soon. All Now an artists' colony and retirement haven, Bisbee burgeoned during the early 1000s into the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco.

The Gadsden Hotel in Douglas still rivals the finest hotels from the turn of the last century.