Arizona Highways, July 1988

              J u L y • 1 9 8 8 • $ 1 . 7 5 WPS33940
Arizona and
WorldWaril
Ponderosa
Pines
CONTENTS
Prescott's Frontier Days
by Dennis B. Farrell
page4
Ponderosal
by Joseph Stocker
page 12
Eighth in a Series:
Steamboats on
the Colorado
by Bill Ahrendt
page 17
Visit to Keet Seel
by James Tallon
page 20
Niches in Time:
Adventures in the
Grand Canyon
by David lavender
page 24
The Shalakos of
Shungopavi
by Ann Brimacombe Elliot
page 32
Arizona and World
War II
by James E. Cook
page 36
DEPARTMENTS
EDITOR'S PAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
LETTERS .................. 3
ARIZONIQUES . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
BOOKSHELF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
ARIZON~
HIGHWAYS
JULY1988 Vol. 64, No. 7
Rodeo, now one of America's most popular
spectator sports, got a rousing start 100 years
ago this month in the capital of Arizona
Territory. You're invited to Prescott for a five­day
centennial celebration.
Presenting the flag at Frontier Days. Bl!L SPERRY •
This admirable pine tree dominates the ever,
green forests of Arizona's high country­enhancing
the landscape, providing a
hospitable habitat for wildlife, and serving as
a versatile resource for man.
Once upon a time in the Southwest, a traveler
could buy a steamer ticket that would take him
(or her) more than 200 miles up a remote and
fickle river into the desert wilderness.
Deep in Tsegi Canyon, an errant mule caused
his pioneer owner to discover a city six
centuries lost. It's the largest cliff dwelling in
Arizona. And getting there is an adventure
in itself.
Those who raft the Colorado River through
the Grand Canyon can claim a memorable
bonus. In addition to glorious scenery and
heart-stopping rapids, there's an amazing
world of side canyons waiting to be explored.
Deer Creek in the Grand Canyon. DAVID EDWARDS•
On a high, windswept plaza on the Hopi
Indian Reservation, a visitor witnesses an
infrequent performance of a complex ritual:
the return of the Shalakos and their escort
kachinas to Second Mesa.
In the early 1940s, as the United States rapidly
increased the size and strength of its armed
forces to overtake the Axis lead, Arizona
became a vast military training area.
Graduation Day at Thunderbird Field fl BOB MARKOW•
(FRONr COVER) Proudly decked out in her nation's colors, an all-American
Jessica Reed, nine, stars in the children's parade, just one in a swirl of events
that make up Prescott's Frontier Days. For more on the world's oldest rodeo and
its centennial observance this month, see page 4. BILL SPERRY
(OPPOSITE PAGE) World War II memorabilia from the Arizona Military Museum.
The war had a tremendous impact on Arizona. Thousands of servicemen
and women trained at military installations throughout the state, and a
remarkable number returned after the war to resume their peacetime lives.
See page 36. DON B. STEVENSON
Arizona Highways 1
EDITOR'S
The aircraft contours only
partially glimpsed at
right will nevertheless
be instantly recognized by
many a former serviceman
(and many a former school­boy)
of the World War II era.
The B-24 liberator bomber,
along with the B-17 Flying
Fortress, the twin-fuselage P-
38, and the three fighter
planes pictured on page 38,
each earned fame and affec­tion
by its distinctive appear­ance
as well as its perfor­mance
indelibly recorded in
the annals of pre-jet aviation.
I was a ground soldier,
not an airman, but I had a
special appreciation for the
B-24, for good reason. One
of the trusty liberators pro­vided
my first airplane flight.
In a hurry to get home to
Arizona on furlough from
Camp Callan, California, in
1943, I headed for nearby
San Diego, found the cam­ouflaged
factory of Con­solidated
Aircraft where B-
24s were assembled, and
promptly hitched a ride on
one of the brand-new beau­ties
bound for a modifica­tion
plant in Tucson, where
its armament would be
installed.
p A G E
fast -receding yet clearly
remembered days, turn to
"Arizona and World War II,"
beginning on page 36. Jim
Cook's report is augmented
by contributions from Don
Dwiggins, Sam Negri, and
Lloyd Clark, and the photog­raphy
of Don Stevenson.
A second story in this
issue combines action and
nostalgia. July marks the
lOOth anniversary of the
world's oldest rodeo, Fron­tier
Days, in my hometown
of Prescott.
Many aspects of the cele­bration
have changed rela­tively
little since my own
boyhood. But whereas today
there is one major Frontier
Days parade and one chil­dren's
parade, it was cus­tomary
then to schedule a
pre -rodeo procession
through town each of the
days (usually four) of the
annual observance. Every
cowboy and cowgirl entered
in a rodeo event also rode
in the parade.
That unforgettable first
journey by air included an
abrupt descent over Yuma
when I mentioned to the
crew that the family of a
close friend lived in the
Colorado River town. "See if
B-24 Liberator bombers undergo final preparation for
combat service at Tucson's Consolidated Aircraft fa­cility
during World War fl The four-engine Liberators
were dependable workhorses of the Army Air Forces.
Each July for seven or
eight years in the 1930s and
early '40s, as members of the
Sons of the American Legion
drum and bugle corps and
later of the Prescott High
School band, Jim Martin and
I played our snare drums
and marched steadfastly
through the streets of Pres­cott
behind those hundreds
of horses. One develops
some remarkable skills of
you can spot the house," cheerfully commanded the
pilot-and down we went. My wide eyes quickly picked
out our target; I pointed; and a significant percentage of
Yumans must have got almost as much of a thrill as I did
as the big four-engine craft buzzed a block of small one­story
houses.
For thousands of Arizona Highways readers old enough
to remember World War II, the experiences of more than
four decades ago remain among the most vivid of their
lives. Along with all those individual stories, the social
and economic history of Arizona was dramatically altered
by the war years. Located far from any combat zone, the
state yet was transformed by its missions of military
training and defense production.
For a salute to the men and women and events of those
2 July 1988
balance and light-footedness while keeping in step,
choosing the best available path over and around hazards,
and never missing a beat on the drum.
Our report on the Frontier Days centennial, written by
Dennis Farrell and photographed by Bill Sperry, begins
on page 4.
Those are only two of the subjects we bring you this
month. You can also observe the rare Hopi ceremonial
of the Shalakos at the village ofShungopavi; visit Arizona's
largest cliff dwelling at Keet Seel; roam among mighty
ponderosa pines; explore side chasms deep in the Grand
Canyon; and look back at the days of sturdy, stubborn
steamboats on the Colorado River.
We hope your summer is going well and that you will
enjoy this issue of our magazine. - Merrill Windsor
HALLOWED HAVASUPAI
I loved Rosanne Keller's article
"Pilgrimage to Havasupai" (April,
1988). The words she used to describe
what she saw just jumped off the page
in beautiful visual images. The photog­raphy
was absolutely superb, as usual.
Your magazine renews me spiritually.
Emmett O'Brien
Eau Claire, WI
From the opening phrase in "Pil­grimage
to Havasupai" by Rosanne
Keller - "Clothed in towering
canyons" - I literally held my breath
for a long time. The photographs are
beautiful (of course), but my own
movie-in-my-head surpassed them all.
To her closing phrases-"In celebra­tion
I leave part of myself in Havasupai
forever.. .. clothed in canyons, I was re­created"
- she said every word for me.
]. Duncan Campbell
North Bennington, Vf
Editor's note: Mr. Campbell is a long­time
member of the editorial board of
Vermont Life magaz ine. He wrote the
"Afterword" in the December, 1986,
issue of Arizona Highways.
LETTERS
YOURS SINCERELY
For those of us privileged to have
hiked Havasu Canyon, the beautiful
piece in your April issue captures this
Arizona experience in all its unspoiled
splendor. The memory of those
moments in time is "burned into my
senses" forever, as I suspect is true for
most visitors to the land of the blue­green
waters. Thank you, Rosanne
Keller.
Robert S. Kirschenbaum
Phoenix, AZ
MONEY'S WORTII
Each month I receive an array of
magazines. And, in that I read most of
the articles and briskly peruse the rest,
I get my money's worth from each. But
in your magazine, I find it well worth
my while to thoroughly read every
article. As a frequent visitor to your
beautiful and intriguing state, I am
anxiously awaiting the precious time
that my tight schedule will allow to
explore some of the remote desert and
mountain regions that are so vividly
brought to life in your magazine.
ADVENTURES
Michael R. Peluso
Puyallup, WA
I truly loved living in Tucson for 18
months in 1963. I always wanted to
return, but haven't yet. I enjoyed your
magazine in my doctor's office and by
subscribing will be able to enjoy the
"great adventures" of Arizona every
month.
Stephen R. Owens
Huntington, WV
INDESCRIBABLE
Being recently married to a native
Arizonan, I have certainly listened to
many stories of Arizona's natural
beauty and its people. As a gift to both
my husband and myself, I subscribed
to Arizona Highways. It has provided
us with a great way to spend time
together, while I learn more about
your state. I have yet to travel to
Arizona, but your magazine, with
captivating photos and informative
reading, helps me comprehend the
richness and beauty of Arizona that
have been described to me. Now I
share my husband's desire to return to
indescribable Arizona.
Dawn Hotubbee
Mena, AR
ARIZON~
HIGHWAYS®
JULY 1988 VOL. 64, NO. 7
Publisher-Hugh Harelson
Editor-Merrill Windsor
Managing Editor-Richard G. Stahl
Art Director-Gary Bennett
Picture Editor-Peter Ensenberger
Associate Editor-Robert J. Farrell
Associate Art Director-Christine Rousso
Senior Contributing Editors-
George Collins. Esther Henderson, Ray Manley,
Josef Muench, Earl Petroff, Clara Lee Tanner
Contributing Editors-
Bill Ahrendt, John Annerino. Joan Baeza, Joe
Beeler, Bob Bradshaw, Duane Bryers. Don
Campbell, Willard Clay, Ed Cooper, Paul Dean.
Don Dedera. Dick Dietrich, Jack Dykinga, Carlos
Elmer. Bernard L. Fontana. Jeff Gnass, Barry
Goldwater. Pam Hait, Jerry Jacka, Christine Keith,
Gill Kenny, Peter Kresan. Gary Ladd, Alan Manley,
Herb and Dorothy Mclaughlin, J. Peter Mortimer,
David Muench, Charles Niehuis, Marguerite
Noble. Willis Peterson. Lawrence Clark Powell,
Allen C. Reed, Budge Ruffner. Jerry Sieve. Joe
Stocker, Jim Tallon. Larry Toschik. Marshall
Trimble, Larry Ulrich, Maggie Wilson
Finance Director-Paul Wenner
Circulation and Mari<eting Director­Sharon
Vogelsang
Managing Editor, Related Products­Wesley
Holden
Production Director-Diana Pollock
Fulfillment Director-Bethany Braley
Data Processing Manager-Richard Simpson
Promotion Manager-Colleen Hornung
Sales Manager-Norma Luthi
Governor of Arizona-Rose Mofford
Director,
Department of Transporlation­Charles
L. Miller
Arizona Transportation Board
Chairman: Jim Patterson. Chandler;
Members: Arthur C. Atonna. Douglas;
Andrew M. Federhar, Tucson; Harold Gietz.
Safford; Guy Reid, Prescott; Verne D. Seidel,
Jr .. Flagstaff; Ted Valdez. Sr .. Phoenix
Arizona Highways® (ISSN 0004-1521) is published monlhly by the Arizona Department ol
Transportation. Subscription price $15 a year in U.S., $18 elsewhere: single copies $1.75 each, $2
each outside U.S. Send subscription correspondence and change of address informalion to Arizona
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changes to Arizona Highways, 2039 W. Lewis Ave .. Phoenix, AZ 85009. <>Copyright 1988 by the
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hi bi led. The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited materials provided for editorial consideration.
Arizona Highways 3
4 July 1988
TEXT BY DENNIS B. FARRELL • PHOTOGRAPHS BY BILL SPERRY
T om Mix, famous cowboy star of the
silent screen and early talkies, was
also a rodeo competitor. He was an
above-average bronc rider and a top
bulldogger, recollects Gail Gardner, "but
he couldn't rope a post." Now 95, Gardner
has seen a lot of cowboys and cowgirls
come and go in "The World's Oldest
Rodeo" in scenic, mile-high Prescott.
Prescott's Frontier Days celebration,
which observes its lOOth anniversary this
month, was only five years old when
Gardner was born in the house on Mount
Vernon Avenue where he still lives. No less
the salty cowman for being confined to
a wheelchair, Gardner clearly recalls many
of the celebrities he came to know during
his years as official rodeo announcer. One
was Mix, who had been parade marshal
clear back in 1913; another was Will
Rogers, cowboy humorist, newspaper
columnist, and actor.
Rogers came to Prescott many times,
helping Frontier Days to acquire national
prestige as the granddaddy of rodeos. An
old rope-trick artist, he often posted a
prize (usually $100) for a roping contest.
But it was John Wayne, motion picture
prototype of the American cowboy, who
apparently was held in higher esteem by
the rodeo's management than any other
Hollywood figure. He was honored in
1974 when a bronze trophy, showing him
in full Western regalia, was created as a
one-time-only All-Around Cowboy award.
ONE
HUNDRED
YEARS
YOUNG:
In 1980 the rodeo itself was dedicated to
his memory: Wayne died about three
weeks before that year's event.
Then there were the less-famous folk
who added pages and even chapters to the
colorful lore of the July extravaganza. Two
veteran observers who vividly recall some
of the episodes are author Danny Freeman,
rodeo historian since 1940, who recently
published a meticulously researched
book on the Prescott celebration titled
World's Oldest Rodeo; and Lester Ward
(Budge) Ruffner, whose family has been
associated with the annual event from its
struggling infancy.
In the hard-drinking life-style of the old
cattle country, many rodeo performers
coexisted with John Barleycorn. But
occasionally Old John would get the
upper hand, as in the case of Harry
Henderson, who once had such a mon­umental
hangover from a sojourn on
Whiskey Row he couldn't make it to the
arena. His identical twin brother, Bill, took
over, kept up a winning streak, and Harry
returned the next day to go on to glory.
A few people knew about the substitution,
reports Freeman, but no one said anything.
Budge Ruffner tells about two cowboy
buddies, Frank Polk and Dave Hill, who
couldn't stand prosperity and would be off
to Whiskey Row with their winnings after
the rodeo's first day. Sheriff George
Ruffner, Budge's uncle, solved their
problem by locking them up each night
PRESCOTT'S
FRONTIE D ~S
1888-1988
and letting them out the next day to
compete. By enforcing their sobriety,
Ruffner enabled the two cowboys to come
out top winners that year. Frank Polk later
became a talented sculptor and a member
of the Cowboy Artists of America. Inciden­tally,
George Ruffner, who was an expert
cowboy as well as a legendary sheriff, was
the first Arizonan to be nominated to the
Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Unlike the Hollywood stars and the fun­loving,
devil-may-care early-day cow­boys-
men like Lawton Champie, a
rancher and frequent prize-winner who
enjoyed roping pretty girls along the
parade route-today's contestants tend to
be deadly serious professional performers.
(You can get a fairly accurate portrayal of
modem rodeo life from the 1972 motion
picture junior Bonner, which was filmed
at the Prescott rodeo and starred the late
Steve McQueen.)
Besides Champie, dozens of other
champions, including Arizona's own
Everett Bowman, Chuck Sheppard, and
]. C. Trujillo, have competed at Prescott
through the years. Such rodeo clowns as
the famed Pinky Gist of the 1930s and
talentedArleigh Bonnaha of the 1980s not
only have provided countless laughs but
have put their skills to use and their necks
at risk in diverting angry bulls that have
thrown their erstwhile riders.
Now a standard stop on the Professional
Rodeo Cowboys Association circuit, the
Prescott event originated in 1888 as a
contest of workaday skills, especially
roping and riding, among local ranch
hands. There had been rodeos before­informal
get-togethers at ranches after
semiannual roundups-but this time
admission was charged, a prize (a $125
cowboy outfit) was offered, and the results
were duly documented in the Arizona
journal-Miner newspaper.
During the first two decades of this
century, the Prescott show began drawing
people from as far away as New York State.
By 1924 its promoters began an exchange
program with other big rodeos in the
United States and Canada so competition
and titles could be standardized. But,
points out Freeman, the regulations
originated in Prescott. By 1928 most
rodeos were operating under the Prescott
rules. Now all do.
Saddle bronc riding, bull riding, and
other traditional events will attract top
contestants and thousands of fans to
north-central Arizona this Independence
Day weekend for the centennial edition
of the popular Prescott rodeo.
Arizona Highways 5
In the 1920s, there were four principal
rodeos: Prescott; Cheyenne, Wyoming;
Pendleton, Oregon; and Calgary, Alberta,
Canada. Nowadays, says Ruffner, there is
a rodeo somewhere in the United States
or Canada almost every week: "In the last
20 years it's become one of the most
popular spectator sports." An estimated 14
million people attend rodeos every year.
Ruffner observes that rodeo is the only
American sport to spin off from an industry,
in this case cattle growing.
But back to the Prescott Frontier Days
rodeo: although it's still a local institution
reflecting a lot of community spirit, it's
pretty much a closed shop as far as
participants are concerned. Since 1948 all
events have had to be sanctioned by the
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.
A local working cowboy can still compete,
if he pays his entry fee. But the reality is
that the fee might amount to a month's
wages, and then he would be up against
the best in the business.
Despite the changeover to a profes­sional
emphasis, competition in the
Prescott rodeo goes back as far as four
generations in some families. For instance,
the Carters settled at Walnut Grove, south
of Prescott, in 1873; over the years, the
family has produced six rodeo queens and
attendants, and the Carter men and
women have won countless awards in the
arena. And there are the Ritters, the Stuarts,
the Fanchers, the Fains, and the Clines, to
mention a few other families who also
were consistent winners down through
the years and contributed in many other
ways to the success of the rodeo.
Around the tum of the century, the
The annual celebration transforms an
ordinarily tranquil community of
25,000 into a boisterous Fourth of July
playground with a temporary population
of 75,000. Downtown storefronts wear
red, white, and blue bunting. The Plaza
overflows with square dancers and food
booths. Two parades close the streets, and
· townspeople and visitors line the
sidewalks for a traditional extravaganza
of marching bands and floats. But the
children's parade steals the show.
6 July 1988
Carters and others used to come to
Prescott on horseback or in horse-drawn
vehicles, taking several days for the
journey. Often they remained after the
rodeo, settling into camp and visiting with
other ranch families, making their stay into
a vacation. Frequently they brought
livestock with them for the competition,
as was the custom then. (Today, stock con­tractors
provide the steers, calves, bucking
horses, and bulls.) The return trip also
usually involved an overnight stop or two.
ALL HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
FROM WORLD'S OLDEST RODEO,
BY DANNY FREEMAN.
·~-
Arizona Highways 7
8 July 1988
By contrast, most professional bull­doggers
and bronc and bull riders now
arrive by plane, take a cab to a motel,
appear at the arena for a warm-up and for
the show itself, and leave soon after the
last day's final event. Ropers, of course,
__ :;;:?-:--~·-"i:--
·· : : . .. ··· . . . ·::
usually want their own horses, which they
haul in trailers.
A veterinarian is in attendance in case
of injury to the animals. Occasionally, if
an injury is severe, the animal is humanely
destroyed.
The human participants often sustain
injuries, too. An ambulance crew is on
hand at every performance. There have
been three fatalities among contestants at
Prescott in the past 100 years. Several star
performers have had to stop competing
because of serious injuries.
Stories still circulate about interesting
old-timers. Epefinio (Yaqui) Ordunez,
who came to Arizona from El Paso in 1900,
was a favorite rodeo performer during the
early part of this century. He always ap­peared
as number 13 in any contest he
entered. When he was too old to compete,
Ordunez carried the American flag in the
rodeo parades for many years. In 1966,
when he died in the Arizona Pioneers ·
Home in Prescott at 84, the staff found all
of his "13" oilcloth contestant panels in
a trunk. Instead of flowers, they put one
of his number 13 panels on his casket
when they buried him.
Then there was Bill Simon, an outstand­ing
competitor in the rodeos just before
World War I. Sent to France with the
American Expeditionary Force, Simon
organized and staged a "cowboy contest"
in Paris on July 4, 1918, using Army horses.
He won the saddle bronc riding himself.
Back home in Prescott the next year, he
was in the arena again and won the
bulldogging competition.
That event, incidentally, got its name
from Bill Pickett, a cowboy who was trying
to wrestle a steer to the ground in a Texas
rodeo. Pickett had the animal on the
ground, but when he· couldn't subdue him,
Pickett began biting the steer's lip. The
steer immediately stopped struggling, and
Pickett was declared the winner. But his
tactic, borrowed from bulldogs in bull­baiting
contests in England, spawned the
Characters and costumes add to the
colorful Frontier Days obseroance.
(LEFf) A patriotic security guard.
(BELOW) Officials of the 1934 rodeo.
(OPPOSITE PAGE) Fireworks light up
a nighttime performance.
,
''
l~
Arizona Highways 9
term "bulldogging." Now it is a standard
rodeo event-but without the lip biting.
Women , though for years mostly
involved in decorative functions such as
rodeo queen or attendant, had begun de­monstrating
cowpunching skills as early
as 1917 . The first was Little Joe Tyler, a
bronc rider, whose previous credits in ­cluded
Madison Square Garden in New
York City. Now, some 70 years later, female
performers are a staple of rodeo programs,
demonstrating speed and skill in (for ex ­ample)
barrel racing, where horses are
maneuvered in a high-speed zigzag course.
And women are increasingly successful in
such dangerous events as bull riding.
Budge Ruffner began his association
with the Prescott rodeo as a baby, riding
on his father's horse in the parade. The
late Lester L Ruffner, a longtime Prescott
funeral director and younger brother of
Sheriff George Ruffner, for many years
served in various capacities, including
chairman of the rodeo committee, finance
director, parade official, and arena director.
Budge later followed in his father's
footsteps.
"There's a lot of romance in rodeo. And
a lot of broken hearts and busted dreams,"
he says. "A lot of busted bones, too. It 's
hard on the body. A man of 40 who never
has been in a rodeo may feel like he's
about 20 years old. But a man of 40 who
has been riding broncs for 20 years feels
like he is 80.
"The bull riding nowadays , especially
with these Brahmas, is 10 times more
dangerous and life -threatening and causes
more injuries than when they had those
old range bulls," Ruffner continues. "The
broncs are better, rougher broncs. In other
words, the horses are just as professional
as the men. And the competition is so
much keener, even in the girls ' barrel
racing, where kids turn in fantastic times ,
like 15 seconds or 15.2. Used to be 21.2
seconds would win. The ropers would be
the same way. And they've got bulldogging
down there to two and three seconds.
" In order to make it on the rodeo circuit
today, a performer's got to walk away with
about $3 ,000 per rodeo. It's damned tough
competition. It's just the same as some
amateur theatrical actor going on to
Broadway. It 's jus t that tough ."
The Prescott rodeo has had its ups and
( ABOVE , AND OPPOSITE PAGE) New Englanders established Prescott in 1864, and the tree­lined
streets, Victorian homes, and town square (though called the Plaza) still reflect
that heritage. But located as it is in the heart of Arizona ranch country, the character
of th e mountain town is unmistakably Western-especially during Frontier Days.
JO July 1988
downs financially, and there were times
when it almost was abandoned as a yearly
event. In its worst year, 1966, the organ­ization
's resources were so low that it
appeared Frontier Days was doomed. But
the Prescott Jaycees came to the rescue
and saved it from oblivion. Now it is
administered by a board of directors and
has become self-supporting. In fact, its
popularity seems to be increasing each
year, with traffic snarled for miles in all
directions .
Asked if he thought cowboys and
rodeos would still be around in another
hundred years , Budge Ruffner replied: "I
would say the American cowboy is so
deeply ingrained in our society as a folk
hero that he will never disappear. The
industrial part, cattle growing, may change,
but the entertainment value to our culture
will not.
"The long-haul truck driver will never
replace the cowboy. " ~
Free-lance writer De nnis B. Farrell
is a f ormer Phoenix newspaper­man
who spends most of his s ummers
i n the Prescott area.
Bill Sperry is an Arizona-based
free-lancer sp ecializ ing in locatio n
photograpby.
WHEN YOU GO···-------------~
Prescott, the Mile High City
Frontier Days is a five-day celebration, which this year runs
from June 30 through July 4. Its main component is the
century-old rodeo. Performances (held at the Yavapai County
Fairgrounds) are as follows: June 30 , 7:30 P.M. only; July 1-
3, 1:30 P.M. and 7:30 P.M.; July 4, 1:30 P.M. only. For ticket
information , call (602) 445 -3103.
Other Frontier Days events: July 1, Kiwanis Kiddie Parade ,
9 :30 A M. at Cortez and Goodwin streets; old-fashioned games
and contests, 11 :00 AM. at the Plaza. July 2, pancake breakfast,
6:00 -11 :00 AM. at Alarcon and Gurley streets ; Frontier Days
parade , 9:00 AM., downtown; boot race, noon, on Whiskey
Row; parade awards ceremony, 1:30 P.M. at the bandstand
on the Plaza. July 3, hose cart races, 9:00 A M. to noon, east
side of the Plaza ; carnival all day at Prescott Junior High
Schoo l. July 4, fireworks, 8:00 P.M. at Prescott High School.
Additional events during rodeo week: Western art show
at Cob Web Hall, 511 S. Montezuma St.; Western Classic
softball tournament at all city parks.
Getting there: Prescott, in the north-central Arizona moun­tains,
can be reached from Phoenix via Interstate Route 17
to Cordes Junction, then northwest on State Route 69 . Amore
scenic route from Phoenix is U.S. 89 (Grand Avenue)
northwest to Wickenburg, then northerly through Congress
Junction to Prescott. Approaching from the north via I-4 0, turn
south onto U.S. 89 at Ash Fork, then drive through Chino
Valley. From the west via I-10 take U.S. Route 60 near Brenda,
then continue northeast via State 71 east of Aguila and join
U.S. 89 at Congress.
What to see and do in Prescott: This small city offers a
wide range of recreational activities , including golf, tennis ,
rac quetball, health clubs, shooting ranges, swimming,
bicycling, outstanding hiking, camping, fishing , horseback
riding, and scenic drives. In-town attractions include Sharlot
Hall Museum, 415 W. Gurley St. ; Smoki Museum , 130 N.
Arizona Ave.; George Phippen Museum , U.S. 89 north of town ;
Prescott Fine Arts Association, Willis and Marina streets;
Sunwest Gallery, 152 S. Montezuma St. Obtain hiking and
camping maps from Prescott National Forest, 344 S. Cortez
St., Prescott, AZ 86301; telephone (602) 445-1762 .
Where to stay: Accommodations range from historic hotels
to modern-day motels and bed and breakfast establishments
(because of the popularity of the rodeo, make reservations
as .early as possible). There also are six Forest Service camp­grounds
in the vicinity of Prescott. Two campgrounds, Hilltop
and Indian Creek, are specifically designed for trailers and
recreational vehicles. For additional information on camping
and facilities throughout the state , see Outdoors in Arizona:
A Guide to Camping ($12 .95) , available from Arizona
Highways, 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, 85009 ; telephone
(602) 258-1000 or, toll -free in Arizona, 1-800-543 -5432.
Weather conditions: Prescott is a mile-high city, so sum­mer
nights can be chilly. There's also a good chance of sum­mer
thunderstorms. Sweaters and jackets are often welcome.
Additional reading: Travel Arizona ( $8.95) and Outdoors
in Arizona: a Guide to Hiking and Backpacking ($12 .95),
both published by Arizona Highways Books, are available
by writing or telephoning as indicated
above.
For further information: The Pres ­cott
Chamber of Commerce (Box 1147 ,
Prescott 86301; telephone 445-2000 or, Ash Fork . e Flagstaff
11 fr fr h ) • Prescott to - ee om P oenix, 253 -5988 is a • Wickenburg
good source of brochures on attrac- *Phoenix
tions , special events , accommodations,
and restaurants.
-D.B.F. , RG.S.
Arizona Highways 11
PONDEROSA! _____ _
a surprise to learn that forestland accounts
for roughly a fourth of our state's total land
area, or some 20 million acres . Of those ,
nearly four million acres support
commercial-grade timber-enough wood
(21 billion board feet) to build two
million houses. Ponderosa pine repre­sents
92 percent of that figure. All but
about four percent of the ponderosas,
incidentally, grow on public land.
Some more facts and figures about this
important tree:
In this state, the ponderosa grows to the
respectable height of 100 feet or more,
with a diameter up to 30 inches. A mature
tree in our higher regions may well attain
an age of 300 to 350 years.
In its youth, the ponderosa's bark is so
dark that woodsmen long ago dubbed it
the " blackjack." The outer bark has
blackish ridges, although the inner bark
already shows tinges of orange and yellow.
But as the tree matures , the great, hand­some
outer plates take on shades of
cinnamon, orange, and buff-yellow, and
the coloring grows more pronounced as
the years advance. For that reason, and
because of the buff color of the wood itself,
the pioneers often called ponderosa
"Western yellow pine." A late 19th century
geologist also acknowledged it as one of
the most beautiful of trees, "large and
noble in aspect."
Another observer, a former naval officer
named Edward Beale who explored the
(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 12 AND 13) Rolling
ridgelines wear a seamless mantle of
ponderosa pines in the Apache-Sitgreaves
National Forest of eastern Arizona.
(INSET, PAGE 13) A new pine cone.
(RIGHT) The mature ponderosas of the
Kaibab Plateau, north of the Grand
Canyon, provide the habitat of the rare
Kaibab squirrel (BELOW) .
14 July 1988
virginal northern Arizona forest in the
1850s, pronounced it "the most beautiful
region I ever remember to have seen in
any part of the world .... A vast forest of
gigantic pines, intersected frequently with
open glades, sprinkled all over with
mountains, meadows, and wide savannahs,
and covered with the richest grasses .... "
Those early-day impressions of the
ponderosa forest are echoed in our own
times . Says researcher W. W. Covington of
Northern Arizona University's School of
Forestry at Flagstaff, "I think it is one of
the most beautiful forests around. I really
like those old yellow pines."
They have their own unmistakable
fragrance, those old yellow pines-a clean,
fresh odor that delights the nostrils as you
stroll the forest paths . And they have their
own distinctive sounds: the soft whisper
of the breeze through the pine needles,
ponderosa's unique and lovely windsong,
and the chatter of squirrels and chirping
of birds that make the conifer forest their
home . "Of all pines, " mused naturalist
John Muir, "this one gives forth the finest
music to the winds."
That characteristic chattering and
chirping, by the way , represents an
important aspect of life in the ponderosa
forest. No less than 1,025 species of
wildlife are interrelated with - and, in
some cases, dependent upon-the pon ­derosa.
(That number includes plants as
well as mammals- but not insects.)
The most celebrated of these species ,
almost surely, are the Aben squirrel and
its cousin, the Kaibab squirrel. (See
Arizona Highways, July, 1987 .) The Aben
(named for James W. Aben, a military
cartographer of the 1800s) lives on the
South Rim of the Grand Canyon ; the
Kaibab , on the North Rim. Separated eons
ago by the forming of that titanic gorge,
the two developed independently of each
other, each with slightly different charac­teristics.
The Aben has a white belly; the
Kaibab 's is black, and its tail is whiter.
Indeed, that white tail is its most distinc­tive
feature. Together they're called tassel­eared
squirrels because of their tufted ears.
Both live off the ponderosa. The tree
supplies materials and platforms for their
nests. They eat the inner bark and a
subterranean growth known as hypogeous
fungi. (Foresters call these "truffles," not
to be confused with the cultivated truffles
served in French restaurants.)
A wildlife ecologist at NAU's forestry
school, David R. Patton, once tamed and
leash-trained an Aben squirrel to help him
carry out research on truffles. "They're
hard to find by digging, without a squirrel
to show you where," says Patton. "What
I was trying to do was train the squirrel
to lead me to their locations, so I could
count the number of truffles under all
those trees."
A problem developed, though. "When
the squirrel got into that forest, he just
went crazy. He sensed that he was home.
I removed the leash, and he stayed around
for awhile. Then he climbed a couple of
trees and finally got up high in one and
just took off through the treetops ."
Deer and elk are indigenous to the
ponderosa forest , too. They love the moss
that clings to the trunks of the trees, and
the mistletoe that grows among the
branches. I watched with Travis Huntley ,
resource manager for Southwest Forest
Industries, as his loggers harvested pines
on the slopes of the White Mountains, and
we talked about how the cutting affects
the wildlife . "Those elk and deer are on
Arizona Highways 15
Through careful forest management, ponderosas are harvested
for building materials and paper pulp.
a starvation diet through the winter," he
explained. "Then they move in on our
logging operations. When our haulers go
to work in the morning, we have to run
the animals off. They move out of the way,
staying probably no more than a quarter
mile distant. Then, when the haulers go
down to the warming fire and come back
about 15 minutes later, the deer and elk
are right there eating moss off the trees."
What makes ponderosa pine so valuable
a product is its versatility. It's a light, soft,
fine-grained wood suitable for millwork
(windows, sash, frames, cabinets); boards,
studs, and posts; decorative paneling; and
furniture. Moreover, whatever remains of
the log after the sawmill operation goes
into making paper. At Snowflake, South­west
Forest Industries, a Fortune 500
company, operates one of the largest
paper mills in the West, producing
newsprint for about 100 publishing firms.
Actually we have not one but three
major wood products firms in the state.
The other two are Kaibab Forest Products
Co. and the Duke City Lumber Co. And
there are hundreds of small operations
cutting timber for fuel.
It's these forest users and others who
are making life challenging for the U. S.
Forest Service, whose task it is to balance
their needs and those of a growing
population against other demands on the
forest. As Lawrence D. Garrett, dean of the
NAU School of Forestry, points out, "We've
got hunters who want to hunt, hikers who
16 July 1988
want to hike, bird-watchers who want to
watch birds. We have wilderness areas we
want to save; a whole forest industry that
needs access to that forest base for its
livelihood; entire communities depen­dent
on it. You've got all these people who
all want it, and the whole population is
increasing, and each one of those
demands is increasing. And the forest
base is not increasing."
Thus the problem. The official solution:
something the Forest Service calls "inte­grated
multiresource management." It
means managing the forest for all those
disparate, sometimes competing, some­times
cooperating interests, and managing
it so that we'll always have a forest of pretty
much the same size and same quality.
It can be done, says Kathy Milus,
Southwest Forest Industries' director of
public affairs, if everybody- the loggers,
the hikers, the fishermen, the hunters, the
cattle people-will "meet and compro­mise
just a little bit."
The whole concept is based on a
rotation of about 120 years. That is
approximately the length of time it takes
to grow a mature ponderosa pine. You cut
a ponderosa today and, given systematic
reseeding and meticulous care, in 120
years there's another one out there ready
to cut. Cut another tree tomorrow, and 120
years from tomorrow, there'll be one of
equal size and quality ready for harvesting.
And, meantime, the forest- or so the
theory goes-remains substantially intact
for fishermen to fish, hunters to hunt, and
so forth.
Some disagreement exists, however, as
to whether theory and practice are
synchronized. The National Wildlife
Federation says the Reagan Administration
perceives the forests as "tree farms" and
"lopsidedly" favors timber harvesting at
the expense of wildlife protection and
recreation. "The undervaluing of fish and
wildlife by the Forest Service deeply
concerns conservationists," says Jay D.
Hair, executive vice president of the
wildlife group. Among other things,
claims the federation, the Forest Service
is building so many logging roads and
penetrating such remote mountainous
areas that they're destroying valuable
wildlife habitat.
But the Forest Service calls the wildlife
federation's statement "misinformation."
It's not true, says the government, that the
forests are being overcropped. "We feel
that we're managing the national forests
for all the multiple uses, and they're not
being managed as tree farms," says Diane
O'Connor, press officer at Forest Service
headquarters in Washington.
While the debate goes on, so does
something else that someday might
render that controversy moot: research to
make the forest yield even more than it
already does. What scientists are trying to
do, to generalize, is produce a super­ponderosa
that will mature in 80 years
rather than 120, and that will be resistant
to disease and insects.
An experiment at NAU involves cloning
superior trees and treating the clones with
hormones. It's a process called "asexual
propagation," since pollenization isn't
involved, and what gets planted is a cutting
of a treated tree called a "steckling" rather
than a seedling. "If we can find the unique
genetic material we want in one super-tree,
our ultimate goal," says NAU researcher
Michael R. Wagner, "then we can repro­duce
it widely."
That will take time, of course; but time
is what the ponderosa forest represents in
abundance-time and tranquility and
profound beauty. When C. H. Merriam, the
famed explorer and biologist, first set eyes
on that magnificent stand of ponderosas
spreading across northern Arizona, he
called it with rather heroic restraint "a
noteworthy forest." It is truly that, and
much more. It is the treasure of our high
country, one of the glories of our state.
May it last-green, luxuriant, life­sustaining-
forever. n
Former newspaperman and public relations
director Joseph Stocker now devotes most of his time
to bicycling and free-lance writing.
~AVALCADE
Eighth in a Series of Historical
Paintings by Bill Ahrendt
STEAMBOATS ON IBE COLORADO
I n 1861 silver was discovered in Eldorado Canyon at
the southern tip of present-day Nevada, an event
followed shortly after by gold strikes near La Paz
in what would soon be Arizona Territory. Thousands of
miners, merchants, and settlers poured into the country
bordering the Colorado River, bringing into existence
hundreds of mines and dozens of bustling camps.
In turn, this Great Colorado River Rush helped spur the
spread of Anglo-American civilization in the Southwest
from west to east. Prime movers in all this activity were
the steamboats, transporting cargo and passengers from
ocean vessels-some of them arriving in the 1850s at
Robinson's Landing, near the Colorado's mouth- to river
ports well to the north. From these key points, overland
travel routes swung eastward to mines and military posts,
and later to ranches, farms, and growing communities.
First of the steamboat operators on the Colorado was
James Turnbull, who launched the Uncle Sam in 1852.
Soon George Johnson & Co. began operating several
vessels. The Johnson fleet burgeoned when it suddenly
found itself trying to satisfy the enormous demands for
shipping that followed the metal strikes. The key river port
of Arizona City (which would not be renamed Yuma until
1873) grew literally by leaps and bounds to become the
largest town on the river and the third largest in the
territory.
Meanwhile, other steamboat companies got under way,
and between 1852 and 1877, when the Southern Pacific
Railroad arrived at Yuma, 15 different steamers plied the
waters of the Colorado. And despite the evolution of other
transportation, steamboats continued operating on the
river until 1916- a total of 24 in all.
Before dams tamed the mighty Colorado, it might run
swift and deep at one time, calm and shallow at another.
In places the river could fan out to a third of a mile in
width, with sandbars constantly shifting the main channel.
Sometimes there was no channel, just shallow water
flowing mere inches above the bars.
With such an unpredictable watercourse, it was no
wonder that the captains who commanded the steamers
became legends in their own time. Among them were
Isaac Polhamus, Jr., Jack Mellon, Charles Overman, and
Steve Thorn, all of whom possessed the rare aptitude to
outsmart the Colorado.
To master the sandbars, Jack Mellon devised a special
technique. Bringing his boat around, stern to the bar, he
would "crawfish" through the sand, cutting a channel with
his stern wheel. In this way, the boat could be taken
through sections of river where there was as little as two
inches of water running above the sand.
The paddle wheel steamers of the Colorado, unlike the
elegant and often palatial ships of the Mississippi and
Missouri rivers, were simple and rough, designed for hard
work They did their job well and contributed in a vital
way to a picturesque era. In memory, the romance of those
riverboat days lives on as a colorful chapter in
Southwestern history.
-B.A
(FOLLOWING PANEL, PAGES 18 AND 19) The Colorado River
steamboat Mohave takes on cargo at Arizona City
(later renamed Yuma) on a summer morning in 1864.
Arizona Highways 17
A city
six centuries lost ...
Visit to
Keet Seel
BY JAM E S T ALLON
C harley-Horse and his rider bal­anced
momentarily on the lip of
space, then toppled into empti­ness
. Gone. The mind's eye saw them
turning heels over bridle on a swift
descent past sheer canyon walls, Paul
Charley glued to the saddle, clinging to
his sense of humor, shouting, "Whoa ,
horse! Whoa!"
But it was all an illusion, triggered by
a sharp drop and hard-right switchback on
the trail to Kee t Seel. Pau l, our Navajo
Indian guide, was still with us . And Charley­Horse,
too, Paul's mount-renamed for
the day by one unable to resist making
a pun: me.
("Your horse's name is Hershey ," Paul
had told me, then added with a grin, "as
in Hershey Bar." Two of his peers fre­quently
tried to take a bite out of him.)
We traveled the Tsegi Canyon country,
the stage for a tale of two cities strange ly
abandoned and six centuries lost. Here
were treasures of stone and clay so
valuable that a President decreed they
should forever be protected as Navajo
National Monument.
20 July 1988
One of the found cities is Betatakin,
whose Navajo name means " hillside
house" or "ledge house"; the other is Keet
Seel, meaning "broken pottery. " Betata­kin
's 135 rooms repose in a 500 -foot-high
alcove at the bottom of a 700-foot-deep
side canyon. Three times I have made the
five -mile round-trip (a combination bus
ride and hike) to Betatakin, and each time
the prehistoric minimetropolis has been
a stimulant, stirring a passion to see
more- and particularly Keet Seel.
So this time the goal is 160-room Keet
Seel, mysteriously hiding out there in an
up-and-down cinnamon-sandstone wil ­derness.
It is the largest cliff dwelling in
Arizona, and in all the Southwest it is
second in size only to Mesa Verde's Cliff
Pa lace.
Keet Seel is a time machine. Once
you've sensed its antiquity, it transports
you back to the 13th century, to the heyday
of the Anasazi, the Ancient Ones. But the
National Park Service permits no other
machinery to help take you there. You
depend on two legs , your own, or four
legs, those of a horse .
At 7:45 on a su n-bright summer morn­ing,
Virginia Austin-the horse conces ­sionaire
at Navajo National Monument­coll
ected my $30 fare , and she and Paul
Charley saddled our steeds. The other
visitors were a family of four , Dr. Wo lfgang
Schilcher, his wife, Anneliese , and their
daughters, Karin and Marion , 16 and 8
respectively. They had come from Ger-many
to focus on the American Southwest ,
including the comparatively unknown
destination Keet Seel.
With everyone aboard, Paul started
singing a Navajo song. And with no help
from their riders, the horses started off
down the trail.
One mile from the corral, the view from
Tsegi Point (where Pau l appeared to
disappear) formed an acrophobia ­inducing
panorama. A thousand feet
below, Laguna Creek shimmered in the
(ABOVE) Tsegi Canyon cuts
through the broad expanse of red
and buff sandstone that covers
much of the Navajo Indian
Reservation. JERRY SI EVE Tu cked
away in th e canyon's depths, th e
long-d eserted city of Keet See l is a
wo rth while reward f or visiting
hikers and riders. The latter must
d ismount and f allow th eir horses
(FAR LEIT) down the steeper
p ortions of th e trail. JAMES TALLON
Arizona Highways 21
morning light. Dark green forests of piiion
pines and junipers capped the high mesas,
and in cooler and shadier recesses grew
an occasional ponderosa pine or Douglas
fir. The sky, budding with cotton clouds,
was turquoise blue, matching the gem­stone
so valued by Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni
Indian artisans.
Before proceeding, Paul advised us to
dismount. The loose-rock trail pitched so
steeply that, should a horse stumble, it
could better regain its footing sans rider.
But Paul stayed on Charley-Horse and
pushed the other animals before him for
about a third of a mile. Near the canyon's
floor, we climbed back into our saddles.
Then the Keet Seel trail branched to the
( RIG!-IT) There is no road to the Keet Seel
ruin, so the 16-mile round-trip must be
made on foot or horseback.
(BELOW) The Anasazi pueblo is doubly
protected-from the elements try its
location under a massive overhang, and
from the impact of modern man try the
National Park Service rangers who guide
a maximum of 25 visitors a day through
the old city. BOIB BY JAMES TALLON
22 July 1988
left, angled down a 50-foot-high sand
dune, crossed Laguna Creek, and entered
Dowozhiebito Canyon.
Three-quarters of a mile farther on, we
passed through a broad portal into Keet
Seel Canyon, a place where pink sand
banks and talus slopes form skirts to the
vertical walls of Navajo sandstone that rise
to Skeleton Mesa. Here summer heat and
abundant moisture had germinated
patches of monkey flowers, scarlet buglers,
columbines, and dozens of others; blue­headed
Rocky Mountain bee plants were
shoulder-high to our horses. The stream
gurgled, waterfalls bassooned, and
friendly zephyrs hummed from the
shadows of narrow side canyons.
In 1895, when Richard Wetherill turned
into this then-unnamed canyon, he had no
idea he was on his way to a major dis­covery.
Rancher Wetherill, who coined the
term "cliff dwellers," helped awaken the
nation to the worth of America's lost
civilizations. But because he sold artifacts
to finance further explorations, some
detractors have relegated him to the ranks
of pillaging pot-hunters.
His discovery of Keet Seel might be
called an act of fate, with special credit
going to Nephi, Wetherill's favorite mule.
The explorer wrote that no clue suggested
anything of importance in the canyon­no
potsherd, no arrowhead, nothing. Ap­parently
Wetherill was on the verge of
terminating his investigation when, look­ing
for greener grass, Nephi broke its
hobbles and wandered up the canyon­where
Wetherill found the animal and a
bag of surprises.
For our group, National Park Service
mileposts had eliminated any sense of
discovery, but not eager anticipation. We
passed a marked turnoff to a campground
and rode through a grove of trees along­side
a ranger cabin to an oak-shaded
picnic table where a lady ranger and two
hikers waited. We dismounted, and Paul
herded our horses into a pasture.
Ranger Gwen Russell said we must
divide into two groups, and she would
guide them one at a time. This restriction
on group size is calculated to reduce the
long-range impact on the fragile environ­ment
of Keet Seel. The Schilchers chose
to be the second party and settled down
for an in-the-meantime lunch. The hikers
and I followed Ranger Russell a few yards
out of the oak grove to a small clearing
at the edge of an arroyo. Here the curva­ture
of the canyon's west wall leads the
eye to the left and-dollhouses! I did a
double-take. Yes, dollhouses. A tiny city
of them. Keet Seel.
Blame the immensity of open space
between our eyes and the ancient city for
the misconception. Blame the softness of
the shadow-light. As we moved closer,
dimensions began to fit into proper scale.
Keet Seel stands in a huge cavern on
a 350-foot shelf 40 feet above the adjacent
land level. We entered the ruin via ladders
chained across a steep sandstone apron,
crawling on hands and knees. Ranger
Russell punctuated her monologue of
Keet Seel
facts and figures with blocks of silence,
giving us time to absorb the information
and to regress to that world of 700 years
ago, to smell juniper woodsmoke and
baking bread, to hear the Anasazi residents
chattering and laughing.
Too soon our voyage in the time
machine ended, and we were once more
in sunlight in the 20th century.
Paul, our Indian wrangler, had declined
Gwen's invitation to accompany us into
Keet Seel. Navajo legend says the dwell­ings
of the Ancient Ones contain spirits
capable of inflicting evil. Paul told Wolf­gang
that had he trespassed, he would
have had to pay a medicine man "a lot
of money for treatment."
Luckily, we were not bothered by evil
spirits. But we did experience another
kind of spell, created by our reactions of
amazement and humility, of heightened
perception, even of sadness.
The special magic of Keet Seel can do
that to you. ~
fames Tallon has written and photographed f or
Arizona Highways f or nearly three decades. His
byline also appears in numerous outdoor
magaz ines.
WHEN YOU GO ... ______________ _
Navajo National Monument
(ABOVE) Keet Seel ( "broken pottery" in the Navajo la.nguage)
was named for the abundance of potsherds found there.
JAMES TALLON
Getting there: By automobile from Flagstaff, take U.S.
Route 89 north to U.S. 160, then drive northeast to State Route
564; continue north on Route 564 to monument headquarters.
Mileage from Flagstaff, 140.
Admission: The visitor center is open daily (except
Christmas) from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., 6:00 P.M. in summer.
No fee. Canyon trails to the ruins generally are closed from
Labor Day until Memorial Day weekend. The rim trail is open
year-round except when the conditions are snowy or icy.
What to see and do: Hiking, camping, picnicking, campfire
programs. Museum, interpretive exhibits and trails, crafts
shop. Visitor center and rest rooms are wheelchair-accessible.
A half-mile trail leads to an overlook with a view ofBetatakin.
Hiking tours to Betatakin ruin generally are restricted to
groups of 24, led three times daily, Memorial Day through
Labor Day. The five-mile round-trip is strenuous. Keet Seel,
16 miles round-trip from the visitor center, can be reached
only on foot or horseback. Charge for horse rental. The visit
to Keet Seel is restricted to 25 people per day, Memorial
Day through Labor Day. Registration for a special permit
(available at the visitor center) is required. The arduous trip
to Keet Seel and back takes all day on horseback; backpackers
usually camp overnight near the ruin. Tours of the cliff
dwellings are ranger-led and schedules are subject to change.
The National Park Service recommends visitors call in
advance for reservations.
Accommodations and supplies: The monument maintains
two no-fee campgrounds, open from
mid-May to mid-October. No food,
gasoline, or lodging is available. Food Nava:io Nat'I Mon .~· Kayenta
and service facilities can be found in Tsegi
Kayenta on Route 163 and Tsegi on
Route 160.
For more information: Superintend­ent,
Navajo National Monument, 8C71
Box 3, Tonalea, AZ 86044-9704; tele­phone
(602) 672-2366. -R.G.S.
• Flagstaff
*Phoenix
Arizona Highways 23
steady, easygoing push up North
Canyon, which opens into
Marble Gorge 20 miles below Lees Ferry,
brought us to a shimmering pool cupped
in reddish brown sandstone. It was per­haps
30 feet long. A thin wash of water,
cobalt blue in the light reflected from the
towering walls, slid down the voluptu ­ously
curved rock into the pool 's upper
end. What lay beyond that lovely brink we
could not see; of course we were tempted
to look.
Our boatman understood, and smiled.
"The rafts will wait ," he said, stepping into
the pool. The rest of us , clad in T-shirts,
shorts, and tennis shoes, promptly fol­lowed.
The water was temperate and not
quite deep enough to require swimming.
Boosting and pulling each other, we sur­mounted
the water-polished stone beside
the ribbon of blue. The bowl we came to
was much like the one we had left, though
somewhat more rounded and cut away
from the sky by larger bulges in the rough­surfaced
cliffs overhead.
A torrent of music greeted us. A canyon
wren, scarcely more than five inches long,
was darting from one knob of stone to
another, pausing to announce itself with
a cascade of falling whistles, a beautiful
sound common throughout canyon coun­try.
But here some magic of acoustics
replicated each note, flinging it from wall
to wall and back again until the bowl was
flooded with a paean of morning joy.
Too soon the wren flitted off. Back to
the river we went, across the lower pool
and among red boulders to the throaty
roar of North Canyon Rapids. Anticipation
built again . Rafting was what we had come
for - excitement, the majesty of the Grand
Canyon, the feel of the Colorado River's
power. But now, thanks to one small wren,
we had added still another element to the
bonus rewards that await hikers who leave
their craft long enough to take short treks
through the Canyon's multitude of side
niches.
Our next adventure came at Shinumo
Wash, which breaks through the left bank
of the river nine miles below North
Canyon, or mile 29 as measured down­stream
from Lees Ferry. (Shinumo Wash
should not be confused with Shinumo
Creek at mile 108.6, where river runners
can wade up a bright, clear stream to a
gorgeous waterfall with an enticing cave
behind it.) The entrance to Shinumo Wash
is not easily spotted, and reaching the
landing place below the opening requires
tight maneuvering.
When we were there , the river was
running at about 32,000 cubic feet per
second, high for these days when flow is
controlled by the arbitrary spinning of
release valves upstream at Glen Canyon
26 July 1988
Exploring an ageless side­canyon
labyrinth of faulted,
weathered rock keeps author
David Lavender (TOP) and
photographer David Edwards
drenched in cold creek water.
(OPPOSITE PAGE) Scene of a 1976
chamber music concert, the
Silver Grotto is another of the
Grand Canyon's marvelous
nooks beyond the reach of even
the boldest cross-country hiker.
Note the tiny figure at the
grotto 's mouth.
Dam. The rush of water was cold, too, for
it came from near the bottom of Lake
Powell at a numbing 48 degrees Fahren­heit.
The foresighted ones among us kept
on life jackets during the strenuous efforts
that followed.
We started out wading upriver, close to
the sidewall, until the deepening water
made us swim, stroking furiously to a
small island in the tributary's mouth . After
shivering violently while boatman David
Lowry fixed a climbing rope to the first
cliff, we plunged again into the icy waters,
thrashed to the first narrow chimney, and
struggled up the rope.
The chain of pools above the chimney
called for more wading, swimming, and
scrambling ; but Shinumo's water,
blessedly, was not as frigid as the river's.
Finally we reached a pocket that ended
in an utterly smooth wall perhaps 10 feet
tall. A few members of our group and three
kayakers who had joined us tried to top
the barrier by running full speed on a
rising diagonal course along the curving
side wall of the pocket, hoping momen­tum
and centrifugal force would carry
them to the rim before gravity jerked them
back into the pool beneath. Some suc­ceeded.
Some didn't, and plummeted
down with a mighty kersplunk. All at ­tempts
were greeted with rousing cheers .
The Silver Grotto, as the upper cham­bers
are called, is associated with a famous
musical "first." In 1976, boatmen led by
Ron Hayes put a chamber ensemble's
instruments into special waterproof cases
and nursed them- and the musicians­into
the Grotto's farthest pocket. The
exquisite resonances of the concert that
followed are still discussed by those who
heard it. Since then similar events have
taken place in this and other charmed
grottos within the Canyon depths.
It is not possible to float through the
Grand Canyon without being awed by the
enormous spans of time that passed
during the laying down-in ancient seas,
river deltas, and wind-scoured deserts­of
so many thick, multicolored, multi­formed
bands of horizontal strata. All the
while, moreover, life also was evolving.
One particularly fine reminder of this
is found at the end of a steep, boulder­choked
hike up Nautiloid Canyon , 34.5
miles from Lees Ferry . The exhibit: a
clearly imprinted skeleton of a nautiloid,
green on a greenish rock. Touch it gently.
With that gesture you have reached across
310 million years or more to a creature
then alive and hungty and eager to re ­produce
as it thrust ahead, much as today's
squid do, through the warm, shallow seas
that covered the area.
But even 310 million years proved
relatively insignificant in Carbon Canyon,
Arizona Highways 27
28 July 1988
mile 64.6. It was interesting going-jumps,
stretches, and pulls through a jam of
surrealistically sculptured tan boulders
that looked as if they were violently
hammered from the surrounding cliffs by
unimaginable tectonic forces; indeed, this
may have been the case. On gaining open
land at last, we came across what seemed
to be a big, rough, wrinkled chunk of stone.
Actually it is a stromatolite, a massive clot
of fossilized primitive algae-initially
mere green scum-the age of which has
been estimated at close to one billion years.
Clearly, the strange pulse of energy we call
life has been around for a long time.
Other energies have left their marks on
the area. Observe the hogbacks of rock
visible from the stromatolite. Their strata
have been forced back on themselves until
they look like pieces of hard-used gear
wheels rimmed with mutilated teeth.
Altogether, it is a violent contrast with the
normally placid, flat-lying layers of strata
that are a hallmark of the Canyon's geology.
But no part of the earth is ever entirely
placid. About 25 million years ago, the
Butte Fault cracked its way across here,
creating such monstrous compressional
forces that solid rock bent, like putty, into
semicircles without breaking.
Farther downstream at Blacktail Canyon,
mile 120, there came another shocker. The
day was hot. In search of a cool place for
lunch, we waded up the shallow stream
carrying a folding table on which to set
our food. Beside us in the narrow canyon,
ancient Tapeats sandstone rested uncon­formably
on even older dark Precambrian
gneiss. Unconformably? Geologically, the
word means an interruption in the normal
order of sedimentation. Either the
expected material didn't happen to be
around here during the depositional
period- unlikely- or it was whisked away
during a time of erosion. Either way, the
unconformity in Blacktail Canyon repre­sents
a lost record of roughly one billion
years- the age, give or take a hundred
million, of the stromatolite up at Carbon
Canyon. Such a time gap is all but
incomprehensible. Still, try this: put the
heel of your hand on the dark metamor­phic
rock below the joint and your fingers
on the brown sandstone above. Your palm
spans, figuratively, a thousand million
years, and there is nothing to show for it.
So? Well, we, too, live in a period and place
of widespread erosion. In the dying years
of the world, will the record of our era
have vanished as completely?
In spite of the river's frigidity, the
summer sun can broil a rafter like a
sausage on a grill. Temperate waterfalls in
shady side canyons are cherished then. So
back up the main canyon we go, in
memory, to Clear Creek, mile 84, in upper
Elves Chasm
(ABOVE AND OPPOSITE PAGE)
has been a favorite stopping
point for river travelers for years.
Its lower pool offers an enticing
dip when summer temperatures
soar within the Canyon.
NICHES IN TIME
Granite Gorge. Getting into the slit formed
by the tributary demands an uncomfort­able
trade-off. The landing place for rafts
is above the canyon's mouth, and one can
reach the gulch only by climbing over a
ridge of knife-edged black schist so hot
it sears the hands-and rear-unless they
are wet down beforehand. But then! A
short, ankle-deep splash brings one to a
cool cataract that zings down a chute, hits
a chockstone, and sprays sideways like the
jet of a giant whirlpool bath. The massage
finished, you can loll on the sandy creek
bottom.
Another powerful jet comes at Deer
Creek Falls, 136 miles below Lees Ferry.
The falls are high-125 feet. The blast of
spray from the plunge pool at the bottom
makes all but the most hardy soakers back
off. That's just as well, for seeing only the
bottom of these superlative falls is not
enough. So tackle the steep trail on the
downstream side of the plunge. Your re­ward:
a narrow ledge from which you can
look down into the creek's chasm, an
extraordinary series of tight "S's," an
entrenched meander, geologically speak­ing,
that coils through exquisitely lami­nated
bands of Tapeats sandstone. At the
upper end of the twisting canyon is a
gnarled cottonwood tree-a rarity in the
Grand Canyon-and a small cascade for
bathing. To avoid the crowds that often
congregate there, try easing yourself into
the bottom of the laminated gorge. It can
be done, though caution may suggest
using a rope while you are at it.
Like Deer Creek, Elves Chasm at mile
116.2 is often crowded. Although flash
floods every now and then rearrange the
huge chockstones in the creek's steep,
narrow course, the bottom pool remains
deep and inviting, with fine stone perches
to jump from. Because the pool is the only
one in the creek where swimming is
allowed, and because the tiers of crystal
cups above, banked with fems and scarlet
monkey flowers, are attainable only by a
precipitous trail (during one stomach
crawl, your left elbow protrudes over a
void), most people hang up at the bottom.
Each new jewel- I have reached four
levels and there are more above- is an
invitation to find a cool, comfortable seat
and dream.
Pensiveness- it brings to mind Matka­tamiba
Canyon at mile 149. Matkatamiba
Creek winds, like Deer Creek, through a
tight, laminated slot. Here, however, the
rock is Muav limestone (Muav means
"many springs" in the Paiute tongue).
Human flies relish the challenge-true
chimney climbing-but there is a less hair­raising
stretch around the right side of the
coils. Whatever your route, you emerge
into an amphitheater that has been used,
Arizona Highways 29
like the Silver Grotto, as a site for concerts.
The place needs no musical instruments
to lull you, however. A tiny stream
whispers close at hand; the gently sloping
sandstone is seductive. I've seen as many
as half a dozen people napping there, their
books and journals fallen by their sides.
So far we have been talking of intimate
canyons and small creeks. But there also
are tributaries that elsewhere would be
major canyons in their own right: the little
Colorado at mile 61.4, Tapeats Creek
(mile 133.7), and that wondrous stretch
of massed greenery, Havasu Creek (mile
156.7).
During rainless periods, the canyon­cramped
streambed of the little Colorado
is bone dry (and hence carries no color­smothering
mud) until it reaches Blue
Springs, about 13 miles above the Colo­rado
River. Those springs and related
upwellings create a hiker's delight. Well,
a semi-delight. In summer the path at the
base of the talus slopes is hot. Wear a hat;
take plenty of filtered water. (The creek
itself contains natural chemicals that
would purge a rhinoceros.) To cool off,
sit in the stream while examining its
unearthly aquamarine colors. The hue is
enhanced by sunlight reflected from the
whitish mineral deposits on the creek
bottom. The deeper the pool, the bluer
the water. Where the stream enters the
Colorado, the sky itself is outdazzled.
You may glimpse, in boulder-shaded
pools along the lower part of the stream,
some of the fish-daces, suckers, perhaps
hump-backed chubs, and huge catfish­that
cannot tolerate the frigid waters of the
main river and have retreated into the
little Colorado to escape extinction. By
continuing four more miles, you can walk
into legend: a travertine dome a dozen
feet high or so, with a hole in the top
through which water once bubbled. This
is the sipapu (or a symbol of the sipapu)
through which the ancestors of the Hopi
Indians, the Ant People, emerged from the
inner earth. It is a holy place, so treat it
with respect.
Still farther on, perhaps too far for a day
trip, are shallow caves in which almost
pure salt has been deposited as stalactites
and stalagmites. Until recently the Hopis,
after conducting secret ceremonials,
followed a difficult trail down the canyon
walls to harvest the deposits. (There are
other salt caves just below the union of
the Colorados. Because the caverns are
sacred to the Hopis, landing there is
prohibited.)
A journey up Tapeats Creek is more
arduous than going up the little Colorado.
You begin by puffing up several hundred
feet of zigzags to the left of the creek's
mouth. From there a narrow path skirts
30 July 1988
(TOP) "Bursting from caverns
high in the crimson rock, " writes
the author, Thunder River lives
up to its name as it cascades
down the wooded slope to
Tapeats Creek. COBY JORDAN
(OPPOSITE PAGE) In Havasu
Canyon, home of the 'People of
the blue-green water, "Beaver
Falls draws expressions of awe
from the thousands of visitors
each year who stand enthralled
~ its sheer beauty. BOB RINK
the lip of the creek's deep howling gorge.
Eventually creek and trail intersect. While
crossing on the slippery boulders, it is well
to steady yourself by holding hands with
companions or by using a rope.
This is Sonoran Desert country, a
contrast that makes the glinting waters
seem all the brighter. Soon you reach the
point where Thunder River cascades into
Tapeats Creek from the left. (Strange that
a river should flow into a creek!) More
steep zigzags lead up a broiling hill toward
massive Redwall cliffs. Suddenly you see
the falls bursting from caverns high in the
crimson rock Your step quickens until
you feel the dash of cold spray across your
face and are shaken by the bellow of the
ledge-splintered waterfall as it plunges
down through almost tropical vegetation.
And so to Havasu Creek, blue-green like
the little Colorado because of sunlight
refracted from calcium carbonate, some in
bits, some in solution. This water, though,
is clearer and the emerald glints are
stronger. Curving little travertine dams,
made by the creek itself, create miniature
waterfalls. (Travertine is a solidified
calcium carbonate, often formed by the
evaporation of limestone-laden spray.)
Willows, cottonwoods, box elders, and
hackberry trees crowd the space between
the red cliffs and blue water. Dense
grapevines seen against the sun seem
almost to glow.
The crowds that land at Havasu thin out
along the creek's lower reaches, leaving
the trail pretty much to you and those
sharing your adventure. Adventure it is.
Just before you reach broad, low, ragged
Beaver Falls, you see a deep pool
overhung by a 30-foot ledge from which
bold hikers love to jump. Bold swimmers,
meanwhile, dive beneath the silver curtain
of the falls.
Beaver is just the beginning. Farther on,
if schedules allow, is Mooney Falls, 200
feet high and hung about with extraordi­nary
tapestries of travertine. Then come
the delightful curlicue pools at the base
of turquoise Havasu Falls, with the Indian
village of Supai not far beyond.
But whenever you tum back to your
waiting rafts, you will be convinced that
there can be more to a Grand Canyon float
trip than the encounter with the river
alone, rich though that experience most
certainly is. n
David Lavender is the author of more than two
dozen books about the American West, including
River Runners of the Grand Canyon, published try
the Grand Canyon Natural History Association.
Flagstaff free-lance photographer and river
guide David Edwards recently served as expedition
photographer f or a descent of the upper gorge of
China 's Yangtze River
NICHES IN TIME
Arizona Highways 31
I I I I I
BY ANN BRIMACOMBE ELLIOT
D e are waiting for the dancers. We have waited forever.
"When will they come out?" A gap-toothed smile in
a broad, brown face: "When they are ready."
We are in Shungopavi on Second Mesa, one of the
oldest Hopi villages. It was by sheer chance that we
heard in Flagstaff that a dance would be held here; that the
Shalakos would appear. And so, this July afternoon, we have toiled
a hundred miles across moonscapes of desert, afraid the whole
way we would be late. But one cannot be late in Hopiland. Time
has no place here. I do not look at my watch.
Soon it will be evening, but fine dust sifting between my
sandaled toes retains noontime heat, and the rough stone of the
pueblo walls is still hot. The air is crystalline. The San Francisco
Peaks, some 70 miles away, are sharply etched on the
southwestern horizon. Below us, the Painted Desert is drained
of color. It is a pewter sea, sailed by slow black shadows cast
by purple, gold-lined clouds. One of the clouds trickles lightning
and, after an age, thunder growls softly. We narrow our eyes
against miniature dust devils that whirl across the plaza.
The crowd swarms over the houses, clings to roofs and walls
like bright bees, buzzes with quiet excitement. Since we were
not invited, I feared we might feel intrusive. But the Hopis are
a friendly, cheerful people. They absorb us and the handful of
other Anglos gathered here. We are ignored but not shunned,
and I am not too uncomfortable in my pale skin and less than
black hair. It is important to behave correctly. During the
ceremony, we must not laugh aloud or point; above all, cameras
must remain in the car.
An old woman in black with a shawl of fuchsia, gold, and blue
sweeps the plaza with a balding broom to ready it for the dancers.
Other elderly women sit grouped on wooden chairs; ablaze in
shawls patterned with luminous cabbage roses. Someone says
the shawls are imported from Portugal. I wonder where they are
purchased, and why. Many older men wear Western hats, but
some have kerchief bands knotted about their brows. Younger
men and women are in jeans and T-shirts.
Small children play with plastic-foam cups in a heap of sand.
A girl of about six in a black tunic with red and green sash and
pale buckskin moccasin-boots joins them. Her hair is shaped into
"butterfly wings," in years past the standard style for Hopi maidens.
The shining black coils are molded onto wooden frames, which
are then withdrawn. She walks with a self-conscious swagger.
A young woman in a Save-the-Whales T-shirt sits in a doorway,
holding a small puppy. He lies on his back in her lap, and she
strokes the taut freckled belly with one finger. Dogs are
everywhere, part of the crowd, waiting too. The wait has been
years long. The Shalako spirits (pronounced Shal-a-ko) are more
· than kachinas. Divinity-like, they are the powerful, drought­breaking
cloud people, and they appear rarely.
I I I I I
32 July 1988
I
I
I I I I I
But in spite of no concession stands, no food or drink to help
pass the time, no radios, there is no impatience. Just this quiet,
anticipatory hum. Even our own youngsters are not nagging,
although their last meal was-when? An eternity, another life ago.
Careful not to point, our son tells us to look upward at the
roofs, and we see the eagles. Four great birds are tethered by
the leg to beams. When the crowd presses too close, they spread
gigantic wings and hiss. They do not know the honor that awaits
them. They do not know that tomorrow they will be named, then
killed, their feathers collected for next year's dancers. They do
not care that they will be buried with ceremony afforded the
most important members of the tribe. They sit, hunched,
discouraged. Cold eyes stare out to the desert and the open sky.
Now a stir runs through the crowd. The swarm seems to lift,
swirl, and resettle.
I I I I I
I I I I I
"They're coming! They're coming out!"
But still we wait. The kachinas dance in all three plazas of
the village, and ours will be the last. Over the heads of the crowd,
bobbing feathers are briefly visible. The temptation to point and
exclaim is almost irresistible. Small children are lifted onto
shoulders, but the crowd is too thick. Indistinct and strange, high
cries reach our ears.
At long last, with the sun dipping behind the San Francisco
Peaks, the crowd parts soundlessly, and the column of dancers
winds its way into our plaza. The only sound apart from the
rhythmic shuffle of bare feet is the clop-clop of tortoise shells
tied behind the dancers' knees.
I have done my homework. I know that the Hopis believe
everything exists in two forms, the physical and the spiritual.
Kachinas are the spiritual doubles of the material world. The sun
I I I I I
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The Hopi Indians believe that everything in the physical
world has its counterpart in the spirit realm. In this
illustration, the distinguished artist and anthropologist
Barton Wright interprets the roles of kachinas and other
spirits in bringing rain to the Hopis' high-desert homeland.
At far left, the Danik'china or cloud guard appears at the
wind-driven periphery of the storm. The Tukwinong Taka
and Tukwinong Mana, male and female (center panel),
personify the dark, rain-bearing portions of the clouds.
They are led by Sotuknangu, the lightning kachina. Poised
above the pueblo, (above) and awaiting the rain are
Hahai-i Wuhti, the kachina mother, and Eototo, spirit
representative of the village chief The towering Shalakos
(also male and female), visible in the thunderheads, are the
divinity-like beings who control the entire storm.
I I I I
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Arizona Highways 33
I I I I I
and moon, rain clouds, birds, beasts, plants, people-all have
their kachina counterparts in the supernatural world. The kachinas'
home is high on the San Francisco Peaks, but in spring, they
visit the villages. They emerge through doorways in the kivas,
the underground ceremonial chambers. Through the spring and
into the summer months, they remain among the people. In late
July, they return to the peaks. The Hopis do not worship them;
rather, they treat them as friends or companions who can
intercede with the gods. Each kachina is loved, respected, or
feared according to its character.
The kachina dances are part of a complex religious ritual, the
driving force of which is the eternal need for rain. Since it is
difficult to relate to unseen spirits, the Hopis don stylized mas~
and costumes and use symbolic gestures and actions to represent
the kachinas. All the dancers are male, although female characters
are impersonated. Once costumed, each man puts aside some
of his own identity to become one with the kachina.
I have read about the Shalako dance and can identify the danc­ers
by their strange, musical names: the Tukwinong, the cumulus
cloud kachinas; their female counterparts, the Tukwinong Mana;
the Danik'china, the cloud guards; Hahai-i Wuhti, the kachina
mother; the two Shalakos themselves, male and female, Shalako
Taka and Shalako Mana But I am still unprepared.
The muted colors surprise me. Skin daubed with gray clay;
green spruce ruffs; some ocher and rust, black and white-earth
colors. I am used to the strident acrylics of kachina dolls . The
dolls, or tihu, are not toys. They are miniatures of the dancers
carved to teach the Hopi children the forms, characters, and habits
of the various kachinas. They have become costly collectors' items.
An intense hush has fallen over the holiday crowd, and I wonder,
can this village be on the same continent as Flagstaff, as Phoenix?
On the same planet as Ohio? Many of these people must live
and work in cities, in the world I know. Surely only a very few
call the reservation villages home, raise sheep and goats, plant
com in arid fields at the foot of the mesa-and beg the gods
for rain in tune with this dance. I know no statistics. But certainly
everyone here, of every age group , is rapt, involved. The only
ones who are purely spectators are white.
he Shalakos are tall , tall! Six-foot cones of layered
eagle feathers are topped by three feet of carved cas­tellations,
intricately painted and plumed. Hahai -i
Wuhti leads them through every movement. Her
falsetto voice and bossy manner would have been
amusing-yesterday. The four Danik' china wear distinctive masks ,
their heads obscured in balls of eagle feathers . With stiff, me­chanical
motions, they dance outside two flanking columns of
Tukwinong, whipping the dust into stormy swirls with willow
switches. The Tukwinong shake gourd rattles and stamp, making
the plaza ring to the sound of their tortoise shells .
Three elderly men with single feathers plaited into their hair
are the kachina fathers . In constant motion, like sheepdogs with
an errant flock, they direct the dance, eyes anxious behind
spectacles, white kilts swinging beneath round bellies. The
Shalakos shuffle and bob, bob and shuffle.
Quite suddenly, the chant begins. And now I am no longer
just a spectator. My ears, my eyes , my whole head are filled. I
am drowning in the sound. The voices are deep bass, the language ,
alien - too strange to distinguish words. Perfectly synchronous,
pitch and beat change at indiscernible signals. Inexorable, almost
tuneless, the sound is shocking and unearthly, punctuated only
by Hahai-i Wuhti's thin cries and the commands of the kachina
fathers . The Shalakos curtsy and sway, sway and curtsy.
When at last the chant ceases, the silence is absolute. I let
I I I I I
I
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I I I I
(ABOVE ) A captive eagle tethered to a rooftop awaits ritual
sacrifice. For centuries, the Hopis have used the great birds'
feathers in kachina costumes, religious rites, and
ceremonial dances.
(OPPOSITE PAGE) The San Francisco Peaks, southwest of the
Hopi mesas, are the home to which the kachinas return.
BOTII BY JERRY JACKA
I
out my breath and feel the whole crowd exhale with me. The
dancers are motionless. Women from the crowd come forward
slowly, shyly, offering prayers of cornmeal and water. The ka­chinas
do not move, and the women leave the offerings at their
feet. A slender young man with shining waist -length hair appears.
He has a wonderful face - a swarthy Michelangelo's "David." He
blows gentle smoke at each of the dancers from a long pipe.
The women in their shawls are wistful. Tonight the kachinas
return to the peaks . They will not come again this year-or for
how many years? For the oldest, the Shalakos will never return.
At a signal, young faces are covered, for now the great Shalako
masks are snatched off. Children must not see the men concealed
beneath them. The masks are whirled away , down the ladder
of a kiva. The dancers file quietly away, downhill, out of sight.
A baby is wailing. Slowly the crowd comes back to life. The
plaza begins again to hum. Outside the village, an engine bursts
into life, and the first pickup truck bumps away over the rough
road. Reluctantly the crowd disperses.
The sun has set, the light almost gone. Silhouetted, the captive
eagles hunch. Their eyes glint gold, answering the lightning that
flashes regularly now. To the south, massive cumulonimbus
clouds tower and roil.
We walk stiffly to our car. Looking at my watch at last , I realize
we have been standing for more than four hours. As we leave
Shungopavi, we take our place in the line of pickups. The road
twists down into the night and onto the desert plain. We follow
the route the kachinas will take toward the San Francisco Peaks
and the storm. Our destination again is Flagstaff, whose glow
we can see on the far side of the peaks.
I thought the chant had entered my soul, that I would never
lose it. But already it has left me. ~
Ann Brimaco mbe Elliot is a Columbus, Ohio, technical writer whose
short stories, poetry, and essays have bee n published in literary, wom e n's,
and regio nal magaz ines in the United States and Great Britain.
I I I I I
Arizona Highways 35
T hroughout 1940, Arizona radios
were regularly tuned to the
broadcasts of Gabriel Heatter
and H. V. Kaltenborn as those
commentators told of the war engulfing
Europe and German submarines ravaging
the Atlantic.
Would the United States enter the war?
That possibility seemed much nearer
when, in September, the state's National
Guard units were ordered into active
federal service for intensive training. Soon
other Arizona reservists were called up.
Meanwhile, military preparations were
under way at half a dozen bases within
the state. In retrospect, some of those
efforts have a brave, almost .comic-opera
ring to them.
When the Army Air Corps took over
Tucson Municipal Airport and renamed it
Tucson Air Base, a lieutenant colonel and
two sergeants arrived from March Field,
California, with 20 Civilian Conservation
Corps workers to convert the facility for
military use.
In May, 1941, the 4 lst Bombardment
Group arrived, flying obsolete B-18 Bolos,
the bomber version of the workhorse DC-
3 transport. Two Stearman biplane trainers
were used for administrative flying and to
38 July 1988
portray the enemy in simulated air raids.
But the tentative tone ended December
7, 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
Three days later, the Bolos flew to the
Pacific; but Tucson Air Base had only
begun to fight. Within months, 9,000
people were stationed there, and the base
reverted to its 1927 name, Davis-Monthan
Field, in memory of two militaiy aviators.
Mobilization transformed Arizona into
a vast training ground. Significant as that
change was to the then-quiet, thinly
populated state, the postwar effects have
been an equally distinctive part of Ari­zona's
story.
As the nation geared up for an all-out
war effort, long, slow troop trains paused
to drop battalions of young men from
distant cities and farms into remote desert
encampments. When they got passes a few
weeks later, they spilled off the sidewalks
of the small cities and towns of a state of
less than half a million residents.
The impact of so many military person­nel
on Arizona communities was more
than a bit traumatic. The late Newell
Stewart, mayor of Phoenix from 1942 to
1944, said trucks from the Desert Training
Center's Camp Horn and Camp Hyder
would drop 10,000 troops at a time into
On displa.y at Champlin Fighter Museum
in Mesa are these classic warbirds
(CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP, LEFf): Curtis P-40
was equipped with a 1,000-hp V-12
engine and six 50-cal. machine guns.
It was made famous by the Flying
Tigers in China in 1940. The P-51
Mustang boasted a 1,550-hp
Rolls Royce powerpla.nt and was
armed with six 50-cal guns.
Considered the best all-around fighter
of the war, it saw duty in both the
Pacific and European theaters.
The 2,000-hp P-47 Thunderbolt also
saw seroice in the Pacific and
in Europe. It carried eight
50-cal machine guns.
The
Distinguished
Flying Cross
is awarded for
in-flight heroism
or extraordinary
aerial achievement.
It was authorized
by Congress
in 1926, and its
first recipients
were two peacetime
pioneers of aviation,
Capt. Charles A Lindbergh
and Cdr. Richard E. Byrd
(RIGHT, ABOVE) Author Don Dwiggins, in
the center, with British cadets at Falcon
Field, 1943. (RIGHT, BELOW) New pilots
pass in review on Graduation Day.
BOTII COURTESY OF DON DWIGGINS
downtown Phoenix, already crowded with
airmen. "They'd walk through town and
buy everything there was-meat, ciga­rettes,
liquor. We had to put up a hundred
outside showers over at the old YMCA
because these kids from out in the desert
didn't have a place to take a bath."
From the viewpoint of the troops,
Phoenix was not exactly Fun City. Former
New Yorker Bob Markow, a postwar
resident of Phoenix, observes, "We were
nightlife people. But here you just walked
around those few blocks downtown."
A 1946 Army history of the Desert
Training Center told about Yuma's intro­duction
to World War II: "It was undis­turbed
until the latter part of 1942 when
one Saturday night 3,000 soldiers from the
6th Division came to town." Soldiers
jumped from the continuous train of
trucks on Main Street, the account contin­ued,
and formed a mass of slowly mov­ing
humanity on the sidewalk.
"They cleaned out the restaurants. The
newsstands ... were defoliated .... "
The signs of military training were
widespread. Khaki uniforms and olive­drab
vehicles became commonplace. In
the air, blue and yellow Stearman biplanes
buzzed over the Salt River Valley like gulls
over a cannery. On the desert plains of
western Arizona, tanks were leaving tracks
that survive today.
Arizona's good weather, sparse popula­tion,
and wide open spaces allowed
airmen and ground troops alike to train
almost 365 days a year.
At historic Fort Huachuca in southeast­ern
Arizona, where Indian scouts were still
on the roster, blocks of new barracks went
up to house the 93rd Infantry Division.
Nearly 15,000 men strong, the division
trained strenuously in 1942 for service in
Text continued on page 40
ARIZONA AND WORLD WAR II
Yesterday at Falcon Field ________ ~
by Don Dwiggins
It hardly seems 47 years ago that I signed on as a civilian
flight instructor at Falcon Field, where our mission was to
teach Royal Air Force cadets to fly Stearman PT-17 Kaydet
primary trainers without killing themselves.
The spectacular, sun-drenched Arizona countryside was a
revelation to the lads from foggy old England. In the Stearman,
the cadet rode in the rear cockpit, with the instructor up
front. When it came time for instrument flight training, the
rear hole was covered with a canvas hood. I remember one
bright morning when a student, Albert Marsland, was flying
his needle-ball-airspeed routine under the hood. Ahead I saw
a pretty little cumulus cloud- a good opportunity to show
him what real instrument flying was like. I directed him right
into the stuff.
"Okay, Albert," I called through the speaking tube. "Open
your hood now!"
Marsland raised the hood, looked around in amazement,
and gasped, "My gosh, sir! This looks just like home!"
Falcon Field was one of many training fields established
in the United States by the British Empire Training System.
All the military fields in Great Britain were operational bases
for aircraft actively involved in the war against Hitler.
One of the advantages of training young Britons in this
country was the common language. That didn't mean, of
course, that there weren't extensive differences in vocabulary.
The British quickly contributed to our airman's lingo. You
didn't "crack up" a plane, you "pranged" it. The propeller
was an "airscrew"; the windshield, a "windscreen." There
were dozens of other examples.
Falcon Field and two other airfields in the Valley of the
Sun, Thunderbird I and 11, were born of President Franklin
Roosevelt's pre-Pearl Harbor call for the training of 100,000
pilots a year. By June, 1943, a total of 700 instructors
nationwide were training aviation cadets from 29 countries,
mostly from the United States, China, and Great Britain.
Flight training began on March 22, 1941, at Thunderbird
Field north of Glendale, and on September 14 at Falcon Field
near Mesa. Thunderbird Field II, north of Scottsdale, was
activatedJune 22, 1942.
The British cadets began arriving at Falcon in June of 1941,
each with some 12 hours experience in Gypsy Moths, whose
airscrews turned the opposite way from Stearman propellers.
The prop-torque-induced tendency of an aircraft to turn is
offset by applying "opposite rudder." To teach the cadets
to hold straight on takeoff (since the corrective action had
to be the opposite of a habit already formed), special "ground
loop trainers" were devised, with steel wingtip bows and
restricted throttle operation. (A ground loop is a sharp,
uncontrollable turn of the aircraft during taxiing or on the
roll before takeoff or after landing.) Even with the special
training, wingtip repairs were an everyday matter as cadets
ground-looped their way toward familiarity with Yankee
airplanes.
There were other exciting moments, such as the time two
nine-plane formations flew headlong through each other
over the Superstition Mountains. Amazingly, only a few
scraped wingtips resulted. Actually, these were North
American AT-6 advanced trainers, which operated from a side
of Falcon Field opposite from where the Stearmans parked.
RAF cadets moved up from primary training to basic and on
to advanced, all at the same airfield.
Frequently we flew up to an auxiliary field where planes
from Thunderbird II practiced landings. One day I asked a
Thunderbird instructor, Jimmy Netser, why his Chinese
cadets seemed to learn so fast at first, then went into a slump.
He explained: "Mister Netser, we think you greatest pilot
in the world," one cadet had told him seriously. "If we get
half as good, that's plenty!"
Near-accidents happened often, not only on landings but
also in the sky. One day a lone Stearman was seen doing
stalls in the airspace north of Falcon Field, where aerobatics
were prohibited. At each recovery no power was applied, and
the plane continued down in a series of stalls, lower and
lower. The Stearman finally disappeared below a hill.
L:lter it reappeared and flew home, and the embarrassed
pilots, two applicants for instructor slots, sheepishly told
what had happened. Each believed the other was flying the
aircraft, and not until they dipped into a dry wash did they
realize what was going on. Both grabbed the controls and
pulled up.
I was fortunate in having excellent RAF cadets to work
with, and in each of the first four classes to graduate, one
of my lads was topmost in the group. Typical was Roy Walter
Frederick Charles Westgate, a handsome fellow who went
on to log more than 22,000 hours around the world.
During the years of World War 11, an estimated 15,000
cadets earned their wings at Falcon and the two Thunderbird
fields. There were many other military fields in Arizona, from
the large Williams, Luke, and Davis-Monthan air bases to small
contract operations at municipal airports. But I'm proud to
report that Falcon Field was rated one of the best installations
in the nation. ~
Arizona Highways 39
the Pacific. The 92nd Division followed,
en route to Europe . Both units comprised
black soldiers in the still-segregated Army.
When the first student pilots arrived at
the new Luke Field west of Phoenix in
June, 1941, runways were not finished. But
that was only a minor problem. The men
were given sack lunches and taken to Sky
Harbor, the Phoenix municipal airport, for
their flying lessons.
Later , Luke became the nation's largest
Government-issue
( "GI") single-edge
safety razor and kit.
40 July 1988
!/I
school for fighter pilots. The base was so
crowded that cadets were often trucked
to one or another of Luke's many auxiliary
landing fields, where instructors met them
with AT-6 trainers or P-40 fighter planes.
Williams Field southeast of Phoenix was
under construction at the time of Pearl
Harbor. After the attack, "They flew planes
[into Williams] from West Coast factories
because they knew darn well the Japanese
were coming on from Pearl," recalled the
late Kenneth H. Cook, who helped build
the field. "They took British and French
insignia off some planes and put Uncle
Sam's on. Lockheed and other manufac­turers
took over four or five barracks and
brought their mechanics and armorers in
to finish outfitting those planes."
Barry M. Goldwater, who later became
a United States senator from Arizona, was
in 1941 an infantry lieutenant
attached to the air corps and
assigned to Luke Field. On
December 7 he was play­ing
golf. "When I heard
that Pearl Harbor had
been attacked, I couldn't
believe it ," he remem­bers.
"But I quit the
game, called the base,
and sure enough
everyone was being
called back. We had
warnings about the Jap-anese
possibly attacking us from
the Mexican border. We had to
fly an escort ship with every
airliner that passed. "
Goldwater became a gunnery
instructor and helped plan a
vast gunnery and bombing
range in southwestern Ari ­zona.
When some cattlemen
in the area refused to sell their ranches
to the government, the land was acquired
by presidential executive order.
Anita Bender McGee of Phoenix relates
that her father patriotically recognized the
need for the range and leased his ranch
to the government. But he refused to move.
"My dad didn ' t run easily from anything.
We stuck to that ranch amid some pretty
harrowing experiences-daily seeing the
planes from Luke overhead, pulling targets
behind them while fighter planes prac ­ticed
firing at the towed targets.
"Sometimes when they got too close,
my feisty 80-year-old grandmother would
grab the U.S . flag, run outside, and wave
it. She was sure the pilots would see it
and leave us alone."
The Benders, who had been promised
the return of their ranch after the war,
eventually were required to sell their
property to the government instead. In
1987 , the area was renamed the Barry M.
Goldwater Air Force Range.
A company called Southwest Airways,
operating under government contract,
trained 17,500 student pilots. Some of
them were from Great Britain , China,
Brazil, Turkey, and the Philippines.
One of the best-known contract instal­lations,
Thunderbird Field, is now the
campus of the American Graduate School
of International Management in north
Glendale. Thunderbird II became Scotts­dale
Municipal Airport. Falcon Field,
where Royal Air Force cadets trained, is
now Mesa's airport . (See page 39.)
RAF Cadet Jack May came to Falcon in
the winter of 1942 . "London was the jaws
of hell," he recalls . "We were being
bombed out of our minds. There was
carnage daily, and no food . When I got
here, it was all sunshine and citrus."
May said cadets were forbidden to buzz
Camelback Mountain , the premier land­mark
of Phoenix, making that a most
attractive activity. "If they caught you
'scratching the camel's back,' you were
washed out and sent back to England."
The British were taught low-level night­formation
flying. The palm trees and
sedate homes of North Central Avenue
were too much to resist. "The night we
graduated , we flew right down Central
Avenue , bombing the town with pop
bottles and streaming toilet paper."
May later flew in combat over Europe
and helped flush German submarines
from the fjords of Norway.
While at Falcon Field, the cadet had
been befriended by the family of legend­ary
Arizona educator and horseman F. V.
"Bud" Brown. The Browns' daughter,
Bebe, was in grade school then. But in
1963 she and May were married , and in
1965 they returned to Arizona to help run
( RIGHT ) Maj Gen.
George Patton
proposed
minimum
housekeeping for
his armored units,
here teamed with
the air corps in
d esert maneuvers.
Patton's tanks
were soon to see action in North Africa.
( OPPOSITE PAGE ) Camp Bouse, 140 miles
northwest of Phoenix, was home of the
9th Tank Group. Details of its secret
mission, part of the Canal Defense
Light project, remained classified
until 1982. ALL COURTESY OF U.S . ARMY
Friendly Pines Camp at Prescott (see
ArizonaHighways,June , 1987). "I haven 't
looked back since," May says.
Within days of Pearl Harbor, the Pres­ident
committed the United States to
active support of Allied forces fighting the
Germans and Italians in North Africa . To
prepare American troops for this campaign,
Maj . Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. , established
the Desert Training Center with headquar­ters
near Indio, California. Eventually the
center's maneuver areas took up much of
southeastern California and western
Arizona. Facilities were austere - primarily
tent encampments. Patton wrote to the
War Department: ''. .. I propose to hold the
housekeeping arrangements here to the
minimum , that is, to spend just as little
as possible on 'prettying up ' and as muc h
'lJ'[H]]~@P~
GA' ,,,.,a ;,..,;,f-u/e ,,,,,d,,,,..;.,, ,,,. de cf.,,,,,;l'I"',.,,.;,,,..· /77/
Unmatted : Z4 (h ) by 30 (w) inches
ARIZONA AND WORLD WAR 11
time as possible on tactical and technical
instruction. "
Patton and his armored corps were soon
fighting in Africa , but his standards for
desert training continued to prevail.
The 77th Infantry "Statue of Liberty"
Division of the New York National Guard
found itself detraining at raw Camp Hyder,
HISTORIC
ARIZONA
PRINT
From the Arizona Highways
Cavalcade Series comes this
print by artist Bill Ahrendt. Orig­inally
created as an oil painting,
" The Presidio of Tubae" color­fully
portrays a 1774 pack train
arriving in Tubae with supplies
for the Spanish garrison, located
in what is now southern Arizona.
Handsomely reproduced on acid­free
archival-quality paper, this
offset-lithographic print is of­fered
unmatted with a border
for your display preference.
Order the Historic Arizona
Print for $20.00 (includes U.S.
postage) through the attached
order card or by writing or visit­ing
Arizona Highways, 2039 W.
Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009 .
Telephone orders may be placed
by calling (602) 258-1000 or by
dialing toll-free within Arizona
1-800-543-5432.
Arizona Highways 41
The nation's highest
decoration for valor, the
Medal of Honor recognizes gallantry in
combat at the risk of life, above and
beyond the call of duty. During World
War II, Pfc. Silvestre Herrera was the
only Arizonan awarded the medal.
100 miles southwest of Phoenix. The
77th's citizen-soldiers, fresh from big-city
streets, forlornly surveyed acres of ankle­deep
dust laced with rattlesnakes.
It was tough duty in the desert. A stone
pyramid still stands in memory of seven
soldiers of another division who died
during training at Camp Horn, a few miles
southwest of Hyder. The inscription reads,
"Here trained for victory under desert
skies the 81st Infantry Division, The
Wildcats, 1943 .... "
Tanks churned the desert sands as the
3rd, 6th, and 9th armored divisions trained
at and near Camp Laguna, north of Yuma.
There the men of the 79th Infantry
Division also were learning the tactics of
ground warfare.
Activities at Hyder, Horn, and Laguna
were generally public knowledge. But at
the time and for nearly 40 years after,
mystery shrouded Camp Bouse in the
Butler Valley, 140 miles northwest of the
capital city. Bouse has the most visible
relics of Army operations, but few knew
who trained there or what theywere doing.
Then a group of military buffs, the Council
on America's Military Past, asked the
Pentagon to declassify the information.
Although the Army had no objection, itq
historical files yielded nothing. CAMP
researchers finally obtained the story from
British sources. In a 1982 CAMP mono­graph,
co-authors John Kennedy, John
Lynch, and Robert Wooley described the
tight security that covered the 9th Tank
42 July 1988
Group and its assignment. Since then, this
writer has talked with veterans who were
stationed at Bouse.
Their mission was part of the Canal
Defense Light project, a secret British
effort. Tanks were mounted with shuttered,
filtered arc lights that were supposed to
confuse the enemy and make the tanks
elusive targets. The training was exhaust­ing,
the camp Spartan, and security so tight
soldiers could leave only if they stayed in
groups. When they got passes to Phoenix
or Los Angeles, they gravitated not to
bright lights and seductive girls but to
caf es serving fresh milk and fresh eggs.
But eventually the project fizzled. The
Canal Defense Light did not work well.
"Thank God we did not have to go into
combat with those things," said one
veteran now living in Arizona.
T he migration of former Gis back to
postwar Arizona to help make it one
of the fastest growing states in the nation
is another important thread in our story
of World War II.
This interesting figure recently surfaced:
Bombardiers Inc. has organized to reunite
veterans of this highly specialized occu­pation.
Of 7,500 former bombardiers on
its roster, about 1,000 live in Arizona!
A E. (Bud) Gomes, formerly of Boston,
was a member of a company of recruits
that entrained at Fort Devens, Massachu­setts,
in November, 1942. "It took us seven
days to cross the country," Gomes said.
"We were making jokes that they must
have built a railroad across the Pacific
directly to Japan. We finally got off the train
at Florence, and I remember it was sunny
and warm for November. All we could see
was sand and desert shrubs. We thought
we were in the French Foreign Legion."
The New Englanders were marched to
the site of a new camp for German and
Italian prisoners of war, where they took
basic training and became military police
escort guards.
That POW camp is now Florence
Gardens, a community of large mobile
homes with a golf course. Two former
German prisoners have bought lots there.
Gomes rose to first sergeant and
married a local girl. They lived in Boston
for a while after the war, then returned
to Florence. Gomes became assistant
warden (sometimes acting warden) of
Arizona State Prison.
A better-known camp for German POWs
was located at Papago Park, just east of
Phoenix. It had satellite camps throughout
central Arizona. The Papago Park camp
gained notoriety when 25 German naval
officers and men tunneled to temporary
freedom two nights before Christmas,
1944. (See page 44.)
Unfortunately, Italian and German
military personnel were not the only
internees in Arizona during World War II.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation rounded up all
Japanese-Americans living in certain zones
and held 20,000 of them at Poston
Relocation Center on the Colorado River
Indian Reservation. Two camps on the
Gila River Indian Reservation south of
Phoenix held 10,000 more. An Indian
boarding school at Leupp, east of Flagstaff
on the Navajo Indian Reservation, became
a prison for a handful of "hard-core"
security risks, although the installation's
administrator told officialdom few of his
charges seemed dangerous.
Today America has come to look with
shame on the imprisonment of Nisei and
other Japanese-Americans during World
War II. Even Arizonans who helped build
and administer "relocation" camps here
reflect sadly on their part in it.
Most Nisei in the Arizona camps were
from California. Many of them later settled
in Arizona because they had lost their
California holdings in forced liquidations.
Farmer Mas Inoshita, who became a
prominent citizen of Glendale, Arizona,
was forced to sell his family's California
holdings for five cents on the dollar.
The 400 Japanese-Americans living in
Arizona were divided by an arbitrary rul­ing:
those residing on one side of an imag­inary
boundary remained free; those on
the other were interned.
Kay and Richard Takemori, who had two
young daughters, had just equipped and
opened a new grocery store near down­town
Phoenix; but it was on the wrong
side of the boundary. Because Richard was
Text continued on page 45
Shoulder patches with an Arizona
connection (CLOCKWISE, FROM LEFT): 77th
Infantry "Statue of Liberty" Division
trained at Camp Hyder, the 81st Infantry
"Wildcat" Division at Camp Horn.
The 158th Infantry "Bushmasters"
were originally Arizona's National
Guard regiment.
ARIZONA AND WORLD WAR II
Bombs and Hogans at Bellemont _____ ----,
by Sam Negri
Navajo john Billy poses with a 105mm
howitzer shell stored at the wartime
Navajo Ordnance Depot.
(TOP) War bond campaign photo shows a family hogan at the Army-built
Navajo town adjacent to the ordnance depot. The community had its own
trading post. (ABOVE) Navajo women pack cases of hand grenades.
ALL COURTESY OF NAVAJO DEPOT ACTMTY
Artfully woven rugs and photographs of Navajo Indians
decorate the walls of the Navajo Depot Activity at Bellemont,
12 miles west of Flagstaff on Interstate Route 40. But the
rugs and pictures are not a decorator's enhancement of a
drab military headquarters; they are, instead, a poignant
reminder of the impact World War II had on both Arizona
Indians and U.S. Army personnel sent to establish a muni­tions
depot in the high grasslands of northern Arizona.
On February 5, 1942, the U.S. Army created what was then
referred to as the Navajo Ordnance Depot on 29,978 acres
along the Santa Fe Railroad's main line. The proximity to
the railroad was important because, during World War II, the
depot was constantly receiving, storing, and shipping
ammunition and other explosives. Most of the shipments
went to the West Coast and ultimately to the battlefields of
the Pacific.
Another reason the depot was located in this vicinity was
the availability of a large work force from the region's In­dian
reservations. That labor pool, however, created some
unusual demands for an Army immersed in a war effort.
Many of the Native American men and women employed
at the depot came from isolated homes or tiny communi­ties
scattered across the high northern plateau. Many had
had little if any contact with non-Indians, most spoke no
English, and many were unfamiliar with U.S. currency.
This culture gap for a time proved frustrating to both
Indians and Army officers; and in the early days, some of
the workers found the adjustment too difficult to make and
abandoned their jobs to return to the reservation.
William Young, who with his brother-in-law Hubert
Richardson built a trading post at the depot, recalled that
"Indians who worked there would get paid and go into
Flagstaff to do their sh6pping. But because they didn't speak
English, they'd get frustrated trying to deal with the stores,
and they'd get discouraged, and they'd finally just leave and
go back home."
To remedy the situation, the only Army-built Navajo "town"
on record, including hogans and the trading post, was con­structed
nearby. Sheep (a staple of both Navajo diet and tex­tiles)
were imported, looms were provided for the women,
and Navajo interpreters were hired. Eventually the depot had
a 43-bed hospital, a church, a school, and two Indian com­munities.
At the height of World War II, the installation em­ployed
nearly 2,500 people, most of them Native Americans.
Over the years the depot's name changed several times,
most recently in 1971. Today, operated by the Arizona
National Guard, the facility employs fewer than 20 Indians
on the skeleton maintenance staff. The Indian camps have
long since been dismantled; but in scrapbooks in the head­quarters
building, dozens of photographs tell the story of
a now-distant war and its role in changing the lives of
thousands of American Indian civilians. ~
Arizona Highways 43
The Greatest Escape.~~~~~~~~~~~
by Lloyd Clark
a football field through desert caliche, all undetected, had
never occurred to the camp's officers. The strenuous,
surreptitious effort had gone on for three months, despite
minimal tools and the constant danger of discovery.
When at last the escape route was completed, the action
came quickly. On the night of December 23, boisterous
prisoners using the ruse of celebrating Germany's success
in the Battle of the Bulge caused disturbances that distracted
guards' attention. In rapid succession, ten teams of two or
three men squeezed into the tunnel and crawled to freedom.
Wattenberg and two of his former U-boat crew, Walter
Kozur and Johann Kremer, were the fifth team out. Wading
the canal, then quickly changing into dry clothes in the
bushes of the canal's east bank, they struck out to the north.
For a plot so successfully executed to this point, the
scenario began to fall apart quickly. Within the first day five
of the escapees, cold and wet, surrendered to Valley residents.
Puzzled officers and guards started a search for the escape
route, but it was not until the day after Christmas that Pfc.
Lawrence Jorgensen discovered the camouflaged exit hatch
. 8 in the brush alongside the canal. Jorgensen, who now lives
5 in Scottsdale, entered the burrow and followed it to a portal
~ under a coal bin beside the bathhouse.
(TOP) Workmen construct a stockade, "the prison within
a prison," at Papago Park POW Camp in January, 1945.
A group of German prisoners had escaped from the
camp during darkness of December 23-24, 1944.
(ABOVE) Exit of the escape tunnel was in the bank of a
nearby canal BOTH COURTESY OF THE AlJIBOR
At about 2 A.M. on Sunday, January 28, 1945, Sgt. Gilbert
Brady of the Phoenix Police Department was hailed by a street­maintenance
foreman at the comer of Central Avenue and
Van Buren Street. A tall, lean stranger had just asked for
directions to the railroad station. Clarence Cherry was
suspicious: "He had a German accent,'' the foreman said.
Brady caught up with the tall man in the yellow checked
shirt at Third Avenue and Van Buren. "Sir, could I see your
Selective Service registration?" the police officer asked.
The man replied that he had left it at home.
"Where is home?'' "Glendale."
"Glendale, Arizona, or Glendale, California?"
A pause. "Glendale - back east,'' said the man.
"Come with me to the police station,'' responded Brady.
Thus quietly ended what has been termed the greatest
escape by Axis prisoners of war from a United States
compound during World War II.
The man with the accent was Capt. Jurgen Wattenberg,
former commander of the German submarine U-162 and
more recently the senior prisoner of war at the Papago Park
POW Camp just east of Phoenix. Two nights before Christmas,
Wattenberg and 24 comrades had undertaken their daring
exit through a 180-foot tunnel that led under the camp fence
and surfaced on the west bank of the Arizona Crosscut Canal.
Wattenberg had been at large for 35 days. He was the last
of 25 escapees to be recaptured.
The possibility that carefully guarded prisoners could dig
an accurately engineered tunnel longer than the width of
44 July 1988
~ For nearly 40 years after his recapture, Captain Wattenberg
~ refused to discuss the escape with journalists. Nevertheless,
::i fascinated by the episode, I 1 established a correspondence
with him; and at Christmas, 1983, he wrote from his home
in Lubeck, West Germany, agreeing to an interview. We met
in May, 1984, at a vacation retreat in Austria.
At age 83, he remembered in amazing detail the activities
of the trio during their absence from the camp. Soon after
they left the canal it started to rain, and they took shelter
in a shack. Next evening, after a portion of their hoarded
rations became Christmas Eve dinner, Kremer took out his
harmonica and softly played Stille Nacht, "Silent Night."
In the days that followed, they cautiously worked their
way into the Phoenix Mountains, finding cover in an eroded
alcove near Squaw Peak. On December 28, they celebrated
Wattenberg's 44th birthday.
On New Year's Eve, they hiked all the way to Cave Creek
Dam impoundment, a distance of at least 12 miles, where
they bathed and swam, ate, and drank schnapps to toast the
new year and Frau Wattenberg's birthday.
By the end of the first week of January, 1945, the men's
anxiety about their fellow escapees' fate was intense. Kremer
and Kozur ventured into Phoenix after nightfall, returning
with several newspapers. Blared one headline, "Two Nazis
Apprehended at Mexican Border." Most of the prisoners, it
appeared, had by now been caught. In the next two weeks,
during forays to replenish their dwindling food supply,
Kremer and then Kozur were recaptured.
Wattenberg determined to make his way into the city and
somehow quit the Phoenix area, perhaps by freight train. But
fate decreed otherwise. On January 28, the tall naval officer
once again became a prisoner of war.
Postscript: Out of my visit with Captain Wattenberg, a
memorable event developed. On January 5, 1985, he and
eight other former prisoners of war participated with several
of their ertswhile guards in a ceremony of commemoration
at the site of the Papago Park camp. On a banner appeared
these words: "To renew in friendship an association
commenced in anguish." n
The Purple
Heart is
conferred
on any person
wounded or
killed in action
while in the
armed forces of
the United States.
(FAR RIGHT)
The 371st Military Police
(Escort Guard) Company in 1942. The
guidon bearer is A E. (Bud) Gomes, who
later became a first sergeant. COURTESY
OF AE GOMES When the New Englanders
arrived at their destination-the prisoner
of war camp at Florence, Arizona-"all
we could see, " recalls Gomes (FAR RIGHT,
BELOW) "was sand and desert shrubs. We
thought we were in the French Foreign
Legion. " Gomes now resides in Florence.
Text continued from page 42
an alien, not yet naturalized, dairies and
bakeries refused to sell to the Takemoris.
Given six weeks' notice of "relocation,"
they could find no buyers for the market.
Their shelves were stripped by intruders,
and they had to sell thousands of dollars
worth of equipment for $800.
Kay Takemori has spent decades trying
to forget the internment at Poston. "My
baby was only seven months old. She got
sick, and I couldn't get a doctor to look
at her enough to say what was wrong. I
missed the freedom- you couldn't do
what you normally took for granted."
The family was released in 1944, after
a farmer offered them jobs. Kay and
Richard rebuilt their lives, and their
daughters became schoolteachers. But the
Takemoris could never get enough money
ahead to open another store.
I n 1942 Navajo Ordnance Depot was
established west of Flagstaff, on the
main line of the Santa Fe Railroad, to store
and ship munitions. (See page 43.)
Several now-prominent Navajos, includ­ing
artist R. C. Gorman, spent part of their
childhood at the depot. Some scholars
believe the experience helped bring many
Navajos into the 20th-century mainstream
economy, and nurtured leaders who have
modernized the tribal government.
Elsewhere in the state, the nation's
requirements for war materiel had major
impacts. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.
had established large cotton farms in
Arizona in 1916 to provide cords for early­day
pneumatic tires. At the beginning of
World War II, the firm 's aircraft division
moved overflow operations from its Akron
plant to the new town of Goodyear.
The plant recruited workers from all
over the nation, and ran three shifts
around the clock. Don Goodman of
Vernon, Arizona, has spent most of his life
as a working cowboy. But he remembers
a brief stint as a test driver for Goodyear,
which was trying to get new synthetic
rubber to adhere to the cords. "We'd take
two or three sets of tires along and come
back without any," he said. "They'd throw
the caps-the treads."
Goodyear was one of several defense
plants in Arizona. There also were Alumi­num
Company of America (later Rey­nolds)
and AiResearch (now Garrett
Turbine) in Phoenix, and Consolidated
Aircraft in Tucson.
Goodyear took Consolidated airframes,
converted them to amphibious aircraft,
and test-flew them over the Grand Canyon.
Then the planes were turned over to the
Navy at Litchfield Naval Air Facility, now
Phoenix-Goodyear Municipal Airport.
It seemed that the war, which had so
absorbed the energies of the state and the
nation, would never end. But it came to
an abrupt stop after the United States
dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in
the summer of 1945.
The rapid winding down of its military
role brought a brief lull to Arizona. Many
of the temporary installations- the roster
reads like a state atlas, from Ajo and Avra
to Winslow and Yucca- reverted to other
uses or returned to desert, surviving only
as snapshots in albums and records buried
in a National Archives warehouse.
Major posts survived. Luke, Williams,
and Davis-Monthan are today active air
force bases. The military field at Yuma
became a Marine Corps station. Fort
Huachuca is headquarters of the Army's
worldwide Information Systems Com­mand
and home of key communications
and intelligence schools.
Site Six, an auxiliary field of Kingman
Army Air Field, became a planned com­munity
called Lake Havasu City.
But even more important to Arizona's
future were the thousands of veterans -
and their families - who stayed on or
returned after the war. Americans had
found a new mobility during World War
II. The timing proved just right for the
state. For several reasons, it was about
ready for sudden and dramatic growth,
and the development of effective air­cooling
systems now made the desert
climate much less forbidding.
Veterans who remembered Arizona
fondly began to return, seeking space,
freedom, and opportunity. They ranged
from top brass to GI truck drivers of the
then-obscure Persian Gulf Command. The
gearjammers hauled materiel through Iran
to fuel Russia's defense against Germany
on the eastern front. In 1946, Persian Gulf
ARIZONA AND WORLD WAR 11
veterans in Tempe organized one of the
first World War II reunion groups-now
a thriving national association.
George W. Howard, first commander of
Patton's Yuma Test Branch (now Yuma
Proving Ground), became head of the
University of Arizona's engineering exper­iment
station.
The late Tom Darlington, executive of
a wartime defense plant, later developed
the community of Carefree.
Ben Anderson, a young first lieutenant
from New York, first saw Fort Huachuca
with the 93rd Division in 1942. Anderson
was not much impressed with the territory
at first, but he returned gladly in the 1970s
-this time as post commander.
After retirement, still active in Cochise
County civic matters, he recalled: "I didn't
have any choice the first time. But it was
always my hope to come back-and I've
been in 50 countries. I got my wish. The
Army's pretty good to colonels who are
about to retire." n
James E. Cook writes a historical column f or
The Arizona Republic and is the author of Arizona
Landmarks, p ublished by Arizona Highways.
Don B. Stevenson is a free-lance photographer
whose editorial and corporate photography appears
in numerous national publications.
Arizona Highways 45
A Guide to Places, Events, and People
RETURN OF
THE ARTIST
Sculptor Solon Borglum came to
Prescott, Arizona, in 1907 to salute
the town's fallen favorite son. Ever
since, his art has been Prescott's
distinctive trademark.
Borglum created the heroic statue
he titled "Memorial" to honor the
First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry and one
of its most famous members, Capt.
William Owen (Buckey) O'Neill.
The popular commander of Troop A
of the regiment- better known as
Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders­was
killed in action in Cuba during
the Spanish-American War, nine
years earlier. Among his careers, the
38-year-old O'Neill had been sheriff
and mayor, writer and soldier, and in
the eyes of most Prescott citizens he
was an inspirational hometown
hero.
Almost immediately upon hearing
of his death, townspeople proposed
a monument, and fund-raising
spread far and wide. A local cigar
maker and a St. Louis hat
manufacturer touted "Buckey
O'Neill Specials," donating proceeds
to the project. Cowboys on Whiskey
Row, miners in the Bradshaw
Mountains, schoolchildren
throughout the territory all donated,
and by the spring of 1906 a
committee began the
search for a sculptor.
The 1904 World's
Fair in St. Louis had
publicized the
Western sculptures
of Solon Borglum,
but the monument
committee feared the
$10,000 they
had collected
(RIGHT) Solon
Borglum's
"Sioux
Buff ala Dancer."
(ABOVE, RIGHT)
Rough Riders
Memorial.
46 July 1988
ARIZONIQUES
would be insufficient to engage the
famed artist. To their delight,
Borglum (who had been raised in
the West and was an admirer of the
Rough Riders) agreed to accept the
commission.
The bronze was cast in New York
City, and, after being lost in an
Albuquerque freight yard and
damaging at least one flatcar, finally
arrived safely in Prescott. On July 3,
1907, the eighth anniversary of the
Rough Riders' charge up San Juan
Hill, the monument was unveiled to
a huge, appreciative crowd. Critics
still call the dynamic horse and
cavalryman the finest equestrian
statue in the United States.
Solon Borglum continued as one
of the country's best-known
sculptors until his death in 1922. His
fame was eclipsed, however, by the
national recognition afforded his
brother Gutzon, also a sculptor, who
carved the faces of four Presidents
on Mount Rushmore, South Dakota.
Recently- nearly 81 years after the
unveiling of the Rough Riders
Memorial- additional examples of
Solon Borglum's genius arrived in
Prescott. Through the efforts
of the Prescott Community
Art Trust and Borglum's
descendants, a collection of
his finest bronze and plaster
works is now on display at
the Western Solon
Borglum Center at
the Shariat Hall
Unique to Arizona and the Southwest.
Museum, 415 W. Gurley St.;
telephone 445-3122. The trust plans
also to cast several of the figures for
Prescott's growing collection of
heroic-scale sculpture. The first will
be "Rough Rider," portraying a
cowboy mounting a bucking horse;
upon completion it will be placed at
the entrance to Yavapai Community
College. To help fund the ongoing
project, the trust is offering a limited
edition of bronze bas relief Borglum
plaques of Teddy Roosevelt and the
Rough Riders priced at $1,200 each.
The trust also is seeking private and
corporate sponsors for the project.
Prescott's tribute to Solon
Borglum and his art is fitting. For
generations of Arizonans, the history,
romance, and spirit of the town have
been epitomized by "Buckey
O'Neill, on the courthouse Plaza up
in Prescott."
-Norm Tessman
TUCSON'S TREE
SCULPTURES
It's a sunny afternoon in Tucson's
Reid Park. The softball diamonds are
alive with the crack of base hits, the
lake is clotted with paddleboats, the
grassy hillsides are blanketed with
picnickers. Meanwhile, five red
upside-down pecan trees pose in
a frozen ballet on the lake's
north shore.
A bewildered woman
watches Rebecca Davis and Roger
Asay apply finishing touches to the
trees. "I understand that this is
sculpture," she says, "but what is it
all about?"
Asay replies: "I guess you could
say it's about pecan trees." Asay and
Davis, who live in Prescott, make art
out of the routine stuff of our
environment-pebbles, boulders,
saplings, trees. This piece, commis­sioned
by the City of Tucson, is their
first permanent, collaborative public
sculpture. Whimsically sensuous,
intellectually challenging, it's pure
fun. It is the latest in a series of
inverted tree sculptures the
husband-and-wife team has done.
"It started when we bought a
corkscrew willow," Asay explains.
"We trimmed the branches off and
sanded it, and saw a weaving form,
almost like a nude. From there, we
went on to paloverde, and then to
pecans. We inverted them to take
them out of context so people don't
just dismiss them as bare trees. What
we hope is that people will begin to
see the trees differently, and more
intently."
In other words, the sculpture is
about pecan trees.
-Lawrence W Cheek
THE PlAQUES OF
ST. MARY'S
On the oak doors of St. Mary's
Basilica, the oldest Roman Catholic
Church in the metropolitan Phoenix
area, ecclesiastical and secular
history join in an appealing and
practical display. There, on 24
copper plaques each measuring 17
by 10 inches, are beautifully
engraved scenes from Arizona's
past-Indians harvesting saguaro
fruit and dancing, a stagecoach, a
railr