Arizona Highways, April 1987

              APRIL 1987 Vol. 63, No. 4
CONTENTS
Amateurs Earn High Marks
in Highways Photo Contest
by James Tallon
p.4
Tucson Festival '87
by Lorna Holmes
p.10
Mountain Bikes,
Peacocks, and Ghosts
by Tom Dollar
p.12
Cinderella of the Southwest:
The Phoenix Zoo Comes of Age
by Dick George
p.18
New at the Desert Museum:
A Unique Mountain Habitat
by Lawrence W Cheek
p.24
Trappings of the American West
by Dan Dagget
p.30
U.S. Route 89 -
The Ramblin' Road
by Joseph Stocker
p.32
Organ Pipe at Fifty
by Kay Mayer
p.38
DEPARTMENTS
EDITOR'S PAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
LETTERS .................. 3
ARIZONIQUES . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
BOOKSHELF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
ARIZON~
HIGHWAYS
For months, hundreds of hopefuls carefull y
aimed their cameras at Arizona's scenic
attractions . The chosen few take their bows
in this issue.
Grand Canyon storm earns grand prize. DON VIACH
The Old Pueblo's annual months-long
celebration honors its "Art ist of the Year ,"
Arizona Highways Contributing Editor
Duane Bryers.
D etail of Festival painting. DUANE BRYERS
Adventure, discovery, and healthful outdoor
exercise combine in this southern Arizona
tour of a different sort.
Exploring back roads by bicycle. Gill KENNY
Falling early on hard times, a yo ung Arizona
zoo struggles to survive ... achieves success ...
and lives happily ever after.
Ib ex herd grows along with Phoe nix Zoo. DICK GEORGE
When a dynamic duo of young bruins gets
to frolic in a new home, it soon looks "like
we put bears in there!"
Blac k be ars roam new Mountain Habitat. KEN AKERS
Through a savvy mix of fo lk art, fine art,
and down-home entertainment, Flagstaff
presents an impressive picture of the life
and times of the cowboy.
Handcrafting elevated to an art f orm. PETER BLO OMER
You haven't really experi enced Arizona
until you've traveled this appealing o ld
north -south, border-to-border highway.
To uring a distinctive highway-U S. 89. }AMES TALL ON
Yesterday's primitive park, today's Interna­tional
Biosphere Reserve : Organ Pipe
Cactus National Monument braces for its
next fifty years .
Visit o r Ce nter at Organ Pip e. RANDY PRENTICE
( FRONT COVER ) jennifer Hinshaw 's photograph of a rustic cabin overlook ing
Oak Creek won her first p!,ace in the Youth category - and a Nikon camera
and lens - in the Arizona Highways Amateur Photography Co ntest. A Presco tt,
Arizona, native now attending Northern Arizona University, Hinshaw has
been nurturing her interest and talent in photography since childhoo d.
( IEIT) Garnering third pl,ace in the Op e n category for Colette Bailey of
Phoenix was this moody photograph of ponderosa pine trees o n a f oggy
mountain morning. More of the prize-winning images appear in th is issue,
beginning on page 4.
Arizo na Highways/ 1
EDITOR'S
p A G E
A salute to all those
who helped make our contest a success ...
and an invitation from The Friends
A GREAT SUCCESS both
in numbers of en­tries
(a total of
1648!) and in quality of
images submitted, Arizo­na
Highways' first Amateur
Photography Contest con­cludes
with the announce­ment
in this issue of the
winners and the publica­tion
of thirteen of their
photographs.
Prize-winning pictures
appear on the magazine's
front and inside front
covers and on pages 4
through 9.
The Highways staff is
indebted to many col­laborators
whose encour­agement
and generosity
made the contest possible.
Among these were the
firms that contributed the
prizes. They include Bob's
Camera Shop, Electronic
Image Products, and Guild
Camera, the Phoenix deal­ers
that donated a Hassel -
blad camera and lens for
the grand prize; Nikon
Inc., which provided two
35mm cameras and lenses
as first prizes for the Open
and Youth categories; and
Image Craft of Phoenix, Jones Photo of Tucson, Eastman
Kodak, and HP Books of Tucson, who contributed awards
of film processing, film, and technical books.
We also are grateful to the professional photogra­phers
who served as jurors. They are identified in the
group photograph and caption on this page. On page 4,
one of them, Jim Tallon, offers an insight into the
difficulty of their task
Many Arizona Highways staff members assisted in the
complex job of receiving, logging, and safeguarding the
flood of entries, but the principal responsibilities were
borne by Peter Ensenberger and Ray Vanatsky.
From the magazine's point of view, the contest
achieved both of its main objectives: to stimulate an
2/Arizona Highways
a: w
ffi CD z w
(/) z w
~ 0..
active interest in photog­raphy
among our readers,
and to demonstrate what
excellent work conscien­tious
amateurs are capa­ble
of achieving.
To everyone who en­tered
our contest, we send
a hearty "thank you."
Responding to the ini­tiative
of The Friends of
Arizona Highways, that
supportive auxiliary that
sponsored the memorable
observance of our sixtieth
birthday in April, 1985,
about forty travelers were
scheduled to depart on
March 27 for a four-day
bus tour of the Navajo
Indian Reservation, the
Grand Canyon, and some
of Mohave County's "Thou­sand
Miles of Shoreline."
The tour leaders: Senior
Comributing Editor Ray
Manley and Contributing
Editor Carlos Elmer, both
of whom (in Carlos'
words) "started getting
sand in our shoes and sun
in our souls" for this mag­azine
back in the 1940s.
The tour was planned for
members of The Friends;
but most readers-at-large will receive this April issue at
least a week before the March 27 departure, and inqui­ries
concerning possible late openings are welcome. If
you are interested, please call Ray Manley's office in
Tucson at (602) 623-0307 or Arizona Highways in
Phoenix at (602) 258-6641. -Merrill Windsor
A distinguished panel of professional photographers
judged the competition: (seated, left to right) Dorothy
Mclaughlin, Carlos Elmer, Nyle Leatham, Herb
Mclaughlin; (standing, left to right) jerry Sieve, Dick
Dietrich, j Peter Mortimer, jack Dykinga, James Tallon,
jerry Jacka; (not pictured) Gill Kenny, Willis Peterson.
ALL-TIME GREAT
Congratulations on the superb holi­day
issue. It is truly one of the all­time
greats. The best assembly of
Grand Canyon photos I've seen in a
long, long time.
Dr. Taylor T Hicks, Sr.
Prescott, AZ
GOD'S COUNTRY
You surpassed your usual excellent
issues! The photography is so beauti­fully
printed, and represents that part
of God's country so realistically, it
brought tears to my eyes.
Vera B. Fulton
Appleton, WI
MAGNIFICENT
Congratulations on the magnifi­cent
December issue. It's by far the
very best issue ever of your wonder­ful
magazine- [and) I've been read­ing
Arizona Highways since it first
came out.
MEMORIES
Leon A. Bonotaux
Prescott, AZ
The beautiful December issue
moved me to tears of thankfulness
that my eyes have seen so many of
the places you showed. Thanks for
the memories.
Ethel Kruger
Cameron, WI
ALL OVER AGAIN
Thanks for such a beautiful holiday
issue. As I'm sure you've been told,
it's like seeing Arizona all over again.
And we love it.
Mr. and Mrs. Carl E. Lawson
Strawberry Plains, 1N
FANTASTIC COMBINATION
While I have received Arizona
Highways for many years and have
LETTERS
YOURS SINCERELY
kept every issue, never have I seen
such a fantastic combination of
photos and text as you produced in
the December issue. Thank you for
what had to be a painstaking effort
and for an issue which my family and
I will keep for a long time.
Richard F. Haines, Ph.D.
Los Altos, CA
AWE-INSPIRING
Never has anyone done such a fine
job of depicting the Grand Canyon!
As a former employee on the South
Rim, I have had the opportunity to
know many phases of the Canyon and
feel the incredible force within those
walls. This issue brings to life the
awe-inspiring feeling of being a part
of Arizona's most beautiful wonder.
Thank you for making it possible
for me to share this feeling with
friends and family the world over. I
shall treasure this issue for the rest of
my life.
OUR CANYON
Jane Lewis
Tucson, AZ
We want to compliment you on
your beautiful holiday edition. We
have been visiting our Canyon for
more than thirty-five years. Thank you
for giving so many people so much
pleasure.
Florence A. Woods
Palm Springs, CA
BEYOND DESCRIPTION
The beauty of this year's December
issue is overwhelming. It brought
tears to my eyes. There are so many
outstanding photos, but one has
power and beauty beyond descrip­tion.
It is "Mule Deer at Dawn, North
Rim," by Wayne Davis. I will buy an
extra copy so I can cut it out and
frame it. I can only dream of taking
such pictures.
Geneva Baldwin
Mesa, AZ
FIRST LOVE
The Grand Canyon became my first
love in 1947, and remains so. We have
walked down the Kaibab Trail, spent
the night at Phantom Ranch, and
hiked up Bright Angel Trail the next
day. Also rafted from Lees Ferry to the
confluence of the Colorado and Little
Colorado rivers. This fall we finally
managed to drive out to Toroweap
Point. Now if only we could see our
beloved Grand Canyon in its snow­suit!
Dilys E. Upton
Solano, NM
ARIZON~
HIGHWAYS
APRIL 1987 VOL. 63, NO. 4
Publisher-Hugh Harelson
Editor-Merrill Windsor
Managing Editor-Richard G. Stahl
Art Director- Gary Bennett
Picture Editor-Peter Ensenberger
Associate Art Director-Lorna Holmes
Associate Editor-Robert J. Farrell
Senior Contributing EdHor.;­George
Collins, Esther Henderson,
Ray Manley, Josef Muench, Earl Petroff.
Clara Lee Tanner
Contributing EdHor.;-
Bill Ahrendt, John Annerino, Jo 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
Business Director-Jim Delzell
Circulation and Marketing Director ­Sharon
Vogelsang
Managing EdHor, Related Products­Wesley
Holden
Production Manager-Diana Pollock
Governor of Arizona- Evan Mecham
Director,
Department of Transportation ­Charles
L. Miller
Arizona Transportation Board
Chairman: Andrew M. Federhar, Tucson; Mem­bers:
Arthur C. Atonna, Douglas; Hal F. Butler,
Show Low; Harold Gietz, Safford; James Patter­son,
Chandler; Ted Valdez, Sr., Phoenix
Arizona Highways® (ISSN 0004-1521) is published monthly by the Arizona Department of
Transportation. Subscription price $1 5 a year in U.S. and possessions, $18 elsewhere; single copies
~1.75 each, $2 each outside U.S. Please send subscription correspondence and change of address
information to Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Ave .. Phoenix, AZ 85009 or call (602) 258-1000.
Second class postage paid at Phoenix, Arizona. Postmaster: Send address changes to Arizona
Highways, 2039 West Lewis, Ave .. Phoenix, AZ 85009. CICopyright 1987 by the Arizona Depar tment
of Transportation. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. The magazine is
not responsible for unsolicited materials provided for editorial considera tion.
Arizona Highways/3
Amateurs Get High Marks from the Pros . 1n
PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST
"Terrific!" "Tough choice." "A real test. "
These were some of the terms the judges
used in describing their reactions in the
course of the Arizona Highways Amateur
Photography Contest. The jury numbered
the classic twelve, and the members
devoted more than forty-eight man- and
woman-hours to swimming through a sea
of photographs-1648 entries, which they
pared down to seventy-one finalists.
What most of us assumed would be a
relatively simple assignment turned into a
demanding, soul-searching challenge. The
"bad pictures," those easily eliminated,
were - instead of a majority- only a hand­ful,
perhaps no more than one percent.
Thus we faced the task of choosing one
excellent picture over another excellent
picture, scanning for minor flaws that
would justify rating one above another:
tracks in the snow of an otherwise pristine
scene, a ragged tree limb that distracted
rather than added, patches of barren
ground, compositions split fifty -fifty by
the horizon, slightly out-of-focus fore­grounds
and backgrounds.
Fine images bit the dust because of
poor print quality.
But there remained
hundreds we could
find no fault with at
all, and we fell back
on personal bias.
"That yellow sky
turns me off," said
one judge.
"That's strange,"
said another, "it
turns me on."
''I'd like to have
a bunch of these
in my stock photo
file," said Gill Ken ­ny,
speaking for the
majority.
"This is a first­rate
photograph,"
said Peter Morti­mer,
a former High­ways
picture edi-
BY JAMES TALLON
tor. "It shows considerable thought."
'You see a lot of these [of this quality] in
travel magazines," said Jerry Jacka, point­ing
to a glowing print of Monument Valley.
"This one is excellent, but too ordi ­nary,"
said Herb Mclaughlin. (How can a
photo be excellent and too ordinary? In
the Highways contest, it happened often.)
All of these pictures went into the "out"
bin. We started looking for the really
unusual.
Grand Canyon ranked as the most pop­ular
lens target; more than 400 entrants
had converged on it-in spring, summer,
fall, winter. At least a dozen shots ap­peared
to have been taken from the same
place at the same time.
The next favorite was Monument Valley,
with about 200 entries submitted.
Wet and wild weather, early or late light
made contenders of pictures that other­wise
would have been rejected. Contes­tants
showed us that lightning strikes and
rainbows are much more common in Ari ­zona
than we thought. We learned that
many of these contestants kept their cam­eras
out under conditions in which com-
Rainbow, Grand Canyon. CARTER . W SALE, first place, Open category.
4/ Arizona Highways
mon folk hasten to put them away. In that
sense "luck" - being in the right place at
the right time - nearly always takes prece­dence
over compositional skills.
The judges voted for their choices.
Thirty-five entries survived the first round
of finals. The judges became more vocal,
arguing for their preferences, pointing out
nuances thought to have been overlooked
by their peers.
"This one has been filtered," said one.
"Who cares?" said another. "It's a great
photograph."
Two pictures of Havasu Falls lay side by
side. One showed better composition;
the other, superior print quality. The
judges voted, and for the first time, there
was a tie. They regrouped, discussed
merit and demerit, voted, and tied again.
They nominated Highways Picture Editor
Peter Ensenberger to break the deadlock
He did. Nods of approval followed, mixed
with groans of disappointment.
One Youth category photo, an excellent
one, remained in the finals until a re­reading
of the rules showed that it did not
fit the category because natural scenery
was not predomi­nant.
Some judges
wanted to give it a
special award.
Others said it
would be unfair.
No one was happy
about disqualify­ing
it.
With winners
finally selected,
the best compli­ment
yet surfaced.
Stalwart profes­sionals
looked at
one another and
shook their heads .
All agreed they were
very happy the
people who made
these marvelous
pictures didn't do
it for a living. ~
Storm over Grand Canyon. DON VLACH, grand prize.
Don Vlach, a forty-five-year-old machine shop owner from Phoenix,
takes top prize in the first Arizona Highways Amateur Photography
Contest with his dramatic storm photo (ABOVE) at Grand Canyon. A
Phoenix resident for twenty-Jive years, Don has developed his interest
in photography over the last decade. His wife, Terry, and his camera
have been his partners on their many outings into the diverse Arizona
backcountry. Don's newest companions will be a Hasselblad camera and lens that are
his reward as our grand prize winner. The Grand Canyon, easily the most popular
subject with our photo contestants, also was the setting for a sp ectacular play of light
( LEIT) captured by Carter W Sale to earn him first place and a Nikon camera and
lens in the contest's Open category.
Arizona Highways/ 5
Tucson Mountains at sunset. SUZI BURBA, honorable mention, Youth category.
Approaching storm near Tucson. NORMAN CARLSON, honorable mention, Open category.
6/Arizona Highways
With the Sonoran Desert
encompassing much of southern and
central Arizona, a large number of
contest entrants predictably focused
on their distinctive surroundings. For
many the evening desert was a central
subject, the stage for such drama as
the sun's fiery afterglow as it slowly
yields to the onset of night (ABOVE),
photographed by Suzi Burba, and the
approach of a nighttime storm (IEFT),
recorded in a time exposure by
Norman Carlson.
Winter morning, Monument Valley. JACK L. LEVIN, second place, Open category.
Monument Valley was second only
to the Grand Canyon in popularity
among the contestants. Rising to the
top were these two fresh images of an
overworked subject. (ABOVE) A frosty
morning seems to have frozen two
Navajo ponies in their tracks for jack
L. Levin. Not only does jack make a
hobby of recording beautiful land­scapes
on film, but he makes his
living removing "ugly stuff" from
the landscape and turning it into
useful material at his scrap metal
processing plant, which grinds up 400
junked automobiles a day A foggy
sunrise (RIGHT) gives an eerie look
to a familiar scene photographed
by Patty Kim Tanabe on the Navajo
Indian Reservation near the Arizona­Utah
line.
The Mittens at dawn, Monument Valley. PATTY KIM TANABE, honorable mention, Open category.
Arizona Highways/ 7
8/Arizona Highways
Travertine terraces, Havasupai. JAMES RUSSELL, honorable mention, Open category.
Arizona's most precious resource,
water, caught the attention and fired
the imagination of a large number of
contest entrants. From the delicate
spillways of Havasu Creek (ABOVE) to
the roaring fury of Havasu Falls
(OPPOSITE PAGE, FAR RIGITT),
photographed try the Bramwell
brothers, to the serenity of placid
mountain scenes (RIGITT AND ABOVE,
RIGITT), the waterways of this arid
state yielded memorable images.
Lynx Lake reflection. MIKE PLUMLEY, second place, Youth category.
Sabino Canyon. DAVID W. LAZAROFF, honorable mention, Open category.
Havasu FaUs. THOMAS BRAMWELL, third place, Youth category.
Havasu Falls. DAVID BRAMWELL, honorable mention, Youth category.
WE WINNERS
GRAND PRIZE
DON VIACH, Phoenix, Arizona
OPEN CATEGORY
First place: Carter W Sale, Columbus, Ohio
Second place: jack L. Levin, Greensboro, North Carolina
Third place: Colette Bailey, Phoenix, Arizona (see inside front cover)
Honorable mention:
Norman Carlson, Tucson, Arizona; Julie Cunningham, Tucson,
Arizona;john Hull, Globe, Arizona; David W Lazaroff, Tucson,
Arizona;james Russell, Mesa, Arizona; Patty Kim Tanabe, Phoenix,
Arizona; Judy Turner, San Mateo, California; Berton F Young
Houston, Texas.
YOlffll CATEGORY
First place: jennif er Hinshaw, Flagstaff, Arizona (see front cover)
Second place: Mike Plumley, Phoenix, Arizona
Third place: Thomas Bramwell, Tempe, Arizona
Honorable mention:
David Bramwell, Tempe, Arizona; Suzi Burba, Tucson, Arizona;
Walter Cherry, Fulton, Missouri; Andy Christensen, Flagstaff,
Arizona; Andy Lewicky, Flagstaff, Arizona; Charlie Moreno,
El Paso, Texas; Wendy S. Porter, Tucson, Arizona; Eric C. Shaw,
Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Arizona Highways/ 9
~TUCSON
05festiva-/ 8?
Thirty-seven years ago, a group of Tuc ­sonans
decided to channel their civic
pride into a celebration of the cultural life
of the Southwest desert region - and the
Tucson Festival Society was born. Today
the nonprofit organization of volunteers
nurtures the community's colorful and
varied ethnic heritage through an annual
series of events that culminates in April.
The society selects an artist of the year,
one of whose works is then reproduced in
a limited edition for the benefit of the
festival. This year's honoree is Duane
Bryers of Sonoita, whose painting "New
Arrivals - The Old Pueblo" appears on
these pages.
Most festival events are free, including
the Fiesta del Presidio (April 11 and 12),
Pioneer Days (April 22 to 25) , and the San
Xavier Pageant and Fiesta (April 24). For
a complete schedule, write Tucson Festi ­val
Society, 425 West Paseo Redondo,
Tucson, AZ 85701; or telephone (602)
622 -6911 . -Lorna Holmes
( ABOVE ) Duane Bryers, the Tucson
Festival '87 Artist of the Year, at work
in his Sonoita studio. ( RIGHT ) "New
Arrivals- The Old Pueblo, " by Bryers.
Oil on canvas, 30 by 40 inches.
COILECTION OF E. C. GARCIA & CO., INC.
Available as a limited-edition offset
lithograph (18 by 24 inches) from the
Tucson Festival Society. The artist depicts
Tucson's Congress Street on a late
afternoon in the 1920s just as a
thunderstorm passes.
JO/Arizona Highways Arizona Highways/ 11
Mountain Bikes,
Peacocks, and Ghosts
Adventure, discovery, and healthy outdoor
exercise combine in a backcountry
tour of a different sort ...
by Tom Dollar
Photography by
Gill Kenny
(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 12 AND 13)
Arizona's back roads and sturdy,
multigeared mountain bikes can be the
perfect combination. ( ABOVE) Road
surfaces are often rough, butapres­touring
accommodations (BELOW) at
Sonoita 's Crown C Ranch are
comfortable and distinctive in their
Southwestern ambience.
14/ Arizona Highways
I t was pure play on a bicycle - that
ride down Hog Canyon in the Santa
Rita Mountains near Sonoita. We re ­connoitered
above the rough patches,
scanning the gravelly, rock-strewn jeep
trail ahead, washed out and sandy in
places. We gauged where to lean right or
left to adjust for the pitch of the slope,
where to turn sharply to miss a log or a
big rock. Then, releasing the heavy-duty
cantilevered brakes, standard equipment
on these mountain bicycles, we launched
ourselves downhill .
Propelled by gravity, we sped down­slope,
the steady syncopation of the
knobby tires accompanying the wind in
our ears, jolts of road shock coming up
through the "bull moose" handlebars into
our arms and shoulders and teeth. Some­times,
on the really "cobbled" parts, we
had to rise slightly on the pedals to take
the shock with the big muscles of our
legs. Then, whooping and laughing, we'd
be on the other side , rejoicing in the
freedom that comes from play with a small
element of risk in it. It was like the exhilara -
tion that comes with shooting white
water in a canoe.
Four of us were on this practice ride -
Kate McCarthy, Mary Cannon, and I, with
our leader, Frank Lister. Frank owns a
company that runs mountain bicycle fit­ness
programs at Canyon Ranch in Tucson
and at other health and fitness resorts
throughout the United States. Frank has
probably put more people onto the sad ­dles
of mountain bicycles than anyone
else in the world.
We were on our way back to the Crown
C Ranch to stay overnight before riding
out next morning to the ghost mining
towns and camps in the Patagonia Moun­tains.
The ranch house -with its two­foot-
thick double-adobe walls, beamed
ceilings, massive fieldstone fireplace
ablaze with chunks of mesquite, and bed-room
wings extending out on both sides
to enclose a walled courtyard-was a
true hacienda.
waiting at the ranch were Frank 's wife,
Sarah, and their three-year-old daughter,
Claire. To complete our group, Juliet and
Tommy Thompson, expert cyclists, would
join us later that evening. Our ages ranged
from three to fifty-three, and we were a
real mix of abilities. Claire Lister, too
young to ride alone, spent the weekend
as a doughty little passenger aboard the
"rumble seat" of her mom's bike. Mary
Cannon, on the other hand, had ridden a
bike but couldn't remember the last time.
Juliet Thompson, seven months pregnant,
handled the trip with ease, even the
toughest parts.
In the morning, we wound south out of
Patagonia and up into Harshaw Canyon
on a road that has been in use for more
than 200 years . Now called Harshaw Can ­yon
Road by local residents, it bears the
label Forest Service Road 58, then FS 49
in the Coronado National Forest. The Indi­ans
came through here first, followed by
the Spaniards, Mexicans, then American
pioneers.
It was a beautiful spring day. Prickly
poppies and Parry's penstemon bloomed
at roadside. Harshaw Creek sparkled in
the canyon bottom, and the giant Arizona
sycamores growing there were just begin­ning
to come into pale green leaf.
More than fifty mines - among them
the Blue Nose, Santo Nino, Hardshell, and
Pride; Black Eagle, Endless Chain, Bonan­za,
World's Fair, and Morning Glory; the
Thunder, the Chief, the Line Boy-had
pockmarked these hillsides and gulches.
And the towns we were riding to had
boomed-spectacularly, sometimes- on
the ores gouged from those mines, and
then gone bust.
We wanted to see the towns. But we
wanted, also, to "detour" up the trails into
some of those rugged canyons to see
some of the mines up close. The tailing
ponds, chutes, and junked equipment.
Things you couldn't get to, normally, ex­cept
on foot, on horseback, in a four ­wheel-
drive vehicle-or on a mountain
bicycle.
"Cities and Towns, Ruined and Extinct,
etc." That's the library subject heading for
ghost towns. It fits Harshaw. It is hard to
believe this town once stretched out for
nearly a mile along the road. Doctors and
lawyers practiced here. A butcher, drug­gist,
tailor, and shoemaker set up shop.
There was a boarding house, a laundry,
and a livery stable. And at the more than
twenty saloons in town, card sharks and
prostitutes conducted a lively trade.
It was called Durazno , "peach tree" in
Spanish, when David Tecumseh Harshaw
came to town in the early 1870s looking
for a place to begin ranching anew. What
he found was a silver mine the Spanish
settlers had called Mina del Padre . When
Harshaw acquired the mine, he renamed
it , and the town, after himself. And when
the Hermosa Mining Company of New
York bought out Harshaw, they renamed
the mine Hermosa, Spanish for "beauti­ful."
Harshaw returned to ranching.
A few peach trees were in bloom when
we rode through Harshaw. One grand old
building with a lovely wood-columned
porch and sloping tin roof still stands.
Across the road, there's a very old ceme­tery,
and farther down, just past Flux
Canyon, is a ruined adobe. The rest is
gone - "Ruined and Extinct. "
Sarah and Claire Lister rode ahead to
scout out a campsite at Mowry while the
rest of us detoured up into Flux Canyon. It
was "granny gear" most of the way, the
lowest of our fifteen gears except for push
power. Some of us had to get into that
ultimate "gear" when the pitch got too
steep or the scree too loose for steady
traction.
We found signs of mining up there . The
scars. The places where the earth had
been gouged and blasted; where dross lay
in layers so thick that whatever lived be­neath
is forever smothered. Even the stink
of sulphur still lingers in the air after all
these years.
But a small stream, where yellow monkey-flower
grows, still flows in the canyon .
Clusters of sand verbena bloom on road ­side
embankments, and birds are every­where.
Up at the end of the road, among
tall pines , we found a seep spring.
That night we camped among the oaks
at Mowry. Just before the Civil war, the
Mowry Mine operation produced 1.5 mil ­lion
dollars in silver; much of it was
formed into seventy-pound bars for ship ­ment
to European markets. We bicycled
around the townsite to see what was left.
The foundation and part of a wall re ­mained
of the foreman 's house. It must
have been -the envy of the town, with its
commanding view of the roadway below.
Nearby, the foundation of a dance hall
was barely discernible . We found the assay
office up among the oaks on a hillside. Its
walls were still up, but crumbling. Roof­less
, it wouldn't be long before the wind
and rain finished it off.
(THIS PAGE) Cyclists of all ages enjoy
exploring the historic silver-mining ghost
towns along the Forest Service roads that
weave through the Patagonia Mountains.
The mineral-rich range, which rises from
the verdant rolling grasslands near the
Arizona-Mexico border, was first mined
by the Spanish more than 200 years ago .
A mountain-bike adventure in the
Patagonias, today part of the Coronado
National Forest, may include an overnight
camp near Mowry, a boomtown that
went bust in the late nineteenth century.
Arizona Highways/ 15
16/ Arizona Highu•ays
Duquesne and Washington Camp-two
names, one town. A company town. In
1890 the Duquesne Mining and Reduc­tion
Company of Pittsburgh bought the
Bonanza Mine, set up headquarters, and
founded the town of Duquesne. Washing­ton
Camp, a mile to the north, was where
the workers lived. They had a school, a
general store owned by the company, and
a couple of boarding houses.
Today, Duquesne is a ghost town. A
sign beneath the gable of the largest
weathered building reads, "Nash Mines
Shop." Ancient walnut trees grow in the
yard. A small shed across the road con­tains
boxes and boxes of core samples. As
usual, what had been the finest house in
town sits on a hilltop above the mine; it
has fixtures for indoor plumbing. A rumor
p~rsists that George Westinghouse of the
Westinghouse Electric Company once
lived around here in a luxurious house.
Was this the place?
Although abandoned mine shafts dot
the landscape, Washington Camp itself
still has a small population. One of the
people we found was Cucu Granallo, who
lives with his pet peacock, George, up
near the entrance to Washington Camp
Canyon. George was the biggest peacock
any of us had ever seen.
"One night," Cucu was telling us, "this
guy who lived here came running in
yelling, 'Cucu, come quick, there's two
big birds in the road!' I thought he was
just drunk again, but when I finally went
out, there was George and another smaller
one-a girl." Cucu never found out where
the peacocks came from.
Cucu has always lived in these parts
except for a period in the U.S. Army. He
was born in 1913 in Lochiel. Back then the
town was called I.a Noria, a name still
used on the Mexican side of the border.
He knows a lot about mining. There were
dozens of mines hereabouts, and Cucu
worked them all; it was from a hundred
feet down in the New York Mine, in fact,
A (OPPOSITE PAGE) A tour of
another silver-boom ghost,
the town of Duquesne and
ruins of the mine of the
same name, makes for a
fascinating history lesson.
(RIGHf) Cucu Grana/lo, a
denizen of Washington
Camp, presents the intrepid
mountain bikers with
souvenirs of their sojourn­peacock
feathers from his
flock of thirteen birds.
that he was called up for induction into
the Army in 1944.
Severely wounded in World War II, he
never returned to the mines. "I get my
disability pension, sell a few rocks, that's
how I live. See that truck over there?" He
pointed to a 1950 Chevy pickup. "It's a
real rockhound."
Thirteen peacocks live at Cucu Gran­allo's
place now, all apparently thriving on
a steady diet of dog food pellets. "Three
of them are boys," he told us. Over the
years since George and his mate first ar -
rived-so long ago he doesn't remem­ber-
Cucu has sold off some of the pea­cocks,
mostly to ranches. But George, who
is "worth at least ninety-five dollars," is
not for sale. George comes when called
and shrilly complains when Cucu drives
off in his truck
The peacock tail feathers are not for
sale either; Cucu saves those for his
friends. As we were mounting our bikes
to leave, Cucu appeared with an armload
of splendid plumes. "Who should I give
them to?" he wondered. Then he handed
them to Kate McCarthy. "Here, you take
them; maybe you can divide them up."
George "bugled" as we rode away from
the yard gate. Cucu was standing in the
middle of the road.
"Come and visit when you come back,"
he called. "I am your friend." ~
Note: For travel information concern­ing
Forest Service Roads 58 and 49, write
to the Coronado National Forest, Nogales
Ranger District, 2480 Tucson-Nogales
Highway, Nogales, AZ 85621; or tele­phone
(602) 281-2296.
FS 58 and 49 are back roads, for the
most part unpaved. Be sure to carry along
a current Coronado National Forest road
map or topographical map and compass.
Your conveyance should be in excellent
mechanical condition. Sufficient water
and food, emergency kits and tools are
recommended. Dress comfortably and
take walking shoes.
Before setting out, tell someone exactly
where you are going and when you expect
to return. What remains of the past in
this area is part of our historical heritage.
Look, photograph, but disturb nothing.
-R.G.S.
Tucson free lance Tom Donar has written f or
Insight, Tucson Guide, and the Milwaukee Journal.
His favorite topics include the environment and
adult fitness.
Selected Reading
The Mountain Bike Book, by Rob Van der Plas.
Bicycle Books, San Francisco, 1985.
The Mountain Bike Manual, by Dennis Coello.
Dream Garden Press, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1985.
Arizona Highways/ 17
In the Phoenix Zoo's butte­framed
setting in Papago
Park, desert bighorn sheep
reclaim a rocky precipice
that once was part of the
species ' natural range.
(INSET) Zoo Director James C
Savoy pauses at one of the
facility's newer exhibits, the
African Veldt, w hich houses
twelve species of savannah
animals in its 4.5 acres.
Cinderella of the Southwest:
The Phoenix Zoo Comes of Age
F or many of us, the presence of live
wild animals stirs a primal center
that all the entertainment gadgetry of
modern life cannot reach. To those who
will look, the sizes, shapes, and colors of
such creatures are endlessly diverse. To
those who will listen, the roars, hoots,
howls, tweets, snorts , and chirps of wild­life
are a soulful natural music that just
doesn ' t translate electronically.
In Arizona there is no better place to
enjoy the sights and sounds of a wide
variety of animals firsthand than the
Phoenix Zoo. Admittedly, zoos are not
substitutes for nature , but, for most of us,
they' re the best if n ot th e only access we
have to most of the anima l kingd om. It
was just this realization som e tw e nty-six
ye ars ago that le d to th e fo unding of the
Phoenix Zoo.
The effort began in 1961 with Ro bert
Maytag , a newcomer to Ph oenix and a
wealthy member of the famil y th at found ­ed
the Maytag appliance busin ess. Mayt ag
needed something constru ctive to d o
with his time and considerable energy. A
casual suggestion from his new bride,
Nancy, hit the mark : he would lead a
drive to build a zoo -a first -class zoo-in
Phoenix.
TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY DICK GEORGE
(TOP) The Phoenix Zoo was built on the site of a former fish hatchery and,
much to the delight of duck-feeding visitors, the entrance spans a lake.
(ABOVE, RIGHT) Admittedly short but definitely not damaged, this month-old
cheetah is weighed by zookeepers who carefully monitor the young cat's growth.
(ABOVE, LEIT) In the zoo's African Veldt, a giraffe and a Rumpell's vulture appear
to be discussing the quality of the accommodations. Zookeepers go to great lengths
(and heights) to keep the animals strong and healthy-to the extent of tying bags
of hay high in the palm trees so the giraffes will have to stretch to reach their food.
20/Arizona Highways
The project became a main focus of his
life. In less than a year, Maytag gathered
his closest friends, incorporated the group
as the Arizona Zoological Society, and
began acquiring animals and generating
publicity. Then he secured a site and su­pervised
initial construction.
But Robert Maytag never saw the dream
realized. He died in March, 1962, at age
thirty-eight.
The zoo might have died with him, but
Nancy Maytag replaced her husband as
society president and carried on the direc­tion
of the organization with help from
many quarters. Finally, in November of
that same year, the first new American zoo
since the Great Depression opened its
doors as a nonprofit, privately owned,
self-supporting enterprise. It was named
in honor of its founder.
Soon, however, it became clear that
building the Maytag Zoo was one thing,
running it was another. As luck would
have it, that first summer of operation
Phoenix temperatures hit record highs and
attendance and income fell. Before its first
anniversary, the zoo was deep in debt.
Desperate problems require extreme
solutions. Lest people assume the Maytag
family was underwriting the whole proj­ect,
Nancy Maytag made two recommen­dations
to the board of directors: first,
underscore the need for continuing com­munity
help by changing the name of the
"Maytag Zoo" to the "Phoenix Zoo";
second, remove the last vestige of the
Maytag identification by accepting her
resignation as society president. The
board assented to both.
To deal with the financial problems, the
board, President Earl Bimson, and Zoo
Director Jack Tinker charted a manage­ment
course that was strict, deliberate,
and fiscally conservative. After the exhil­aration
of the zoo's early days, it was a
painful adjustment-with anxious credi­tors,
departing staff, and slow growth -
but eventually it saved the zoo.
New exhibits were added gradually
during the first decade. With more for
visitors to see, attendance and revenue
increased enough to support the opera­tion
through the summer slack season.
Still, it wasn't until the mid-1970s that
black ink first appeared on the ledgers.
When Dr. James C. Savoy became dir­ector
in 1978, he observed that the zoo
"was ready to grow practically on its own."
Since then construction has been con­tinuous,
with addition of a score of new
exhibits and public service areas and
remodeling of almost as many more.
Modern zoos typically pursue four
broad goals: research, conservation, edu­cation,
and recreation. Practically speak­ing,
only the wealthiest institutions can
Continued on page 23
(CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP, LEIT) At one time this was the only zoo in the world
protecting the nearly extinct Arabian oryx; today dozens of herds worldwide
contain descendants from the Phoenix Zoo's most successful conservation
program. First order of the day: a cheetah drinks from the cool moat surrounding
its exhibit. Ringtail lemurs take the morning sun. A curious river otter watches the
photographer. Are orangutans always as skeptical as this one seems to be?
Arizona Highways/ 21
Wildlife World
Getting the Visitors Involved
"When I was six, my parents asked what I wanted for Christmas. I said, 'Any­thing
that's alive!'"
It's been that way ever since for Mickey Ollson, founder and director of central
Arizona's newest zoo, Wildlife World near Litchfield Park, on the metropolitan
area's far west side. After acquiring a series of exotic childhood pets, Ollson as a
young man launched a successful rare-animal farm, supplying captivity-raised
creatures to collectors around the world.
But his true goal was to open a zoo of his own. In October, 1984, he did just
that, christening his project "Wildlife World."
Can Maricopa County support two zoos? Ollson thinks so: "For one thing,
we're not really competing with the Phoenix Zoo. We have very few of the same
animals. Most of those we have at Wildlife World are on display nowhere else in
the Southwest, let alone Arizona.
"For another thing," he adds, "we've staked out a different territory. Many
people here on the west side [of the Valley] are unlikely to go the forty miles or
more to the Phoenix Zoo; so we're drawing a different clientele."
Visitors like the intimacy of Wildlife World. At forty acres, it's compact enough
to tour comfortably in a few hours, something appreciated by parents with
youngsters.
There's a petting area where children can touch some of the smaller, gentler
animals. And near the zoo entrance, a path winds through dense shrubbery
housing a large aviary with some thirty species of tropical birds.
But the most popular attraction is the Lory parrot feeding exhibit-unique in
the world. Supervised by a keeper, the tame rainbow-hued birds perch daintily
on hands, arms, shoulders, and heads while visitors serve them apple slices and
try to out-grin and out-coo one another.
Wildlife World Zoo was the first to breed, in captivity, five different species of
birds, and has twice been honored by the American Association of Zoological
Parks and Aquariums with its Significant Breeding Award.
Though catering to the public is essential to the survival of any zoo, Ollson is
earnest about conservation, too: "We've been breeding rare animals for more
than twenty years. With Wildlife World, we can continue that work and go one
step further by involving our visitors in the joy and excitement of observing living
creatures.'' -Dick George
WHEN Wildlife World Zoo
Getting there: Wildlife World Zoo is located on the Phoenix area's You far west side, three miles west of Litchfield Road at 165th and North­ern
avenues.
G 0 Admission: From September 15 to June 14, the zoo is open seven
• • • days a week, from 9:00 AM. until 5:00 P.M. From June 15 to September
14, the hours are 8:00 AM. to 3:00 P.M; summer weekends, hours are 8:00 AM. to
8:00 PM. Gift shop, food service, children's petting area. Admission charge.
Activities: In a forty-acre setting of green grass and big trees, the zoo offers the
Southwest's largest exotic bird aviary, five species of flightless birds, kangaroos
and wallabies, jaguars, tigers, zebras, deer, llamas, gazelles, and more than 500
other animals. Wildlife World is also a breeding zoo; so many animals can be seen
caring for their young.
For more information: Wildlife World Zoo, 16501 West Northern Avenue, Litch-field
Park, AZ 85340; telephone (602) 935-WIID. - R.G.S.
(TOP TO BOTTOM) A visitor feeds an apple to a rainbow-hued Lory parrot. In
1914 nearly 6000 ostriches were raised in the Phoenix area to meet the
demand high fashion had created for their feathers. This spirited relative,
a vocal resident of Wildlife World Zoo, is of the blue-necked variety.
Wild.Zif e World's lush aviary is a walk-through exhibit. ALL BY DICK GEORGE
22/Arizona Highways
afford wildlife research on a large scale.
But as a relatively young zoo, and oper­ating
without tax support, Phoenix is
doing quite well in the remaining three
areas of conservation, education, and
recreation.
Like most zoos, Phoenix places a high
premium on endangered species. In fact,
its doors had barely opened when it
played a leading role in the international
effort to save the Arabian oryx from ex­tinction.
In 1963 nine of the last oryxes on
earth were brought to Phoenix to start a
breeding program.
In a story paralleling that of the zoo
itself, the small white antelope got off to a
shaky start but scrapped every inch of the
way back from the abyss. Today some 400
of the handsome species are protected in
refuges around the world, thanks largely
to work done here.
But such conservation efforts mean lit­tle
without effective educational programs
calling attention to the continuing prob­lems
that face wildlife. Since 1965 more
than 1.5 million people-children and
adults - have taken part in a variety of
Phoenix Zoo educational programs. In
addition, virtually every visitor encounters
the zoo's innovative graphic displays that
convey the story of the animals and the
message of conservation.
To most of its 700,000 visitors a year,
however, the zoo's greatest attraction is
wholesome recreation in a uniquely
beautiful setting. Today, as they wander
the shady walkways amid lush landscap­ing
and scenic exhibits, few recall the
dusty paths and tiny pens of the early
years. Even fewer realize it all came about
as a community effort: every exhibit at the
Phoenix Zoo was donated. No other Amer­ican
zoo can make that claim.
Much of the funding has come from the
Phoenix Zoo Auxiliary, sponsors of an
annual Aid-to-Zoo National Horse Show.
But there have been numerous other pri­vate,
civic, and corporate donors as well.
Whatever the source, there has been a
unifying philosophy to the growth. "We're
not trying to defeat the desert," says Savoy.
"We're trying to work with it. That's why
we select animals and exhibits that lend
themselves to our desert environment."
Accordingly, zoo designers try to make
the most of the zoo's location in Papago
Park, on Phoenix's east side. Island ex­hibits
dot artificial lakes left from a time
when the site was a state fish hatchery.
Desert vegetation shares space with the
collection of native animals in the Arizona
Exhibit. Rocky buttes dramatically show­case
bighorn sheep and the Nubian ibex.
Though its delivery was difficult and its
infancy troubled, the zoo of Robert May­tag's
dream is coming into its own, a
healthy, blossoming adolescent, a Cin­derella
of the Southwest. ~
Ten Nubian ibexes, natives of North Africa introduced to the Phoenix Zoo's
exhibit in 1981, have multiplied to 125, comprising the largest herd in the
western hemisphere.
WHEN Phoenix Zoo
Getting there: Phoenix Zoo is located on the city's east side, off
Galvin Parkway ( 64th Street). Bus service is available via the Phoenix
Transit System; telephone (602) 257-8426 for route information.
Admission: The Phoenix Zoo is open every day of the year. Hours YOU
GO ... are 8:00 AM. to 5:00 P.M. during the summer, 9:00 AM. to 5:00 P.M. in
winter. Stroller, wagon, wheelchair rentals. Plaza refreshment center. Gift shop.
Accommodations available for blind, deaf, and physically handicapped. Zoo in­formation
booth. Picnic areas available (tables and ramadas) throughout the
grounds. Admission charge.
Activities: There are 125 acres of rolling hills, shaded paths, natural environ­mental
exhibits, and more than a thousand animals, many of which are
endangered species. Narrated tours via Safari Train.
Nearby attractions: Desert Botanical Garden, Arizona State University, Pueblo
Grande Museum, Scottsdale.
For more information: Phoenix Zoo, 5810 East Van Buren Street, P.O. Box 5155,
Phoenix, AZ 85010; telephone (602) 273 -1341. Arizona Office of Tourism, 1480
East Bethany Home Road, Phoenix, AZ 85014; (602) 255 -3618. Phoenix Chamber
of Commerce, 34 West Monroe Street, Phoenix, AZ 85003; (602) 254-5521.
Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce, 7333 Scottsdale Mall, Scottsdale, AZ 85251;
(602) 945-8481. -R.G.S.
Arizona Highways/ 23
A:RIZONA-SONORA DESERT MUSEUM'S
NEW MOUNTAIN HABITAT ...
TEXT BY LAWRENCE W. CHEEK • PHOTOGRAPHY BY KEN AKERS
Its home to mountain linns, foxes, white-tailed deer,
bl,ack bears, and gray ioolves.
'It Looks Like We Put Bears in There!'
T he young male bear emerged first,
his quivering black muzzle sweep­ing
the air and ground with nasal
radar. He crept along a wide ledge canti­levered
from a cliff, paws inching forward
at first in careful, wary, tentative steps. But
he quickly grew bolder. His pace quick­ened.
He prowled the full length of the
ledge, wedged his head into several small
caves and crevices, and paused atop a
thronelike rock to survey the unfamiliar
sky and the rocky kingdom that stretched
out in front of him. He ambled down to
the river, chased an imaginary rabbit
across a log, and ate a shrub willow. Then,
like a 200-pound puppy, he bounded back
to the ledge to nuzzle his female playmate
and - if we dare anthropomorphize -
report happily on the large, open, canyon­like
habitat that this morning replaced
their dreary cage.
Architect Aram Mardirosian, designer of
this artificial canyon, was beaming. "I love
26/ Arizona Highways
the idea that you have to look for the
animals in a landscape," he said. "You can
see how they live, adapt, move, and how
they relate to other animals and the land
around them. In a normal zoo situation,
they're just on exhibit, like illustrations in
a catalog. They don't do any of the things
they'd do in their natural environment."
As Mardirosian was philosophizing, the
bear was analyzing. No longer tentative,
he clasped projecting rocks on the vertical
wall and shinnied toward blue sky with
amazing speed. The architect's smile evap­orated.
A man standing on top of the cliff
raced over with a broom, and, for a few
seconds, there was this half-alarming, half­comical
standoff: the man poking the
broom at the bear's face, the bear clinging
to the cliff like a fat brown fullback
reading the defense.
Man, broom, and gravity won. Bear
backed down and proceeded to eat an­other
tree. And Mardirosian's pulse re-paired
to double digits. "We were worried
about that one spot," he confessed. "It
didn't take him long to find it."
This was a sunny February morning in
1986, the month the Arizona-Sonora Des­ert
Museum provided a man-made canyon
for twenty-two of its animals. The muse­um's
new Mountain Habitat cost 2.5 mil­lion
dollars to design and build- the
most ambitious and expensive project in
the institution's thirty-five years. Its impli­cations
radiate far beyond the museum's
twelve acres. I have visited zoos around
the world, from Washington, D.C., to
Beijing (Peking), China, and though there
is an encouraging trend toward better
treatment of the inmates, as often as not I
still leave angered and depressed. But not
here. The Mountain Habitat is the best
man-made home for animals I have seen,
so good it should be the paradigm of zoo
architecture for the rest of the century.
The habitat houses ten of the muse-urn's
most interesting mammals: two
black bears, two mountain lions, two gray
foxes, two Mexican gray wolves, and two
white-tailed deer. There are twelve birds:
one Steller's jay, two thick-billed parrots,
two ravens, two Montezuma quail, and
five Merriam's turkeys. It also is an arbo­retum,
incorporating about a hundred
species of plants.
It is modeled after the Sonoran Desert's
"sky islands" - mountain ranges poking
7000 to 11,000 feet into the air. These
rocky barriers ambush wet air masses that
otherwise would sail on to Colorado or
Oklahoma, and the resulting rainfall sus­tains
oak and pine forests and an envi­ronment
for many kinds of animals that
could not survive on the arid, austere
desert floor. The contrast between Tucson
and the Santa Catalina Mountains is typ­ical.
Tucson, elevation 2,389 feet, averages
11.14 inches of rain a year. Palisades
Ranger Station, less than ten horizontal
miles to the north, nestles in the Catalinas
a mile higher and bathes in 29.69 inches
of rain and snow.
Of course, that isn't desert at all. It's
cool, moist, and green. But the Desert
Museum feels that its responsibility is
more than snakes and cacti; it aspires to
tell the full story of life within the boun­daries
of the Sonoran Desert. That means
mountain forests, saguaro-studded foot­hills,
grasslands, and the subtropical river­ine
habitats of southern Sonora. The
Desert Museum's 1980 master plan called
for all four of these ecosystems to be re­created
in a neat row on the museum
grounds. The first is the Mountain Habitat.
Look for the other three around 1990.
The idea of the Mountain Habitat was
born about fifteen years ago. An early
model depicted an artificial mountain
(IBIS PAGE AND
OPPOSITE) Man and
bear get a close look at
each other in ASDM's
new Mountain Habitat.
To fit into the land­scape
and avoid block­ing
out other exhibits,
the habitat was built
as a canyonlike
depression. (BELOW)
The Mexican gray
wolf is an almost
extinct species.
bursting out of the museum grounds to
the height of a three-story building. It
would have been an Architectural Pres­ence,
but a later museum management
reconsidered. The philosophy today is to
leave the existing land as nearly undis­turbed
as possible, in the faint hope that
Arizona's cities might think about doing
the same.
"We visited a lot of zoos looking for the
state of the art in exhibit design," ex­plained
Dan Davis, museum director. "We
got some ideas, but the thing we wanted
most we didn't find anywhere. It's very
subtle. We wanted to preserve a certain
mood that a zoo normally can't. They're
dealing with far more people; so they
have noise, transit systems, and they end
up with mobs of visitors rushing from one
animal to the next. What we wanted was
to have the experience of a very casual
stroll along a mountain trail."
So the "mountain" became a mountain­terrain
canyon, sunk into the earth. Today,
looking across the museum from high
ground, you see only a low, crescent­shaped
outcropping of thoroughly con­vincing
rock that looks like it's been there
since, say, the Paleozoic.
"Our first concern was that it fit into the
landscape, not obstruct views or impact
on other exhibits," says Mardirosian, a
veteran museum designer with The Po­tomac
Group of Washington, D.C. "But
besides making it unobtrusive, we also
wanted to have an element of surprise."
They have it. You stroll along a path
past desert plants like prickly pear, jump­ing
cholla, and the exquisitely self-descrip­tive
shindagger agave. Turn a corner, and
the desert simply blinks out. You are now
in the biological community known as
Continued on page 29
Arizona Highways/ 27
REID PARK ZOO
Turning an odd gift into a small treasure
Tucson's municipal zoo was conceived by accident, born without notice, and
brought up in poverty. But today, although it is neither large nor famous, it is one
of the city's treasures.
This zoo began with a Texan's odd gift of half a dozen prairie dogs to a Tucson
city employee. Workers built a big concrete dish in a park, filled it with dirt, and
gave it to the burrowing rodents. In the mid-1960s, people began dropping off
unwanted pets and farm animals, and it became a modest petting zoo. Then one
day, a castaway monkey appeared, and shortly after that a new line materialized in
the proposed 1967-68 city budget. Item: city zoo, 49,404 dollars.
"What's this?" exclaimed a city councilman. "What zoo?"
The zoo had been created by a city employee, acting on his own. He was Gene
C. Reid, parks and recreation director. When he retired eleven years later, the city
council gave his name to the zoo.
Reid's forte was the creative management of scraps. "He would call a private
contractor," recalls Charles Albanese, the zoo's current architect, "and he'd say,
'I've got 800 feet of cyclone fence here. Next time you've got half a load of
concrete left over, bring it over and let's install the fence."'
Still, the fact Reid had nothing but scraps to work with made the zoo a magnet
for criticism in those early days. It was overcrowded with donated animals, and
they lived in small, barren concrete cages. A newspaper editorial in 1973 termed it
"Tucson's ugly duckling."
The city listened to its conscience. Ivo Poglayen, a professional zoologist, was
hired in 1975 to run the zoo. In 1980 Albanese's firm, Brooks & Associates, was
hired to design a string of new exhibits. The budgets still would be modest:
200,000 dollars for the waterfowl, 334,000 dollars for the lions, and 425,000
dollars each for the Bengal tigers and Malayan sun bears. But this was enough to
turn it into a respectable, modern zoo.
The most attractive of the post-1980 exhibits is that of the waterfowl, which
looks and works like a tropical oasis spliced into the desert. Its authorized
inhabitants include fifteen flamingos, but there also are assorted ducks that
splash down for the winter, apparently reasoning that Tucson's dole is easier than
pecking out a living in Mexico. No barriers separate birds and people in this
user-friendly exhibit; no rules discourage touching.
The lion, tiger, and sun bear exhibits comprise natural landscape augmented
by artificial boulders. Unlike the Desert Museum's Mountain Habitat, there are
hard barriers- bars or reinforced glass - at the viewing areas. But the habitats
are open to the sky; the animals pad around on honest grass, and they exhibit
some natural behavior. The zoo also features natural habitat exhibits for zebras,
ostriches, antelopes, cranes, blackbucks, wallabies, elephants, and rhinoceroses.
Albanese recalls the fascination of watching the lions prowl around their new
home after it opened in 1983. Junior, the old male, died early in 1986. The
newspapers carried tender obituaries. Early this year, they also noted the passing
of the dark, grim concrete cells that had housed the diminutive sun bears for so
long. There were no tears. ~ - Lawrence W Cheek
(RIGHf, ABOVE) The waterfowl exhibit at Reid Park Zoo includes flamingos.
(RIGHf) An East African crowned crane struts for spectators. BOTII BY KEN AKERS
WHEN ReidParkZoo
Getting there: In Tucson, take Broadway Boulevard to Randolph You Way, turn south on Randolph Way, then continue for three-quarters
of a mile to the "zoo" sign and turn right.
G 0 Admission: Reid Park Zoo is open daily except Christmas and
• • • New Year's Day. Winter hours: 9:30 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. Summer hours
(Memorial Day to Labor Day): 8:00 AM.to 4:00 P.M; weekends, 8:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.
Admission charge. Snack bar and gift shop. Plaza picnic facilities in surrounding
park; stroller rental.
Activities: A graphic informational system provides details on the animals and
birds. Guided tours upon request, plus interpretive programs.
For more information: Reid Park Zoo, Parks and Recreation Department, 900
South Randolph way, Tucson, AZ 85716; telephone (602) 791-4022. -R.G.S
28/Arizona Highways
the Mexican Pine-Oak Woodland, explor­ing
a canyon complete with gurgling
stream, turquoise pools, and glaring lions.
Mardirosian's second concern was that
the habitat look nothing like a typical zoo.
No bars, no cages, no sense of thumbing
from page to page in a zoological catalog.
He wanted humans to feel a part of the
habitat, not an audience. He even grouped
plantings in ways to help shield clumps of
viewers from each other.
He used the predator-prey relationship
as a prime design element, winding a
semicircular canyon of lions, bears, foxes,
and wolves around a meadow for deer
and turkey-with the trail for homo
sapiens squeezed in between. The only
barriers separating all these species are
mathematical calculations. Mountain
lions, for example, can't leap more than
twenty feet- so it is believed, anyway.
Adding ten percent for insurance, Mardi­rosian
designed the cat canyon so that
every possible trajectory to an unautho­rized
meal is twenty-two feet or more.
He also sweated the details. For
example, he measured and mapped every
nearby saguaro. Then, back at his drafting
table in Washington, he plotted the path
through the habitat to avoid what he calls
"visual non sequiturs." He didn't want
people to look up and see cacti towering
over the woodland.
The museum staff is ecstatic. What
makes it worth all the money and effort,
they say, is the animals' return to near­normal
behavior.
On one recent morning, I learned how
a twelve-pound fox defends its space
against the bears that share the same
twelve-hundred-square-foot enclosure: it
backs into one of the coves Mardirosian
thoughtfully provided, bares an arsenal of
enameled daggers, and snaps. The bear
responds in a manner confirming its
reputed intelligence: it retreats and finds
a tree to eat.
Another visit found the ravens in an
uproar, piercing the woodland's peace
with raucous demands for exit visas.
Reason: the lioness had crouched down
in sphinx pose just a step away from their
enclosure to stare. And stare. It was a stare
meant to burn through the thin wires
separating the lion from the birds' en­closure,
and she seemed ready to wait a
long, long time.
She was still and silent, as the lions that
lived in the Desert Museum's old con­crete
cages had been. But that was a si­lence
drugged by endless boredom. This
was the silence of a hunter.
So-does the Mountain Habitat finally
solve the central ethical problem inherent
in zoos? It doesn't bore, demean, or other­wise
exploit the creatures on exhibit for
our edification and entertainment. Well -
seemingly not.
As the thoughtful Mardirosian says, "I
really don't know what 'happiness' is for
the animals. But obviously, if they have
lots of space, and plenty of places to romp
around, they're going to behave more
naturally. We are unfair to them in one
sense: we don't give them places to hide
from the visitors. But we have given them
plenty of choices, plenty of space. The
bears shouldn't complain about living
here."
As far as we humans can tell, the bears
haven't. They have simply been doing
what bears do, which perhaps is evidence
enough of the habitat's success.
They have dug up the underground
irrigation system. They have eaten all the
plants. They have staged bear Olympics in
the cypress trees, killing them. With the
exhibit only a little more than a year old,
the curator of birds and mammals, Peter
Siminski, is a bit embarrassed about its
physical condition.
"It looks," he says, with a trace of a grin,
"like we put a couple of bears in there." ~
Larry Cheek is the architecture and music critic
for the Tucson Citizen.
Selected Reading
Mammals of Arizona, by Donald F Hoffmeister.
University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1986
1be Sonoran Desert, by Christopher Helms. KC
Publications, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1986
Pebbles in Your Shoes, by William H Carr
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, 1982.
Realistic but man-made geological formations in the Arizona-Sonora Desert
Museum's "limestone cave, " in the Earth Sciences Center, flank curator
Dave Thayer. KEN AKERS
WHEN Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
Getting there: The museum is located fourteen miles west of
Y 0 U downtown Tucson. To reach it by car, take West Speedway Boulevard
to Gates Pass Road. Follow Gates Pass Road to Kinney Road and the
G 0 museum entrance.
• • • Admission: The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is open every day
from 8:30 A.M. to sundown. From June 1 through Labor Day, the museum opens at
7:00 A.M. Admission fee. All exhibits and restrooms are wheelchair accessible.
Snack bar. Picnic facilities at Tucson Mountain Park Gift shop.
Activities: Live animal exhibits, desert plant species in natural settings,
Earth Sciences Center, live animal and plant demonstrations, guided tours, inter­pretive
talks. Indoor exhibits are in air-conditioned buildings. water fountains
and shade ramadas are located throughout the grounds.
Nearby attractions: Saguaro National Monument, Old Tucson (movie set), San
Xavier Mission, University of Arizona, Fort Lowell Park and Museum, Tucson.
For more information: Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, 2021 North Kinney
Road, Tucson, AZ 85743; telephone (602) 883-1380. Tucson Chamber of Com­merce,
P.O. Box 991, Tucson, AZ 85702; (602) 792-2250. - R.G.S
Arizona Highways/29
Spring's arrival in the northern Arizona
plateau country this year will herald the
opening of a seven-week celebration
honoring the American cowboy. "Trap­pings
of the American West," at the Coco­nino
Center for the Arts in Flagstaff, brings
together arts and artifacts, artists and
artisans, poets and musicians in a unique
combination of fine arts, folk arts, and
performing arts that provides a compre­hensive
picture of the life and times of the
American cowboy.
Paintings of old West scenes hang from
the walls; nearby, bronze sculptures offer
glimpses of the life of the working cow­hand.
Alongside the works of more than a
dozen western painters, photographers,
and sculptors are exhibits of the
tools the cowboy used to
shape his niche in his-tory:
engraved bits,
spurs, bridles
of braided
h o rsehair
and rawhide ,
handmade knives.
There are saddles, too,
of tooled leather and silver.
The diverse character of this
eclectic display may be its most striking
element. The sparkle of an engraved con­cha
provides a counterpoint to the bur­nished
glow of a bronze bronco. The
precise lines of a handcrafted bowie knife
contrast with the bulk and texture of a pair
of woolly chaps. Across the room, the
lines of a saddle in an oil painting mirror
those of its full -size real-life counterpart
just a few feet away. The effect is unique -
reality provides a footnote to art, and art
returns the favor in a synergistic give and
take that makes "Trappings" a more com­pelling
experience than simply an art show
depicting cowboy lore.
Although objects included in this ex­hibit
sound like an inventory from the
past, "Trappings" is definitely not an
antique collection. All the articles are
contemporary.
"Trappings" isn't an exhibit of decor­ated
replicas, either. Every item in­cluded
- except paintings, photographs,
and sculptures - is a working tool ready
to do the job for which it was intended.
Jeremiah Watt, saddler and bit maker from
Calgary, Ontario, is quick to point out
30/Arizona Highways
function comes first, without question.
''You can't get too fancy with the bars on a
bit," he said. ''You wouldn't want them to
break if a horse fell on them."
Can a tool be art? Is skillful decoration
really sufficient to enable a bit or a spur to
transcend its utilitarian classification?
Dian Magie, director of the Coconino
Center, offered this prescription: "No
matter what you 're doing, you first have to
master the medium. If you go beyond that
to make the work an individual expres­sion,
you are creating art."
The idea for a show like this seems so
natural, it's hard to imagine it was never
done before 1986, its first year. According
to Mehl Lawson, a member of Cowboy
Artists of America, a few groups had been
exploring the concept for some time.
Both the Rawhide and Leather Braiders
Association and a group of knifemakers
had considered putting together an event
that would in some way hitch their me­dium
to the soaring star of western art in
general and the Cowboy Artists of Amer­ica
in particular. But it wasn't to come
about until the Coconino Center's Magie
arrived on the scene and discussed with
artist Joe Beeler the creation of a fine arts­folk
arts exhibit celebrating the American
cowboy.
Beeler was enthusiastic and immedi­ately
started adding categories, Magie
said. "And he also knew people all around
the West who would be interested in
participating."
The categories finally agreed upon
included paintings, photographs, and
sculpture that depicted cowboy themes;
saddles, bridles, chaps, articles of braided
horsehair and rawhide, spurs, bits, knives,
engraved metal decorations such as con -
chas; and poetry reading and perfor­mances
by musicians.
That first show in the spring of 1986
was an unqualified success. Not just be­cause
it produced sales for the artists, but
for the more important reason that it
provided such enjoyment to those who
chose to be a part of it. For one thing,
there was a lot more to look at than just
art. "Trappings" brought together more
than seventy artists, artisans, and per­formers,
a great many of whom were every
bit as watchable as their work. Cowboy
painters and poets in gaudy western garb
cut a sharp contrast with the more conser­vative
saddlers and blacksmiths.
In this its second year, the show has
grown and will include a festival of
western films. Boot makers will be
present this time. On opening
weekend there will be dem­onstrations
of many of
the skills required
to produce
the results
displayed
at ''Trap­pings."
As was
done last year, old­time
western music will be
featured throughout the opening
festivities, which will conclude with a
barbecue and dance.
The exhibit will be open from April 24
through June 10. Coconino Center for the
Arts is open daily from 9 AM. to 5 P.M. For
information and a detailed schedule, write
to the center at 2300 North Fort Valley
Road, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, or telephone
(602) 779-6921. ~
Dan Dagget is a free-lance writer, kn if emaker,
sculptor, and river guide who lives in Flagstaf J
Life and art meet at the "Trappings of
the American West" celebration at
Flagstaff's Coconino Center for the Arts.
Such tools of the cowboy trade as saddles,
bridles, spurs, knives, ropes, and belts
become artistic creations in the skilled
hands of craftsmen from throughout the
West. "Trappings" also f eatures bronze
sculpture, painting, and photography,
and samples the performing arts­presentations
by cowboy poets and
musicians. PITTER BLOOMER
TEXT BY JOSEPH STOCKER• PHOTOGRAPHY BY JAMES TALLON
U .S. Route 89, which bisects Arizona south to north from
Mexico to the Utah line, is one of our vintage highways.
It got its official number in 1925. Its paving was com­pleted
four decades ago. It is the southern anchor of a trans­national
highway that extends on northward through Utah, Idaho,
Wyoming, and Montana to the Canadian border. (True, it tends
nowadays, here and there, to lose its identity in amongst the new
interstate routes.)
Some time ago, when motoring was an adventure undertaken
in Hupmobiles, Pierce-Arrows, and Franklin air-cooleds, folks
attached all manner of romantic appellations to good ol' 89. Its
southern leg, reaching out from Nogales, was called the Old
Spanish Trail, since that was roughly the route of the seventeenth­and
eighteenth-century Spaniards venturing northward from
Mexico. From Tucson to Phoenix, it was part of the Dixie
Overland Highway, which came in from the south via El Paso.
North of Wickenburg, old-timers called the portion between
Congress Junction and Prescott the Hassayampa Trail.
In those pre-interstate days, U.S. Route 89 was what you took to
get from where you were to where you wanted to go-if you
were traveling north or south in Arizona.
From Flagstaff to the Utah border, it still
is. There's nothing else up there-pri­marily
because of the vast barrier of the
Grand Canyon - to take people back and
forth. But from Flagstaff south, of course,
there are today the super trails, the "two­slabbers"
-Interstate 17 to Phoenix, In­terstate
10 to Tucson, Interstate 19 to
Nogales.
Prescott •
many other of our old-fashioned single-slab, two-way roads).
The border-to-border span of Route 89-about 600 miles in
all-does something else. It takes you from warm elevations as
Iowas 1092-foot Phoenix to as high as frosty7921-footJacob lake,
perched on the great green dome of the Kaibab National Forest
north of the Grand Canyon.
No other highway in the state gives you that kind of vertical
variation, and only one other travels higher - U.S. Route 666 (the
vaunted Coronado Trail) as it hoists itself through the town of
Alpine at 8030 feet.
Contrasts along Route 89? Yes, scads of them. Desert versus
forest. Flatlands versus mountains. Warm versus cool (or hot
versus cold). Urban versus rural. Incidentally, U.S. 89 touches
base at most of the principal population centers of the 'state
- Tucson, Mesa, Phoenix, Prescott, Flagstaff.
Parks and monuments? Grand Canyon, for one (the road to it
takes off from U.S. 89 near Cameron). Seven national monu­ments.
Four state parks.
So come with us for a pictorial sojourn up that venerable,
historic piece of roadway, U.S. Route 89. And take it easy. Take
•Cameron
•Flagstaff
time to see things, to enjoy the ride.
That's what backcountry travel is about.
And this is some of the most fascinating
backcountry Arizona has to offer. 8
Contributing Editor Joseph Stocker has written
about Arizona for more than forty years, publish­ing
hundreds of articles in numerous national
publications.
Why, then, travel U.S. 89? To wander to
and through some of the out-of-the-way
places, interesting and often scenic nooks
and crannies that help make up the end­less
variety of Arizona. You're not likely to
see nearly as much from the interstates,
which can get you from point A to point B
very fast but sometimes contribute little
in the way of esthetic fulfillment. By
contrast, U.S. 89 offers a great deal (as do
• Wickenburg
Morristown •
Sekcted Reading
32/Arizona Highways
Phoenix
•Florence
• Tucson
Amado •
• Tubae
Tl'lm cacori •
• No ales
Iravel Arizona, by Joseph Stocker. Arizona High­ways
Books, Phoenix, 1983.
Roadside History of Arizona, by Marshall Trimble.
Mountain Publishing, Missoula, Montana, 1986
Both books are available (lravel Arizona for $8.95,
and Roadside History of Arizona for$15.95,
postage included) from Arizona Highways, 2039
West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009; telephone
(602) 258-1000.
(LEFf) Traffic awaits an ambling herd of Navajo horses near
Bitter Springs, where US. Route 89 divides, one leg heading for
Lake Powel~ the other-89A - for the verdant Kaibab Plateau.
(BELOW) December is the month when Tumacacori, the historic
Spanish mission eighteen miles north of Nogales on Route 89,
stages its annual festival.
Arizona Highways/33
You haven't really experrenced Arizona until you've
traveled th-is scenic old border-to-border highway ...
34/ Arizona Highways
(OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP) An unfailing cye­catcher
as tourists travel Route 89
through Amado, between Tucson and
Nogales, is this outsize longhorn skull
framing a doorway (FAR LEFr) At
Tumacacori, visitors get a personal
demonstration of a potter's exacting
craft. (LEFr) Tubae, a few miles north
of Tumacacori, packs hundreds of
years of history, and a great deal of
art as well, into its modest conj ines.
It's the site of Arizona's first European
settlement, dating back to the Spanish
presidia days of the 1750s. Centerpiece
of the art colony is the Tubae Center
of the Arts, here graced by two gift
shop volunteers, Ernestine Foster, left,
and Frances Kinker. Tubac's annual
arts festival in February attracts
thousands to view the work of local
painters, sculptors, jewelers, and other
specialists.
(ABOVE: CLOCKWISE, FROM LEFr) There was big excitement in Florence, seventy miles
north of Tucson, when Hollywood moved in a few years ago to make Murphy's
Romance, starringjames Garner and Sally Field. The vacant Spur Theater had
its front spruced up, and on a corner of Main Street a long-abandoned brick
storefront was converted into
Murphy's Drug Store. There
Garner presided at the soda
fountain and pharmacy counter.
Mike Tucker, farmer mayor
(shown standing in front of the
drug store), owns the building
After the moviemakers finished
their labors, he leased it to Police
Chief Tom Rankin to sell dough­nuts,
coffee, and Murphy's T­shirts
to tourists. (RIGHT) The Tom
Mix Monument stands seventeen
miles south of Florence on the
stretch of Route 89 known as the
Pinal Pioneer Parkway Mix,
cowboy star of silent films and
early talkies, was killed here in
1940 in an automobile accident.
The poignant silhouette depicts his
famous horse, Tony, standing with
head down, reins trailing
Arizona Highways/35
(ABOVE: CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP, LEFT) john M Hardee is proprietor of one of the more
venerable buildings to be found along Route 89. It's the century-old Morristown Bar
and Grocery, eleven miles southeast of Wickenburg. Years ago, railroad passengers
traveling to Castle Hot Springs Resort (since partially burned and closed) detrained
36/Arizona Highways
here for the mulepowered ride to the
famous desert spa. In Wickenburg, a
town proud of its gold-mining, cow­punching
history, you might expect to
find a life-size figure of a horse atop a
saddlery shop. The stagecoach rests in
front of the Desert Caballeros Western
Museum, which a farmer Arizona
governor called "one of the most out­standing
museums I've seen in my !if e­time.
"A high-country corral occupies
part of a meadow in Kaibab National
Forest atjacob Lake, nearly 8000 feet
above sea level (LEFT) One street with
two names: it's the newly dubbed Old
Railroad Street where the farmer Santa
Fe depot recently was converted into the
headquarters of the Wickenburg
Chamber of Commerce. But Frontier
Street it had been, and Frontier Street it
will continue to be-if you prefer.
(TOP, RIGHf) Curving through a
melange of desert colors against a
backdrop of the Vermilion Cliffs, US.
89A starts its climb out of House Rock
Valley toward Jacob Lake.
(RIGHf) In pioneer dress, a volunteer
guide at Pipe Spring National
Monument, west of Route 89A near
the Utah line, demonstrates
for visitors how early-day settlers
worked their looms. Pipe Spring was a
ranching outpost, but threat of Indian
depredations persuaded the pioneers
to build a protective fort.
(FAR RIGHf) A P Winsor constructed
the stone fort, which came to be
known as Winsor Castle. Local legend
says the name Pipe Spring derived
from an incident in which an early­day
marksman put a bullet through a
clay pipe placed near the spring.
Arizona Highways/3 7
Yesterday's Sonoran Desert outback today's International
Biosphere Reserve: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
braces for its next fifty years ...
Spring, 1937. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt, now beginning his second
term, signs a proclamation to preserve a
unique section of Sonoran Desert for fu­ture
generations. The action culminates
years of study by National Park Service
naturalists and other experts.
The document declares that "certain
public lands in the State of Arizona con­tain
... landmarks that have situated there­on
various objects of historic and scientific
interest," and that it is in the public inter­est
to set these lands apart as Organ Pipe
Cactus National Monument. ...
Portrait of Bill Supernaugh. ANSEL ADAMS
5 trokes of a presidential pen change
lives as well as land designations.
William Supernaugh's, for example.
Fifty years ago, when President Roosevelt
signed that proclamation, Bill Supernaugh
was a hardworking young ranger in Rocky
Mountain National Park, unaware that
when funding came through (in 1939) for
the new monument, he would be pro­moted
to a pioneering post in the outback
of the Sonoran Desert, a land entirely dif­ferent
from what he was accustomed to,
yet singularly beautiful.
"Yes, beautiful," agreed Harold Smith,
the current superintendent at Organ Pipe,
as we talked on the telephone about plans
for celebrating the national monument's
fiftieth birthday. "Beautiful," he repeated.
"And if you enjoy quiet backcountry
mountain trails, camping under desert
skies, watching sunrises and sunsets, look­ing
at nature up close, at all the unique
40/Arizona Highways
adaptations that the plants have gone
through, at the patterns of the wildlife and
all they have done to survive here, it can
be fascinating. Sometimes spectacular!"
This golden anniversary, Smith said,
would include some looking back. To Bill
Supernaugh's time and then, in more re­cent
times, to two important designations
the park has received.
"We are now an International Biosphere
Reserve," he said, "one of only forty-three
established thus far in the United States,
one of 243 worldwide."
The primary objective of this world net­work
of biosphere reserves is to conserve
vital areas on our planet and the genetic
material they contain. "For example,"
Smith continued, "there are twenty-one
plants and animals whose only habitat in
the entire United States is here at Organ
Pipe."
The biosphere designation has brought
unexpected benefits. "Last summer we
had hundreds of foreign visitors, who
came to experience this world-significant
area for themselves. I've seen as many as
twelve different foreign countries re­corded
in one day in our visitors' book."
Organ Pipe also has received the Fed­eral
Wilderness designation, another aid
to conservation. Nevertheless, as experts
become more aware of the delicate bal­ance
of ecosystems, concern for the future
increases. At Organ Pipe, water is a con­tinuing
question mark.
The monument shares a thirty-mile bor­der
and underlying water table with Mex­ico.
Since the advent three years ago of
hydroelectric power on the Mexican side,
there has been tremendous urban and
agricultural growth there. The pumping of
(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 38 AND 39) Golden
poppies and blossoms of owl clover adorn
the desert floor in hues that are repeated
in a sunset sky (INSET) at Organ Pipe
Cactus National Monument.
BOB CLEMENZ/ DAVID MUENCH
(ABOVE) Organ Pipe's visitor center
provides a rendezvous point for tourists,
a gift shop, and a place to enlist the help
of Park Interpretive Specialist Caroline
Wilson. ALL BY RANDY PRENTICE
water from 150 Mexican wells runs around
the clock, seven days a week.
"That is why one of Organ Pipe's major
activities at this half-century mark," Smith
said, "is the gathering of scientists who
will do an evaluation of this area's eco­system."
As many as twenty-five specialists
will be visiting in the course of the year.
My curiosity about the monument's
early days increased. What must it have
been like for the first superintendent, here
in this remote region less than a hard
stroll from the Mexican border?
I asked Smith about Bill Supernaugh.
"Bill died in 1981," Smith said, "but his
widow recently returned to Arizona to
live. She could tell you more about the
early days of the monument than anyone."
As an afterthought, he added, "A little boy
was born during their pioneering days."
I found diminutive Anne Supernaugh,
white-haired, smiling, and sharp as a
cholla cactus, at home in Green Valley,
Arizona. When I told her she didn't look
like a one-time pioneer woman, she
laughed and said, "Bill was the pioneer.
Until we married, he was at the monu-ment
alone. Funds were very limited."
His first tasks were to determine mon­ument
boundaries-not as easy as it
sounds-and to locate a source of water.
"Water, of course, was the big problem.
He had to have it for the monument's
headquarters, and he wanted headquar­ters
to be as close as possible to State
Highway 85."
The closest house for Bill to rent was in
Ajo, thirty-four miles to the north, and so
it was to Ajo he brought his bride. "We
were married the last day of 1941," Anne
Supernaugh said. When Bill finally found
water, he began work on a two-bedroom
house with a large glassed front porch to
serve as temporary monument headquar­ters.
Anne helped. But World War II had
begun, and Bill had to scrounge for
materials.
"My husband went into the service,
then was transferred to the reserves, and
returned to Organ Pipe in 1943. Little by
little, he finished the house." Anne
remembers holding boards and straighten­ing
nails. She showed me a faded photo­graph
of the two of them in a framed,
unwalled room. Canvas water bags hung
from crossbeams.
"There was no refrigeration, of course.
The sweating canvas cooled the water in
those bags. To get a drink, you had to get
friendly with the bees that covered the
canvas! But I loved it all."
To hear Anne, a native of Evanston,
Illinois, describe those days, the newly­weds
lived in a desert Eden. She still does
not seem to view the conditions under
which they raised their baby boy as prim­itive:
no neighbors, no telephone, no air­conditioning
(summer temperatures at
Organ Pipe soar above 100 degrees Fahr­enheit);
only limited electricity; a washing
machine run by kerosene engine. Their
child slept in a crib screened all around to
protect him from scorpions "that some­times
dropped from the ceiling."
Her husband's work regularly took him
away overnight, but, she said, "I can't
remember ever being frightened or lone­ly.
He'd be off on inspection trips-cattle
still grazed in parts of the monument, and
there still was some mining."
Occasionally Bill traveled with famous
photographers (one of whom was Ansel
Adams), who came to capture on film the
austere beauty of the desert, the moun­tains,
and the stands of organ pipe cactus.
She remembers Adams in particular be­cause
he took her favorite photograph of
her husband.
More often, Bill Supernaugh traveled
on horseback into remote areas with
scientists who wanted to study the ways
plants and animals adapted to the arid
environment.
Arizona Highways/41
Anne greeted all v1s1tors during his
absence, even those not welcome, such as
the rattlesnake that sunned outside the
little back porch where she did the wash.
She pulled little Bill in his red wagon for
their daily walk, she told me, and he soon
learned what he could and could not
touch. Her face alight, she recalled the
one-eyed coyote she named White Eye
and the family of foxes who came for
dinner scraps at her call. "But everything
is different now. No one is permitted to
feed the wildlife."
After the war, physical development at
the monument came quickly. A separate
headquarters building was constructed;
42/Arizona Highways
the little family no longer had to share
their house. Scenic drives were extended.
Visitors increased. So did staff. A primitive
campground near the Supemaugh house
was cleared; many campers returned year
after year. When Bill was promoted to
superintendent of Platt National Park
(now Chickasaw National Recreation Area,
in Oklahoma) in 1954, air-conditioning
was being installed in the headquarters
building.
The pioneering Supernaughs are still in
my mind as I drive west from Tucson to
visit the national monument, but so are
the people who knew this desert long
before them: the Indians and the Spanish.
West of the Tucson Mountains, State
Route 86 unrolls, straight as if shot from a
bow, through what appears on most maps
as the Papago Indian Reservation. The
early Spanish called these Indians the Pa­pagos,
"the bean eaters," and today ar­cheologists
are edging ever closer to the
conclusion that these peaceful agricultural
people are descendants of the ancient
Hohokam. The Papagos are now legally
known as Tohono O'odham, "the desert
people." The name distinguishes them
from their close relatives, the Pima Indi­ans,
known as the river people.
The document President Roosevelt
signed fifty years ago expressly protects
"the rights of the Indians of the Papago
reservation to pick the fruits of the organ
pipe cactus and the other cactus ... . "
This is in recognition of a custom cen­turies
old.
In 1698 when the tireless Spanish priest
and explorer Father Eusebio Francisco
Kina traveled this desert on foot and horse­back,
he recorded in his diary frequent
meetings with ancestors of the Tohono
O'odham. He was touched by their gifts of
water and fruit of the stately saguaro and
organ pipe cacti, fruit he called pitahayas.
"The chiefs came out four leagues to
receive us, and more than 400 souls re-
(IEFT) A spring storm engulfs the /VO
Mountains and their sheltered canyons
of volcanic rock. Tremendous
subterranean pressures fractured great
layers of rock, thrusting up monolithic
blocks and leaving deep troughs between.
JEFF GNASS
(ABOVE) The nocturnal bloom of the organ
pipe cactus closes when the first direct
sunlight of dawn strikes its delicate petals.
FRANK ZULLO
(RIGHT) Fragile beauty of desert plants
belies the harshness of the environment.
Dominated in spring by yellow
brittlebush, Organ Pipe's arid habitat is
home to desert bighorn sheep, mule and
white-tail deer, javelina, and the
endangered Sonoran pronghorn.
KAZ HAGIWARA
ceived us with the greatest expression of
friendship, as had the previous ones, giv­ing
us still more pitahayas on the road, as
also at the rancheria."
The Tohono O'odham still live in many
of the villages, or rancherias, where Father
Kina found them. Houses have been up­dated,
as have life-styles, but the desert
people still pick the cactus fruit and main­tain
other of the old traditions.
Another mountain range looms ahead
as I near the center of the reservation. On
the summit of one rocky peak the tele­scopes
of world-famous Kitt Peak National
Observatory shimmer in the morning sun.
Beyond them, to the south, is a still taller
peak, majestic Baboquivari, a mountain
sacred to the O'odham.
I pass the turnoff to Sells, the reser­vation
headquarters, where the tribe has
recently opened a modern shopping cen­ter.
In another hour and a half, I am in
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
and parked at the visitor center.
Superintendent Harold Smith is ready
for my first question: where are the organ
pipe cacti? 'You'll see them on Aja Moun­tain
Drive and on the way to the camp­grounds.
That cactus loves the sun of our
south slopes."
The monument is aptly named, because
these 330,000 acres contain most of the
Arizona Highways/ 43
stands of organ pipe cactus (Lemaireo­cereus
thurberi) in the United States. The
name is derived from the cluster of arms
rising from ground level, an image remi­niscent
of the pipes of a huge theater
organ. Unlike the towering saguaro,
whose night blooming continues into the
daylight hours, the organ pipe blossom is
strictly nocturnal, and each flower is open
only one night.
Twenty-five other cacti are included in
the vegetation here. Depending upon the
pattern of rainfall, there are cacti in bloom
almost every month of the year. As in oth­er
parts of the country, spring brings the
most wildflowers to this arid landscape.
Superintendent Smith explains what he
meant when, during our telephone con­versation,
he used the word "spectacular."
He was thinking of some of his "favorite
things": summer thunderstorms that pro­duced
sudden, dramatic waterfalls in the
mountains; the annual but brief appear­ance
of thousands of Colorado River toads
(RIGHT) The oasis of Quitobaquito
sustains life for many species of desert
plants and animals. Age-old cottonwood
trees grow at pond's edge, and more than
180 species of birds, including migrating
water/ owl have been identified near the
cool spring waters. JACK DYKINGA
(ABOVE) Park rangers monitor conditions
of the spring-fed pond at Quitobaquito,
which means "reed-grown water hole. "
It supports a myriad of wildlife like
the endangered desert pupfish and
(ABOVE, RIGHT) the Colorado River toad.
A portion of the pond has been closed to
human traffic as a refugefor the area's
shy creatures. Gill KENNY/ DICK GEORGE
44/ Arizona Highways
- "they sound like a herd of sheep"; a
once-in-a-decade spring that had followed
record winter rains. "You couldn't go out­side
without stepping on a flower. We had
tremendous groves of poppies, magen­ta
carpets of owl clover, and the orange
globemallow-normally eight to ten inches
- grew as tall as your head!"
In addition to his gathering of scien­tists,
Smith says his staff is planning events
during April that will involve nearby
schools and communities. "We've been in
touch with Lukeville and Sonoita, which is
just over the border in Mexico, and with
Why and Ajo. We hope we can get to
know each other better."
As I tour the monument, first with Inter­pretive
Ranger Valerie Naylor, a biologist,
and later alone, it becomes clear why
visitors return to Organ Pipe year after
year. Like the sea, this vast desert provides
the quiet needed for spiritual refreshment
- and the time needed to see.
Around any bend, the motorist or hiker
may discover a breathtaking landscape,
spot an unusual cactus or bird or reptile,
or glimpse one of the larger animals:
javelina, coyote, deer, pronghorn ante­lope.
Here, vegetation and wildlife change
with the elevation, which varies from 1000
feet on the southwest boundary, across
two mountain ranges, to a peak of 4808
feet in the Ajo Mountains on the east
boundary.
The proclamation President Roosevelt
signed five decades ago mentions special
"landmarks." One is a protected oasis
called Quitobaquito, with a spring-fed sa­line
pond where an endangered species,
the tiny desert pupfish, still exists.
At Quitobaquito the ghosts of earlier
travelers can easily be imagined at rest
under the cottonwoods, from ancient In­dians
to such Europeans as Melchior Diaz
in 1540 on his way to the Colorado River;
Captain Juan Bautista de Anza and Father
Francisco Garces, who in 1776 guided
some 200 colonists northwest to San Fran­cisco;
Father Kino, who called the oasis
San Serguio and wrote, "It has water which
runs in many places ... and ducks and birds
from the marshes .... " Ghosts, too, from
the last century. What a refuge for the
Forty-niners on their way to the gold fields
of California, finding this green island on
the man-killing trail known as El Camino
de! Diablo, "The Devil's Highway."
The Sand Papagos, too, are here in the
shadows. When Bill Supernaugh moved
to the monument, he reported a small
group of Sand Papagos from Mexico were
in residence here at Quitobaquito. He
said they still ground grain, using a
molino or grist mill and a harnessed
donkey- just as their forefathers had
been taught by the Spanish.
My return drive is crowded with new
images. And something more: new admi­ration
for those who long ago recognized
the special value of this vast and arid land,
and for today's guardians who are dis­playing
the wisdom of Janus, protector of
ancient Rome, as they look both to the
past and to the future to protect this
heritage . ~
Postscript: About the Supernaugh baby
who spent his childhood at Organ Pipe:
Today Bill Jr. is better known as William R
Supernaugh, chief of the Division of
Resource Protection and Visitor Manage­ment,
Mid-Atlantic Region, National Park
Service.
Kay Mayer, a f armer social studies editor, is now
an award-winning writer and a part-time instruc­tor
at Pima College in Tucson.
Sekcted Reading
Sonoran Desert Spring, by john Alcock. University
of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1985.
Gathering the Desert, by Gary Paul Nabhan.
University of Arizona Press, Tucson, 1985 Available
for $20.95, hardcover, from Arizona Highways,
2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009;
telephone (602) 258-1000.
House in the Sun, by George Olin. Southwest Parks
and Monuments Association, Tucson, 1982.
Exhibits in the monument's visitor center help the curious to interpret this
fascinating section of the Sonoran Desert. RANDY PRENTICE
WHEN Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Organ Pipe is located near the southwest corner of Arizona on You State Route 85, approximately 160 miles from Tucson, 150 miles from
Phoenix. Entrance fee is $3.00.
G 0 Visitor center: Open 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. every day but Christmas.
• • • Rangers are on hand to answer questions and offer trail suggestions.
A brief audio-video program offers an overview of the park. Pamphlets are avail­able
for guide-yourself tours. No restaurant. Picnic tables, water, and grills nearby.
Stop at visitor center for camping permit.
Activities: Two scenic loop roads: twenty-one-mile Ajo Mountain Drive winds
through the monument's eastern section; fifty-three-mile Puerto Blanco Drive,
west of the highway, provides excellent views of the Sonoran Desert environment
plus Quitobaquito. Hiking trails for close-up views of cactus and wildlife. A nature
trail at the visitor center can be negotiated by wheelchair.
In winter, schedules are posted for guided walks, interpretive talks, cowboy
coffees, and evening programs in the amphitheater. Both scenic drives have
picnic areas with tables and pit toilets (wheelchair accessible) but no w~ter. O~ly
the visitor cen~er and campgrounds have water. Carry emergency tools, mcludmg
a flashlight; take drinking water plus water for your vehicle; avoid flooded areas,
and never drive off the road. Dress comfortably and wear walking shoes.
Monument campground: Open all year on no-reservation basis. There is a
208-site tent and RV campground, plus a group camp for up to twenty RVs and
twenty-two tents. Maximum stay during peak season (January through Easter) is
fourteen days. Grounds have water, restrooms, grills, tables, parking pads for
trailers, and a dump station. Pets are permitted but restricted. Fee is six ~ollars
per night. Golden Age Passports permit fifty percent discounts for U.S. residents
over sixty-two.
Weather: From October through April, expect sunny days in the 60s and 70s
(Fahrenheit) with occasional light rains. Nights can be quite cool. Temperatures
rise in May through September, often to 105 degrees Fahrenheit and above.
Summer thunderstorms may be brief but can be violent.
Overnight pack trips: Campers and climbers must register at the visitor center.
Permits are free. Backcountry camping is permitted one-half mile from any
maintained road. No camping at historic sites or near wildlife watering places.
Carry water and a cook stove; wood fires are not permitted anywhere in the
monument.
Area lodging and services: Motels, gasoline, groceries,
trailer parks, laundries, post offices, and other services are
available in Lukeville, five miles south at the border
crossing, and north in Why, where state routes 85 and 86
meet. For a wider range of lodging and services visit Ajo,
thirty-four miles north.
For more information: write Superintendent, Organ
Pipe Cactus National Monument, Route 1, Box 100, Ajo, AZ
85321 ; or telephone (602) 387-6849. - Kay Mayer
e PHOENIX
erucso
Arizona Highways/ 45
Something of an almanac, a sampler, a calendar, and a guide to places , events , and people un ique to Arizona and the southwest.
PATTON CAMPS
The popular movie Patton opens with
the controversial general already at war
in the searing desert of North Africa. But
to ready his men for the rigors of desert
warfare, General George S. Patton trained
his soldiers in the deserts of Arizona and
southern California. Now veterans who
trained with Patton stateside have teamed
up with the Bureau of I.and Management
and plan to preserve and interpret the
camps where U.S. armored units learned
the tank tactics that helped Allied forces
win in North Africa, Italy, and Germany
in World "Wclr II . The plan proposes restor­ing
rock mosaics and street alignments
within the camps and collecting histor­ical
documents and photography of the
area from the men who served there.
For more information, write to the
BIM Needles Resource Area, 101 West
Spices Road, Needles, CA 92363 .
GOLD DOUBLES
Production from Arizona's largest open­pit
gold mine, the Cyprus Copperstone
Mine south of Parker near the Arizona­California
border, is expected to double
the output of gold for the state. Scheduled
to be on line this summer, the operation
will ultimately include a pit three-fourths
of a mile long, three-eighths of a mile
wide and 300 feet deep .
Arizona currently ranks fifth in
the nation in gold produc­tion
with Nevada,
South Dakota,
California, and
Montana leading.
ENDANGERED
PRONGHORNS
Early explorers and hunters first
reported pronghorn antelopes on the
Gran Desierto of southern Arizona and
northern Sonora, Mexico. But it wasn't
until 1945 that these desert pronghorns
were described as a separate subspecies,
Antilocapra americana sonorensis, the z
Sonoran pronghorn antelope. ~
And the Sonoran pronghorn truly ~
is different from other subspecies, A ~
americana americana and A americana "'-"-'IZll>.l.:!:...... ___ ~c::._...L.._c,..,.,,~:..tl.~~~
mexicana. The coat is more apricot in stock and hunting are steadily taking
their toll.
color, rather than the butterscotch of the
northern antelope, giving the animal an Whether the small U.S. population will
Overall Paler look The So 0 t l
be enough to sustain the subspecies,
. n rananeope
also is considerably smaller and has a not even wildlife experts can predict. On
narrower skull. The horns on the bucks the Sonoran pronghorn's range, the des-h
ert is the game manager.
sprout air year-round, making them
appear as though they are growing con- - David E. Brown
tinuously. The Sonoran females, unlike
other pronghorns, have no horns at all.
These small antelopes breed in
midsummer, much earlier than other
antelope, and bear fawns from late
February to April, allowing the babies
just a few precious weeks to feed on
desert forbs that sprout only if winter
rains have been p lentiful. In dry years,
new forage grows only after the thunder­storms
of midsummer, and few fawns
survive.
The animals once roamed from Tucson
to the Californias and as far north as the
Gila River; but early settlers hunted them
for meat, and ranching depleted their
already sparse range. As a result, the
Sonoran pronghorn is now an endan­gered
species. The estimated 100 animals
remaining in the United States live on 2.5
million acres of protected habitat that in­cludes
Organ Pipe Cactus National Mon­ument
and the Cabeza Prieta National
Wildlife Refuge. But no protection is
afforded to 200 to 300 animals in
Mexico, where grazing live -
EVERYTHING YOU EVER
WANTED TO KNOW
ABOUT DESERT LAKES
Spring is here and there's no better
time to head for central Arizona's desert
lakes. Whether you're fishing, boating, or
just camping at the water's edge, you' ll
want to take along a recreation guide to
your favorite lake. Desert Charts, a divi­sion
of Wide World of Maps, Inc., 2626
West Indian School Road, Phoenix, pub­lishes
handy guides to lake Pleasant and
Horseshoe, Bartlett, Canyon, Apache,
Roosevelt , and Saguaro lakes. Each con­tains
a short history and description of
the lake, recreational facilities, fishing
information, available services, and rules
and regulations. A detailed map includes
water depths, coves, beaches, hazards,
trails around the lake, roads , camping
areas, and surrounding landforms. The
boating and recreation guides sell for
$3.95 each.
HOLLYWOOD, ARIZONA
Well, there isn't really a Holly­wood,
Arizona, but that doesn't
mean the state isn't big in the
movie business. Actually, the
name Arizona has been used in
more than fifty motion picture
titles. Many movie goers the world
over equate Arizona with the wild West
because most movies with an Arizona
moniker were Westerns. The majority of
those were hour-long B-grade " oaters"
that furthered the careers of such stars as
Tom Mix, Johnny Mack Brown, Ken
Maynard, Tim McCoy, Tim Holt, Gene
Autry, and Roy Rogers.
Although not all movies with Arizona
titles were fil med in Arizona, over the
last seventy years more than 300 motion
pictures and thousands of television shows
and commercials have been made here.
Why is Arizona such a popular location
for moviemakers? According to William
Maccallum, Arizona's Program Manager
of Motion Picture Development, it's the
weather (the state has the highest per­centage
of good filming days in the
nation), a variety of locations that can
resemble almost any part of the country,
close proximity to the industry's head­quarters,
Los Angeles. And Arizona
appreciates the film industry and
welcomes its representatives back.
- David Barnett
SAVVY SAYIN'S
"A man can learn a heap of things if he
keeps his ears washed," or his eyes open
for a book like Savvy Sayin 's: Lean &
Meaty One-Liners, by Ken Alstad. During
his thirty-five years as a writer in the
West, Alstad collected thousands of pithy
sayings, and now he's poured the best of
them into this 165-page book illustrated
with woodcuts by Frederic Remington
and Charles M. Russell.
Memorize a few of these sayings, and
you'll never be stuck for a no-nonsense
western-flavored observation or come­back
around the corral (or punchbowl,
or wherever).
A few favorites:
Every jackass thinks he's got horse
sense.
A dead man's shroud has no pockets.
A brave man doesn't admit courage.
Cowards don't admit fear .
A stone stops rollin' when it finds the
kind of moss it wants to gather.
A wishbone ain't no substitute for a
backbone.
Savvy Sayin 'sis available for $6.95,
postage included, from Ken Alstad
Company, 9096 East Bellevue, Tucson,
AZ 85715.
CALENDAR
April through June 21 , Ragstaff. Navajo
Weaving Exhibition. The Museum of
Northern Arizona displays its exquisite
collection of Navajo rugs and shows the
series of films the museum produced on
that art form's history and various styles.
Telephone 774-5211.
April 3 through 5, Phoenix. UA Art '87.
The University of Arizona Alumni Invita ­tional
Art Show features works of fifty
professional artists . Sunday's session in­cludes
a quick-draw competition. Sale
benefits UA scholarship funds . One
Columbus Plaza .. Free. Telephone
266 -4820.
April 17 through June 28 , Phoenix.
American Western Photography: The First
100 Years. The Phoenix Art Museum pre­sents
this exclusive exhibit high lighting
the history of photography in the West
through selected images from the Amon
Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.
Telephone 257-1880.
April 19, Grand Conyon. Easter Sunrise
Service. Churches serving the Grand
Canyon community sponsor the nonde­nominational
service at dawn at Mather
Point on the South Rim. Telephone
638-9304.
April 24, Tucson. San Xavier Pageant and
Fiesta. This spectacular event celebrates
the origins of the Tohono O'odham
(Papago) culture, the coming of the
Spanish , and the introduction of the
Christian faith. The scenario includes
robed missionaries , costumed pilgrims,
Indian dancers, and an impressive
fireworks display at the 200-year-old
Mission San Xavier del Bae. Telephone
622-6911.
April 24 through 26, Bisbee . I.a Vuelta de
Bisbee. A weekend of world-class bicycle
races draws thousands of fans to this
turn-of-the-century mining town.
Telephone 432 -5991.
April 25 and 26, Scottsdale . Culinary
Festival '87. The Great Arizona Picnic, a
huge array of food, wines, and beers at
Scottsdale Mall ; Le Tour Culinaire, a
black-tie trolley tour of Scottsdale res ­taurants;
Mayors' Culinary Cup Dessert
Competition; and the Wme Country
Brunch. Proceeds benefit the Scottsdale
Center for the Arts . Telephone 994-2301.
April 29, Tempe . Lecture by Jane Goodall:
"In the Shadow of Man." Arizona State
University brings this distinguished
speaker to Grady Gammage Auditorium
at 7:00 P.M. Telephone %5-3434.
For a more complete calendar, free of
charge, please write the Arizona Office
of Tourism, Department CE, 1480 East
Bethany Home Road, Phoeni:x:, AZ 85014.
Unless otherwise noted, all telephone
numbers are within area code 602.
Edited by Robert j Farrell
Special thanks to Gary Boulanger, Bob
Boze Bell, and jerry Jacka for movie and
gold mining memorabilia.
Arizona Highways/ 4 7
BOOKSHELF
BY
THE HOPI PHOTOGRAPHS:
KATE CORY: 1905-1912, by Barton
Wright, Marnie Gaede, and Marc
Gaede. Chaco Press, 5218 Donna
Maria Drive, La Canada, C4 91011.
1986. 164 pages. 135 hardcover,
$19.95 softcover, plus $1.50 postage.
T he dreams of visionaries fre ­quently
fail to come to fruition,
but the concepts they create and
their continuing influence are often
well worth the dream. In 1904 Kate
Cory, a shy, sparrow-like woman, at­tended
a social gathering of the New
York City Pen and Brush Club, an
organization of artists. There she
met and visited with Louis Akin, a
gifted painter, who had just returned
BUDGE
from a year of field study on the Hopi mesas in northern
Arizona. Akin was fresh with enthusiasm about the artis­tic
offerings the area afforded and wanted to establish an
artist colony in Hopi country.
The following year, 1905, Kate Cory stepped off the
train at Canyon Diablo, some fifty forlorn miles south of
that much-storied land.
Akin's vision never came to pass, but for the next
seven years, Kate Cory lived among the Hopis. How this
quaint little lady worked her way into the affections of a
normally xenophobic people we do not know. She spent
her time painting and photographing. The selection of
her photographs presented here is a gift to cherish.
Eighty years ago, the camera was still considered little
more than a novelty. In the hands of Kate Cory, it became
a tool of both artist and ethnologist. In the pages of this
book are sixty-eight black and white photographs of
Hopi life as it was: a record at once intimate and honest,
possessing the drama of a time that will never return.
While several photographers of various degrees of
artistic ability wandered in and out of the Hopi villages
between the mid-1880s and 1912, only three made signif-
RUFFNER
icant contributions. Adam Clark
Vroman first came to the mesas in
1885 and did excellent work Jo
Mora took his first Hopi photographs
in 1903, and returned frequently for
a decade. Like Cory's, his work
spanned the ceremonial year of
Hopi life, but Mora's images lacked
the sensitive composition and inti ­macy
of Cory's photographs.
In 1917 the reserved, sequestered
Hopis banned cameras from their
villages.
This well-designed publication
was created by a trio of talented
people working closely together.
Each has contributed an essay to
orient the reader and put the subject
in perspective. Marnie Gaede gives us a perceptive
picture of the artist, her character, courage, and idiosyn­crasies.
Barton Wright, a well-known scholar of Hopi and
Pueblo cultures, sets the scene of people and place. Marc
Gaede, who is both an anthropologist and a professional
photographer, tells of the challenges he faced in making
new prints from Cory's negatives. The patience and
expertise devoted to the reproduction process has re­sulted
in a volume of remarkable quality.
Each of the sixty-eight Cory photographs selected for
this publication was printed on a single page, with no
adornment needed. A caption shares the opposite page
with an appropriate quotation from a well-known author.
The sources include Walter Hough, Leo Crane, Gene
Meany Hodge, and Frank Waters.
The three specialists who produced this book can take
pride in a significant achievement. They have preserved
the graphic images and suggested the distinctive am­bience
of the life and land of a distant people.
(Note: Arizona Highways plans to publish an excerpt
from the book in the August, 1987, issue.)
MAN AND WILDLIFE IN
ARIZONA: THE AMERICAN
EXPLORATION PERIOD, 1824-
1865, by Goode P. Davis, Jr. The
Arizona Game and Fish Depart­ment,
2222 West Greenway Road,
Phoenix, AZ 85023. 1986. Second
printing, 231 pages. $7 softcover,
postpaid.
then-pristine Chino Valley. Here the
party separated. The other trappers
returned with their furs to Taos;
Young and Carson headed west
toward California. In what is now
prime deer and antelope country,
Young and Carson found no game
or water and nearly perished before
they reached the flowing fountain
zona and its natural history as they
were before the first settlers had
made any significant impact. The
author supplements excerpts from
boundary survey reports, military
and scientific records, and private
journals with his own interpretive
text. The result is a fascinating,
sometimes saddening picture of
Arizona as it once was - and of
H what has been lost. istory offers one constant
lesson: no single factor
changes the character of wilder­ness
more than man.
In 1829 Ewing Young and his
nineteen-year-old companion, Kit
Carson, trapped beaver up the
Verde River to its headwaters in
48/Arizona Highways
of Peach Springs. Later, after ranchers
developed stock tanks, deer and
antelope flourished in the area.
Obviously, not all of man's ac­tivities
have brought about such
positive changes.
Man and Wi!dlif e in Arizona
offers us a concise account of Ari-
(RIGHT) "Lost Antler on the Verde,"
portrait of a river otter, by Nicholas
Wilson. Gouache, 18 by 26 inches.
(BACK COVER) Sure-] ooted Nubian ibex
at the Phoenix Zoo. DICK GEORGE