HISTORY OF ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO, 1680—1888CHAPTER XXIV.
COUNTIES AND TOWNS OF ARIZONA.
1864-1887.
A map showing the county boundaries, as accurately as is possible on a
small scale, is given on the next page. Apache county, so named from the Indian
tribe, or perhaps immediately from the fort, has an area of 20,940 square
miles, ranking second in extent It was created from Yavapai by act of 1879 and
curtailed in 1881 by the cutting-off of that part of Graham between the Black
and Gila rivers. The county seat was originally at Snowflake, but was moved to Springerville in 1880, and to St John in 1881. That portion
north of latitude 35°, or of the railroad, is a region of plateaux and mesas from 4,000 to 7,000 feet above the level of the sea, with peaks
rising to nearly twice those heights. The few streams run in deep canyons and
are dry in summer, and though the plateau produces good grass, the country is
for the most part valueless for agricultural purposes. Here, however, are
immense coal deposits, which are sure to assume great value in time. The
northern portion is covered by the Moqui and Navajo Indian reservations, having
practically no white inhabitants. The Moqui towns and the ruins of Chelly
Canyon are among the most interesting relics of antiquity to be found in the
United States; Fort Defiance is the oldest post in the county; and the famous
‘diamond-fields,’ of 1872 are to be found—on the maps—in the extreme north.
South of the railroad the county is well watered by the Colorado Chiquito and its branches, supporting a population of
nearly 6,000, a prominent element being the Mormons, numbering about 3,000, and
whose occupation dates from 1876-7. Besides the grazing and farming lands,
there are valuable forests of pine. The extreme south, about Fort Apache, is
included in the San Carlos, or White Mountain, Indian reservation. St John, the
county seat, is a thriving village of over 1,000 inhabitants, with two
newspapers; and Holbrook on the railroad, with a population of about 500 and
one newspaper, is the distributing point for all the county.
Yavapai county, so named from the Indian tribe, was one of the four
original counties created by the first legislature of 1864. At that time it included over half of the whole territory—all north
of the Gila and east of the meridian of 113º 20'; and it still comprises more
than one fourth, with an area of about 28,000 square miles. North of latitude
85º, or of the railroad, is the Colorado plateau, cut
to a depth of 1,000 to 6,000 feet by the grand canyon of the great river, and
by the less wonderful canons of the Colorado Chiquito and other branches. This region has some fine forests and extensive grazing
lands, but as a rule little water available for agriculture; and it is for the
most part unoccupied, except by the Hualapai and Suppai Indians, and by a few Mormons on the Utah frontier. South of latitude 35°, the
country is mountainous, but has many fertile valleys, of which that of the
Verde is most extensive. It is well timbered, and has in most parts plenty of
water, the climate being the most agreeable to be found in the territory. Here
the lands are tilled to some extent without irrigation. All the mountains are
rich in the precious metals; but most of the mines, as of the population, about
10,000 souls—perhaps considerably more—are in the southwestern comer of the
county. Prescott, founded in 1864 on Granite Creek, at an altitude of about
5,500 feet, is delightfully situated, and has many fine buildings of wood,
brick, and stone. More than others in Arizona, it is described as resembling an
eastern town. In 1864-7, Prescott was the temporary seat of government, and
since 1877 has been the permanent capital; it has many large mercantile
establishments; is well supplied with banks and with public buildings; and has
three daily newspapers, including the Arizona Miner, the oldest journal of the
territory. Its population is about 2,000. Flagstaff, with perhaps 500
inhabitants, is the leading railroad town, and the centre of an active lumbering and mercantile industry. The Arizona Central Railroad to
connect Prescott with the Atlantic and Pacific in the north, and with Phoenix
in the south, is expected to accomplish great things for the capital and for
the country.
Mojave, named from the Indian tribe, was another of the four counties
organized in 1864. At that time it included all that part of Nevada south of latitude 37,° the county seat being Hardyville.
In 1865 all north of Roaring Rapid, or about 35° 50', was set off as Pah-Ute county, with the county seat at Callville,
moved the next year to St Thomas. In 1866 that part of both counties lying west
of the Colorado and longitude 114° was attached to Nevada; in 1871 what was
left of Pah-Ute was reattached to Mojave; in 1877 the
county seat was moved to Mineral Park; and in 1883 the county north of the
Colorado was extended east some 50 miles to Eanab Wash. The present area is about 12,500 square miles. The region is traversed
from north to south by a succession of mineral-bearing mountain ranges,
separated by narrow valleys, fertile, but for the most part without water,
though prospectively valuable for grazing purposes with the aid of artesian
wells. The most valuable agricultural lands are embraced in the Colorado
bottom. The county has many rich mines of gold, silver, copper, and lead, and
from the beginning has been the field of frequent excitements, alternating with
periods of depression. The railroad, however, has brought the promise of
increased prosperity. Its population is about 1,500, of which Mineral Park, the
county seat, contains nearly one third. It is built chiefly of adobe, and is the distributing point of supplies for the
different mining camps. Kingman is the principal railroad town.
Yuma is another of the original counties, named like the rest from its
chief aboriginal tribe; and it is the only county whose boundaries have never
been changed. It has an area of 10,138 square miles, and is for the most part
an arid desert, marked in the west by parallel north and south ranges, and in
the east by detached spurs. The chief characteristic of its climate is extreme
heat. It will never do to publish a work on Arizona without repeating John
Phoenix’ old story of the wicked Yuma soldier, who, after death, was stationed
in a region reputed to be hot, yet was obliged to send back for his blankets.
The heat, however, is much less oppressive than the thermometer would indicate,
the air being pure and healthful. Agricultural possibilities depend mainly on
the reclamation of Colorado bottoms by extensive irrigation works, and there
are also broad tracts of grazing lands that may be utilized by means of wells.
With these artificial aids, it is by no means improbable that in time Yuma may
take a very prominent rank among the counties of the territory. Its placers on
the Gila and Colorado were the foundation of several ‘rushes’ from 1858 to
1864, and are still worked to some extent, the sands in many places being rich
in gold if water could be obtained for washing. Deep mines, as elsewhere noted,
have yielded rich treasures of silver, lead, and copper, the raining industry
here having been less disastrously affected than elsewhere by Indian
hostilities, and by transportation difficulties. Yuma, or the region about the
Gila and Colorado junction, figures prominently in the early Spanish annals, as
already presented in this volume, though the ill-fated missions were on the
California side, where also in later emigrant and ferry times Fort Yuma, now
abandoned, was the centre of desert life. A remnant
of the Yuma Indians, a once powerful tribe of the Gila valley, has now a
reservation on the California shore at the old fort. Arizona City, since called
Yuma, opposite the fort, came into existence with the old ferry establishment,
and though. encountering many obstacles, including several partial destructions
by flood, it prospered exceedingly from 1864-5, as the principal distributing
point for all the military posts, towns, and mining camps in the territory. The
coming of the railroad in 1877—and Yuma had the honor of a first visit from the
iron horse—took away much of its commercial glory; but it is still a town of
about 1,000 inhabitants, site of the territorial prison, with a brisk local
trade, and an excellent newspaper in the Arizona Sentinel; and its position on
the railroad and the great river gives promise of permanent prosperity within
somewhat narrow limits. The county seat has been here since 1871, being removed
from La Paz, a town which rose and fell with the Colorado mining excitement of
1862-7. Ehrenberg, founded—as Mineral City—in 1863, a
few miles below on the river, flourished with the decay of La Paz from 1867-9,
and became an active trade centre, though losing for
the most part its prominence when the stage gave way to the locomotive. The
Colorado Indian reservation above La Paz, where a part of the Mojave tribe have their home, has been noticed in another chapter.
Pima county, bearing like the others the name of its aboriginal
inhabitants, included at the time of its organization in 1864 all south of the
Gila and east of Yuma, or nearly all of the Gadsden
purchase. A part of Maricopa was cut off in 1873, of Pinal in 1875, Cochise and
a part of Graham in 1881. Its present area is about 10,500 square miles. Tucson
has always been the county seat, and in 1867-77 was also the territorial
capital. Western and northern Pima, the former known as Papaguería,
is an arid plain sparsely covered in spots with grass and shrubs; not without
fertility, but having for the most part no water, and dotted here and there
with isolated mountains and short ranges. The south-eastern portion in and
adjoining the valley of the Santa Cruz, the county’s only stream of importance,
but sinking in the sand before reaching the Gila, is a fertile and agreeable
region, though not well wooded or watered, and bordered by lofty mountain
ranges. Here were the only Arizona settlements of Spanish and Mexican times,
the presidios and missions of the Apache frontier dating from early in the
eighteenth century. This early history has been as fully presented as the
fragmentary records permit, and need not be even
outlined here. The prosperity and antiquity of these establishments have always
been exaggerated by modern writers, but their very existence under the
circumstances was remarkable. Their nearest approach to real prosperity was in
1790 to 1815. The north-eastern and south-eastern parts of the county are
traversed by the Southern Pacific and Guaymas railroads, respectively. With about 15,000 inhabitants, Pima is the most
populous of all the counties, and many of its mining districts, as elsewhere
noted, give good promise of future wealth. Tucson, founded in 1776, having at
times in the old regime a population of over 1,000, but greatly reduced in the
last days of Mexican and first of American rule, gained something by the
disasters of 1861, which depopulated the rest of the county, still more by the
renewal of mining industry following the peace of 1873-4, and received its last
and greatest impetus on the completion of the railroad. With 10,000 inhabitants
or a little more, about one third being of Mexican race, Tucson is and is
likely to remain the territorial metropolis and centre of trade. Large portions of the city have still the characteristics of a
Spanish American town with its adobe buildings; but recent improvements have
been marked and rapid, brick and wood replacing to a considerable extent the
original building material. Its schools, churches, and other public buildings
are not discreditable to an American town of the century, while many merchants
transact wholesale business on a large scale. The other old settlements of the
valley, such as Bac, Tubac, Tumacácori,
and Calabazas, must still seek their glory in the remote past or future. At San
Javier still stands the famous old church of mission times, which constitutes
the county’s most notable relic of modern antiquity. Here also is the reservation
set apart for the Pápagos, an interesting portion of
Pima’s population, and in many respects Arizona’s most promising aboriginal
tribe. At Quijotoa in the west two new towns sprang
into existence, Logan and New Virginia, but their
future, depending on that of the mines, is at present problematic or even
doubtful. Nogales is the frontier custom-house town on the railroad, part of it
being in Sonora. With Pima county’s position on the Mexican border, its strong
element of foreign and Indian population, its old-time history and traditions,
its bloody Indian wars perhaps finally ended in 1886, its peculiar political
and secession experiences of 1861—2, and its successive periods of excitement
and depression in mining industry, it must be regarded as the representative
county of Arizona in the past; and in the future, with its metropolis, its
undeveloped mineral resources, its fertile though limited farming lands, and
its existing and projected railroad facilities, Pima is not unlikely to retain
its prominence.
Cochise county, named for the famous chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, lies east of Pima, from which it was cut off in
1881, forming the south-eastern corner of the territory, and haying an area of
5,925 square mile. The county seat is at Tombstone. It is a region of wooded
mountains and grassy valleys, affording a considerable area of grazing lands,
but only slight agricultural promise, for lack of water. The San Pedro is the
only permanent stream, carrying but little water in summer; but artesian wells
have proved successful in Sulphur Spring, one of the county’s eastern valleys.
The stock-raising industries promises well; but it is to the wonderful metallic
wealth of its hills that Cochise owes its worldwide fame, and particularly to
developments in the Tombstone lodes, which have proved by far the most
extensive and productive in the territory. This region has been the field of
the most bloody and longest continued Indian atrocities; and it has suffered
much in later years from the pest of border outlaws; but it is hoped that its
pioneer troubles and youthful irregularities are for the most part at an end.
Tombstone, where the first house was built in 1879, and which has been twice
nearly destroyed by fire, has been the most flourishing mining camp in the
territory, and is now a town of nearly 4,000 inhabitants, chiefly built of
adobe, but having many fine brick structures. An ample and excellent supply of
water is brought from the Huachuca mountains, over 20 miles distant; and the
city is well supplied with newspapers, schools, churches, and mercantile
establishments, to say nothing of saloons and other adjuncts of civilization.
Bisbee, in the extreme south, is a town of nearly 500 inhabitants, built up at
the works of the Copper Queen Company, and the prospective centre of a rich mining district. Benson is at the junction of the Guaymas railroad with the main overland line, and the centre of a large grazing district, having large smelting-works, a newspaper, and a
population of 500. Fairbanks, on the Guaymas railroad, is the point of departure of stages for Tombstone. Willcox, with
about the same population, is a railroad station in the north-east, the point
of departure for places in Graham and Gila counties, having
also its newspaper.
We now come to the four new counties along the Gila, cut off at
different dates since 1871 from Yavapai on the north and Pima on the south. The
easternmost is Maricopa, created in 1871, increased from Pima in 1873, losing
part of Pinal in 1875, extended in the north-east to longitude 110° in 1877,
and losing northern Gila in 1881. Its present area is 9,354 square miles, and
its county seat has been Phoenix from the first. The name, like those of all
the counties before mentioned, is that of the principal aboriginal tribe. The
extreme western portion does not differ much in its natural features from Yuma,
having in the north the famous Vulture mines and in the south the Myeiq district. Above the big bend, however, on the Gila,
Salt, and Verde rivers, the plain is favorably situated for irrigation from the
streams; and this eastern portion of Maricopa, especially the Salt River
valley, forms the largest and most available body of farming land in the
territory. By canals that have been and are being constructed, large areas of
the desert are being transformed into grain-fields, orchards, vineyards, and
gardens. Apparently the county must always maintain
its agricultural supremacy. Here is one of the Pima Indian reservations, and
here the Mormons have their most prosperous settlements. The county’s great
need is additional facilities for transportation, which will be afforded by a
railroad connecting the Atlantic and Pacific and Prescott in the north with the
Southern Pacific—which traverses Maricopa from east to west, south of the
Gila—and Tucson in the south. The population is about 6,000. The first
settlement was at Wickenburg in the extreme north in 18G3; but the valley
settlement, the digging of canals, the raising of crops, and the building of
houses date from 1867-8; and the founding of Phoenix—so called from the new
civilization that was expected to rise here from the ashes of the past—from
1870. This is a thriving town of some 3,000 inhabitants, built largely of
adobe, but with many structures of brick and wood, on an open plain formerly
classified as desert but now distinguished among Arizona towns for its wealth
of shade trees and attractive homes. Excessive heat is the only drawback to
comfort in this favored region. The city is reached by a stage route of about
30 miles from Maricopa station on the Southern Pacific, but railroad connection
with the north and south cannot be long delayed.
Farther east on the Gila is Pinal county, named
for its pine groves, or perhaps directly from the Pinal Apaches,
created in 1875 from Pima and Yavapai, slightly extended westward in 1877 to
correct an error of boundary, and losing the Globe district of southern Gila in
1881. Its present area is 5,210 square miles, and its county seat Florence. The
southern portion of the county is largely a desert, traversed in the west by
the railroad and the underground channel of the Santa Cruz, and in the east by
the San Pedro and several ranges of mineral-bearing mountains. In the northern
hills are several mining districts grouped around the famous Silver King as a centre. Along the Gila, which traverses the county from
east to west, is a body of fine irrigable land, similar to that in Maricopa, though of less extent. In the west, lying along the river, is
the Pima reservation, parts of which have been cultivated for centuries with
undiminished yield; while farther up the valley eastward is a tract irrigated
and utilized by settlers in recent years, and closely resembling in most
respects that on Salt River. The lower San Pedro also contains a limited amount
of good farming land. The railroad extends about 70 miles across the
south-western part of the county; and in this region stands also the famous
Casa Grande, an adobe structure which was probably seen by the Spaniards in 1540, and was certainly built at a much earlier date. Florence,
on the Gila, is the county seat and metropolis, and has a population of over
1,000, in many respects resembling the town of Phoenix. Casa Grande station,
with nearly 500 inhabitants, is the principal railroad town, and Silver King
and Pinal are the most flourishing settlements of the mining region. By reason
of its situation and varied resources, this county bids fair to be permanently
one of the most prosperous in Arizona. The Deer Creek coal-field,
of neat prospective value, is on the eastern frontier of Pinal, within the
Indian reservation. A large portion of the county is included in the Reavis land grant.
Gila county, named for the river, was created from Maricopa and Pinal in
1881, being extended eastward to the San Carlos in 1885. Globe City is its
county scat, and it is the smallest of Arizona counties, having an area of
3,400 square miles, and a population of about 1,500. Gila is essentially a
mining county, its settlement dating from the discovery of the Globe district
lodes in 1876, and all its many mountains and ranges being rich in gold and
silver, as noted in another chapter. The mountains are also well timbered, and
the valleys, small but numerous, are fertile, with abundance of grass, and some
of them well watered by the Salt River and its tributary creeks. Much of the
best land is, however, within the limits of the San Carlos reservation, and
thus closed to settlers. Globe City, the chief town and county seat, is a
flourishing place on Pinal Creek, in the centre of
the southern part of the county, a town of wood and brick buildings, having
nearly 1,000 inhabitants. The great need of Globe, and of all the Gila camps,
is railroad communication with the outer world, the distance at present to
railroad stations, Willcox in the south-east or Casa Grande in the south-west,
being over 100 miles.
Graham county, so called probably from the mountain peak of that name,
was created in 1881 from Pima and Apache, the county seat being at first
Safford, but moved to Solomonville in 1883. In 1885 a
small tract west of the San Carlos was cut off and added to Gila, the remaining
area being about 6,475 square miles. Its population is about 4,000. In the
north, west, and south are large tracts of excellent grazing land, the
half-dozen ranchos of H. C. Hooker, and especially the Sierra Bonita of 500
square miles, with its thoroughbred horses and cattle, being famous throughout
the territory; but a very large part of the north-western region, about one
fourth of the whole county, is within the White Mountain Indian reservation. In
the central portion of the Gila is a fine tract of fertile and irrigable land,
notably the Pueblo Viejo valley, once inhabited by Pueblo tribes, as is
indicated by traces of aboriginal structures. This region is as yet but
sparsely settled, but is being gradually occupied by
Mormon and other settlers. In the east, adjoining New Mexico on the tributaries
of the San Francisco, are the copper mines, which are among the most productive
in the world, this region being connected by a narrow-gauge railroad with the
Southern Pacific at Lordsburg, New Mexico. Solomonville,
named for a pioneer family, is an adobe town of nearly 400 inhabitants, in the centre of the Pueblo Viejo valley. Clifton, the metropolis,
with a population of about 1,000, is built in a canon of the San Francisco
River, where are the reduction-works of the Arizona Copper Company,
and is the terminus of the railroad. Fort Grant and Camp Thomas are the
county’s military posts, Smithville and Central are Mormon villages on the
Gila.
CHAPTER XXV.
TERRITORY OF NEW MEXICO.
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