July 14, 2008 © Thomas J. Kollenborn. All Rights Reserved.
William Augustus “Tex” Barkley owned and operated the Quarter Circle U Ranch for almost 50 years. In the 1940s, Barkley’s ranch covered more than 117 sections. The family ran cattle from Canyon Lake in the north to almost Castro Springs in the South. Their range included most of Peter’s Mesa east of La Barge Canyon and Barkley also had a lease on several sections of state trust land around Superstition Mountain. The Barkley Cattle Company owned most of the land that Gold Canyon and Meadow Brook is located on today.
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| William Augustus “Tex” Barkley, circa 1940 |
Harold Christ and the Dinamount Corporation bought the Barkley Ranch in 1970 from a business group who had purchased it from the Barkley heirs in 1965. So much for the demise of the old Barkley Cattle Company. Let’s talk about the wild bulls of West Boulder Canyon.
Each Spring and Fall Barkley would check out his calve crop and round up the yearlings. There were several areas on his stock range where it was impossible to ride a horse. Most cattlemen will tell you Barkley had the roughest stock range in the Southwest.
Removing wild cattle from Old West Boulder Canyon became an annual event, but not part of the regular roundup. Any cattle successfully removed from Old West Boulder Canyon’s upper reaches would have to be done on foot and with dogs. There was always water in the potholes and good grass in the Spring, high on the slopes of Superstition Mountain’s east side. This was an almost impossible range from which to remove cattle.
There were old timers around that had a variety of suggestions on how our problem might be solved. One old man claimed he used to take a jackass into the mountains and tie the jackass to a wild bull and eventually the jackass would lead the bull out of the mountains. This idea might have been sound in some areas, but I wasn’t sure you could get a jackass into the area. Another man suggested we shoot the bulls, jerk them and haul them out in packages. This idea sounded most practical to me, but it was not my decision to make.
Tex Barkley died in early Fall of 1955, and his son, William Thomas “Bill” Barkley, took over the operation of the ranch. Jimmy and Tafoya Ruiz lived at the Quarter Circle U Ranch, and old Jimmy had worked for Tex for many years. Jimmy stayed on for about two years after Tex Barkley died, and then he retired.
It was during my first summer working for the Barkley’s that I learned of the wild bulls in Old West Boulder Canyon. I was young, inexperienced and not too knowledgeable about cattle. I suggested to Bill that I hike up in the canyon with a couple of the dogs and try to haze the bulls down into West Boulder Canyon. I put on my military brogans and with two of Bill’s cow dogs I started my hike into Old West Boulder Canyon from the First Water Ranch. This experience taught me that wild cattle were just plain “wild.”
Hiking up Old West Boulder convinced me these old bulls didn’t want to be disturbed. They didn’t plan on leaving their habitat. The dogs barked, the bulls jumped from one rock to another and basically avoided all herding attempts. There was no way these bulls were going down Old West Boulder Canyon, and Bill wasn’t very happy with my attempt. Now I understood why some cattlemen recommended shooting wild bulls in impassible country. Eventually, the wild bulls of West Boulder Canyon were shot to rid their impact on the fragile ecosystem of the canyon.
Cattle were totally removed from the western end of the Superstition Wilderness by 1990. No grazing permits have been issued on the western end of the Superstition Wilderness Area since then. The Barkley Cattle Company owned most of the land that Gold Canyon and Meadow Brook is located on today. Several years ago the Gold Canyon and King’s Ranch Resort area had a problem with cattle, but this was because of cattle permitted to graze on state trust land adjacent to the Superstition Wilderness Area.
Wild cattle, grazing cattle, cowboys, windmills, dirt tanks, salt blocks, barbed wire, and cow pies on the landscape were all part of the ranching heritage of the Apache Junction area. For the most part, it is all gone.
Today, the closest thing to wild bulls and cowboys are the rodeos here in Apache Junction during the annual Lost Dutchman Days in February and Ben Johnson Days in November.
