October 22, 2007 © Thomas J. Kollenborn. All Rights Reserved.
Several years
ago I was helping a friend who worked for the Page Land and Cattle
Company gather a few cows on the old Weeks’ cow outfit west of the
Apache Trail in the Goldfield Mountains.
We were working near the old Government
Well Highway Yard on the west side of the road. I was moving four or
five cows along an old abandoned section of the Apache Trail when I
spotted an old concrete pillar in a thicket of Broombush. The post was about four feet
high, triangular in shape, made of concrete and had the numbers “23” and
“37” engraved on it.
My curious nature dictated that I should
step down from my horse and examine this old concrete mile post used by
stagecoach drivers of the old Apache Trail. One side of the post had
the number “23”, meaning twenty-three miles to the Mesa railhead. The
other side of the post had the number “37”, meaning thirty-seven miles
ahead to the construction site of Roosevelt Dam.
This discovery was made in the summer of 1960. I left the old marker as I found it.
I returned to the site during the winter
of 1973. At the time I was teaching a class, “Prospecting the
Superstitions,” for the Apache Junction Community School. I was
absolutely amazed to find the old concrete mile post marker still intact
and undisturbed. The mile post marker had stood for 66 years when I
revisited it in 1973.
I had totally forgotten about the old
mile post by the spring of 1990. It was by accident I came across it
again while photographing the Goldfield Mountain one evening. Again I
was surprised it had survived so long.
It was at this time I decided something
should be done to protect this old mile marker from vandalism or
destruction. I contacted the Tonto National Forest district ranger who
eventually arranged for the removal of the mile post marker and the
placing of it in the Superstition Mountain Museum at Goldfield Ghost
Town in 1991.
My friend and close associate, Greg
Davis, brought me an article about the Apache Trail. The mile post was
mentioned in this article, The Nile of America, and carefully identifies
this particular concrete mile post. The article was published March 21,
1908. The following is quoted directly from the article:
“About a mile from Mesa the government
road begins, and one of the first things noticed was the neat cement
mile and half mile posts. Each mile post gives the distance from Mesa to
the dam, and the observant teachers soon made up their minds to commit
to memory all the combinations of sixty that can be made by using two
numbers at a time, 0-60, 14-45, and ’30 all’ were correctly anticipated,
and each found the figures corresponding to the mile post of his life,
though not all in the same half day. At the eight mile post Desert Wells
is past, where Mesa and Roosevelt stages change horses.”
The article continues, “Gradually
swerving toward the north, at twenty miles the foot hills are reached
and soon the beauties of a thoroughly constructed mountain road are
appreciated.
Passing the ranch (Weeks’ Station) where
water is sold at ‘ten cents a span,’ and the deserted mines at
Goldfields in the corner of Pinal County, we returned to Maricopa County
and stop for dinner at Government Well, near the 23 mile post. This
also was a changing station for the stage and here you could change a
ten dollar bill. Only one family lives here and neighbors are not within
call, although three or four miles south at the foot of Superstition
range can plainly be seen the camp and gold mine of two Scandinavians
who are said never to allow a visitor to set foot on their claims.”
Today the named sites along the Apache
Trail are difficult to recognize. Old Government Well is located
opposite the Needle Vista Point and the old mine mentioned as belonging
to two Scandinavians, Silverlocke and Goldleaf, can still be found if
one searches the slopes of Superstition Mountain southeast of First
Water Road.
This interesting article pointed
directly to this old concrete road marker that now resides in the
Superstition Mountain Museum 3.8 miles northeast of Apache Junction on
the Apache Trail.
When they lowered the waters of Apache
Lake this Spring (2007) another road marker (Three Mile Wash marker) was
found along the old Apache Trail roadbed. Only a portion of this marker
was saved and returned to the forest service for preservation.
These markers where placed along the
Apache Trail every mile between Mesa and Roosevelt Dam. Only a few
survive today. The most amazing one to survive was the Government Well marker. It remained undisturbed for more than eighty years.
