April 22, 2013 © Thomas J. Kollenborn. All Rights Reserved.
There are many stories about unusual places in the Superstition Wilderness Area. Since the late 1940’s, Hidden Canyon has been a mysterious place we have heard stories about and wanted to visit. For many years I believed this canyon to be nothing more than a big, windy story. The reason being I couldn’t locate it. Also I have had several individuals tell me they have been there, but couldn’t give me directions to its location for a variety reasons. Another friend said he knew where the canyon was and he believed it was named after Bill Hidden, an old time prospector of the Superstition Wilderness Area who often camped there.
Some time around 1963, I came across a contemporary map sketched by some Dutch hunter named Darrel Warren who claimed his grandfather had drawn the Barlett-Warren Map describing the location of Hidden Canyon. I thought at first, this was just a coincidence. I ended up with a copy of this map and filed it away. Thirty years later, Greg Davis located another copy of this map and gave it to me. I examined both maps and found there were several discrepancies in the two maps indicating more than one author.
The names of historical landmarks have a way of being changed for various or obvious reasons. Each generation will often start on a campaign of changing local landmarks. A good example of such changes is city and county street names. Such roads as Idaho, Meridian, Ironwood and Lost Dutchman Boulevard all had different names thirty years ago. Does anyone remember where Wilson Drive was, or how about Transmission Road, or County Line Road and Moeur Road?
Not so many years ago a gentleman from eastern Texas contacted me concerning the location of a street in Apache Junction his grandmother once lived on in 1946. He told me his grandmother buried a couple of quart jars full of gold coins. He knew this to be true because his grandparents were Depression era people and didn’t trust banks. They retired in Apache Junction at the encouragement of Julian King and the street they supposedly lived on was called Rattlesnake Lane. Unfortunately, the name of the street his grandmother lived on is lost in the pages of Apache Junction history.
Tracing down landmarks that have been changed is a major undertaking. If names are changed they should be properly archived somewhere so references can be made back to them. If the East Texas man’s story was true there are a couple of one-quart fruit jars full of gold coins near Rattlesnake Lane in Apache Junction, Arizona.
The same fate is exactly what happened to Hidden Canyon. The name Hidden Canyon probably originated unofficially and was a name used by prospectors and cattlemen around the turn of the 20th century.
According to Floyd Stone, Hidden Canyon was used in the early days to corral range horses in before a roundup. The canyon supposedly was located in what is now known as Horse Camp country east of La Barge Canyon. The canyon had a narrow entrance, but opened up into an area of about 40 acres. There was a small stone cabin with a tin roof and corral within this small valley. The site was located near the base of an intermittent waterfall. There was a small water seep that provided a dependable water supply year-round. This was an ideal site for a prospector or range cowboy to set up camp. Down through the decades this site has been forgotten.
As far as I know, Hidden Canyon remains lost to this day. Often I think this story has been confused with the Lost Adams Diggings located in Eastern Arizona or Western New Mexico. There were stories about a lost gold mine associated with this site, just like the lost gold on Rattlesnake Lane in Apache Junction.
My father always said there was a very thin line between legend and truth. Actually he called it a thin gray line. After all isn’t that what legends and tales are about?
Monday, April 29, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
A Day at the Ranch
April 15, 2013 © Thomas J. Kollenborn. All Rights Reserved.
Some time ago somebody asked me what it was like living at the Quarter Circle U Ranch in the late 1950’s. I thought about it for a minute and said, "I was quite young and wanted to be a cowboy. Electricity and running water were not that important to me."
However, at the same time, I must admit life was quite primitive at the ranch. We cooked on a wood stove and a propane two-burner stove. We had a Serval Freezer that ran on propane. We had a single water pipe in the kitchen. That is when there was water in the tank. Our water depended on a full tank of water pumped in by a windmill. The windmill was dependent on a breeze to operate. The problem with wind on the ranch was you either had not enough or too much.
No, we didn’t have fans or coolers. How did we survive in 110 degree days? It wasn’t easy, but we were young and foolish. I will try to describe what it was like working on the old Quarter Circle U Ranch.
We were usually up by 4:30 a.m. to feed the stock in the corrals. This would include our riding horses and cattle that were being treated for various ailments or injuries. Every animal was important for us to save. After feeding the stock, we fed our chickens and then the two dogs. The dogs were stock dogs and they helped us get cattle out of the brush and other inaccessible locales. While I fed, my partner, Mike, would begin breakfast and also prepare a pot of beans to cook on the wood stove. Mike and I would alternate jobs during our morning routine.
By the time I was finished with morning chores, that included gathering our eggs for breakfast, I was ready to return to the ranch house.
We generally had bacon, potatoes, chili, and eggs for breakfast. We had to slice our own bacon so the slices were often quite thick. Our bean pot had beef, bacon, and chili in it. We quickly learned to keep a stone on the bean pot lid. If we didn’t we would have a mouse in our bean pot. Just more protein if you’re a hungry cowboy after a day of hard work.
After breakfast we would go down to the barn and corral to prepare for our day ahead. During the summer months we generally worked from about 6:00 a.m. until about 2:00 p.m. at which time we would shade up. We would then go back to work at about 5:00 p.m. working for another couple hours or so.
Summer days were long days no matter how you looked at the work agenda. Usually we were fixing fence, repairing water sources, checking stock or packing salt.
When we worked for the Barkley Cattle Company the ranch included one hundred and seventeen sections of state land, forestland and BLM land. We rode from Canyon Lake in the north to Peralta Road in the south. All of the Gold Canyon area was part of the ranch’s range with the exception of the King’s Ranch Guest Ranch and Resort.
The main headquarter’s ranch was located at the Three R’s Ranch. The old ranch headquarters was located just south of Apache Land Movie Studio. Everthing has changed in the area today. We often herded stocked from the U Ranch to the stone corrals at the Three R’s Ranch. The ride was about eight miles, but was slow and dusty with fifteen to twenty head of cattle.
Bill Barkley, Mike Finley and I drove about seventy-five head of yearlings along the old Three R’s – Quarter Circle U Trail in April of 1959. I think this was the last time the entire trail was used for a drive. Often along our route we had a mixture of Mule deer and Javelinas. The wildlife would eventually fade into the desert, but often stayed with us for a mile or so.
Once the spring roundup was over, branding, dehorning, castration, and doctoring was done and we then prepared for the long hot summer. We would return to the U-Ranch and have a little time to prepare for the hot summer ahead. First and most important was putting all of the bed legs in a tin can filled with motor oil to help keep scorpions out of our beds. The pesky creatures would then crawl up on the rafters in the roof and drop into our beds. We also dealt with black ants and mosquitos. Mosquitos were very common after the summer rains in July. Sleep at night could be very difficult in those days.
Another interesting place was the outside privy. The outhouse was a notoriously dangerous place for scorpions and an occasional rattlesnake. Scorpions often waited for an unsuspecting victim to sit down on a toilet seat and then greet him with painful sting. We soon learned to lift up the seat and check it for scorpions or whatever else might be waiting for us. Small rattlesnakes lying near the outhouse found it comfortable in a world of survival. I guess the old outhouse was cool. I eventually painted a sign for the outhouse that warned people of problems they might encounter there.
If we had any riding to do, like packing salt, we were up at 3 a.m. and would be on the trail by 5 a.m. I recall a trip we made to Bluff Springs in July to drop salt. Our plan was to be back at the ranch by 11 a.m. We would have made it, but we spent two hours working on the water source at Bluff Springs so the concrete tank could fill. Our ride back in temperatures that exceeded 110° F about did us in. We were sunburned and dehydrated by the time we arrived back at the ranch.
Life on the old ranch was rough, but I still recall all those adventures and it was probably one of the most exciting times of my life. I owe a lot to William Thomas Barkley for allowing me to have the opportunity to grow into manhood and learn what work was really about.
All ranches on the desert were like the old U Ranch of the Superstitions.
Some time ago somebody asked me what it was like living at the Quarter Circle U Ranch in the late 1950’s. I thought about it for a minute and said, "I was quite young and wanted to be a cowboy. Electricity and running water were not that important to me."
However, at the same time, I must admit life was quite primitive at the ranch. We cooked on a wood stove and a propane two-burner stove. We had a Serval Freezer that ran on propane. We had a single water pipe in the kitchen. That is when there was water in the tank. Our water depended on a full tank of water pumped in by a windmill. The windmill was dependent on a breeze to operate. The problem with wind on the ranch was you either had not enough or too much.
No, we didn’t have fans or coolers. How did we survive in 110 degree days? It wasn’t easy, but we were young and foolish. I will try to describe what it was like working on the old Quarter Circle U Ranch.
We were usually up by 4:30 a.m. to feed the stock in the corrals. This would include our riding horses and cattle that were being treated for various ailments or injuries. Every animal was important for us to save. After feeding the stock, we fed our chickens and then the two dogs. The dogs were stock dogs and they helped us get cattle out of the brush and other inaccessible locales. While I fed, my partner, Mike, would begin breakfast and also prepare a pot of beans to cook on the wood stove. Mike and I would alternate jobs during our morning routine.
By the time I was finished with morning chores, that included gathering our eggs for breakfast, I was ready to return to the ranch house.
We generally had bacon, potatoes, chili, and eggs for breakfast. We had to slice our own bacon so the slices were often quite thick. Our bean pot had beef, bacon, and chili in it. We quickly learned to keep a stone on the bean pot lid. If we didn’t we would have a mouse in our bean pot. Just more protein if you’re a hungry cowboy after a day of hard work.
After breakfast we would go down to the barn and corral to prepare for our day ahead. During the summer months we generally worked from about 6:00 a.m. until about 2:00 p.m. at which time we would shade up. We would then go back to work at about 5:00 p.m. working for another couple hours or so.
Summer days were long days no matter how you looked at the work agenda. Usually we were fixing fence, repairing water sources, checking stock or packing salt.
When we worked for the Barkley Cattle Company the ranch included one hundred and seventeen sections of state land, forestland and BLM land. We rode from Canyon Lake in the north to Peralta Road in the south. All of the Gold Canyon area was part of the ranch’s range with the exception of the King’s Ranch Guest Ranch and Resort.
The main headquarter’s ranch was located at the Three R’s Ranch. The old ranch headquarters was located just south of Apache Land Movie Studio. Everthing has changed in the area today. We often herded stocked from the U Ranch to the stone corrals at the Three R’s Ranch. The ride was about eight miles, but was slow and dusty with fifteen to twenty head of cattle.
Bill Barkley, Mike Finley and I drove about seventy-five head of yearlings along the old Three R’s – Quarter Circle U Trail in April of 1959. I think this was the last time the entire trail was used for a drive. Often along our route we had a mixture of Mule deer and Javelinas. The wildlife would eventually fade into the desert, but often stayed with us for a mile or so.
Once the spring roundup was over, branding, dehorning, castration, and doctoring was done and we then prepared for the long hot summer. We would return to the U-Ranch and have a little time to prepare for the hot summer ahead. First and most important was putting all of the bed legs in a tin can filled with motor oil to help keep scorpions out of our beds. The pesky creatures would then crawl up on the rafters in the roof and drop into our beds. We also dealt with black ants and mosquitos. Mosquitos were very common after the summer rains in July. Sleep at night could be very difficult in those days.
Another interesting place was the outside privy. The outhouse was a notoriously dangerous place for scorpions and an occasional rattlesnake. Scorpions often waited for an unsuspecting victim to sit down on a toilet seat and then greet him with painful sting. We soon learned to lift up the seat and check it for scorpions or whatever else might be waiting for us. Small rattlesnakes lying near the outhouse found it comfortable in a world of survival. I guess the old outhouse was cool. I eventually painted a sign for the outhouse that warned people of problems they might encounter there.
If we had any riding to do, like packing salt, we were up at 3 a.m. and would be on the trail by 5 a.m. I recall a trip we made to Bluff Springs in July to drop salt. Our plan was to be back at the ranch by 11 a.m. We would have made it, but we spent two hours working on the water source at Bluff Springs so the concrete tank could fill. Our ride back in temperatures that exceeded 110° F about did us in. We were sunburned and dehydrated by the time we arrived back at the ranch.
Life on the old ranch was rough, but I still recall all those adventures and it was probably one of the most exciting times of my life. I owe a lot to William Thomas Barkley for allowing me to have the opportunity to grow into manhood and learn what work was really about.
All ranches on the desert were like the old U Ranch of the Superstitions.
Monday, April 15, 2013
The Passing Of The Concord
April 8, 2013 © Thomas J. Kollenborn. All Rights Reserved.
There are many stories about stagecoaches lost along the Apache Trail over cliffs. The storytellers will tell the stages are still there with all their cargo waiting for some brave soul to descend on a rope to make a recovery. My friends, these stories continue to fascinate people, but they are not true.
The history of the Concord stages along the Apache Trail was very brief. The Concord stages were used only between 1906-1910. Other stagecoaches were used independently until about 1917. However, by 1915 horse drawn vehicles were, for the most part, replaced by self-propelled vehicles.
"Mesa-Roosevelt Contract Expires," read the Arizona Republican on March 23, 1910. This was the end of an era. The government contract to carry the United States mail to Roosevelt Dam from Phoenix officially expired on July 1, 1910. Roosevelt Dam was nearing completion and the self-propelled vehicle was replacing team-drawn wagons and stages along the Mesa-Roosevelt Road (Apache Trail).
According to the article, horse-drawn vehicles were giving way to the railroads, trolley lines and light self-propelled vehicles. It was apparent that the Mesa-Roosevelt Road was going to change. Since the completion of the Mesa-Roosevelt Road Mesa residents were accustomed to seeing Concord stages drawn by four horses going and coming daily from Roosevelt. The Concords had been an important part of the West. They linked the distant Arizona towns together and provided a means in which to carry the mail. It was the mail contracts that kept these stage lines going.
The newspaper article also predicted there would be stagelines still in use in Arizona for years to come. But the development of better roads and shorter hauls soon led to the use of lighter vehicles and self-propelled vehicles.
The Mesa-Roosevelt Stage Company was capitalized in 1906 at $25,000 and held mail contracts that necessitated covering 334 miles daily by their drivers. The contract between Mesa and Roosevelt was the most important one. The trip from Mesa to Roosevelt required ten hours road travel to cover the sixty miles over mountainous roads. Forty-five head of horses were kept at the various stations along the route. One of the greatest management problems for stage lines was to haul feed to each of the stations. Horses and feed were kept at several stations along the Apache Trail. These stations included locations at Mesa, Desert Well, Hall’s Station, Government Well, Tortilla Flat, Fish Creek, and Roosevelt.
During the four years of operation from 1906-1910, there was not a single fatality on the line due to any accidents, and there were some serious accidents. In one accident a stage plunged over a sixty-foot embankment breaking the legs of the driver, Frank Nash. With all the runaways, tip-overs and trips down Fish Creek Hill on two wheels, it’s a wonder these pioneers didn’t have a cemetery at each of the stage stations along the Mesa-Roosevelt Road. The safety record attests to the quality of the Concord coaches, including their ruggedness and durability.
The lighter wagons and self-propelled vehicles slowly changed the Mesa-Roosevelt Road (Apache Trail). The historic road witnessed the transition from horse-drawn vehicles to modern automobiles under conditions involving narrow roads, rough roads, sharp curves and steep grades.
Today, the Apache Trail remains as a monument to those early pioneers who contributed so much of their time and energy to the building of the Apache Trail and Roosevelt Dam. Take your time and enjoy your drive to Roosevelt Dam over the Apache Trail. It’s still 44 miles of rugged, adventurous, scenic wonder.
 |
| One passenger wrote, "Our stages were the Concord type, miserable things to ride in. The motion made the passengers sea-sick, and the dust was terrible." Photo, circa 1887, courtesy of the San Diego Historical Society. |
The history of the Concord stages along the Apache Trail was very brief. The Concord stages were used only between 1906-1910. Other stagecoaches were used independently until about 1917. However, by 1915 horse drawn vehicles were, for the most part, replaced by self-propelled vehicles.
"Mesa-Roosevelt Contract Expires," read the Arizona Republican on March 23, 1910. This was the end of an era. The government contract to carry the United States mail to Roosevelt Dam from Phoenix officially expired on July 1, 1910. Roosevelt Dam was nearing completion and the self-propelled vehicle was replacing team-drawn wagons and stages along the Mesa-Roosevelt Road (Apache Trail).
According to the article, horse-drawn vehicles were giving way to the railroads, trolley lines and light self-propelled vehicles. It was apparent that the Mesa-Roosevelt Road was going to change. Since the completion of the Mesa-Roosevelt Road Mesa residents were accustomed to seeing Concord stages drawn by four horses going and coming daily from Roosevelt. The Concords had been an important part of the West. They linked the distant Arizona towns together and provided a means in which to carry the mail. It was the mail contracts that kept these stage lines going.
The newspaper article also predicted there would be stagelines still in use in Arizona for years to come. But the development of better roads and shorter hauls soon led to the use of lighter vehicles and self-propelled vehicles.
The Mesa-Roosevelt Stage Company was capitalized in 1906 at $25,000 and held mail contracts that necessitated covering 334 miles daily by their drivers. The contract between Mesa and Roosevelt was the most important one. The trip from Mesa to Roosevelt required ten hours road travel to cover the sixty miles over mountainous roads. Forty-five head of horses were kept at the various stations along the route. One of the greatest management problems for stage lines was to haul feed to each of the stations. Horses and feed were kept at several stations along the Apache Trail. These stations included locations at Mesa, Desert Well, Hall’s Station, Government Well, Tortilla Flat, Fish Creek, and Roosevelt.
During the four years of operation from 1906-1910, there was not a single fatality on the line due to any accidents, and there were some serious accidents. In one accident a stage plunged over a sixty-foot embankment breaking the legs of the driver, Frank Nash. With all the runaways, tip-overs and trips down Fish Creek Hill on two wheels, it’s a wonder these pioneers didn’t have a cemetery at each of the stage stations along the Mesa-Roosevelt Road. The safety record attests to the quality of the Concord coaches, including their ruggedness and durability.
The lighter wagons and self-propelled vehicles slowly changed the Mesa-Roosevelt Road (Apache Trail). The historic road witnessed the transition from horse-drawn vehicles to modern automobiles under conditions involving narrow roads, rough roads, sharp curves and steep grades.
Today, the Apache Trail remains as a monument to those early pioneers who contributed so much of their time and energy to the building of the Apache Trail and Roosevelt Dam. Take your time and enjoy your drive to Roosevelt Dam over the Apache Trail. It’s still 44 miles of rugged, adventurous, scenic wonder.
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