Note: I wrote this as a "travel guide" for recent guests of mine from Spain -- hence the focus on Spain's influence in the southwest.
These paragraphs mostly refer to the lands of what is now Arizona and New Mexico, from the present day US/Mexico border northward to the southern reaches of Utah, and from the California border to the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico. Outside of the cities, the terrain still looks much as it did 500 years ago, although this is rapidly changing now because of the rapid influx of new residents into the state and the southwest in general.
The Ancient Ones
Yumans
Colorado Plateau Peoples
Mountain Peoples
The Spanish arrived in the Americas following the sails and wake of Cristobal Colón (and others) by the 1530s. Pizarro and his conquistadores invaded the Incan domains of South America, and Hernán Cortez seized the lands of the Aztecs and other Mexican peoples. The Spanish Crown sought gold and silver wherever it could be found. The Indian peoples of this new world had little with which to resist except superior numbers – but European diseases to which they had no natural resistance soon decimated their populations – so in the end they didn’t even have that advantage.
Don Francisco Vasquez de Coronado
The Galvéz Peace Policy
These paragraphs mostly refer to the lands of what is now Arizona and New Mexico, from the present day US/Mexico border northward to the southern reaches of Utah, and from the California border to the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico. Outside of the cities, the terrain still looks much as it did 500 years ago, although this is rapidly changing now because of the rapid influx of new residents into the state and the southwest in general.
The Ancient Ones
The earliest “visitors” to Arizona were nomadic hunters who hunted in this area about 15,000 years ago. The only traces we have of them today are stone spear and arrow points that have been found here and there – sometimes found buried with the bones of the animals they killed. Among the animals they hunted were giant wooly mammoths.
Puebloan Peoples
Puebloan Peoples
At some point in ancient times the Indian peoples we call “Puebloans,” (for the “high-rise” mud and rock apartment quarters they built to live in), began farming and settling along the stream and river valleys of the SW. Recent scholarship has found that these peoples probably migrated northward from what is now Mexico from 2500 BC to perhaps 1500 or 1000 BC. The early ones we call Anasazi (the Ancient Ones) – and later ones the Sinagua. We will pass by the “Montezuma Castle” National Monument somewhere around mile post 283 (highway I-17); this was a Sinagua habitation. If you are interested in this aspect of Arizona’s cultural history, we could stop and take a look. We could also later take a look at another ruin – called Wupatki, outside of Flagstaff, AZ, or Walnut Canyon (also near Flagstaff).
The descendants of these peoples still live here – the Hopis of northeastern Arizona and the many Puebloan peoples of the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico are examples. They raised maize, beans and squash and developed a vibrant and practical religious culture – which still flourishes alongside (and with) the Catholicism brought into the area by the Jesuit and Franciscan orders with Spain. They are known to have traded with other Indian peoples all over Central and North America – and it would not surprise me to learn they had direct long-distance connections with South American peoples as well (although I do not know this for certain). One of the things we know about them is that they played a game similar to lacrosse…which was almost universally followed in their world as much as soccer is in today’s world!
In later years, other Indian peoples moved into the southwestern region:
Yumans
The Yumans are groups such as the Quechans and the Mohaves who settled along the Colorado River, along Arizona’s western border. These people farmed as well as hunted, and they were often hostile to visitors and travelers, especially in the latter years of the 19th Century. One notable exception was the (Spanish) Admiral Hernando de Alarcón – who treated them well and was considered a “friend.” He visited them in the early 1540s while looking for Coronado and an inland water route to California.
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| Havasu Falls |
There were many groups of peoples on the Colorado Plateau – among them the Hualapai (or Walapai), Yavapai, and the Havasupai – the Havasupai actually live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and welcome visitors to their home and their beautiful water falls. It takes a hot, dry hike of about 11 miles each way to get there…but the destination-cold waters of Cataract Creek make it well-worth the effort.
Later the Paiutes moved onto the lands now occupied by Utah, Colorado and northern Arizona – mostly north of the Grand Canyon on the lands we now call “the Kaibab.” Kaibab is translated into English as “mountain lying down.”
Mountain Peoples
The last group of Indian peoples to arrive in the area was the Athabaskans – the Navajo (or Diné) – and their cousins the Apache (or Indeh). These nomads were driven off the Great Plains by the Kiowa, Comanche and perhaps others, and in their displacement by those more numerous peoples found their way into the southwestern lands of New Mexico and Arizona. They subsided through hunting and gathering, a small amount of farming when they could, and by raiding the more sedentary farmers who were already here. The name Apache probably derives from a Pima word for “enemies.” Apaches would ride down into the farmers’ villages and steal food, women, children, horses, cattle – but they generally would leave them with enough so they could grow more of everything for next year. These raids did not usually involve any killing – just stealing – or “shopping.”
These Athabaskan peoples were to figure prominently in the later history of the Spanish and American southwest – the Spanish were never able to successfully control them (until the very last days of Spain’s governance of Mexico) and they were also the very last of the American Indians to submit to American dominion. Some of them (under Geronimo) held out until 1886 and a few stragglers even beyond that into the 20th Century!
The Spanish Arrive
Conquistadores
The Spanish arrived in the Americas following the sails and wake of Cristobal Colón (and others) by the 1530s. Pizarro and his conquistadores invaded the Incan domains of South America, and Hernán Cortez seized the lands of the Aztecs and other Mexican peoples. The Spanish Crown sought gold and silver wherever it could be found. The Indian peoples of this new world had little with which to resist except superior numbers – but European diseases to which they had no natural resistance soon decimated their populations – so in the end they didn’t even have that advantage.
Cabeza de Vaca and Estebanico
In the mid-1530s, explorer Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked along with much of his party near what is now Galveston, Texas. The survivors wandered amongst the Indian peoples for a couple of years – but finally made their way to Mexico City. They told of the lands they had seen – and related rumors of vast riches to be found there. A Spanish explorer-missionary named Fr. Marcos De Niza went north into Arizona in 1539 – accompanied by a Moor, a slave, who had been with Cabeza de Vaca – his name was Esteban. The Moor trail-blazed ahead of De Niza and if he found anything interesting or notable, he would raise a large cross to show the main party the “find.” They explored as far north as the Zuni villages on the AZ/NM border (just south of I-40, near present-day Black Rock). There, they were attacked by the Zunis – Esteban was killed by resentful Indians (Esteban reportedly had an insatiable appetite for liaisons with the Indian ladies, and they with him because of his tall stature and glorious dark skin) – and De Niza fled south back to Mexico. His “confirmation” of gold to be found in gleaming cities (which of course he never saw) led to another, larger, exploration the following year. None of the “golden stories” ever proved in any way immediately correct. The Indians of that time simply did not value gold or silver and did not collect it.
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| Don Coronado |
Coronado led a large contingent of Spanish soldiers and adventurers into the southwest of North America the following year – 1540. It is that year that forever altered the future of this land and its inhabitants, for Coronado’s explorations “legitimized” in European eyes Spain’s claim to these lands. Coronado journeyed as far northeast as the great plains of Kansas – and his expedition left a trail of stray cattle that later formed the basis of the great herds of wild “Longhorns” that were herded north during the years of the American cattle drives – from whence came the stories (and myths) of the legendary American “cowboy” and the lore of the West. The horses that escaped Coronado and his men were caught and utilized by the Plains Indians – and from them arose the Great Plains horse culture that American trappers, miners and other emigrants encountered in the 19th Century. Without Coronado or someone like him, there would have been no Crazy Horse (at least not in the way we remember him). Before Coronado – the American Indian only had dogs and his own two feet for transportation. He also ate the dogs when times were tough – dog may have been considered a delicacy.
Coronado returned to Mexico, broke and disillusioned, having found no mineral gold or silver in his travels. While he missed by hundreds of miles most of the rich mineral deposits later discovered in the American southwest, he did walk right across the top of one of the largest, purest silver deposits ever found (later) – the silver underneath what is now Tombstone, AZ, as well as having come very near the rich gold deposits later found in Colorado. He had no clue what was underneath his feet. Among his officers on his almost two-year expedition through the American west, were two soldiers we will meet again later – Don Pedro de Tovar and Don Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas.
Coronado returned to Mexico, broke and disillusioned, having found no mineral gold or silver in his travels. While he missed by hundreds of miles most of the rich mineral deposits later discovered in the American southwest, he did walk right across the top of one of the largest, purest silver deposits ever found (later) – the silver underneath what is now Tombstone, AZ, as well as having come very near the rich gold deposits later found in Colorado. He had no clue what was underneath his feet. Among his officers on his almost two-year expedition through the American west, were two soldiers we will meet again later – Don Pedro de Tovar and Don Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas.
Spanish Colonization of the Southwest
In 1598, Spain sent settlers into the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico, led by Don Juan de Oñate. Over time, these peoples intermingled with the “locals” and became the culturally rich, now-ancient culture that exists today in that state. In Arizona, on the other hand, most settlement was related to the Church or to the Army’s duties here – it had no life of its own as it did along the Rio Grande [or Rio Bravo to Spain and Mexico] or in California. Over time, farming, ranching and mining also became prevalent, but the area was periodically abandoned during those times the Apaches were warring on them. While Spanish settlement was fairly successful along the Rio Grande, and in California, it never was in any real sense in Arizona. The danger posed by the Apaches dominated the land and the settlements here.
Missions and the Church
As the Spanish encountered the Indians of the Americas, a great moral dilemma arose as to their fate and “disposition” under Spanish dominion. The “official” answer from the Crown and the Church was that they would be converted to Catholicism and the Spanish way of life. Many were enslaved, but at the same time most were absorbed into the Spanish culture transplanted here; the Spanish plan was assimilation.
So on the heels of the conquistadores came the missions – into Piméria Alta (what Spain named the lands of northern Mexico and southern Arizona) and also up north into California. The friars (Jesuits first, Franciscans later) brought more livestock, and they brought grains, fruits and vegetables. These things were enthusiastically adopted by the Indians – and by the 1840s when the California Gold Rush began, these Indians of central and southern Arizona were so prosperous that they were able to save the lives of many California-bound “forty-niners” when they got caught unprepared for the harsh conditions of the American southwest along the Jornada del Muerto.
Ironically, and unjustly, the American settlers of this area in later years appropriated these Indians’ water rights and their ability to farm and ranch diminished almost to non-existence. Even today, the Pima and Papago (or To’hono Oodham) have little water – and they have resorted to operating gambling casinos to provide a viable financial base for their communities.
Spanish vs Apachean Peoples
Almost immediately on their arrival in these lands – the Spanish encountered Indian resistance. Among the more notable events was the Hopis’ rejection of Catholic missionizing efforts (they killed the missionaries and forever-after refused others re-entry to their communities, even to this day). Then, in the Pueblo Revolt of 1690, the pueblo peoples of New Mexico united and drove the Spanish south into Mexico for over ten years. When the Spanish finally returned, in force, they took revenge on the pueblo leaders and anyone they thought had been involved in the revolt – and some of the pueblo peoples fled west to safer areas – many of our Hopi people today can trace their ancestry to these Puebloan refugees.
The Presidios
The Apachean peoples proved to be such a continual threat to Spanish commerce and communities that entire settlements had to be abandoned for years on end. The Spanish, in order to protect their people and these settlements, erected a series of presidios in and across the southwest. Originally, they tried to garrison them with foot soldiers, but in the end, they changed their approach to mounted cavalry – they stationed what they called “flying companies” at evenly-spaced presidios and they hoped to use these to run down marauding Apaches before they could get away. None of this ever worked very well – by the time the soldiers got word of an attack – the Apaches were hundreds of miles away – no more effective (or faster-moving) mounted fighters have ever lived on the earth. Even fifty years later in the 1880s, the might and power of the Apache-focused American Army couldn’t subdue the Apaches for several years.
In the Spanish era, one “general” who led the flying companies with some measure of success was actually an Irish mercenary named Hugo O’Conor – O’Conor was a Governor-General of Nueva España in and around 1767 and is reported (by Wikipedia) to have ridden over 10,000 horse-back miles in the southwest while leading his troops in pursuit of raiding Apaches.
The Galvéz Peace Policy
Finally, in the waning years of the Spanish empire in the Americas, Governor Bernardo Galvéz came up with a plan that had some success. He invited the Apaches to settle in villages near Mexican towns, where he supplied them with food, cheap firearms and other commodities. His idea was to make them dependent on the Spanish-Mexican communities and the tradesmen living in them – and therefore much less likely to attack them. It worked. This probably would have been the end of the animosity between the Apaches and the Mexicans, except that the Spanish soon lost their Mexican possessions, and under the government of Mexico (after the Mexican Revolución) such an expensive policy no longer found funding – and the Apaches began raiding again almost simultaneously with the last hand-out.
Some others who had impact on southwest events
Padre Kino
Father Eusebio Francisco Kino was an Austrian-born priest who came to the southwest and founded many of the missions of Pimería Alta – what is now northern Sonora and southern Arizona. He traveled the deserts and river valleys, bringing European agricultural products and methods to the Indians, as well as his religion. Among the most beautiful of mission churches is Kino’s San Xavier del Bac, the “White Dove of the Desert” near Tucson – which is still a functioning church and community today (Father Kino did not, however, build the present church). Father Kino is buried in the town of Magdalena del Kino – about a 3 hour drive south of Tucson, AZ. He is still remembered as a teacher and for his hard, selfless work on behalf of the people of his mission communities.
Fray Gárces’ explorations
In the latter half of the 18th Century, the Crown expelled the Jesuit order from the mission fields of the new world and replaced them with the Franciscans. Among these was Fr. Francisco Tomás Gárces, another “traveling” priest (like Kino before him). The Spanish desired to connect the small settlements of Piméria Alta with the more prosperous settlements and missions of California, and Gárces set out to find routes by which this could be done. Along the way, he met and attempted to convert the Indians along the Colorado River, and he also traveled north into the Grand Canyon area to meet the Havasupai and the Hopi. Later, the Quechan peoples along the Colorado attacked the priests and soldiers among them and martyred Father Gárces.
Fathers Escalante y Dominguez
In 1776, soldier and explorer Don Juan Bautista de Anza and Fr. Gárces set out to explore a route across the desert to California, while a second party left Santa Fe to attempt a more northerly route. The De Anza party went on to found the settlement that became the city of San Francisco – while the ten man party led by Frs. Escalante and Dominguez met with canyon after canyon and obstacle after obstacle in their attempt to find a trail across what is now northern Arizona and southern Utah. Ultimately, they were forced to turn back and their attempt to return to their Santa Fe “base” became an epic adventure of frustration and determination in the attempt to survive and get “home.” Many of the scenes of the Escalante-Dominguez party’s ordeal are now underneath the waters of Utah’s Lake Powell.
Spanish ranching in Arizona
Cattle first came to Arizona with Coronado in 1540 – but wealthy Spanish land-owners founded vast cattle ranches with even more cows on the sparsely-populated lands of southern Arizona during the later years of the Spanish era here. The Crown granted lands to these ranchers – and their claims to ownership were sometimes honored (after a fashion) even when the United States gained dominion here. Most working-class Mexican ranchers and land owners were not as successful in retaining title to their lands. Like blacks and Indians, Mexicans got little respect or consideration from white-Americans in those times.
In the case of the Spanish land grants that were respected by American courts – those lands are still set aside for their descendants today. It is an interesting fact that the legal system of many American states was in fact based on Spain’s legal doctrines, rather than English laws. It is also a fact that the legendary American cowboys and their ways of ranching came to us, and to the American west and southwest, through the ranching traditions of Mexico, of Spain, and before that, North Africa.
Archbishop Lamy
In the mid-1850s, Father Jean-Baptiste Lamy came to New Mexico to lead the church for the remainder of his life. Father Lamy brought the Church here back into adherence to Rome’s doctrines, eliminated some of the “corruption” that had become common after many years of isolation from Rome and its stricter policies -- and under his guidance the Church’s reputation was somewhat restored in the eyes of the diocese’s constituents. Lamy added congregations in Colorado to the ones already existing in the Rio Grande valley and elsewhere in New Mexico and like Father Kino two-hundred years earlier, he traveled (mule-back) throughout his diocese. Lamy planned and supervised the construction of the cathedral at Santa Fe, bringing in stone cutters and masons from France and quarrying the yellow stone used in its construction from the area around present-day Lamy, NM. Archbishop Lamy considered this basilica his crowning achievement. This story was recounted in Willa Cather’s novel Death Comes For the Archbishop.
The Americans
The Americans started exploring the Arizona-New Mexico region right around the same time Mexico achieved its independence from Spain (early 1820’s). First to come were the mountain men – just as these explorers and trappers trekked over much of the northern Rockies and Great Plains, they trekked over much of the southwest as well – and on into California. Relations were tense between them and the Mexican officials – as the Mexicans feared being over-run by the vigorous expansionistic tendencies of the newcomers. Sadly for them, their fears proved well-founded. The trappers, however, were mostly just looking for beavers – to supply the huge demand for pelts with which to make the fashionable beaver hats gentlemen of those times were fond of wearing – on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. In Arizona, trappers like Jedediah Smith, James Ohio Pattie, Paulino Weaver and Bill Williams stormed through, following the rivers, and quickly decimated the beaver in this part of the country – to this day there aren't too many around here.
Right after the trappers came the miners… Arizona had its share of precious metals and when the promise of the California Gold Rush (1849) proved elusive for many prospectors, they filtered into other areas of the west in search of alternative possibilities. Mining districts sprang up all over Arizona and New Mexico. Some earlier mining was also done by Spanish and Mexican miners, so there was already a presence here of those who wished to engage in hard-rock mining. They looked for and found gold, silver and copper.
We will pass some areas where mining was the “progenitor of civilization” here – on our way north from Phoenix, if you look to your left as we pass through Black Canyon City, you will see the Bradshaw Mountains dominating your view of the western horizon. Along the tops of these massive mountains, which extend for many miles out of sight beyond what you can see, there were a few gold mining communities. In their heyday in the late 1800s and early 1900s, these communities boasted all the amenities and even railroad service to haul down passengers (and ore) from the mines to the "mainline" railroad at Prescott. Some of Arizona’s mining towns were among the largest frontier communities west of the Mississippi – Jerome and Tombstone to name a couple.
Looking at this rugged terrain today (the Bradshaw Mountains), it is hard to imagine a railroad climbing up the steep mountainsides – but it did. Most all of the mining there played out and was abandoned during an economic slump following World War I. When it did, virtually all the towns on the Bradshaw Mountains died along with the industry - and the railroad.
At milepost 262, we will pass by a community called Cordes Junction. Today, “junction” refers to the junction of highways I-17 and 69. But when it was a new town, the “junction” was a fork on the Bradshaw Mountain Railroad. When the railroad went out of business, the resilient town simply picked itself up and moved to its present location -- several miles away from the original location – and made its purpose for existence the servicing of travelers on the (then) new automobile highway. Today, almost no one remembers that Cordes Junction was a railroad town. Some of the Cordes family still live in the area.
We will also see Jerome, AZ, a copper mining town high on the side of a mountain in the Verde Valley. In the other direction (southeast from Phoenix), silver was mined at Tombstone, AZ, copper at Globe and along the San Pedro river valley, and copper around Bisbee, at Morenci, at Globe/Miami, and across the border near Silver City, New Mexico. The Silver City mines date from the Spanish era.
Around the same time mining was beginning to flourish here, American ranching and farming began to be seen. For the people living on remote farms and ranches, life in 1860s – 1870s Arizona must have been a terrifying experience; the Apaches raided and killed almost whenever and wherever they wished. Most of the early agriculture was here to support the military posts – so the soldiers were sent out to subdue the Apaches (and the Navajos), and the Apache Wars began.
Americans started a war with Mexico in the mid-1840s. Mexico had a very weak central government, which had little to no support from the impoverished Mexican people. Virtually all the wealth that Spain had been able to accumulate here was shipped overseas for the benefit of the Crown – so Mexico and its people had very little wealth with which to build. The government (and life) of the country was factionalized and diffused. The United States, on the other hand, accumulated wealth that accrued to its people – who resisted every English effort to capitalize on their endeavors. When it came time for a fight over southwestern lands, Mexico simply could not compete. By 1852, the southern borders of Los Estados Unidos de America were set… and about the only thing Mexico was able to successfully deny the land-hungry Americans was the seaport of Puerto Peñásco… Mexico simply couldn’t tolerate the idea of the Americans having a naval base on the Gulf of California (or Sea of Cortez, if you prefer); they were thinking they would lose it all – their entire nation -- if that were to come to pass.
To get back to the story of the people… the trappers predated the war with Mexico, mining bridged those years, and American ranching and farming continued where Spanish and Mexican agricultural pursuits left off in the middle years of the 1800s. Most common Mexicans were very quickly disenfranchised and relegated to the fringes of American society. This is one of the main differences between Spain’s dominion here and American/English dominion – Spain sought to assimilate people, Anglo-Americans almost never did and we suffer the ill-effects of their disenfranchisement even today. However, it should be noted that there were negative outcomes from Spain’s policies as well; there are few saints.
But the outcome of Spain’s choice is that when we speak of Mexicans, we are talking about a people that are a mix of different cultures and origins. Spain attempted to incorporate these peoples into their nation and culture so today, the typical Mexican citizen is a mixture of Spanish, American and Central and South American Indian, White, African, Asian and who knows what other varieties of human beings - and as is many times the case, the Mexican culture is varied, vibrant and alive. Many of us who have made the southwest our home have done so because we love and appreciate the Mexican culture and way of life that was already here.
Finally, there were two more “kicks” to the settlement and growth of Arizona – first, in the 1870s, the railroads started snaking into Arizona – and within a couple of decades almost every area where you found people in Arizona you found railroads serving them – with the markets the railroads gave access to – came prosperity. Then, the 20th Century American military services recognized that Arizona’s climate and sparsely populated areas were optimum for training troops and (especially) aviators. Military training facilities dotted the landscape here for many years. Arizona has grown by leaps and bounds ever since, especially as air conditioning became more effective and commonplace.
Apacheans
Of course, there were other people here first. The Athabaskans (Apache and Navajo) had been pushed out of the buffalo hunting grounds of the Great Plains sometime around or after 1200 AD, and the only viable places for them to be pushed to were the mountains and highlands of Arizona. When the Spanish and the Americans showed up here, that displacement was probably still fresh in their minds, relatively speaking, and they fought tenaciously to keep history from repeating itself.
At the end of their struggle to hold onto their way of life and their lands, less than 100 fighting men of the Chiricahua, Mimbreño and Nednai Apaches were completely tying down the bulk of the United States Army. These were the superb horsemen of Cochise, Mangas Coloradas, Victorio, and Geronimo. It was one of our most memorable experiences with true guerilla warfare and we didn’t do so well in the encounter. Of course, history did repeat – and the Apaches in the end were beaten down and demoralized to the point where they could not effectively resist further; during that time they began to call themselves “Indeh,” which means “the dead.” By 1886, the Apache wars were over and the people were exiled to prisons and prison-camps, first in Florida and Alabama, then Oklahoma (near Lawton at Fort Sill).
They were never allowed to return to Arizona* -- even to this day they have not, although some of them were eventually allowed to join with their cousins on the Mescalero reserve in New Mexico. Still, many of them chose by that time to remain in Oklahoma – where they live today. The Navajo were close cousins of the Apache – and just a few hundred years ago they were the same people. The Navajo had a similar experience as did the Apaches, but it was compressed in time, (not to say it was not just as heart-breaking and tragic) but in the end, the Navajos (unlike the Apache) were allowed to return to their lands in northeastern Arizona, where they are still living today. We will be driving on the fringes of the Navajo “Dinetah” as we visit the Grand Canyon – their lands abut the National Park on its eastern borders.
*The Apaches who reside in Arizona today are for the most part more distant cousins of the Chiricahuas -- mostly White Mountain Apaches. That said, there was some mixing so some of the present-day White Mountain or San Carlos Apaches may also be directly descended from those mentioned as living in Oklahoma and New Mexico today. My statements above are only generally true.
The first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon
When Coronado rode north into Arizona, one of his goals was to link up with Admiral Hernando de Alarcón, who was to resupply him and also to attempt discovery of a water link between the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean. The admiral failed on both counts – he discovered there was no such water passage – and he failed to find Coronado. Neither of them fully appreciated the vastness of the lands they were exploring – at the only place they could have found each other when they were closest, there were still approximately 200 uncharted land-miles between them – and at the time such a link could have been accomplished, up to 400 miles separated the two parties.
Not realizing the vast distances over harsh terrain, and the logistical nightmare involved, Coronado sent Don Pedro de Tovar and Don Garcia Lopez de Cárdenas at the head of a party of 12, to see if they could locate Alarcón, and to find the “great river” that some of the Indians had told them about. That great river was the Colorado and it was the river for which they were looking – but when Tovar and Cárdenas located it, they were looking at it from the mile-high rim of the Grand Canyon. They were also somewhere around 250 river miles from any point where it was easily navigable. As you will see, “so close, yet so far!” But they and their men were the first Europeans known to see the Grand Canyon. They of course never found Alarcón or the supplies he had for them. Their guides (probably Hopi Indians) led them in a great circuitous route around and about northern Arizona in hopes of discouraging them and hopefully cause them to give up their quest and leave. The Hopis seemed to sense (then and now) that white people were nothing more than a large amount of trouble they could do without… Perceptive people, those Hopis.
“Mogollon Rim”
As we drive northward from Phoenix, at about the 299 mile post, we will begin a climb from roughly 5,000 feet to over 7,000 feet (a climb of roughly 800 meters). As we do so, we are leaving the lowlands and central mid-highlands of Arizona behind and climbing the Mogollón Rim onto the Colorado Plateau. You will see the vegetation change from Sonoran desert to Alpine-Ponderosa in less than 12 miles – and the air temperature will probably drop at least 10 degrees Fahrenheit, maybe 20, sometimes 30…
The Mogollón Rim is the dominating feature of central Arizona – it stretches for 200 miles or more from NW to SE, and it continues beyond Arizona’s eastern border into the state of New Mexico. It is named (as are several other features found in the southwest) for the Spanish governor of New Mexico (1712 to 1715), Don Juan Ignacio Flores Mogollón. You will find that Arizonans do not pronounce his name correctly – they say mug-ee-yone. People who live in the hotter areas of southern Arizona often find their way to the high country of the Mogollón Rim and the Colorado Plateau to escape the southern Arizona heat – to towns such as Flagstaff, Payson, Heber, Show Low and Springerville – and to the cooler surrounding forests of Ponderosa pines and their alpine lakes (full of trout). (By the way, Don Mogollón’s name should be pronounced “moh-go-YONE.”)
Wildlife of Grand Canyon
As we visit and view the Grand Canyon, one of the highlights may be a sighting of a California Condor. Condors were (and still are) nearly extinct, and a couple of decades ago the last known survivors were captured and placed in a captive breeding program in California, in an attempt to save the species.
Today, their progeny are being released in areas where they can survive and live, and they have been afforded “protected species” protection by our government. They are starting to breed successfully in the wild – and one of their new homes is the Grand Canyon (it was, in fact, part of their natural range). We will walk for several miles along the canyon rim in hopes of catching a glimpse of a magnificent Condor – I have seen them before, roosting along the Canyon’s edge. It remains to be seen whether the attempts to save them will be successful; it is not yet certain, although there is hope.
Other wildlife we may see around the Canyon are elk (or “wapiti”), mule deer, squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, porcupines, ravens, bighorn sheep, maybe even a mountain lion if we are lucky (not likely, however). There will be many lizards. Hawks and eagles are also frequent visitors, along with many smaller birds.
Some Cities of Arizona and their Origins
Phoenix
Built on the foundations of prehistoric Indians’ irrigation canals, Phoenix was founded back around 1870 by Frank Swilling as a farming area to supply hay and vegetables (most notably, pumpkins) to the Army post Fort McDowell. McDowell Road in Phoenix was once the road used to get from these communities of farmers to the army post about 30 miles northeast, and at one time Phoenix was known as “Pumpkinville.” Not for long, however…
Phoenix was finally renamed by Darryl Duppa, an itinerant Englishman (probably banished as a ne’er do well by his respectable and prominent family “back home”), who was thinking of the town’s rise from the “ashes” of the earlier Indian settlements (and those valuable irrigation canals). Mr. Duppa is also responsible for the naming of Tempe; he ended up later as a stagecoach station manager at New River or Rock Springs, both of which we will pass shortly after leaving Phoenix. Among his duties there was the preparation of food for stage employees and travelers, such as it was. When his beans were ready for consumption, “Lord” Duppa would bang on a drum, and yell out “Hash pile, come-a runnin’!”
Prescott
This town got its start because of the nearby mining activities, and because of its proximity to the soldiers at Camp Verde and Fort Whipple. Prescott was the first territorial capital of Arizona back around 1863 or so, and is today a high-country getaway for thousands of Phoenicians wishing to escape the summer heat. In frontier times, it was also a railroad hub. Every year on July 4th, Prescott holds its “Frontier Days Rodeo” which they claim is the “oldest rodeo” still ongoing. Payson, Arizona, makes the same claim about their rodeo – and no one really knows for sure if either one of them is lying about the whole thing. They probably both are.
Jerome
We may visit Jerome at some point on our excursion… it was founded as a mining community, but nearly died as the mines became less profitable and finally closed down altogether. Today it’s a physically crumbling community, clinging precariously and tenaciously to the side of Cleopatra Hill, on Mingus Mountain – and many artists live and work there. Among its attractions are the Grand Hotel, housed in what was once the town’s hospital, the Haunted Hamburger (a great place for ribs, sandwiches and chocolate cake) and the Spirit Room, a cool, dimly-lit biker bar downtown. Sometimes when traveling I-17 from Flagstaff to Phoenix, late at night, you can see the mysterious twinkling lights of Jerome far away across the Verde Valley, high on the side of Mingus Mountain.
Sedona
Sedona is a world-renowned area of scenic beauty and art. Many celebrities have called Sedona home in recent years – and nearby Oak Creek Canyon draws visitors and nature lovers from all over the world. The town was originally a picnic area for wealthy Flagstaff residents, who would descend the canyon in wagons to relax by the cool waters of Oak Creek. One of them, a lumber baron, named the fledgling community after his daughter – Sedona Schnebly. Hollywood later used the magnificent red rocks in the area as a backdrop for many films, especially westerns. For those seeking a great eagle-eye view of Sedona and adjacent Oak Creek Canyon, Schnebly Hill Road climbs over the Canyon and comes out at I-17; while it is a rough, jarring ride, it is passable in good weather in any average sedan. Schnebly Hill Road starts from the south side of the bridge over Oak Creek, near the shopping area called Tlaquepaque (or from its other end, exit 320 off I-17).
Flagstaff and Williams
These two are both railroad towns – built in the 1870s and 1880s as the railroads built west through Arizona. Almost all towns along I-40 in Arizona (if not all of them) got their start this way. Today, Flagstaff is a university town, but got its start as a shipping point for lumber and cattle, and in it's earliest days was also an important center for astronomical research at the Lowell Observatory. The "Almost a Planet Pluto" was first located and seen there by a young astronomer named Clyde Tombaugh, using a device called a "Blink Comparator." You can see that comparator today as you tour the observatory.
Williams is named after the famous mountain man Bill Williams, and is today flourishing with the success of the Grand Canyon railway – a tourist line that creates a nice (if expensive) “package deal” for some visiting the Grand Canyon, and the resurgent nostalgia Americans have for Route 66. One hundred years ago, this railroad was the ONLY comfortable way to get to the Canyon. The Grand Canyon Railroad branches off from a “mainline” transcontinental railroad at Williams. Williams is a charming little community with several restaurants, motels and other services that cater to the Grand Canyon and the Route 66 visitor – and it is my favorite base for northern Arizona sightseeing. Keep in mind (though) that the locals are cognizant of their “chance” and their prices for food, lodging and other traveler’s services are getting higher all the time.
Summary
I hope you can see and appreciate that the Arizona I know (and love) would not be what it is without the history and influence of the government and people of Spain over the course of more than 500 years. Spanish was the first European language spoken here – and many of the cultural things we love and consider uniquely ours as westerners were bequeathed to us by our Spanish forebears and their immediate successors in Mexico. These cultures that predated American dominion on this land, all of them, left an indelible, rich and lasting legacy in the Arizona-New Mexico southwest.
