Blatherings From The Editor

Arizona

(February 2006) 

While cruisin’ the back roads of Arizona, more than once I’ve wondered why the local aborigines chose this particular site to call home and build a town.  Let’s face it, some of Arizona’s towns are built in some rather precarious locations.

     While browsing the travel bookshelves at the local book store, I happened upon Roadside History of Arizona by Marshall Trimble.  Turns out Mr. Trimble was appointed by the Arizona Governor in 1997 as the state’s official historian.   Born in Ash Fork, he teaches history at the Scottsdale Community College where he specializes in the history, folklore, poetry and music of Arizona.

     Per Mr. Trimble most settlements in Arizona that we know and ride through today started up as mines or as towns that supported miners.  Then came the soldiers and their forts.  Soon large ranches and farms sprang up to produce the beef and beans they all needed to stay alive.  Water was another driving factor.  Without water nothing can stand the heat of the Arizona desert.

     Then came the railroads.  The old steam locomotives had to stop often to fill up with water and load up with wood.  Several towns along I-40 were early train stops.  Winslow, for example, was a train stop that ended up with one of the grandiose Harvey Houses, the La Posada Hotel.  In its day the La Posada was pure luxury in the midst of the desert.  The hotel has been restored and is a most excellent place to hang your helmet while visiting the guy standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona.

     The great western camel experiment, although successful, didn’t last long.  In the 1850’s the US Army used camels for a period in the Arizona desert as pack animals and hired a Syrian camel driver by the name of Hadji Ali.  He got the nickname of Hi Jolly.  Quite a character.  The next time you stop in Quartzsite along I-10, be sure to check out the stone monument to Hi Jolly, Arizona’s premier camel jockey.

     There are dozens of ghost towns in Arizona.  Miners came and went, and so did the towns that supported them.  It was copper that kept the big mines open for the longest time.  Bisbee, Morenci, San Manual, to name a few, were big copper producing towns.   The pits these mines produced will be with us for many moons to come.

     South of Las Vegas off of highway 93 is the small town of Chloride.  Look for Grasshopper Junction about 18 miles north of Kingman and turn east.  Chloride has the reputation as the first registered mine in Arizona.  There’s a small, inexpensive hotel, and a great bar/restaurant just around the corner that really rocks out on a Friday or Saturday night.  The city puts on a gun fight once a month.  The gun fighters are all women!

     Over the next few months I plan on doing several book reviews that deal with the history and folklore of Arizona.  After all the floods, hurricanes and earthquakes that have been hitting the rest of the world, the high desert of Arizona is looking pretty good!  Won’t hurt to learn a bit of the history we regularly ride through.  Deryle and Wanda, SEAT historians.