A history of Williams, Arizona, 1876-1951 Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic); maps Authors Fuchs, James R. Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 09/10/2021 06:46:33 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/551188 A HISTORY OF WELLIAMS, ARIZONA 1876-1951 James R. Fuchs A Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Graduate College, University of Arizona 1952 3 - % TAB IE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.......................... ill TABLE OF MAPS.................................. lv INTRODUCTION .................................. v Chapter I. NORTHERN ARIZONA, 1540-1870.............. 1 II. PIONEERS IN THE WILLIAMS AREA, 1869-1881 . 25 III. CHARLES T. ROGERS AND THE WILLIAMS TOWNSITE................................. 38 IV. FORMATIVE YEARS, 1881-1890 .............. 56 V. GROWING PAINS, 1891-1900 ................ 104 VI. COMING OF AGE, 1901-1910.................. 154 VII. ERA OF CIVIC IMPROVEMENT, 1911-1930. 206 VIII. RECENT PROGRESS, 1931-1951.............. 259 IX. GATEWAY TO THE GRAND CANYON(CONCLUSION) . 296 APPENDICES......................................... 304 BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................... 312 22321S LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Follows Page 1 1.-.' John Clark............ .......................... 28 Charles Thomas Rogers, 1827-1905. 58 Gurley Street- Prescott, Showing Rogers' Market . 40 Frank Lansing'Rogers in 1876. ., . ..... 45 Williams in 1882 (Looking West) . 55- First Bridge in Johnson Canyon, At Simms Tunnel . 58 Completed Bridge in Johnson Canyon. 60 Headquarters of Railroad Construction Engineers . 65 Cormick'E. Boyce. .' . 65 Williams in 1885. 70 Wilson and Haskell Sawmlli( 1882) . 72 Saginaw Lumber Company, Williams ..(1898) .... • 112 Saginaw Southern Railroad, Williams............ 144 Railroad Avenue, About 1898 . 155 Second Street, 1906 (Looking North)". 202 Bill . Williams Avenue, 1906 V .... 203 Bill Williams Avenue. .. 271 Williams Opera House (Odd Fellows Hall) . .... 286 Aerial View of Williams, 1951 . ....... 296 o o ill TABLE OF MAPS Follows Map Page 1. Map of the Military Department of New Mexico, 1864 . ................. In Pocket 2. Portion of a Map, "East End A.&P.R.R.— Map No. 1, Map of Revised Location from the Colorado River East . /Original, 1880/"...................... 29 3. Portion of a "Map of Arizona Territory, 1879". .... .............. ...... 39 4. Portion of a "Map of Atlantic & Pacific R. R. through the Territory of Arizona, /I87]J" . .......................... 42 5. Portion of a Map, "Atlantic and Pacific R. R. from Peach Spring /pic/ to San Francisco Mt.— 123 Miles, /I88Q7". ............................. 42 6. Diagram of Ranch of C. T. Rogers as Related to T. 22N,, R. 2E. (G.&S.R.B.M.). ........................... 46 7. Portion of a "Diagram Showing Connections of Public Land Surveys with Atlantic and Pacific R, Road through T. 22N. R's. 1, 2, 3, and 4E,, Arizona". ..... 46 8. Map of the Townsite of Williams, 1888 .... 46 9. Bicycle Roads near Williams, Arizona, April 1, 1896, .............................. 138 10. Unofficial Plat of the Town of Williams, Coconino County, Arizona, 1951 .......... In Pocket 11. Map of Coconino County. ........... In Pocket iv INTRODUCTION The writer, in this manuscript, has attempted to present ohronologieally the historical development of Williams, Arizona from the date of its establishment as a post office by that name in June, 1881 until the present time. Preceding the history proper is a summary of Spanish and Anglo-American activity in northern Arizona, with particular reference to the Bill Williams Mountain country, prior to the establishment of the town. Williams is a relatively small town in northern Arizona situated on U. S. Highway 66 and on the main line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. The junction of the Santa Fe*s branch line to the Grand Canyon is at Williams. The town is thirty-four miles west of Flagstaff, Arizona, the seat of Coconino County, in which administrative unit Williams has been since 1891. Prior to then the area comprising the present Coconino was a part of Yavapai County, Prescott, where the founder of Williams was living prior to his advent into the Bill Williams Mountain country, is the county seat of Yavapai. Dominating the landscape at Williams is Bill Williams Mountain which, beginning its rise on the south side of Williams, ascends to an elevation of 9,282 feet, some 2,500 feet above the town. The town received its mam* from this peak, which in turn was named after the almost legendary "mountain man," William Sherley Williams, better known as "Old Bill Williams." Initially established as a post office on the cattle ranch of C. T. Rogers, which lay on the proposed route of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, Williams experienced its first substantial growth as a railroad construction camp. Railroading and ranching continued to be important to the town after the nascent years, although in slightly more than a decade lumbering had supplanted these two industries as the major economic factor in the town’s growth* It was natural that Williams should become a lumbering town inasmuch as it is situated in a part (the present Kaibab National Forest) of that timber belt in northern Arizona which has been described as the largest unbroken forest of western yellow pine (pinus ponderosa) in the United States, However, with the gradual depletion of the timber re­ sources immediately contiguous to W illiams, the industry has become less important to the town and its position has been taken over by the "tourist industry," Williams, within sixty miles of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, has become known as the "Gateway to the Grand Canyon" because of the several facilities at or near Williams which provide access to the Grand vl Canyon National Park. These are the "Grand Canyon Line" of the Santa Fe Railroad and the paved highway (State Highway 64) which leaves U. S. Highway 66 several miles east of town and provides an excellent road for motoring to the South Rim. At present Williams derives its in­ come largely by providing for the needs of those who comprise the tremendous volume of tourist traffic over Highway 66. A large portion of this traffic is bound for the Canyon. The vacationist is not only attracted to the region by the Grand Canyon, but also by the delightful summer climate which prevails in this mountain country. The section is also blessed with usually moderate winter temperatures, and the snow-laden slopes of Bill Williams Mountain are bringing, in increasing numbers, ski enthusiasts to the Williams area. It is largely to the expansion of the tourist trade that Williams owes its lease on life after the removal of the large lumber company, and a principal aim of the community at present is the development of the Bill Williams Mountain country as a resort area. In this work no attempt has been made to present an exhaustive analysis of the ranching, lumbering, rail­ road, or tourist industries in northern Arizona, all of which have been important to Williams. Newspapers, of necessity, have been the chief source of information, and the writer recognizes some of the attendant disadvantages. vii In the early days, particularly, there was a tendency to report upon coming events or proposed actions and then to report no further as to whether the action had taken place or not. Thus it has sometimes been necessary to qualify a statement where a more positive assertion would he more desirable. Since newspapers were the best source of information, it is especially unfortunate that Williams had no local newspaper during its first decade and, ap­ parently, all remaining copies of the newspaper issued for the first ten years of the local paper's existence were lost in the fire of July, 1901* Therefore, for the first twenty years of the town's history it has been necessary to rely largely upon newspapers of other Arizona towns to piece together the events at Williams. For the later years, well-kept files of The Williams News have made the details more readily accessible. In writing this seventy-five year history of Williams, more attention has been given to personalities in the early period than in the later years. While this is a history of the town's development, and not a series of biographical sketches, it has been considered, nevertheless, of sufficient interest to include a small portion of the material available on the pioneers of the area, while many of those citizens of later years— no doubt just as important to their day——have been given little or no mention. Hence, someone familiar with the history of viii Williams may find that attention has been devoted to men such as Charles T, Rogers and Cormick E. Boyce— important men in the early days of the t o m — while later citizens who have achieved more, perhaps, and who have become better known, in view of their accomplishments on a county or state level, have seldom been mentioned in re­ lating the town’s history. ix A HISTORY OF WILLIAMS, ARIZONA 1876-1951 CHAPTER I NORTHERN ARIZONA, 1540-1870 Northern Arizona had seldom been visited by the white man until the third decade of the nineteenth century, although