Earp's Willcox Grave
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Mysteries Swirl About the ‘Other’ Earp’s Willcox Grave SEPTEMBER 2005 Explore Arizona’s 6 National Forests n 12 Unique Family Adventures n A Rim With a View n Thumb Butte Wildlife n Rangers Tell Strange Tales Coppermine {departments} Trading Post 2 DEAR EDITOR SEPTEMBER 2005 Grand Canyon National Park Hopi Indian 3 ALL WHO WANDER Reservation There’s a synergy among squirrels, fungi and Thumb Butte Mogollon Rim This Land Is Your Land ponderosa pines. PHOENIX 4 VIEWFINDER CASA GRANDE HISTORY Digital manipulation TUCSON WILLCOX 10 Rim With a View 30 of photographs is a no-no. Mount Hopkins Chiricahua Mountains The ‘Other’ Earp's TOMBSTONE Our writer revisits the cliff country of his youth, 5 TAKING THE OFF-RAMP and gets a long, new view from a fire tower. Mystery Grave POINTS OF INTEREST Explore Arizona oddities, FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE BY CRAIG CHILDS Baby brother Warren Earp never caught attractions and pleasures. the same limelight as his well-known brothers of O.K. Corral shoot-out fame, 40 ALONG THE WAY 16 Forests Mark Centennial but he’s the only sibling buried in In the 1940s, cotton pickers in Arizona learned some hard lessons. After a hundred years, rangers still must balance Arizona. BY KATHLEEN WALKER competing demands. BY LEO W. BANKS 42 BACK ROAD ADVENTURE FOCUS ON NATURE Coppermine Trading Post 34 Explore this historic abandoned site and 28 Forest Adventures Move Over, Hummers its environs in Navajoland. Hike, fish, paddle, pan for gold, ride a train The “sweet tooth” of three nectar- 46 DESTINATION and more in our six national forests. loving species of bats puts them in Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory O competition for the sugarwater of BY J BETH JAMISON Getting up Mount Hopkins is half the fun. hummingbird feeders. BY CHARLES S. RAU Also see 48 HIKE OF THE MONTH Thumb Butte Loop Trail in Prescott National Forest HIKE Thumb Butte Wildlife, page 48 INDIAN CULTURE features falcons and Abert’s squirrels. DESTINATION Whipple Observatory, page 46 36 Hopi Artists Complete Circle Potters and carvers return to their native land Photographic Prints to discover renewed creativity and spirituality. Available BY KATHLEEN BRYANT PHOTOGRAPHS BY LARRY LINDAHL n Each month, prints of some photographs from Arizona Highways will be offered for sale, as designated in captions. To order prints, call toll-free (866) 962-1191 or visit www.magazineprints.com. {highways on television} Arizona Highways magazine has inspired an independently produced weekly television series, hosted by Phoenix TV news anchor Robin Sewell. The half-hour program can be seen in several cities in English and Spanish. For channels and show times, log on to arizonahighways.com; click on “DISCOVER ARIZONA”; then click on the “Arizona Highways goes to television!” link on the right-hand side. BATTY ABOUT AGAVE online arizonahighways.com [THIS Page] Two lesser long-nosed bats grab a hit of nectar from agave This month on our Web site, you’ll find a wealth of information blossoms, providing pollination in about our national outdoor treasures. Go to arizonahighways.com return. See story, page 34. bat CONSERvatION INteRNatIONAL and click on the “National Treasures Guide” for: • More national forest adventures TAKING IN THE VIEW • Tips for visiting Mogollon Rim Country [FRONT CoveR] A relaxed hiker in A travel planner to Arizona’s national parks Sedona's red rock country enjoys the • Coconino National Forest. See story, and monuments page 16. DugaLD BREMNER PLUS, get our regular monthly online-only features: INNER BASIN HUMOR Gene Perret explains “dry heat.” [baCK CoveR] A flare of aspens illuminates ONLINE EXTRA Journey to a historic ranch. the edge of Lockett Meadow in the San WEEKEND GETAWAY Explore Fort Apache. Francisco Peaks’ Inner Basin. PauL GILL TRAVEL THROUGH TIME Visit Arizona’s ghostly seaport. n To order a print of this photograph, see information above right. EXPERIENCE ARIZONA Plan a trip with our calendar. {dear editor} by Peter Aleshire, editor {all who wander} [email protected] SEPTEMBER 2005 VOL. 81, NO. 9 Publisher WIN HOLDEN Editor PETER ALESHIRE Senior Editor BETH DEVENY Wyatt Earp: Pimp, Hustler and Thug? Congratulations, Bob, on a terrific column and on Managing Editor RANDY SUMMERLIN For Want of a Fungus the Squirrel Is Lost — As Are We All Research Editor LORI K. BAKER Leo W. Banks’ article, “Wyatt Earp: The Post-shoot- an even better career. Thanks for sharing a good part Editorial Administrator CONNIE BOCH out Years” (April ’05), is fiction. Earp was never a of your working life with us. I know you will enjoy Administrative Assistant NIKKI KIMBEL he tassel-eared squirrel chitters. forests harboring certain kinds of root fungi. legitimate lawman for any length of time, and he whatever comes next. Director of Photography PETER ENSENBERGER The goshawk cries. Perhaps the truffles even help the squirrels digest Photography Editor RICHARD MAACK certainly wasn’t a hero. He was a thug, a gambler, a Don Hurzeler, Lake in the Hills, IL TAnd I ponder, leaning back against the the tough pine seeds and the cellulose in the tree’s pimp, a hustler, a con man and a world-class liar. You will be pleased to know that upon retirement Bob Art Director BARBARA GLYNN DENNEY vanilla-scented bark of a ponderosa that sprouted inner bark. In any case, something in the fungus is Deputy Art Director BILLIE JO BISHOP If there is a hero in the Tombstone saga, it can was promptly honored by the Society of Professional Art Assistant PAULY HELLER before Columbus sailed or the ancient Puebloans essential to the squirrel. only be Sheriff John Behan, the man whose memory Journalists and the Arizona Press Club for a career Map Designer KEVIN KIBSEY vanished. So the squirrel sounds like a hungry fungus is today maligned. He was a courageous Arizona that has shaped journalism in this state for decades. Arizona Highways Books Here is what I wonder: Did Gifford Pinchot parasite. Editor BOB ALBANO pioneer, father, businessman, lawman, loyal public In his final year here, he put out the best travel Associate Editor EVELYN HOWELL grasp the significance of his obsessive Except for one thing. servant and a veteran of three wars. His rightful magazine in the West, according to the Western Associate Editor PK PERKIN MCMAHON push a century ago to plant the seedling The squirrels spread fungus spores as they dig in place in Arizona history was stolen from him by the Publications Association. Nowadays, he’s teaching Production Director KIM ENSENBERGER of the Forest Service, which now the forest floor. Promotions Art Director RONDA JOHNSON purveyors of the false legend of Wyatt Earp. writing at Arizona State University and mentoring Webmaster VICKY SNOW safeguards more than 11 million acres in In fact, States found that only the spores he Gene Botts, Fernandina Beach, FL a new generation of writers. In fact, the only thing Director of Sales & Marketing KELLY MERO Arizona? extracted from squirrel feces would sprout and Wow. This sounds personal. Good thing Doc Holliday about Bob that irritates me is that he left behind We celebrate his foresight in this grow on tree roots. Circulation Director HOLLY CARNAHAN didn’t hear you say that. Of course, history’s a slippery these enormous shoes I’m clumping about in. issue, with an anniversary story So the ponderosas make possible the fungus that Finance Director BOB ALLEN beast — especially when greased by movies and about the rickety beginnings of an makes possible the squirrels that make possible the Fulfillment Director VALERIE J. BECKETT memoirs. We keep trying to rub the facts hard enough Jumpin’ Geology agency that still strains to balance the fungus that mayhap make possible the trees. to glimpse the gleam of brass beneath the tarnish of As a geologist, I was particularly impressed by the Information Technology Manager CINDY BORMANIS jostling and jabbing of contending But wait. We’re not through. myth. I suspect the truth lies somewhere between your article “Earth’s Exotic Geology”(May ‘05) and its interests — environmentalists, hikers, Despite their service in spreading fungus FOR CUSTOMER INQUIRIES version and the last gushing Earp movie. graphics. I wish that everyone in my field had access OR TO ORDER BY PHONE: ranchers, loggers, hawks and squirrels. spores from root to root, the squirrels eat so many to it. The picture on page 22 with the jointing of the Call toll-free: (800) 543-5432 Did Pinchot know what he had pinecones, needles and even bark that they’d be In the Phoenix area or outside the U.S., Thanks, Bob Early bedded sandstone was a particularly outstanding Call (602) 712-2000 wrought? hard on the trees if their numbers got too high. In the April 2005 issue, I read and saved the column photograph of a geologic exposure. The veins or fins, Or visit us online at: Do we know even yet? Enter the goshawks. arizonahighways.com from retiring editor Bob Early (“Along the Way,” as they are described, are caused by groundwater. I think not. Goshawks live mostly on tassel-eared squirrels. For Corporate or Trade Sales: “The Poor Old Editor Bids Farewell — But Not to His The photograph is a textbook classic. DOLORES FIELD Just as an example, we still have but Perch hunters, they thrive under the forest canopy, Beloved Arizona”). Phil LaMoreaux, Tuscaloosa, AL Call (602) 712-2045 barely grasped the strange threesome of but can’t compete in the open against hawks E-MAIL “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR”: the hawk, the pine and the squirrel. that circle overhead looking for prey. So logging [email protected] But let me back up a bit. that has eliminated most old-growth forests has Regular Mail: Editor Out here in the forest, the ponderosas also hammered the goshawks, which are now Congratulations 2039 W.