Max Dicken, Ph.D

What Do We Have? A Study Unit of the Four Corners Country of the United States

by Max Dicken, Ph.D. 1985-1986

Edited and adapted for CD-ROM by Woods Canyon Archaeological Consultants, Inc. YellowJacket, Colorado 2000 Part 1 Four Corners Country

UTAH COLORADO ABAJO MOUNTAINS

SAN JUAN

MONTEZUMA CREEK MOUNTAINS DOLORES RIVER

LA PLATA

MOUNTAINS R E

UTE MTN MESA VERDE

RIV PIEDRA RIVER COS MAN

PROJECT AREA CHINLE WASH SAN JU AN RIVER

LA PLATA RIVER

CANYON de CHELLY CHUSKA N MOUNTAINS CHACO CANYON

CHACO 0 20 40 km WASH ARIZONA NEW MEXICO CHAPTER 1

THE UNIQUE FOUR CORNERS COUNTRY

The Four Corners Country of the southwestern United States is a unique region. Located where the state boundaries of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico intersect (the only such point in the nation), this area is unusual in both its geography and history.

People of the Four Corners live in the shadow of a history that extends thousands of years into the dim shadowy past, and also comes well into the 20th century. In the 1980s some elderly residents could still recall stories of covered wagons, clashes between Anglo settlers and Indians, and the changes from the open range livestock era to broad cultivated farmlands. What Do We have? tells this fascinating story.

EXTENT OF THE UNIT

This booklet considers from 30,000 to 40,000 square miles of the land surrounding the Four Corners survey marker as the Four Corners Country. Areas adjacent to this primary region will be studied also, since they influence the central localities.

Although a long time span and large geographical area are covered lightly, the chief emphasis is on a smaller setting. Closely studied is the Dolores County, Colorado, area with its adjacent regions, especially the Great Sage Plain. Historically, the thousands of years of time are covered lightly, with only the century beginning at about 1875 receiving careful treatment. GEOGRAPHY OF THE FOUR CORNERS COUNTRY

Distinctive geographical features dominate the region. Generally, a high altitude land, mountains reach into the thin air above 14,000 feet within the Colorado area. Lower alpine terrain rises in the corners of all four states. Some of the most scenic and spectacular places of the world are found there. Although much of the region-is arid or semi-arid, well-watered agricultural lands abound in addition to the moist forests and alpine highlands. Extensive pasture lands used by ranchers livestock and wildlife lie in all of the states.

The canyons of the area are outstanding. Especially noted are those of the Utah section, including Canyonlands National Park. Other wonderful chasms and gorges exist in many different locations. They comprise some of the most exciting landscapes to be seen anywhere.

The major river is the Colorado, flowing on the region’s western edge. An important tributary is the San Juan River. Others include the Dolores and its tributary the San Miguel, The Animas, La Plata, Mancos, the Dirty Devil (on the western side), the Rio Grande (at the eastern limits), and several others.

Being a portion of the larger Colorado Plateau region, a dominant landform is plateaus, of course. One of the most prominent among the many is Mesa Verde— famed for the national park located there. The Anasazi cliff dwellings and other archaeological remains thus protected are of worldwide importance.

Numerous lakes, both natural and man-made, dot the four-state area. Small and large, desert and mountain, they vary from remote high alpine Navajo Lake snuggled below Mount Wilson in Dolores County, Colorado, to fantastic Lake Powell on the Colorado River in Utah’s Canyonlands. McPhee Lake, newly created in 1985-1986, on the Dolores River is the second largest body of water in Colorado. THE HISTORY IS VARIED, TOO

A small number of paleolithic hunters lived in the Four Corners Country long ago. They preyed upon now extinct huge beasts throughout the region for thousands of years B.C. When their food supply of great animals died out, the hunters disappeared with them.

The Anasazi Indian civilization followed. That stone-age people developed a settled society that lasted for more than 13 centuries. Their cultural golden age was reached in the 12th and 13th centuries. The civilization collapsed rather suddenly, and by A.D. 1300 the Anasazi were gone from the central Four Corners region.

During the 13th to 20th centuries the country was inhabited by several unlike Indian groups. Included were the mountain dwelling Utes, the Navajos of the deserts, the far-ranging Apaches widely scattered Paiute bands, and Hopi relatives and descendants of the ancient Anasazi. All of these diverse tribes developed lifeways suited to the different climates and conditions of their homeland.

Spanish penetration of the area began in 1540, with Coronado’s exploring expedition. During the following centuries Spaniards colonized parts of the southeastern section of the region. The Old Spanish Trail became a commercial route connecting Spanish settlements of New Mexico with those in California. The Trail passed the present site of Dove Creek. Various European explorers, fur trappers, traders, and prospectors traveled through and worked in the area during the passing years.

THE LAND BECAME A LATE FRONTIER

The Four Corners Country was remote from other European settlements. Protected by vast distances, rugged mountains, precipitous canyons, nearly impassable deserts, and dangerous hostile Indians, it was by-passed by the western frontier. When the American frontier was officially considered to be ended (about 1890), the Four Corners frontier was only beginning. A part of the “fill-in” after the frontier had jumped from the Great Plains to the Pacific coast, this region was first settled by miners and stockmen.

The dust had scarcely settled from traders’ caravans along the Old Spanish Trail, when long-riding Texas cowboys began driving their thousands of longhorn cattle onto the lush grasslands of the Dove Creek country and throughout the Four Corners Country. They found a stockman’s paradise! Vast re aches of nutritious native grass provided free pasture for both summer and winter.

The open range livestock era lasted about 40 years. In about 1914, the Dove Creek and adjacent ranges were opened to homesteaders by the federal government. Drynester farmers soon began fencing and cultivating the land. Although stock raising remained an important part of the economic life of the Four Corners area, the open range disappeared. Cattle drives and other parts of the old time cowboys’ lives had nearly ceased by the 1980s.

The economy in the 1980s is varied. Residents work at jobs in agriculture (including livestock), minerals— including oil and gas, forest products, light industry, and tourism. Tourists were late in discovering the unique Four Corners region, just as the pioneers were. However, tourism is perhaps the largest industry during the 1980s. Worksheet for Chapter 1 The Unique Four Corners Country

1. The Four Corners Country is located where the state boundaries of ______, Utah, ______, and New Mexico intersect. 2. From ______to ______square miles of the land surrounding the Four Corners survey marker is considered the ______. 3. Closely studied is the ______County, ______, area with its ______regions, especially the ______Plain. 4. Only the century beginning at about _____ receives careful ______. 5. Mountains reach into the thin air ______feet within the ______area. 6. ______of the area are outstanding. 7. A major river is the ______, on the region’s western edge. 8. Other rivers include the ______, and its tributary, the San Miquel. 9. A dominant landform is ______, of course. 10. Remote high alpine ______Lake is below Mount Wilson. Lake ______is on the Colorado River in Utah’s ______. 11. Long ago, paleo hunters preyed upon now-extinct ______. 12. The Anasazi cultural ______age was reached in the ______and ______centuries. By ______the Anasazi were gone. 13. Later, the country was inhabited by several different ______. 14. ______penetration of the area began in ______. 15. The ______Trail passed the present site of Dove Creek. 16. When the American frontier was officially considered to be ended (about ______), the ______frontier was only beginning. 17. The first non-Indian settlers in this region were ______and ______. 18. The open range ______era lasted about ______years. 19. Farmers soon began ______and ______the land. 20. Name the creek that runs just west of Dove Creek: ______. 21. Name the river that lies east of Dove Creek: ______. Part 2 Saga of the Anasazi Worksheet for Chapter 2 Prehistoric Man in the Four Corners: Folsom Man, Basketmaker, Pueblo

1. Nothing but the great ______interested the early hunters. 2. However, the big ones were nearly ______. 3. The ______was enough to make the patch of ______grow well. 4. The women made fine ______from bone for ______. 5. The children helped with the ______, and learned to ______and ______. 6. How pretty such ______would be on her arms. 7. She did not know that ______later another young girl would look wonderingly at the shiny ______. 8. When they came into the area they brought ______, ______, and ______. 9. Summer clothing was ______. 10. The outstanding craft was ______: beautiful and useful ______of many shapes. 11. Dug into the ground about ______feet, the ______houses had above-ground walls and roofs, covered with ______. 12. From about 450 to 750 A.D. is the ______. 13. The _____ and arrow had been adopted, partly replacing the ______. 14. From their Mogollon neighbors, they learned to make ______. 15. The long ______metate was used with the new _____-______manos. 16. By about 750 A.D., the Anasazi began building ______-______structures. 17. Fields of ______, ______, and ______surrounded the villages. 18. The villages usually had from ______to ______rooms. 19. Villages were usually ______near a ______or other source of ______. 20. Anasazi women began using a ______cradleboard. 21. Trade was carried on with people from the ______coast and tropical ______. 22. It was a time of ______. The population ______greatly. CHAPTER 2

PREHISTORIC MAN IN THE FOUR CORNERS FOLSOM MAN, BASKETMAKER, PUEBLO

A bright summer sun shone warmly on the little canyon. Evergreen trees shaded the creek as its clear water splashed over the rocks and dozed in the quiet pools. Cloud shadows moved across the cliffs which frowned down from the northern canyon walls. Meadow larks sang to each other.

The great shaggy buffalo stopped eating the lush belly-high grass along the creek. He looked around uneasily. Two cow buffaloes, smaller than he, but still huge and shaggy, rested in the shade while licking their calves. The bull didn’t realize what was bothering him, but he was lonely. He had grown up among many of his kind, but every year there were fewer. This year he and his family had seen no other buffalo since spring. Those frightful hunters – only the lucky escaped them.

Above the cliffs waited the hunters, unseen, squatting patiently on their heels. Seven lean, tough, dark skinned men with eyes sparkling at the sight in the little valley below. Long-eared deer watched the men curiously. Tur- keys walked among the oak brush and pinyon trees without fear. The hunters never disturbed them. Nothing but the great beasts interested the men. They moved over the wild land, hunting only the largest animals. Finding the big buffalo was no longer easy, and it had been years since they had killed the last huge woolly elephants. Maybe they would have to take their families eastward after all of these were killed. Stories were told of large herds of buffalo wandering east of the high mountains. They were much smaller than those found here, However the big ones were nearly all gone, and what man had so little pride that he would hunt deer?

But this day they had again found some huge ones; tonight their families would feast on the choice steaks, cut off some of the thinner hide for clothing and bags, and leave the rest to the wolves and coyotes. The excited hunters spread out silently along the cliff top, spears prepared for the attack.

Neither the great buffalo, among the last survivors of their kind, or the fierce men hunting them, knew that several thousand years later a different race of men would live here; that boys and girls from a small town four miles away would walk along the same creek and enjoy the same bright sunshine. The hunters slaughtered the huge beasts to extinction and then moved away in search of more. Ever moving they built no permanent homes for their families. They made excellent stone tools, and bags of animal skins. Part of their food supply was the collected wild fruits and plants easily gathered in the well- watered land. When they moved away, few artifacts were left behind. We know little about them.

One thousand years passed. The little creek still burbled over the rocks and paused in the quiet pools, Evergreen trees still shaded the path beside the clear water. Me land was yet well-watered by rains in summer and snows in winter. But the creek had less water and the tall grass was not as thick and lush as when the last great buffalo grazed here. The moisture was enough to make the patch of corn grow well. The Basketmaker family had worked hard to dig out enough sagebrush for a large garden. Beside the corn grew squash vines. The parents of the man and woman had moved onto the Great Sage Plain from the lower, dryer desert to the south. When this couple had married, they set up their home in a pleasant cave under the high cliffs of the canyon’s north side. Basketmakers did not build houses. None of their friends lived in houses. The cave was dry and comfortable. In winter the low sun shone in under the cliff and warmed them. Corn, squash and dried fruits and nuts were stored in rock-lined pits, Unlike the wild hunters of a thousand years earlier, these men were proud to hunt the long-eared deer. Although most of their food was wild and gathered from the fruitful countryside, the corn and squash they grew made life much easier. Also the men were skilled with the atlatl, which enabled them to hurl their small spears with more force. They made snares and caught small animals and birds. Deer and bighorn sheep were their special delight.

The flint points made for their spears and darts, and the blades chipped into shape for their knives, were sharp and beautiful. The women made fine awls from bone for sewing. Corn, nuts, seeds, and dried fruits were mashed and ground on rounded flat stone metates with small stone manos; the manos were shaped to fit one hand of the woman or girl who owned them.

They were skilled in weaving. The baskets, bags, sandals, and sashes were beautiful and useful. Weaving was often done by both the man and woman of the Basketmaker family. Some of their baskets woven from yucca fibers, were so tight that only a little pinyon pitch was needed to make them hold water. The children helped with the work, learned to hunt and farm and make the things they needed, and played with their dogs. Dogs helped in hunting, and provided soft hair to be woven into ropes, sashes, and snares.

It was a good life. Just today a trader, an Anasazi Basketmaker like themselves, had appeared on the path leading from the southern desert. In his cone-shaped basket carried on his back were amazing things. He had walked for months to a great sea. There he had gotten seashells that glowed with a silvery loveliness. Would the lady like some? Yes, she would. How pretty such pearly bracelets would be on her arms, and on her daughter’s arms! The mother could not keep her eyes away from such beauty.

As they sat cross-legged about the fire eating supper, the trader told of strange things and strange people he had seen far to the south. Before sleep that night a trade was made: beautiful baskets with red and green designs, and a bag of corn, for five silvery seashell bracelets, As the mother slipped a polished white bracelet onto her thrilled daughter’s dusky arm, she had no thought of the future. She did not know that two thousand years later another young girl would look wonderingly at the shiny ornament. A twelve-year-old girl of a different culture, but with the same love for beauty.

These ancient people, “Anasazi” we call them, were the Basketmaker II culture. They lived in many places of the Four Corners region as early as 1 A.D. When they came into the area they brought dogs, corn, and squash. They farmed, but much of their food was gathered from wild plants. Hunting provided protein.

Generally they lived in dry caves facing the southern sunshine. Very few built permanent houses to live in, but large slab-lined pits were made in the cave floors for food storage.

They made beautiful jewelry from stone, bone, wood, and seashell. Turquoise came into use. Their stone scrapers, knives, points, and other tools were well made, In the cold winters they used skins and large rabbit fur blankets for warmth. Cradles were made of woven reeds, with a soft pillow for the baby’s head. But the outstanding craft was weaving: beautiful and useful baskets of many shapes; and sandals, sashes, aprons, bags, etc. From about 450 to 750 A.D. is the Basketmaker III period. The people had developed houses — some in the caves and some on the mesas above. Dug into the ground about three feet, the pit houses had above-ground walls and roofs of poles, sticks, and bark covered with dirt. This structure looked like an upside down bowl over top the hole in the ground. The entrance was a door in the roof, with a ladder down to the floor. A special ventilation shaft brought in fresh air for the fire. The bow and arrow had been adopted partly replacing the atlatl. From their Mogollon neighbors in the mountainous of southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico they had learned to make pottery. Pot- tery made cooking and food storage easier.

Their gardens now included beans which added good quality protein. They tamed turkeys to provide both food and feathers, which were used to make warm and attractive blankets.

Increased use of corn caused them to develop a different type of metate to grind the hard kernels better. They used long trough metates with two-handed manos.

Many more tools were invented. Axes, hammers, fishhooks, arrow-sizing devices, and different projectile points for various uses. Jewelry was improved. Strong yucca cords longer than 1300 feet were made. By the end of this period most of the Basketmaker people lived in small villages or clusters of pithouses built near their fields on the mesas. The houses were comfortable both in warm and cold weather. The population increased and villages were located all over the-Four Corners region.

By about 750 A.D. the Anasazi were changing their style of houses. They began building above-ground structures. The 750 to 1100 A.D. period is called the Developmental Pueblo Period, or Pueblo I and II. And the people are now called Pueblo people instead of Basketmakers, although they are descendents of the Basketmakers and still make fine baskets.

Rather than clusters of individual round pit houses, the above ground rectangular dwellings were joined together end-to-end, often in long curving rows— but sometimes in L-shaped or straight lines. Usually they faced the south with one or more below-ground rooms, called kivas, in the front patio. The kivas were used for social and religious purposes, not for living rooms.

The houses were made of posts with vertical walls constructed of sticks covered with clay and mud. Doors were generally in the sides. Roofs were flat and were used for additional living space, Fields of corn, beans, and squash surrounded the villages. By 850 A.D. the rooms were joined more compactly and were often more than one story high, with the walls built of carefully shaped stone masonry. The kivas were also stone-walled, and used chiefly by the men as workrooms, clubrooms, and a place to conduct religious rites. The villages usually had from four to fifteen rooms, for that number of families. There were extra storage rooms, and many single family stone houses scattered over the countryside as well. Villages were usually located near a spring or other source of water.

At the beginning of Pueblo I times, Anasazi women began using a hard wooden cradleboard. Babies were tightly bound to these, which caused their skulls to flatten on the back making a broader-faced people. This became the preferred style, and very soon all cradleboards were of the hard wooden type. Farming increased and improved methods were learned. Terraces were developed to catch water and topsoil. Hundreds of acres of small terraces covered mesas and valleys in many places. Ditches were designed and dug to divert runoff from snow and rains. Reservoirs were built and it seems that even irrigation from ever-running streams was used.

Pottery improved in quality, painted designs became common and corrugated pottery appeared. Utensils of many styles and uses were made. Crafts of all kinds improved. In fact, everything that they made became better. Petroglyphs pecked into cliff walls and pictographs painted onto cliffs or house walls increased throughout the area.

Large turkey feather blankets were made and fine cotton cloth appeared about 900 A.D. Cotton was grown by the southern Anasazi and imported by their northern friends.

Trade was carried on with people as far away as the Pacific coast and tropical Mexico. Cultural exchange took place with neighboring civilizations. It was a time of peace. The population increased greatly, with thousands of villages located all over the Four Corners region, especially in the Great Sage Plain.

CHAPTER 3

PREHISTORIC MAN IN THE FOUR CORNERS CLASSIC PUEBLO AND DISASTER

The Pueblo III Period, from about 1100 to 1300 A.D., is called the Classic or Great Pueblo time. After thirteen centuries of steady improvement the Anasazi culture reached its highest level. In the Chaco and mesa Verde areas stone masonry construction reached a high degree of quality. Masonry was not as well done by the Kayenta Anasazi, but their pottery was unusually fine. Development reached its peak in the Chaco area earlier than in the others—before 1200 A.D. The great Pueblos along Chaco Wash and their outliers were constructed according to plan, the architecture being similar in all.

The villages were built much larger than during Pueblo II times – 900-1000 A.D. Twelve large towns were located in or by Chaco Canyon; for 130 years the building continued. During that entire time the building was done according to the original architectural plans. Before 1200 A.D. nearly 3,000 rooms were completed.

Pueblo Bonito was the largest, and evidently was the center for the Chaco Anasazi. It towered five stories high and had 650 rooms. It remained the largest apart- ment building in North America until the 1870’s when larger ones were built in New York City. Stones— millions and millions of them— were carefully and beautifully shaped to fit the contours of the walls. Lower walls were three feet or more thick to support the tremendous weight of the heavy masonry above.

Core-and-veneer construction, where rock and adobe rubble is sandwiched between two layers of coursed masonry, strengthened the thicker walls. Some of the pueblos were Plastered smoothly on all outside walls. Tens of thousands of wooden beams were cut, first from stands of pine and fir nearby and later brought from forests thirty miles distant.

OUTLIERS AND ROADS

Seventy or more outlier pueblos, constructed according to the Chaco designs, were connected to the central towns by roads. Some were l00 miles away. Usually the roads ran arrow-straight over all obstacles. Steps were cut into cliffs, rock walls with dirt fill leveled low places, cuts were dug through sand dunes and small hills. Most were thirty feet wide, and dug down to bedrock or clay subsoil. Faster communications were maintained over the far distances by use of signal fires and mica mirrors from high points.

The Great North Road ran more than 100 miles from Chaco Canyon, past several outliers, to Salmon Pueblo on the bank of the San Juan River near present day Farmington. In places the road had four lanes; wider than many modern superhighways!

Salmon Pueblo, an important Chaco outlier, was begun in 1088 A.D. Within six years its 300 rooms were nearly complete, Timber was carried from as far as seventy-five miles awav in the La Plata Mountains. The shaped building stones were actually sanded smooth on the outer walls! A big tower in the center of the town had six-foot-thick walls.

Extensive irrigation works were developed by the Chaco Anasazi. The floor of Chaco Canyon was covered with irrigated fields. Probably the Chacoans were the most highly organized of all the Anasazi.

On 450-foot-high Fajada Butte, they built an astronomical observatory. At the first day of each season (summer, fall, winter, and spring) a dagger of sunlight touched a certain design pecked into a cliff for a few minutes, then not again for a year. Similar solar devices were made at other sites throughout the Southwest.

Trade was important to the’uhacoans. Abalone shells, turquoise jewelry, brilliant-feathered macaws, copper bells, pottery, cotton, and other items from across Anasazi land, the distant seacoasts, and far south Mexico, were carried by energetic traders along the vast road system.

DISASTER FALLS

Despite their organization, their astonishing irrigation systems, their colorful religious ceremonies, their fine towns and wonderful art, the Chacoans made a fatal mistake. They denuded their land of forests. Pine, fir, pinyon, and juniper trees were cut more and more. Destruction of the forests brought erosion and drought. Continued drought weakened the people, and by 1200 A.D. the Chacoans had abandoned their amazing towns totally, and migrated to other parts of the Anasazi area.

The Anasazi region extended from east central New Mexico westward into Nevada, and from south central New Mexico and Arizona northward into southern Utah and southwestern Colorado, Never a unified nation with a single language, the Anasazi nonetheless developed and maintained their traditions, with small variations, across the vast extent of their territory. Their land was so rugged and uneven that parts of it are virtually unknown even today. It covered more than 160,000 square miles.

As the people of the Chaco area scattered from their drought-stricken homeland, other Anasazi continued developing their civilization. The Mesa Verdeans reached their highest level in the 1200’s.

Roads, irrigation systems, and larger and larger towns were developed by the northern Anasazi. Many Pueblos on the four thousand square mile Great Sage Plain (between Mesa Verde and the Blue Moun- tains) had a thousand or more rooms. Kivas, small ones for individual clans, and large ones that the men of the entire village met in, were made an integral part of each town

The tall towers of Hovenweep, the enormous pueblos of the Great Sage Plain, and the amazing cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and Tsegi and Canyon de Chelly (Kayenta region) were built during the Classic Pueblo Period.

Part of one group of defensive towers in Hovenweep was a round tower made square inside, with a secret underground tunnel connecting it to a larger rectangular fortress nearby. Both were located on the sheer cliffs of a box canyon. A-reservoir was constructed in a creek above the box canyon, to allow additional water to soak into the sandstone and increase the flow of the spring under the cliff.

Storage reservoirs, with ditches to gather runoff from rain and snow, were dug to provide domestic water for some of the large towns. Cliff dwellings often-had springs right in the caves that were developed for household use. EXTENSIVE TRADE

Trade and cultural contacts were frequent between the various Anasazi regions; and between them and their Fremont neighbors to the north; and the Sinagua, Hohokam, and Mogollon peoples to the south. Trade items were even passed to and from the Pacific coast and Central Mexico.

Mother-of-pearl ornaments were worn here; at Edge of theCedars (present day Blanding). Copper bells were used in religious rites. A Canyonlands Anasazi man painted a large red, white, and blue figure on the stone face next to his cliff dwelling home— the painting looked just like those done by Fremont painters north of the Colorado River. Residents of Hovenweep were quite proud of their imported Mexican parrots and Mesa Verdean ladies esteemed the red-on-orange pottery made by Blanding area women to whom they traded their famous black-on-white decorated bowls and jars.

Arts and crafts reached their highest level in beauty and useful- ness. Pottery was made in many shapes, sizes, and colors. Often they were decorated with beautiful painted designs. Corrugated pottery appeared and vessels for specialized uses were made. Women were the potters, while men often did the weaving.

Fine cotton articles were woven. The commonest fiber used was yucca. All sorts of things were made from it: sandals (with colored designs on the insoles where you couldn’t see them), clothing, snares, ropes as long as 1300 feet, bags and baskets, and other items. Baskets were used less, but were just as fine as those done by their Basketmaker ancestors.

Musical instruments included flutes, rattles, drums, and imported copper bells. Turkey feather and rabbit fur blankets were used in cold weather. Dog hair and human hair were used to make belts, sashes, and cords. Jewelry of many kinds was beautifully crafted. Fine quality tools of stone, bone, and wood were produced for different uses. Ritual items were made to use in religious ceremonies, to please and get help from the gods and spirits who brought rains and other good fortune.

Clothing for the warm summertime was scanty but decorated lovingly. Men wore breech.cloths while women wore aprons hung from a delicate rope around the waist. Wintertime clothing was warmer and covered most of the body, of course— tanned animal furs were common.

MANY KINDS OF FOOD

Farming was extensive. Several kinds of corn and beans and squash were grown. Some other crops including bee weed, purslane, and sunflowers, were encouraged. The average person’s diet was 40 to 50 percent corn, about 30 percent meat (deer, rabbit, rodents, turkeys. etc.). with the rest being a very wide variety of other wild foods.

Chief among wild plants used by the Anasazi was the yucca. Its seeds and fruit were eaten and the roots provided soap. The fibers were used for cord, paint brushes, rope, baskets, cloth sandals, and nets, while the sweet stalk was chewed as gum. Yucca plant was also medicine for colds, wounds, and arthritis.

Other wild food plants included the wild onion, prickly pear, pinyon nuts, wild rose, wild potato, cattails, and many more. Amaranth leaves were used as greens, and the seeds to make bread. Bee weed seeds were made into cakes, and its greens could be stored for two or three years. Saltbush seeds and greens were eaten, and also used to “salt” other food. Mormon tea seeds were eaten, tea was made from its leaves, and it was used as a medicine. Sunflower seeds provided cooking oil with the stalks being used as candles. THE METATE AND MANO

Perhaps the most important tool was the metate and mano. Around 1100 A.D. the women developed a new style metate, the slab. Round metates with one-hand manos, and trough metates with two-handed manos were still used.

However, the new slab metate became the usual tool for most grinding tasks. The shaped stone slab, slightly concave on the top surface and rectangular in form was set in clay at the best angle to suit the grinder, in stone-walled bins. Several such bins were made side-by-side in a room or patio. Thus, visiting made the endless hours of grinding easier. The two-handed manos reached completely across the slab, and were shaped to fit the grinder’s fingers and thumbs.

Often one person played a flute and the women and girls sang together while grinding. The women placed much importance on the stones and the proper ways to use them.

Anasazi women told a charming myth concerning the origin of the metate. One day some maidens were passing the cave where lived the “Woman of the White Shield” who was a younger sister of the moon. The goddess (who gives women beauty and grace) invited the girls into her home to teach them feminine arts. First the goddess used a sharp piece of jasper stone to carve a metate from porous lava, and a companion two- hand mano that reached completely from side to side of the metate.

Then the Younger Sister of the Moon took white seashells and corn kernels and ground them into a fine powder between the stones. She showed the maidens how to use graceful movements while grinding (which would beguile any man) and lovely songs to sing while working. Then the Woman of the White Shells made a small broom of long grass stems and swept the corn meal, whitened by the seashells, into a corner of her apron. This she divided among the girls, instructing them to use it as body powder for beauty. And ever since that time, Anasazi maidens have won the hearts of their men with the graceful wiles of the grinding stones. BREAD, BREAD, BREAD

The many kinds of corn bread and wild seed cakes cooked by the ladies seemed numberless. These included dumplings, sweet puddings, batter-cake, salt tortillas or flat cakes, fire-loaf bread, salty buried- bread, and paper-thin wafer-bread. Some were boiled, some fried on a thin flat baking stone, some baked directly on hot coals by constant turning, or buried under the hot ashes and coals, baked between hot stone slabs, or in underground pit-ovens.

The most common probably was the thin wafer-bread, that was eaten daily. Baked on a griddle stone, this bread is called “piki” by modern Pueblo women. It was made in several colors from different colored corn. These included yellow, blue, green, white, mixed colors, and black. The griddle stones were valued highly, and were passed from mother to daughter as esteemed heirlooms.

The Classic Pueblo era from 1100 to 1300 A.D. saw increased population and the growth of larger villages with the consolidation or abandonment of many smaller dwelling units. However, along with the many larger pueblos and cliff dwellings, there remained numberless single-family and small multiple family cliff dwellings and mesa-top homes. These were located all across the expansive Anasazi territory. Some Anasazi even colonized parts of the abandoned Chaco area again.

Reacting against the prevailing closely-knit pueblo society, some families (perhaps the Daniel Boones of their society?) moved away from the compact villages and built widely-spaced single family stone houses in the northeastern frontier region. The population of the Four Corners region was doubtless greater then than it is today. SARA: AN ANASAZI GIRL

Sara thought that she must be the happiest girl alive. What Anasazi maiden had such a wonderful life as she? A small smile returned to her lips as she proudly gazed at the delicate painted pot just removed from the cool ashes.

From childhood she.had watched her mother make pottery, As she grew older, she had helped a little. Her mother had shown Sara how to mix the clay, shape the coils, and form the bowl; how to smooth the surface and apply the slip to the dried vessel. Sara had often helped her brother gather juniper wood to fire the completed pottery.

Yesterday, under her mother’s expert eye, she had finished her first pot. Of course, it wasn’t as nice as the prefect creations made by the women— but it was hers and it was lovely. Formed in the shape of a duck, with her own hands she had painted the design with bee weed dye and a yucca leaf brush. Sara dusted off the ashes and set it by the house door in the bright summer sunshine.

Sara lived with her parents, an older sister and brother, and a baby brother in a snug house under the cliff. Facing south, the summer sun barely reached the doorway, so the spacious room was cool and pleasant. When snow covered the canyon, the low winter sunshine flooded through the door and warmed their snug cliff dwelling.

Her father had carried the sandstone blocks to the site himself, shaped them with a hand-chipping-stone, and helped her mother place them firmly in adobe mortar. The door he made T - shaped; it was the latest fashion of Anasazi architecture in 1276 A.D. Such a door allowed one to enter carrying a burden in his arms or to slip in easily by putting hands on the ledges and swinging through the opening gracefully. She thought it was the nicest of the several single-room houses nestled under the half-mile long cliff. Sara was proud that her parents were modern and up-to-date. Her mother even owned some red-orange bowls traded from villages south of the Blue Mountains, where such pottery was made. They were pretty, placed among the excellent gray and black-on-white ware made at home.

Her dog began barking down by the creek westward. That meant that her older brother was coming back from hunting, Maybe he would have a rabbit or a tender prairie dog. Their family enjoyed the many different kinds of meat that father and son brought home from hunting, or caught in their clever yucca cord snares. Deer and rabbit were the usual fare, but their big turkeys also provided meat and eggs, plus feathers for blankets, and bones for needles.

Her father was weeding their field across the little canyon. Their garden had several kinds each of corn, beans, and squash. Also they encouraged bee weed, sunflowers, purslane, and prickly pear to grow along the edges; they added zest to the diet. Crops grew so well in that location that the families of their clan had fifteen or twenty acres in gardens.

They lived up by the fields in shade houses for weeks in the warm late summer and early fall. Fresh corn- on-the-cob roasted in the coals—ummm, delicious! The women even had metates and monos that they left permanently in their summer shelters to use each year.

Sara wondered dreamily about the ancient people who had lived in this snug canyon long, long ago. Dur- ing the winter evenings, the old grandfathers would sit by the fire and tell stories of the old forgotten times. Their ancestors had lived here before the gods had taught them how to build houses and make pottery. She wondered if a ten-year-old girl had played under the ceder trees and skipped along the little creek as she had today?

Two years passed. Sara was uneasy. Her mother and father were worried. Maybe it was because the garden was not growing well. The rains hadn’t come, wild game was scarce, and the whole family spent most of their spare time getting enough food; enough to eat now and to store for winter. The drought had dried the land for nearly three years. Mother was baking blue piki bread on her shiny stone griddle for supper. Oh Boy! It smelled wonderful. And the griddle — someday Mother would give it to either big sister or to Sara. It had belonged to Mother’s mother and the best bread could be baked on it.

Baby brother was over two years old now. He was watching solemnly from his wooden cradle board leaned against the cliff next to the house. If there were more food, baby would already be too big for the cradle. But the drought .... He had not grown as much as father wanted.

A call came from the path along the sparkling creek. Then father and a stranger came up to the house. The stranger carried a large basket on his back so Sara knew he must be a trader. As they ate piki bread and wild seed cakes with stewed meat and beans, the trader told of strange and wonderful places he had seen.The things in his pack were wonderful, too. The bright red macaw feather skirt caught Mother’s eye. Red with a blue and white design— irresistable. She bartered some of her turquoise jewelry for the skirt. After the trade, their visitor nodded his head gloomily and gave his bad news.

The drought was worse in most places than here. Here the gardens were favored by the gods. Now that trader, who lived down at Hovenweep — two long days’ walk to the south, where some farmers grew cotton — the trader who was so proud — remember him? He had pecked into the cliff beside the main trail some pictures of his parrots, his T - shaped door, and of his long journey to Mexico. Well, starvation was biting the people in Hovenweep, and the trader had taken his family and left to find a wetter country. They would try to reach the far away Mogollon villages.

Also, the hundreds of families living southwest of this little valley, in Monument Canyon into which this creek flowed-many were weak from not enough good food, and some had died. There was talk of going to a better land. But where? Several had already left, not knowing, where they were going.

The worst news the trader told last. Lowering his voice and glancing warily down into the shadowed valley, he whispered, “The savages, the fierce wild men our grandfathers saw first .... those who rob and destroy and kill our people... those evil men without culture or pottery or homes … they have come here!” Mother’s brown face paled. Father gripped his axe handle so hard that his fingers turned white. The trader continued, “Yesterday evening about this time I was eating fire-loaf bread with my hosts in Monu- ment Canyon. Suddenly, the cooing of the doves was stilled by horrible howls and curses from near the house across the creek. “We heard running feet then we saw them. Terrible painted savages with hatch- ets, spears, and big bows and arrows were running all around the house and yard! Our poor Anasazi neighbors never had a chance. Their awful screams froze my blood. We hid all night long— I never slept a wink. This morning we buried them. The savages had murdered the whole family— men, women, and children.”

Two more years passed. Sara thought she had been hungry forever. The rain came but seldom, and then it fell all at once and washed the topsoil off the gardens. Winter snow was thin. Corn, beans, and squash grew very little, wild food was hard to find, and game was scarcer. Often the men came home with little or nothing, even Jack rabbits had nearly disappeared. Their big turkeys were life savers!

She looked sadly at her yucca fiber apron. It had been so pretty with its red, green, and black design, with 241 cords hanging down. Now it was old and worn. All of the family’s clothing was tattered; there was no time for nice clothes.

Their days were used in finding food. They never had enough. A burning sickness had come to their settlement and little brother was so weak from hunger that he couldn’t get well again. They had buried him in a dry cave, wrapped in the best rabbit fur blanket. Mother had put his toy flute and a young turkey with him so he would have music and something to eat in the next world. Four babies had died this year in this valley. Even the creek had stopped running.

Last night Father and Mother had talked long into the dark hours. This morning they had told the kids: tomorrow they would leave. Far to the southeast, across the mountains and many days away, flowed a big river. A few Anasazi people similar to themselves lived there. If they could reach that big valley, maybe the gods would smile on them again. One could not carry very much, Sara thought. Tears came when she had to leave the prized griddle stone that Mother had given her on her 14th birthday, but it could not be carried so far, and Sara was small for her age. Some corn and beans and seeds they sealed in pots, and placed on the shelf at the back of the cliff room. Father set the stone slab that closed the door very carefully. When the rain gods returned, they would also come back to this loved place.

By 1300 A.D. all the Anasazi pueblos and homes in the Four Corners region were abandoned. Soil erosion, disease, perhaps bad habits developed in the crowded villages, enemy raiders, and the 24 year drought had destroyed the wonderful civilization developed during more than thirteen centuries. The ancient ones never came back. What happened to them? Did they die? Did they reach more favored lands? Both. Many died, but many also reached safety among neighboring peoples.

Pueblo IV is the name of the 1300 to 1600 A.D. period. It is a happy ending to the sad story, Some of the Anasazi, especially those from the Kayenta region, succeeded in reaching the Hopi villages south of Black Mesa and the Sinagua settlements of the Verde River valley, where irrigation water was plentiful. Others reached the flatland homes of the Hohokam in the Salt and Gila River valleys. Some settled among their Mogollon neighbors in the mountainous south. Generally they were received peacefully where the rains still fell and the springs still flowed.

There were exceptions. Point of Pines town was near the Salt River in southern Arizona. The Mogollon inhabitants there did not welcome the worn-out Anasazi who built a pueblo a few miles away. The newly built pueblo was burned out! Then the Mogollon people built a high wooden stockade around Point of Pines, to prevent retaliation. RIO GRANDE ANASAZI

Many of the Four Corners Anasazi found a haven among their fellow Anasazi who lived along the Rio Grande River in central New Mexico.

There the scattered population grew quickly to many thousands. Small villages of fifteen or twenty people increased to several thousand within a few years. As survivors from the Great Sage Plain and across the Four Corners arrived, hundreds of adobe walled pueblos were erected up and down the Rio Grande valley and in other fertile areas. Irrigated fields produced lush crops on thousands and thousands of acres. The adobe bricks, made from specially formulated materials, were nearly as hard as European plaster. Pueb- los were built several stories high. They traded with the Plains Indians east of the mountains, and with their former contacts to the south.

Villages grew to populations of 5,000 and more. The towns were larger, but the general culture did not again reach the high levels of Pueblo III times. Wall murals were an exception. The finest murals found in North America were painted on their kiva walls.

Kuaua Pueblo, whose 5,000 inhabitants dwelled on the west bank of the Rio Grande, was made of the typical hard adobe bricks. Established in 1300, it was abandoned by 1900 A.D. The men of one clan replastered their kiva walls more than eighty times during those years. About twenty times they painted outstanding multi-colored figures of men, animals, and gods on the fresh plaster.

DISASTER STRIKES AGAIN

In 1540 strange white-skinned strangers came into the Rio Grande valley. Dressed in shiny metal suits, they rode big fearsome beasts. The peaceful Anasazi farmers welcomed the Spaniards. Coronado’s expedition stayed that winter at Kuaua Pueblo. The Spaniards admired their Indian hosts, and described them as friendly, honest, hard working, and intelligent. The Pueblo IV society was freedom-loving, with no injustice. Towns were neat and clean, the people well-built and athletic with hand- some men and beautiful women.

However, the European visitors considered themselves as conquerors. They claimed the land and people for the kind of Spain, Badly abused and mistreated, the Anasazi of Kuaua and two neighboring pueblos revolted in a desperate attempt to regain their freedom. Spanish guns and horses were too strony; the Indians were savagely slaughtered, and one entire village destroyed.

Coronado’s army went away. but later the Europeans returned to stay. The long peaceful traditions of the Anasazi were severely disrupted by the warlike conquerors. The population declined dramatically.

The few pueblos that survived are prospering today, in a land of freedom, in New Mexico and Arizona. They keep many of their ancient traditions. Their artistic pottery is world famous. Worksheet for Chapter 3 Prehistoric Man in the Four Corners, Classic Pueblo and Disaster

1. The Pueblo III Period, from about 1100 to ______A.D., is called the ______or ______Pueblo time. 2. Twelve large towns were located in or by ______. 3. Pueblo ______was the largest. It towered ______high, and had ______rooms. 4. ______-_____-______construction strengthened the thicker ______. 5. Usually the roads ran ______-______over all obstacles. Most were ______feet wide. 6. The ______Road ran more than ______from Chaco Canyon. 7. Abalone ______, brilliant-feathered ______, copper ______, ______jewelry, ______, cotton, and other items were carried by energetic ______. 8. The Chacoans made a fatal mistake. They ______their lands of ______. 9. The Mesa Verdeans reached their highest ______in the ______. 10. The tall towers of ______, the enormous pueblos of the Great ______, and the amazing cliff ______of Mesa ______were built during the ______Period. 11. Arts and ______reached their highest level in ______and ______. 12. Clothing for the warm ______was scanty but decorated ______. 13. The average person’s diet was 40 to 50% ______, about ______meat. 14. Ever since that time, Anasazi ______have won the ______of their men with the ______wiles of the ______stones. 15. The ______stones were valued highly, and were passed from mother to ______. 16. Sara was proud that her ______were ______and up-to-date. 17. They encouraged ______, ______, and ______pear to grow. 18. “The ______had murdered the whole ______-- man, woman, and ______.” 19. Tears came when she had to leave the ______stone Mother gave her. 20. The ancient ones never ______. 21. Many of the Anasazi found a haven along the ______River. 22. The finest ______found in North America were ______on their ______walls. 23. In 1540, strange ______-______strangers came to the ______valley. Part 3

Life on the frontier: grazing, Gold, & guns CHAPTER 4

NATIVE INHABITANTS OF THE FOUR CORNERS COUNTRY

The prehistoric inhabitants of the Four Corners Country who occupied the abandoned Anasazi territory after the 24-year drought of A.D. 1276-1300 blend into the misty unknown. They had no written language and built few permanent homes. Compared with the vanished Anasazi, they left little archaeological evidences. Despite this, modern scholars have developed a history of those peoples. The story that emerges is of absorbing interest.

Several distinct tribal groups dwelt in the land. Their cultures and lifestyles were quite different. They spoke different languages. However, the groups were all alike in an important way: all of the Indians understood their natural surroundings, and-developed lifeways suited to the geography and climate. They were experts at using the natural resources.

The roving Paiutes were scattered dwellers of the western deserts. Well-organized Utes lived in the mountainous northern parts of the region. The southern part of the land was the domain of the numerous Navajo. Apache bands occupied territory in the southeast. Hopi and other relatives and descendants of the Ancient Ones resided in settled communities on the southern and southeastern margins of the Four Corners Country. Comanches occasionally were unwelcome visitors in the region.

Paiutes, Masters of the Wastelands

The Paiute Indians were cousins of the mountain-dwelling Utes. Their languages were similar, so that members of one tribe could understand members of the other. Paiutes occupied the western wastelands of the Four Corners region. They may be descendants of the Fremont neighbors of the Anasazi, who lived northwest of the Colorado River. The Fremont people had steadily developed a higher culture along with the Anasazi, until about the close of Basketmaker III times. Then they seemed to grow tired, and settled back into a primitive lifestyle.

The Paiutes had a simple culture— generally being hunters and wild food gatherers. White traders and pioneers who first contacted these nomads considered them the simplest people in North America, and called them “Diggers.” They lived in scattered groups of a few families each. Dwellings were simple brush shelters, and often none were made at all. Sometimes they dug into sandy creek banks. Usually planting no food crops, they traded with nearby tribes for corn, squash, melons, and dates. They lived off the land, being skilled hunter-gatherers. Com- monly they hunted bighorn sheep and rabbits. Native plant foods included cactus pads, pinyon nuts, grass seeds, various herbs, and roots. They also ate lizards, rodents, and insects. Nothing with nutrtional value went to waste.

Pinyon nuts and various seeds were ground with the one-hand mano and round metate. The wild sheep they hunted were so numerous, that their tracks were as common as those of domestic sheep are today. They wove nets (to snare small animals), baskets, and bags for many uses. They fashioned stone and bone tools. Clothing was very simple,well- suited to the arid climate in which they lived.

With little tribal organization, Paiutes often fell prey to neighboring Indian (and later Spanish) slavers. Slavery had been an accepted social practice among many American Indian tribes for a long time. How- ever, the practice of slave hunting and selling became much more intense after European intruders of- fered a bigger market for the poor victims. The most successful Indian slavers in the Four Corners Coun- try were the warlike Utes. Utes Ruled the Rocky Mountains

The Utes were related to the Paiutes, but had strong tribal organiza- tions. They were not at all peaceful or timid. They controlled the mountainous north and northeastern parts of the region. Their dwellings were skin-covered tepees or brush-covered wickiups. They became more nomadic when they acquired horses, and increased their raiding and slaving activities.

Doing little if any gardening, they were expert huntergatherers. In- cluded in their food resources were deer, elk, sage hens and other wild fowl, fish (although many Utes avoided all fish), native fruits and nuts, grass seeds, and others. Venison was often dried for future use. Grass seeds were sometimes made into atole, a porridge. Other foods were obtained by trading. Their lifestyle was often carefree, but at times was tinged with hardship. One of the late winter months in the Ute calendar was titled, “The Month when the Utes Ate their Moccasin Soles.” A hard winter could bring food shortages to such hunter-gatherers.

While the Ute culture was built on trust between friends or family members, it also stressed looking out for ones self. In times of danger a Ute did not expect even an intimate family member to risk personal loss to care for him. Enemies included Nava- jos, Apaches, and Comanches. When Spaniards entered the Four Corners area, the Utes became friends with them. Perhaps this was because the Spaniards were also enemies of the Navajos and Apaches. Maybe because they were good trading partners for furs and slaves. Since young Paiutes made ideal slaves for the new Spanish settlers, Ute slaving raids were stepped up.

The well-mounted warriors would swoop down upon a small band of their unsuspecting desert relatives, kill the men and older boys, and capture the children and young women. Usually these were traded to the Spaniards and Mexicans of New Mexico. A favorite trading location was at the ford of the Colorado River by present-day Moab, Utah. Hundreds and thousands of Indian slaves were soon working in Spanish households throughout New Mexico, and as far away as Mexico City.

The San Juan River became the general boundary between mountain Utes and desert Navajos. However, the different tribes all used the Great Sage Plain of the Dove Creek area, and each usually respected the rights of the others.

An old story tells of headmen of some rival Ute and Navajo bands agreeing on a contest, to stop the fighting over an area in the eastern part of this region. Each tribe was to choose a warrior, to fight to the death. The losing group would leave the contested area. The contest was important, because the area fought over was a very fine hunting locality. In addition, warm pools fed by hot springs were there. The Navajos carefully picked one of their best fighters, a giant of a man. He stood head and shoulders above any other warrior. You can imagine his surprise when the Utes sent against him a little dried-up Scots- man. The giant Navajo was almost insulted when the short, hairy-faced Anglo faced him. However, the white mountain man had become friends with the mountain Indians, had married a Ute woman, and was an accepted member of the tribe. He was as skilled at their lifestyle as any of them. In addition, he was a deadly knife-fighter.

The contest lasted but a few minutes. The victorious Utes claimed the contested area, around Pagosa Springs. The contest over the Pagosa area did not end fighting between Ute and Navajo, but it did lessen the problems. Navajos: People of the Deserts

Generally inhabiting the southern portion of the Four Corners Coun- try, the Navajos have moved around somewhat and expanded their territory within historical times. Tribal legends say that the tribe came up out of the earth from a dark lower world; but anthropologists think that they and their Apache relatives came down from northwest Canada and Alaska later than other Indians of the Southwest. Their language is like that spoken by the Athapascans of the far Northwest, but is different from all other tribal tongues in the Southwest.

Some authorities insist that the Navajos arrived in this region around A.D. 1500. Others show convincing evidence that they came in small bands as early as A.D. 1000. Remains of hogan-like dwellings that date from that time have been found in western Colorado. In addition, Navajo legends tell of their contacts with the Anasazi, and of the great drought that drove the Ancient Ones away. According to the legends, the early Navajos suffered intensely, but were able to survive the drought. One of Western writer Zane Grey’s stories, “Blue Feather,” closely follows a legend of a Navajo brave and an Anasazi girl.

The hunter-gathering bands arrived twanging their sinew-bound bows with three times the power of the simpler weapons then in use regionally. That superior firepower must have made them a sore trial to the peaceful Anasazi of the Four Corners!

Navajos learned from all people they contacted. From the Pueblo farmers they learned farming and weaving. Later they got livestock— horses, sheep, and goats— from the Spaniards, as early as 1591. Also they learned silver-smithing, and part of the women’s full-skirted flowing dress from the newcomers. The new Spanish rulers wanted to settle the nomads as peaceful farmers and teach them European lifeways. But the Navajos valued freedom and elbow room, and resisted the Spanish mission system. The Spanish and Mexican colonists regarded the Navajos as a valuable source of slaves, and insisted upon their becoming Christians. In return, the roving Navajos regarded European settlers as a fine and source of food and other loot for their raiding sorties. So the two groups became bitter enemies.

The family dwelling was the hogan, a well-made building of stone, or poles and dirt. It was round, to be in keeping with the round world. The door faced the east of the rising sun. The home was warm in winter, and cool in the summer heat. The hogan belonged to the woman, and family lineage was determined from ones mother, instead of the father as Europeans do. There was equality between men and women in Navajo society.

Sheep became the main meat of the Navajos, and corn the chief vegetable and grain. When corn matured enough for roasting ears, the family moved to a summer shade house by the field. Green corn was roasted on the cob in a pre-heated pit. Or it was cut off the cob, mashed into a paste with a one-handed mano and round metate, seasoned, wrapped in corn shucks, and baked on hot coals.

When horses were acquired, The People (or Dinetah, as they call themselves) became skilled and dangerous raiders. Never a unified tribe with a single chief, only one or a few bands together carried out each raid. Food, livestock, other materials, and sometimes slaves, were the usual loot obtained. In turn, the Spanish and Mexican settlers raided the Navajos for slaves.

After Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, the weak government in Santa Fe was unable to cope with the nomadic Indians. The Navajo raiders ran wild, with no effective control from anyone. They felt like Lords of the earth! Warrior parties even raided as far eastward as the Great Plains of western Nebraska. Apaches, Raiders of the Southwest

The Apaches lived throughout New Mexico, Arizona, northern Old Mexico, and even on the plains of eastern Colorado. With the possible exception of their Navajo relatives, they were everybody’s enemies! The tribal name means “enemy” in the Papago Indian tongue. The Jicarilla group dwelt in the south-eastern part of the Four Corners.

Although Apaches often lived in brush-covered wickiups, the Jicarilla group preferred the skin-covered tepee. Being a hunting, gathering society, they used a wide variety of wild plants and animals for food. Families clustered in small groups in rancherias, often in remote hidden locations, from which warriors roamed the Southwest.

Raiding their neighbors increased among the Apaches when they began to use horses. By 1680 horses acquired from the Spanish settlements were used generally by Four Corners Indians. Despite the adoption of the horse, the Apache remained adept at covering long distances on foot. In the wild vastness of desert and mountain where they roamed, a warrior on foot was often more effective than one on horseback. As such, Apache braves trained from boyhood for fast, long distance running.

Seashell and turtle-shell rattles were important parts of their religious ceremonies. Apache runners were sent clear to the Gulf of California to obtain the items. Their religion had eleven divine commandments. The Creator, Unsen, had made the heavens and the earth for them alone and was prayed to for strength, health and wisdom. Children were taught at an early age that if one person had something against another, they should resolve it themselves, as The Creator disliked the petty quarrels of men. Pushed off the eastern “Buffalo Plains” by their deadly enemies, the Comanches, the Apaches became the scourge of the Southwest by making raiding a key economic pursuit. Their warriors raided Indians, Spaniards, and Mexicans alike. Frontiers of the European settlements faced ruin, and pulled back to larger, safer towns. Militia and regular army troops of Spain, Mexico, and the United States were unable to control the fast-moving, hard-hitting nomads until the late 19th century. The Apaches are generally called the finest guerilla fighters anywhere.

Descendants of the Anasazi?

Hundreds of thousands of refugees from the drought-stricken Four Corners Country swelled the numbers of Anasazi dwellers and related societies throughout central and southern New Mexico and Arizona. The Sinagua, Salado, Mogollon, and other neighboring peoples had been influenced so strongly by the Classi- cal Pueblo Anasazi, that by the 13th century, they might all be considered as Anasazi, too.

Most of the Mesa Verdean Anasazi refugees appear to have settled in the Rio Grande Valley of New Mexico. There they quickly developed a thriving irrigated farming society. During Pueblo IV times (A.D. 1300 to 1600) they lived in adobe-walled towns of several thousand inhabitants each. In Navajo legends, these Pueblo people figure as the rich urban “city slickers,” with the Navajos being the honest simple country folk.

The Pueblo people continued and increased their widespread trading. Commerce was carried on between the various towns and the Pacific coast, the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Plains, and tropical central Mexico. Taos Pueblo became a-trading center for northern mountain tribes and eastern plains Indians. These settled city-dwelling farmers occupied the southern and southeastern edges of the Four Corners Country. Thus they were the first to feel the impact of invading Europeans. The Spanish Coronado Expedition arrived in Pueblo country in 1540. After their departure two years later, the Indians were free from disturbance until about 1600. Then Spanish colonists came into New Mexico to stay. Interestingly, they found Kuaua, a formerly bustling pueblo of 5,000 people on the west bank of the Rio Grande, abandoned and falling into ruin. Why? We don’t know. Maybe European diseases brought 60 years before had destroyed them. Maybe not.

The peaceful lifestyle of the Pueblo society was greatly disrupted. Welcomed as friends and honored visitors, the Spanish returned the generosity by conquering and enslaving their hosts. The Pueblo people prized peacefulness and had a fair and just society with no oppression of a lower class by an upper class.

The Spanish system was very different. A ruling class enslaved the Indians and poor Spaniards alike. There was no democracy, and no equality of men and women. A religious clergy lived off the labors of the people and told them how to live. In addition, the Europeans brought the practice of slavery, which was foreign to the Pueblos. Comparing the lifestyle of our fellow Christian Europeans of that day with that of the non-Christian Pueblo society is a bit embarrassing to us.

The Pueblo population decreased dramatically. Oppressive European rule, slavery, and newly introduced diseases were-part of the cause. Equally harmful was the spread of horses. When Comanches and other raiding tribes began to use horses, they literally destroyed a number of other less war-like Indians. In- cluded were many large thriving pueblos that were weakened and abandoned.

After nearly a century of Spanish tyranny, the New Mexico pueblos had had enough. Straying from their tradition of peace, they united for war under the leadership of the medicine man Pope. The revolt of 1680 killed one-fourth of the 1600 European settlers and drove the rest out of the territory to El Paso. The enraged Indians then erased all traces of the Europeans from their land.

During late Pueblo IV times and after the 1680 revolt, some Pueblo Indians fled from Europeans and dwelt among their semi-nomadic Navajo neighbors. The two unlike peoples lived together peacefully for a century or longer. A number of Pueblo IV and V ruins from that time are found on both sides of the Colorado-New Mexico boundary in the San Juan River area. PERMANENT SPANISH SETTLEMENT OF THE FOUR CORNERS

Not until 1692 did the Spaniards return. Six years of bloody warfare followed. The better armed, well- organized European soldiers finally emerged victorious over the then divided native fighters. However, the Pueblos were never again so completely controlled by the newcomers. And when they accepted Chris- tianity again, they did so on their own terms. To this day the Rio Grande Pueblos seem to practice a unique blend of their traditional religions with Christianity.

Spanish settlements expanded after 1698 through much of New Mexico, into southern Arizona, and south central Colorado. They were blocked on the western and northern frontiers by the Hopi pueblos (who never accepted Christianity and would not even allow a European to sleep in their villages!), the.Navajos, the Utes, and Apaches.

Although the Spanish practice of slavery caused troubles for Indians of the Four Corners, the native tribes were enriched by European livestock: horses, sheep, goats, cattle, etc. Also Spanish weaving, metals, firearms, wagons, exotic food crops, farming methods, and a written language brought a richer culture. The Spanish government attempted to control its subjects’ lives in many ways. Trading with the Indians of the frontiers was strictly regulated. However, many adventurous Spanish and Mexican traders ignored their government’s restrictions and traded widely with the Utes and other Indians of the region. These traders made the northern area known among Europeans for about 250 miles into Colorado. Many Span- ish place names date from that time: La Plata, La Sal, and San Juan mountains; Animas, Mancos, San Juan, and Dolores rivers; Mesa Verde, Cahone (“Cajun” is Spanish For “box”), and others.

THE ESCALANTE EXPEDITION

In 1776, the government of New Spain was seeking a route to use for supplying the new settlements in California from the older established settlements of New Mexico. The way by sea was too long and expensive. The southern Gila Trail was beset by desert hazards and raided often by the Apache. Young Friar Escalante, mission director at Zuni Pueblo, took thought and came up with a plan. The route could not go west from Santa Fe because of unfriendly Hopis, Na- vajos, and Apaches. He therefore proposed an exploring expedition to find a route northwest through Colorado, into Utah, and back southwest to California. It would avoid hostile Indians and the worst deserts and canyons, and travel through the territory of the usually friendly Utes. His plan was accepted, he was appointed record-keeper of the expedition, and the official exploring party set out from Santa Fe on July 29. Thus 1776 was an important year all across North America. The Spaniard de Anza founded San Francisco on the Pacific coast, 13 En- glish colonies on the Atlantic coast resigned from the British Empire, and the Escalante Expedition set out to explore the unknown interior of the Four Corners region.

The group of 12 mounted men traveled northwest to the San Juan River, into South- western Colorado, along the Dolores River northward, then west to Utah Lake, and southwest through Utah. Due to early winter snow, they turned back north of the Grand Canyon, and rode home to Santa Fe. They explored more territory than their contemporary Daniel Boone, or the later Lewis and Clark Expedition! Although the area was well-known to its Indian inhabitants, travel was difficult for the European explorers. On some days they progressed only two and one-half miles!

Escalante’s diary was written so carefully, that one can follow their trail even today. With a chuckle, the friar tells of one of the men’s horse stepping through the thin covering crust into a boggy mudhole, and the soldier’s clothes getting wet and dirty up to his neck. The diary records the hard going along the Dolores River, their pleasant campsite a few miles from Cahone, Colorado, and their disappointment at finding the water hole dry in Dove Creek. On the hot afternoon of August 15, 1776, the group took their siesta on the banks of dry Dove Creek on the northern edge of the present town, while scouts pushed ahead looking for water.

They found water near Egnar for the men, but not enough for the livestock. Camped near that present- day community that night, the thirst-crazed animals broke loose during the darkness and stampeded back toward Dove Creek! Better at finding water than were their human masters, the horses stopped about halfway to yesterday’s siesta site by a gulch with abundant water.

Although the explorers did not reach California, they opened a vast new area to European notice. Also, the route pioneered later became the Old Spanish Trail.

THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL

The Old Spanish Trail connected Santa Fe in New Mexico to Los Angeles in southern California. It followed the general route explored by Escalante. The trail was never an exactly marked path, but varied in location except in key mountain passes and river fords. It went generally northwest from Santa Fe, from the Chama River to the San Juan, and continued northwest into Colorado. The Trail passed locations of present-day Cahone, Dove Creek, and Egnar. Leaving the Dolores River locale southeast of the La Sal Mountains, it led to the only good ford of the Colorado River at present-day Moab, Utah. The ford at Moab was an important trading site for the Utes, and not far from the mountains where Four Corners Utes got their salt. The western part of the traders’ trail followed the ages-old seashell trade route across the deserts of Nevada and California to the Pacific coast.

TRADERS’ TRAIL FOR CARAVANS

The Old Spanish Trail was not a road for wagons and coaches, but a pathway for pack animals. The eastern part surveyed by Escalante was well-used before the entire route came to be traveled. Trading parties from New Mexico commonly followed the pathway as far as Moab and beyond by A.D. 1800. The entire trail came into use after the Armijo caravan trekked to California in 1829.

Anglo mountain men actually did more to establish the traders’ route than did the Spanish. American trappers and mountain men came to New Mexico when the Santa Fe Trail was opened from Missouri, in the United States. They make Taos their headquarters and used the Trail for trapping and trading expeditions. The name “Old Spanish Trail” was given by those forgotten mountain men.

Traders, both American and Mexican, followed the route with dozens and hundreds of pack animals. The caravans carried furs, glass beads and metal goods, and New Mexican woven fabrics for trade with the Indians and the Californios. The Trail over the Great Sage Plain of the Dove Creek area was favored for good reasons. It avoided hostile Navajos and Apaches. It missed the worst Canyonlands and mountains. And, far enough from the deserts, enough pasture was available for the many pack and riding animals. The way wasn’t easy. Some was through rough country. Usually one or another of the seven Ute subtribes was at war. Paiutes seldom menaced the main caravan, but could be depended on to pick off stragglers— both man and beast.

Due to gradually increased Indian problems, by the mid 1840s most of the small caravans banded together into one huge group. It traveled after flood stage of the rivers in the summer. On the return trip traders carried Oriental silk and other goods (brought from China and Japan by the Yankee Clipper ships), fine California horses and mules, and slaves. The horses and slaves were sometimes purchased, but often were stolen.

The traders often numbered above 200, and their horses more than 4,000. The slave trade was prominent. Spaniards, Indians, and even American mountain men bought or captured Paiutes and other Indians to sell as slaves. In 1841, a ten- to fifteen year old would bring fifty to one hundred dollars in the New Mexico markets.

When the United States acquired the Four Corners Country in 1846, the new government began closing down the commerce. Calling it “the thieves’ trail,” the military put 20% taxes on all goods carried over the route, and sent army patrols to stop the slaving and horse-stealing. Traffic ceased quickly. By .1865, even Mexican and Ute traders quit the route.

However, hardly had the dust of traders’ caravans settled before the grassy highlands around Dove Creek began to jingle with the spurs of Texas cowboys and echo to the tramp of Miners’ boots! Worksheet for Chapter 4 The Shadow Makers

1. Several distinct ______dwelt in the land. 2. They were experts at ______the ______. 3. The Paiutes had a ______culture – generally being ______and ______gatherers. 4. Paiutes often fell prey to neighboring ______(and later ______) slavers. Slavery had been accepted among many American ______. 5. The Utes controlled the mountainous ______and ______parts of the region. 6. When Spaniards entered the Four Corners area, the ______became ______with them. 7. Navajo legends tell of their contacts with the ______, and of the great ______that drove the ______away. 8. When ______were acquired, the People became skilled and ______. They were never a unified ______with a single ______. 9. The Navajo raiders ______, with no effective ______from anyone. 10. The Apaches were everybody’s ______. 11. The Apaches became the ______of the ______. 12. During Pueblo IV times, they lived in ______-______towns of several ______inhabitants each. 13. Oppressive European rule, ______, and newly introduced ______were part of the cause. Equally harmful was the ______of ______. 14. The revolt of 1680 ______one fourth of the ______European settlers. 15. Spanish settlements expanded after 1698 through ______of ______, into southern ______, and south central ______. 16. Young Friar ______came up with a ______. He proposed an exploring ______to find a route northwest through ______. 17. They explored more territory than Daniel ______or Lewis and ______. 18. The group took their siesta on the ______of dry ______. 19. The Old ______Trail was not a road for ______and ______, but a pathway for ______. 20. The traders often numbered above ______, and their ______more than 4000. 21. The ______trade was prominent. CHAPTER 5

THERE’S GOLD IN THEM HILLS!

The party of Spaniards was nervous and watchful. They chose that night’s campsite with defense in mind. The rise in the valley above the river provided cover of pinyons and junipers, but attackers would have to come uphill across open ground. Horses were unsaddled and allowed to graze by the camp; pack burros and mules were unloaded and the heavy packs of gold and silver ingots placed safely under a spreading tree at the center of the camp. Armed sentries quietly occupied posts beyond the pinyons, to be relieved later during the dark hours.

The setting was New Spain in the 18th century; in the Animas Valley not far from present-day Durango, Colorado. The men had spent weeks and weeks that summer in the high mountains of the Rico area, mining and smelting rich ore. Knowing the uncertain dispositions of the “Yutas” (Ute Indians), who claimed the mountains as their own, the Spaniards had kept a constant lookout. The miners had nearly finished their season’s work when they learned that hostile Indians were gathering to destroy them.

Enough gold and silver bars were already stored to make all of them wealthy, so the Europeans decided to leave immediately. The safety of Santa Fe could be reached before the incensed Utes noticed that they had left.

The party was numerous, well-armed, and located in a good defensive position. But the fleeing men realized that several hard days travel remained before the safety of home was theirs. Even the strongest men’s faces showed fear. The attack came that night.

The Ute warriors were defeated, but with losses to the treasure-seekers that they could not afford. An- other such desperate battle might overwhelm the miners, for courage alone was not enough. Therefore, they buried the treasure and marked the spot. The lightly-burdened survivors warily trekked southward, covering mile after hurried mile towards home. However, the wily Utes made attack after attack, so only two or three of the gold-seekers reached the Spanish settlements in northern New Mexico. None had any desire to risk such fearful perils again! The buried precious metals were never recovered.

Those are the chief details of one of the earliest lost treasure tales of the Four Corners. During the 200 years and more since that time, old maps have been studied and many attempts made to locate the rich cache. But the thousands or millions of dollars worth of treasure have never been found.

MINERS IN THE MOUNTAINS

The first written record of American prospectors in the Colorado mountains of this region was in 1833. A party of 50 or 60 hunters and trappers left their headquarters in Taos and spent the summer in the San Juan Mountains. San Juan was the general name given to all of the mountains in southwestern Colorado at that time. Various small items of gold and silver jewelry worn by Four Corners Indians had excited the American’s interest.

They discovered many signs of rich minerals in the Rico area. That fall, the group returned to Taos loaded down with valuable furs. But their tales of gold and silver interested nobody, and faded into legend, for the land was known as a hazardous Indian wilderness.

A generation later, in 1860, some Navajos at Fort Defiance, Arizona, were seen with a large amount of gold. American frontiersmen tried unsuccessfully to worm the secret source of the gold from the warriors. The Navajos told nothing more than a finger pointed toward the distant Colorado mountains. Numerous prospectors unwisely set out to find the treasure store. Since the Utes jealously guarded their mountains, few intruders lived to return home with either gold or information! THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD

One group of nine men succeeded. They followed the Animas Valley northward— doubtless passing the site of the lost Spanish treasure. At present-day Silverton, the prospectors turned west, crossing the mountains into the Dolores River drainage. There they found and staked claims to a rich lode of ore that they named the Atlantic Cable. News and gold were taken to Fort Defiance, and miners began working the claims.

Log cabins were built on the later site of Rico. A Mexican style adobe smelter was constructed, and tunnels were dug. But great distances over rough terrain, and hostile Indians doomed the project. One day two miners were prospecting a few miles from camp. They came upon nine dead men, with heads lying around without scalps. Continued hardships and bloody deaths caused abandonment of the mine and smelter. Years later, in 1878, miners returned to the Rico site. The diggings were as they had left them, but one tunnel was full of water and the other inhabited by bears.

Strangely enough, the Rico area— the first district proven to be rich in gold and silver— was the last location in the Colorado Four Corners mountains to be settled and developed.

GOLD RUSH TO THE SAN JUANS

In 1870 Gold was discovered in a gulch near present-day Silverton by Miles Johnson. His Little Giant Mine was the first paying strike in the Four Corners. The rush was on! Within three years nearly 4,000 claims had been staked nearby. Several boom towns mushroomed into life. The towns were wild and lawless. Life was cheap and death common. Gun shots were not unusual on any night.

However, a curious strain of respectability was found in the mining towns, too. In Silverton a bartender was caught selling liquor to a teenager. The outraged crowd smashed $3,000 worth of bottled goods in his saloon! Night Marshall Clayton Ogsbury was murdered one night and his body discovered on the board- walk the next morning. Angry citizens immediately formed a vigilante group to clean up the outlaws and gunmen. Finding the task to be difficult, they sent clear to Dodge City, Kansas, and hired famed gun slinger Bat Masterson to finish the job for them.

Prospectors and miners continued to swarm over the wild, trackless mountains. Rich strike after rich strike drew the eyes of America and the world to the remote area. During some years in the 1880s, the Four Corners mines caused Colorado to produce over half of all the silver mined in the United States.

Tom Walsh, an Irish immigrant who could neither read nor write, discovered that the dumps of waste rock at many mines were rich in telluride. Telluride was gold-bearing ore not recognized by most miners. Walsh became rich. His Camp Bird gold mine was still producing in the 1980s. It has produced more than $50,000,000 in precious metals!

SCORES OF TOWNS WERE ESTABLISHED

In addition to Silverton, scores of other boom towns grew up overnight. Telluride, Ouray, Animas City, Hesperus, Placerville, and Rico lived on after the boom was over. But most of them were not so fortunate. Gone from the maps are La Plata City, Mineral Point, Eureka, Parrot City, Animas Forks, Alta, Gladstone, Dallas, Ophir, Piedmont, and others. In remote spots some buildings still stand in forgotten silence. Others can be found only by the scattered bricks, rotting boards, and rusting mine machinery.

The Four Corners gold and silver boom was the most exciting happening west of the Mississippi River. Strangely, it was all happening in almost impossible isolation. Mines were pouring treasure onto pack trains and wagons in all directions. Narrow trails crossed impossibly rugged mountains and canyons. Wagon roads were built, but the transportation was still terrible. The terrain made the roads frightful and hair-raising. Ox-drawn ore wagons sank axle-deep into mud, and slid off precipitous cliffs. Hold-ups by gun-toting outlaws were common. The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad established Durango in 1880, and built its narrow-gauge tracks into the mountains. On July 27 the first train steamed into town. One year later, the Durango post office’s volume of mail put it as third largest in Colorado! That year the first church was built. The lone Episco- pal church must have been hard pressed to counteract the influence of the 59 saloons! Luxurious hotels and opera houses were built in the rich towns. World famous people visited here. In- cluded were presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, and Belgium’s King Leopold. Later Will Rogers wrote his name on the Strater Hotel elevator wall.

PATHFINDER OF THE SAN JUAN

Otto Mears looked to the future and changed from building wagon roads to building railroads. Already having done the same in the Andes Mountains of South America, he was unafraid of the Colo- rado Rockies. He pushed his narrow rails through terrain that was dangerous for a burro. The iron horse was soon hauling rich ore and metals out of the region and the stuff of civilization into the Four Corners Country. Narrow gauge locomotive, D & RG #94, was assembled in Philadelphia and Silverton was served by four railroads during its heyday! The began rolling in the Four Corners in rails reached Ouray in 1887, Telluride in 1890, Mancos in 1891, 1880. By 1888 the Denver & Rio and Rico (most isolated of the big mining camps) welcomed Mears’ Grande had 1670 Miles of narrow Rio Grande Southern Railroad on October 15, 1891. tracks in the southern Colorado mountains. GOLD AND GLORY IN RICO

Despite its early discovery, Rico was the last developed mining district in the region. Although the first permanent dwelling (a log cabin, by R.C. Darling) was erected in 1870, no mine of importance was dug until 1879. In the spring of that year, silver ore worth $1,400 per ton was found on Nigger Baby Hill. That started the stampede. The tiny settlement became a town within days.

Various names for the town were used at first. Included were Carbonate, Carbonateville, Dolores City (the Dolores River and Silver Creek flow through town), Doloresville, Lovejoy, Belford, and Lead City; with Rico, the Spanish name for riches, being finally chosen. On October 11, 1879, the town was incorpo- rated. In August alone 1250 fortune-seekers arrived in the camp, and 105 log cabins were built.

Rico was voted the county seat of newly created Dolores County in 1881. The Bank of Rico opened on April 16, and Miss Alice Snyder was hired as the first school teacher that fall. Thousands of miners lived in and around the town. Hardship and bloodshed were normal parts of life.

At the first Rico was supplied by pack train over unbelievably difficult trails. Later, wagon roads were constructed. The hard winter of 1879-1880 closed the trails and caused a severe food shortage. When the first pack train reached town in April, flour sold for $35 per hundred pounds directly from the packs.

Prospectors at times ventured into the mountains and disappeared with no trace. Arguments were often settled with fists, iron picks, and guns. Chief Ouray died in 1880, removing an important re- straint from young Ute warriors of the tribes. Ouray’s position as Chief of the Consolidated Utes was the main reason that large-scale massacres and battles between whites and Indians did not occur. Ouray always worked for peace with the whites, even though his people did not get a fair deal from the newcomers. After the great chief’s death, problems increased between the races. Killings of both miners and Utes was not unusual.

Machinery for the new Grand View gold and silver smelter was freighted during the summer of 1880 by wagon from east of the continental divide (from the railhead at Alamosa), and by burro train over incred- ibly rugged trails into Rico. The trip had taken 66 days, and cost 75 cents per pound. Wagon roads were soon constructed, but the first stage coach from Rockwood (in the Animas Valley north of Durango) to Rico required about seven days to cover the 32 miles. Mail carrier O.T. Taylor, carrying 60 pounds of mail on snowshoes that winter across the mountains from Parrot City bogged down in heavy snow and froze to death. His body was later found less than a mile from shelter.

PROGRESS AND PROBLEMS

Dozens of business houses were soon operating. Included were stables, transfer companies, general merchandise stores, blacksmith shops, a carpenter shop, hardware store, butcher shop, saloons, hotels, banks, newspaper, and others. A number of illegal businesses also were operating. An editorial in the local newspaper took aim at the lawlessness and misbehavior. Part of the editorial said:

“Isn’t it about time for our officers to enforce the law and put a stop to the disgraceful conduct of ... women ... in the saloons along Glasgow Avenue? Such conduct would be impossible in any other community that we know of. Common decency demands that it be stopped.”

Evidently the editor’s words fell upon deaf ears. According to the Ouray Times, “The town of Rico is in the midst of the greatest excitement. Men are coming in, and all are as wild as March hares!” Many mines merely paid fair wages to the operators, and some paid nothing at all. Others made men rich. In 1880 the Johnny Bull Mine produced gold ore worth $28,000 per ton! Another mine owner received a thousand dollars a day for one thousand days.

Seventeen ladies were among the population of 1200 people in the camp by the fall of 1879. Most were not directly involved in violent incidents, but all were indirectly affected. The gold and silver camps attracted many bad and lawless people. So violence was commonplace.

Before the first sermon was preached in September of 1879, Kid McGoldrick had been murdered by a man called “Frenchy.” A saloonkeeper shot himself. Skeletons were often found in out-of-the-way gulches, with no evidence as to who they had been or how they had died. Snow slides killed some. Mormon Charlie was lynched for killing J. Polk Prindle. A hole was shot through the hat of miner Roundebush while he was climbing up to the Wabash Mine.

“Trinidad Charlie” Cummings and Thomas Wall broke into the Schueler and Bang Store and stole some saddles. Caught in the act by Night Marshall George Smith, the outlaws riddled the lawman’s body with bullets from their six-shooters. The murderers escaped on horses, pursued by an angry posse.

Within ten days they were captured on the reservation by Navajos, brought back to Rico in handcuffs, and placed in the log jail. Four soldiers guarded them. During the dark of night about 30 masked men overpowered the guards, took the prisoners to a nearby unfinished barn, and hanged them.

In 1883, 88 mines and 23 mining companies were operating. Over 4,000 people lived within the town limits. One theater and seven ladies’ boarding houses were in business. A traveler could make the 503- mile trip from Denver in some comfort. The trip to Rico was mostly by train, but the last part was by stage coach. The cost: $39.15. ISOLATED BY SNOWDRIFTS

The winter of 1883-1884 was the worst in Rico’s history. Storm followed storm, piling up snow eight feet deep in the streets, 15 feet on the meadows between Rico and Dunton, and 21 feet on Lizard Head Pass. Telegraph poles were nearly buried, and no trains ran to Durango. Rico was cut off from the world from February 1 to July 1.

In the emergency, about 60 men packed food in on their backs, going from Rico to Durango over the mountains on skis. Most carried from 60 to 75 pounds of supplies, but two Swedes carried 100 pounds each. The skis were handmade, about 12 feet long, and over four inches wide. The supplies sold for $1.00 per pound in Rico. The newspaper was printed on brown wrap- ping paper. Heavy snows in Rico.

The Rio Grande Southern Railroad reached town in 1891. The line was constructed through some of the most difficult terrain in the world. The famous and terrifying Ophir Loop was probably the most amazing engineering feat accomplished. Pas- sengers often closed their eyes in fright when their coach rolled over the high curving trestle. Ore shipments of gold and silver from Rico that year were the largest in the world. The amount increased during the next two years!

Train de-railed in the mountains. In 1892 Rico boasted 14 first-class hotels, and had thousands of miners working underground. The population in town reached 6000— with many more living in the canyons and valleys nearby. The Swickheimers had just sold their Enterprise Mine for about two million dollars.

EVERYDAY LIFE IN RICO MINING CAMP: THE STORY OF ANNIE

Sometimes the best way to re- daughter (who died at an old age ally learn history is with a in the 1980s). It is true in almost story, rather than with dry every respect, except all of the facts and figures. Therefore, family’s names are changed. Their the following fictionalized his- house still stands in town, a Na- tory is included here. The story tional Historic Place. So the story follows closely the life of an of Annie may be considered as be- actual Rico girl— a miner’s ing a true narrative.

Annie awoke with a start. The November sun was just peeping over Dolores Mountain that towered above Rico. The air was clear, and the rays of the sun sparkled on the fresh white snow that had fallen at dusk yesterday. Then she remembered— this was her special day, her fifteenth birthday! She got up quickly, but the cold air made her skin tingle so she wrapped a warm robe about her and shivered. Looking out of the window of her second floor bedroom, Annie drew in her breath at the loveliness. Silver Street was indeed silvery, with spruce tree branches laden with new snow, the street unshoveled, and smoke rising from chimneys all over town. Across the Dolores River westward the early sunshine glistened on the sides of wintry Mount Expectation. In such freezing temperature, one did not dress slowly. Within minutes Annie was ready for the big day and hurried down the steep stairs. There were many preparations to make, for Mama had said that today would really be celebrated in style! Her party would be one not soon forgotten in town. After supper, all the guests would go to the Bon Ton Theatre for the show. The film showing was titled, “The Man with the Iron Claw,” and the actors’ words would be shown at the bottom of the pictures. All of her school chums could read English quite well (some of their parents could read little or no English, just their native Swedish, Finnish, or German) so the movie would be a real treat. Annie wondered how that marvelous Mr. Edison had ever managed to invent the wonderful moving pictures.

Cooking for such a celebration would be an all-day task for Mama, so the eager eighth-grader wanted to help as much as she could before time to go to school. In 1913, American homemakers had not yet encoun- tered convenience foods and microwave ovens.

Daddy had shot some nice plump snowshoe rabbits on the Meadows, and Mama would stew them in a delicious thick gravy, to be served with hot browned biscuits. She was proud that Daddy was such a good hunter. He had been a sharpshooter when he had fought with the Rough Riders during the Spanish- American War.

Another treat tonight would be canned peas, from the Henry Obendorfer Store over on Main Street. A luscious Waldorf salad would be made from rosy apples brought up on the train from the Montezuma Valley where they grew best in the Lebanon orchards. For the color and food value the skins were left on. The celeryand walnuts also from the, store were food the family rarely had, so would add to the festive occasion.

Also there would be fluffy mashed potatoes topped with home-churned butter, a homemade walnut cake, and pineapple sherbet that Mama would stir up and Daddy would freeze in the big two-gallon freezer. When the mixture began freezing, only Daddy was strong enough to turn the handle, so he would have to finish the job by himself. However, Charlie (three years younger than Annie) would sit on the freezer to keep the tub from sliding arourfd when the turning got hard. Upon entering the big warm kitchen, she found her older sister Minnie already busy baking the cake. Seventeen-year old Minnie was better at baking cakes than most of the older ladies in Rico. Mama was beginning on the rabbits, for it would take all day for the stew to cook slowly to bring out the full flavor of the meat and spices. The elegant cast iron range threw out welcome heat, making the kitchen the most comfortable room of any during winter in their well-built brick house. With the oven at just the right temperature, Minnie put the cake in to bake. As Charlie and little sisters Ollie and Inez arrived down- stairs for breakfast, they were sternly warned to walk softly so that the cake would not fall and be ruined.

Daddy had left for work earlier. He carried his lunch in a big lard bucket, for miners worked hard and ate the same way. A miner’s day at the Pro Patria Mine was ten hours long, much better according to Father than the old twelve-hour days he used to work. Mama tried to have something special in his lunch pail each day. Tomorrow he would have walnut cupcakes made with the batter left from the birthday cake.

Minnie finished the baking, then left the breakfast table early to get to work on time. She clerked at the Obendorfer Store. Annie and the younger children bundled up in warm winter clothing after eating and trudged off to school. The walk through the snow was enjoyable. They were joined by several friends before the five blocks were covered. The eighth-grade teacher had written on a corner of the blackboard, “Monday, November 14, 1913,” in her precise penmanship. Mrs. (Alvena) Stampfeld was happy to honor Annie’s request and passed on to her students the invitation to the party that evening. Supper would be at 6:00 p.m. with the 90-minute movie to begin at 8:00 o’clock. By the time the theater let out a nearly full moon would be up, making the night light from the snow-reflected beams.

School was a-buzz that day, for nobody had ever had a supper-show party in Rico before. Annie’s mind certainly wandered from her studies more than usual. The seemingly constant parade of vagrant thoughts through her mind even surprised herself!

Her father had taken the train down to Dolores about two weeks ago, and had ridden on the truck of a freighter northwest into the rangeland toward Monticello, Utah. The Stokes brothers, bachelor friends of the family, had saved enough money from working some mining claims to go into business for themselves. Last year they had built a store building on the hillside overlooking Dove Creek, about halfway between Dolores and Monticello. Freighters driving modern motor trucks could reach the new store in one day, whereas wagons pulled by horses or mules required two days for the hard trip through the grassy sage lands. Those using oxen were slower yet, but could haul heavier loads and had less trouble in hard places on the road. Most freighters still used wagons and teams.

Father had bought a beef, butchered and nicely dressed, from a Dove creek rancher named McCabe. It was hung from the rafters in the back porch, frozen solid by the winter chill. He had seen hundreds and hundreds of cattle on the grassy purple sage range, since snow had not fallen yet there in the lower elevation. The cattle would be moved to the lower country southward before winter came to Dove Creek. “Oh, I just MUST keep my mind on these fractions that Mrs. Stampfeld assigned us, to thought Annie, as she applied pencil to paper. Then her mind betrayed her again.

Mama and Daddy had been talking quietly just last evening, and Annie had overheard some of it. Her mother was glad that Rico had become a more law-abiding community than it had been when she and Father had been married in the lovely white church near the county courthouse. Mama had never grown accustomed to the sounds of shots being fired during the darkness of night. Daddy had remarked that Rico was certainly a quieter town to live in than Telluride. The gold camp just over Lizard Head Pass northward was really wide open and wild, he had said. Something was mentioned about Pacific Street and Daddy had laughed. Mama had frowned and shushed him. That was the last Annie had heard.

Then last September when the aspens had turned the mountainsides to gold, the whole family had ridden the cars up to the pass for a picnic. Somebody dropped a pencil, and Annie jumped. Her arithmetic grade was not going to be anything to boast of if she did not concentrate on the lesson. But this day was special. Mother had spread the potato salad and sandwiches on a sheet under a spruce; during the picnic they could look northwest across the pass and see Lizard Head outlined against the deep blue sky. Father glanced at the ground (he was sitting on a big rock) and picked up a small something and rubbed it on his pantleg. A strange expression came over his face as he held up a $20 gold coin. Everyone was excited over the find and all were talking at once. “How did it get here?” they questioned. There was no road nearby. Then Daddy had nodded his head slowly and surprised all of them again. “I think I may know,” he had said. “I was fifteen back in 1889 ... it may have been July; no, it was in June. My friend Reece and I were riding along here above the meadow looking for deer. We had our rifles and were being quiet, hoping to come onto a nice four-point buck.”

The story that Father told gripped their attention. The boys had heard horses approaching fast from over the trail to Telluride. Then three riders arrived, appearing to be tense and preoccupied. Seeing the young hunters, they had pulled up their horses rather suddenly, and had greeted the lads quite cordially. The thought that the riders might be outlaws took strong possession of Father, and he felt panic stricken.

The trio had looked suspiciously at the rifles of the boys and Daddy had noticed that all of the men wore six-shooters in holsters and had rifles, too. Although the strangers were very friendly, they demanded that the youth give them their rifles. Afraid to refuse, Daddy and Reece had given both guns to the suspicious riders, who then thanked them politely and rode down the trail toward Rico.

Within minutes, while the boys were recovering from their fright and lamenting their loss, another group of riders appeared following the tracks of the first three. The second bunch of men was a posse, all armed and riding hard. They were following some desperate bank robbers who had robbed the Telluride Bank in broad daylight, the sheriff said. The leader of the bank robbers had been recognized as a cowboy called Butch Cassidy. Before hurrying on down the trail, one of the posse had dismounted and picked up three or four gold pieces from the grass. The sheriff had pocketed the money.

Evidently the robbers had not intended to steal the rifles, and had tossed payment to them, which their scared eyes had missed completely. Father and Reece had never told the story; with his friend having left the area years ago, nobody at all knew of the incident. Daddy grinned suddenly, deftly flipped the shiny coin in the air, caught it, and handed it to Mother. “Just think,” he chuckled, “I have been paid for my gun after 24 years!” “Now children,” intruded the firm voice of the teacher, “it is time to pass in your arithmetic papers. Fold them neatly and write your names on the outside.” Annie glanced guiltily at her half-finished work, folded the paper, and handed it toward the front of the row.

Mrs. Stampfeld was a kindly and affectionate lady, but also a stern and effective teacher. Once when Annie recovered from a reverie with a start she thought that she detected a twinkle in the pedagogical eye. Several-times the teacher found it necessary to admonish whispering students. With such excitement planned for the evening, conducting whispered conferences was too tempting.

When the clock on the wall read four o’clock, the school janitor rang the big iron bell in the school bell tower. As the eighth-graders separated to walk the different streets to their homes, calls echoed through the 9000 foot mountain air of “Be seein’ ya before six,” and “Yep, I’ll be there!” Sunset came early in the river canyon among the 12,000 foot peaks, so the crunchy snow was already in the shadows as the children hurried home.

The kitchen was large and so was the table. But additional seating had to be managed. Not enough chairs were available. Two chairs were set at the ends of the long table on either side, and two by twelve inch boards were placed on them to provide seating for six or eight guests on each side. Since fourteen youngsters were expected, that did very nicely.

The Perfect Birthday Party

The ordinary checked oilcloth table cover was replaced by a gleaming white linen cloth, with real linen napkins at each place. “What elegance!” thought Annie. Under Mother’s helpful supervision she set the table all by herself. They had realized that there were not enough drinking glasses, but Minnie had said, “I’ll give you enough glasses for everyone as my birthday present to you.”

Upon arriving home from work, Minnie had opened the box that she carried and set the glasses on the kitchen cabinet. How beautiful they were, such dainty ware etched all around with a grape design! Annie turned quite pink with happiness. All of the arrangements went well until Minnie went into the milk cooler pantry where she had put her cake. Shrieks of anguish came from the little room. Charlie had found the finished confection and had eaten all of the walnut halves placed so carefully on top, leaving only holes in the icing. Minnie sat down and cried. “That won’t do an4 good,” scolded her practical younger sister. “Do something. “Do what?” retorted the stricken cake-baker. “The store is closed, and we don’t have any more nuts in the house.”

Wrinkling her brow, Annie thought aloud: “Maybe you could telephone Mr. Obendorfer at home, go to his house and get the store key, then get some more walnuts. I”11 shell them and you can have the cake repaired before six o’clock.” That was done, and when the cake was served as dessert, no one knew of the loving repair work done on the pretty cake, or of the effort expended by Minnie. An indignant report of Charlie’s wickedness was given to Father, and the twelve-year-old was properly disciplined after the guests had left.

Guests began arriving well before six o’clock. Wraps, leggings, overshoes, gloves, scarve.s, and all outdoor wear were left in the front hall. A good fire was burning in the big coal stove so the large living room was toasty warm. Two of the girls, Marlette Hicks and Anna Engle, had taken piano lessons, so they played the grand old Howard piano while everyone sang. Their favorite songs included “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean,” “There’s Music in the Air,” “Nellie Gray,” “Under the Old Apple Tree,” and several others.

Then the birthday presents were opened while all watched. The wonderful gifts included a school tablet, a red ribbon for her long curly hair, a silver thimble, three pencils, an apron, a copy of Conchita, (her first hardback book , and others. Soon the young people were called to supper— and made the acquaintance of place cards. What delightful confusion that was! Minnie said a very nice grace and the meal was begun. Talking slowed considerably as keen appetites made inroads on the delicious food.

Suddenly one of the boys exclaimed, “Hey, this glass leaks!” “It doesn’t either, 11 countered Annie. “It’s BRAND NEW, SO HOW COULD IT?” Imagine her surprise when the glasses were examined and all of the glasses leaked; her wily sister had given Annie a set of trick glasses. In the embossed grape design on each glass were several tiny holes! None of the guests wore delicate clothing, so no damage was done and everyone thought it an excellent joke. Then came that marvelous cake, served with elegant light pineapple sherbet (which Annie thought Mama made better than anyone else in the whole world). Willing voices sang Happy Birthday, as the honored girl blew out all fifteen candles with one breath. Her wishes would come true.

Donning their layers of wraps, the group started for the show. None was old enough to be going steady, so they left in a group as was usual. Somehow, though, on that magic evening the youth began separating into couples, a bit raggedly at first. Louis had been kicked hard by a nasty old burro during the summer, and had only recently become able to walk again without help. Pushing up the poorly shoveled street was difficult, and he fell behind the gaily laughing celebrants. Since Annie had always liked and admired Louis, she was more than happy to stay back with him. Then he added, one more thrill to her big day: from inside his coat he took a half-pound box of chocolates and shyly presented it to her. Being the first time for both, neither knew exactly what to say. Then impulsively she said, “Thank you so very much, Louis. This is the nicest present of all. I’ll put it with my other gifts and save it.” She was entirely truthful. (Weeks later, alone in her room, the happy girl carefully opened the box, and found that someone, probably that wicked Charlie, had eaten every chocolate!).

The others arrived at the show house before Annie and Louis, but Gus Gibbs knew that it was a birthday party, so he let them all in. How proud the birthday girl was to walk up to the ticket window and pay ten cents for each of her guests. She had never before spent so much money for anything. That gift from her father had cost him nearly all of one day’s wages from his miner’s job.

Later that night Annie snuggled into bed under the warm comforters. Moonlight reflected from the snowy world outside streamed through the window and lighted the room. Her world in the high mountain town of Rico was indeed silvery. She would remember that wonderful evening all of her life. Worksheet for Chapter 5 There’s Gold in Them Hills

1. The setting was New ______in the ______Century; in the ______Valley not far from present-day ______, Colorado. 2. The buried ______were never recovered. 3. The first written record of ______prospectors was in ______. 4. Since the ______guarded their ______fastnesses, few intruders lived to return home with either ______or ______. 5. The Rico area – the first district proven to be rich in ______and ______-- was the last location to be ______and developed. 6. In the 1880’s, the Four Corners mines caused Colorado to produce over ______of all the silver mined in the ______. 7. Wagon ______were built, but transportation was still ______. 8. The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad established ______in 1880. 9. Otto Mears pushed his narrow ______through terrain that was ______for a burro. The ______was soon hauling rich ore out of the region. 10. Rico was voted the county seat of Dolores ______in ______. 11. Arguments were often settled with ______, ______, and ______. 12. Ouray always worked for ______with the ______. 13. “Isn’t it about time for our ______to enforce the ______?” 14. “Men are coming in , and all are as ______as ______hares. 15. About 30 masked men took the ______to a nearby unfinished ______and ______them. 16. The winter of 1883-1884 was the ______in Rico’s ______. 17. The ______Railroad reached town in 1891. 18. Ore shipments of gold and silver from Rico that year were the ______in the ______. 19. Then she remembered – this was her ______day, her fifteenth ______! 20. Also there would be fluffy ______topped with home-churned ______, a homemade walnut ______, and pineapple ______. 21. The leader of the bank robbers had been recognized as a ______called ______. 22. The glasses were examined and ______of the glasses ______. 23. He took a half-pound box of ______and shyly ______it to her. Worksheet for Chapter 6 Cowboys Come to the High Country

1. The Four Corners Country was ______to Americans in general until the ______. 2. For several years, ______and more soldiers were on the ______almost constantly because of hostilities between ______and ______. 3. By 1890, in the isolated Four Corners Country, the open range livestock ______was merely well ______. 4. The Dove Creek country ______grew up to the saddle ______. It tossed and ______in the ______. 5. Stockmen could run ______and horses on the range ______. 6. The chief way was through the ______Creek range following the ______from the southeast. 7. (See map of open-range country) The Freighters’ Trail connected Monticello with ______. 8. Women lived ______in the ______range ______society from their sisters back ______or in the bigger ______. 9. Many names and dates (______to ______) were carefully carved. 10. Part of the camp was named “______”. 11. Many came “on jump ahead of ______. 12. Riders generally went ______. 13. The old ______passed through the ______Corners. 14. Butch ______, undisputed leader of the ______, was a very ______man. 15. “______” another rider was ______allowed. 16. Cowboys were devoted to the ______they ______for. 17. Frontier society was ______and friendly. 18. The burro would lead the ______to the ranch. 19. “What do you know,” they exclaimed, “ the ______did it!” 20. Polly spoke to the pony: “______!” 21. Various bands from all ______continued to roam at ______. 22. The Utes were ______neighbors than many ______. 23. The lush native ______was eaten down to the ______. 24. The wonderful endless ______of waving ______were destroyed. CHAPTER 6

COWBOYS COME TO THE HIGH COUNTRY

Scarcely had the dust settled on the Old Spanish Trail, than the Dove Creek area began to echo with the bawling of longhorned cattle and the jingle of cowboys’ spurs.

Although most traffic on the Trail ceased by about 1850, strenuous efforts were required to stop the Utes from their centuries-old slave trade. Added to the direct measures taken by the new American military government in Santa Fe were antislaving laws by the Mormons in Utah and the stopping of Navajo raiding by Kit Carson. War and bloodshed occurred before the last Utes and Mexicans stopped carrying slaves over the old route, by about 1865.

THE FOUR CORNERS WAS INDIAN COUNTRY

Remote and hidden by the most formidable geographic features of the nation, the Four Corners Country was unknown to Americans in general until the 1870s. During that decade stockmen began driving herds of cattle into the region.

However, the area was not especially safe for whites. Utes, Paiutes, and Navajos had long used the Great Sage Plain (especially that part reaching from the Blue Mountains southeastward to the Mesa Verde) for hunting. Even after the treaties of 1874, 1877, and 1880 which gave away the region, the Indians still considered it as theirs. They had roamed the vast stretches of plains and canyons, of green valleys and shining mountains from beyond memory. It was unreasonable to expect them to give up their homeland merely because the new government told them to. Thus the arrival of cattlemen with thousands of longhorns created an explosive situation. In 1859 John Newberry, foremost geologist in America, had climbed the northern cliffs of Mesa Verde when exploring the region. Major John Wesley Powell had explored the Colorado River in 1869 and 1871. Captain John Moss led a prospecting party into the area in 1874. He saw and named Montezuma Valley, and established the first permanent settlement of the grassy sagelands at Mancos that year.

In 1878 and 1880 an army post, Fort Lewis, was established to protect the miners and stockmen in the northern parts of the Four Corners. For several years 200 and more mounted soldiers were on the move almost constantly because of hostilities between settlers and Indians.

A LATE FRONTIER

By 1890, the western frontier in America was considered closed. Officially there was no longer a frontier. However, in the isolated Four Corners Country, the open range livestock frontier was merely well started.

The first cattlemen found a cowboy’s paradise. Drift- ing their herds into the Country in the 1870s, they found rich native grass everywhere. Summer range in the mountains and upland forests, spring and fall pasture of the Great Sage Plain, and winter range of the lower country were alike in one way: grass grew everywhere! Roundup and branding time in the summer range, in 1880 or 1882. Cowboys from the different Highland ranges were outstanding, including large ranches cut out their cattle from the mixed herd parks containing nothing but grass. It grew taller and branded the young ones. than a mule deer’s back. The Dove Creek country grass grew up to the saddle stirrups. It tossed and billowed in the breeze. Pioneer cattleman Ira Freeman said that it “was a vast area of waving grass. There was a stunted growth of sage in the grass, but the grass prevailed and held the sage in check.”

The lower elevation winter ranges were also rich grasslands. Grama grass and other short grasses prevailed, and purple sage gave way to white sage, rabbit brush, and other bushes for livestock to browse. Stockmen could run cattle and horses on the range all year, with plenty of high quality feed.

In addition, the grass cured on the stem, and retained its nutritious value when dry. That was different from grasslands farther east, where dry grass was of little value. One early cattleman remembered, his was a wonderful range.

The late Four Corners frontier developed from ten to twenty years after other parts of the four states. Texas cowboys began trailing their stock into the Colorado and Utah parts of the region in the middle 1870s. The first ones were small ranchers who floated ahead of the general rush of larger outfits. Many of them were tough frontiersmen, well able to cope with the hazards of a new land.

THE COW COUNTRY

The number of cattle in each outfit ranged from a mere handful up to 5000 head. They came from all directions— but the chief way was through the Dove Creek range following the Old Spanish Trail from the southeast. By 1877 the Dolores River Valley had become headquarters for a number of ranches.

Big Bend and later Dolores (pictured right) became the business center for ranches in the Dolores River Valley. Stage coaches and mule trains were used to move men and supplies. Others were located from the Disappointment

Dolor Valley- Lone Cone range to the La Sal Mountains, and from the Henry Mountains west of the Colo- es River Monticello rado River in Utah, south into Arizona and New Mexico. The map on the next page shows most of Freighter’s Trail the area.

Blue Mtns. COLORADO Dove Creek By the summer of 1881, eleven women were among the ranching population. The first white child,

UTAH Emma Denby, was born there in 1883.

The first store in the area was established in Mancos by George Bauer in 1881, although the town of Big Bend was settled three years earlier two miles west of present-day Dolores. The west- Montezuma Creek ern rangeland of Dolores County waited 30 years longer for its first retail business.

Southward in dry Montezuma Valley some corrals and a cabin began a settlement at Mitchell Springs Here is shown the chief open range country discussed by McElmo Creek in the early 1880s. In 1886 the in this chapter of the Four Corners livestock society. town of Cortez was laid out a mile or so north on a dry ridge. A cafe was opened there by F.M. Goodykoontz in January, 1887. Water was hauled by wagon from the spring and sold for 25 to 50 cents per barrel. Hundreds of men were soon working on the Montezuma irrigation system (to carry Dolores River water to Montezuma Valley). They paid five cents per glass for drinking water in Cortez! STOCK OUTFITS IN THE RANGELAND

Some of the cattle outfits which entered the region were: Rudy Hudson, whose cowboys trailed their cattle over the Old Spanish Trail in 1878. They went to Dove Creek and on to the Blue Mountains. Hunt Quick and the King brothers came in 1880 with large herds. An important spring of good water west of Egnar is named for the Kings.

The LC brand of the Laceys was on about 5000 longhorns when that outfit came in 1879. They occupied range from Cross Canyon east of Dove Creek westward to the Blue Mountains, and south to Recapture Canyon (north of White Mesa). Mr. Lacey was killed near Fort Lewis in 1881, so the Brumleys (Mrs. Lacey’s brothers) came to help manage the ranch.

Women lived differently in the open range cattle society from their sisters back east or in the bigger towns. They often rode with the men; wives and daughters wearing pants and riding astride their horses. Pearl Baker, who grew up on the Robbers Roost Ranch near the Dirty Devil River, told of how horrified the more Droper girls of Hanksville were when they saw Pearl and her sister wearing tight cowboy pants and riding astride their horses like the men.

Along the west rim of Alkali Wash, a mile from Cahone, are the remains of a camp constructed and used by incoming stockmen. Several rude stone huts with fireplaces, which originally had pole, brush, and dirt roofs, may still be seen. Many names and dates (1882 to 1884) were carefully carved into some sandstone cliffs. Among the names are Isaac A. McCurry, “Parson” B.E. Green, Scott and Trew Hayes, H.L. Van Nostrand, Dee and Reece, and T.E. Breckenridge. Part of the camp was named “Camp Breckenridge.”

The late 1880s and early 1890s saw some very large ranches established. Among those were Preston Nutter, the Pittsburgh Company, the Carlisles (British noblemen), the ELK, the K-/ , and the already mentioned Laceys. Ranchers prospered. Thousands and thousands of cattle grazed on the lush rangeland. Bluff City was the wealthiest town per capita in the country. J.J. Harris Bank in Dolores had the largest average bank deposits of any bank in America. Dolores was said to have more millionaire cattlemen than any other town in the land!

By that time the Four Corners Country was officially a law-abiding part of the United States, with operating county governments and regular law-and-order. However, the reality was very different!

A LAWLESS, DANGEROUS LAND

Actually, every man was his own law officer. Those who were unable to protect themselves either moved away or suffered loss of property or life-- often both. The hazardous life on this open range caused people to develop their inner resources more than usual. Often boys did men’s work successfully. The frontier attracted the type of people who could cope with primitive, uncomfortable, and dangerous situations. They were not necessarily crude or uneducated, however. Ike McCurry, for example, was educated and could read, write, and speak both English and Spanish. In addition to the more restless descendants of the pioneers farther east who came to this late frontier, many came “one jump ahead of the law.” Outlaws drifted to here from the more law abiding settlements in other regions, too. Some changed their ways and became peaceful citizens of this new land. Others remained outlaws, making this area the most dangerous locale in the land.

Cattle grazed everywhere in the rich grasslands, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. No effective protection was provided by the law. So riders generally went armed, often carrying both six-shooters and rifles.

Rustling was common. In addition to the small time stealing done by some local men who were building up their own small herds or selling a few stolen steers to local markets, there were big-time rustlers. These professional robbers of “the owl-hoot trail” at times rustled herds of several hundred head and trailed them swiftly out of the country by moonlight, to distant markets. Horses stolen west of the Blue Mountains were often sold in the Colorado mining camps. Those stolen in the Dove Creek country were sometimes taken along secret trails, such as one in Squaw Canyon, to outside markets.

The old Outlaw Trail, a wide band of country stretching from Canada to Mexico, passed through the Four Corners Country. During the open range era, from about 1870 to 1915 or later, it was used extensively. Robbers Roost, a 30-mile-wide plateau between the Colorado and Dirty Devil rivers, was a safe refuge for evil-doers using the Outlaw Trail.

THE WILD BUNCH

Several outlaw gangs lived in or passed through the Four Corners area regularly. Included were the McCartys, the Blue Mountain Gang, The Hole in the Wall Gang, and the Wild Bunch. Robbers Roost was at times inhabited by 100 or more outlaws. Log cabins and stone shelters made a permanent settlement. A store of sorts was there. Often several women lived there, including Etta Place and Maude Davis, wife and girl friend of the Sundance Kid and Elzy Lay. The two men were members of the inner circle of about ten outlaws making up the Wild Bunch. Up to 100 others comprised the full number of that last big outlaw gang.

Butch Cassidy, undisputed leader of the Wild Bunch, was a very pleasant man who was well-liked by nearly all who knew him. Butch grew up on a ranch near Circleville, Utah. Named George Leroy Parker, he was a son of a devout Mormon family. According to outlaw comrade Matt’ Warner, he became it another saint gone sour.” He learned the tricks of the outlaw trade from old rustler Mike Cassidy, who worked for the Parkers. After Mike was killed while pursuing the easy dollar, George showed his admiration for his old teacher by taking his name when he began following the owl-hoot trail. Western outlaws often used false names to save their families from embarrassment. Butch became famous instantly when he and two partners robbed the Telluride Bank on June 24, 1889. The friendly blue-eyed cowboy had amused residents of the town that summer as he trained his horse to stand still as he vaulted into the saddle from behind. The unusual fast start was useful when the cowboys made off with $22,500 of the bank’s money!

About 1980, the tale appeared locally about the trio of robbers meeting a man (or two) as they fled over Lizard Head Pass. Pleasantly but firmly the outlaws took his rifle with them as they outdistanced their pursuers. As usual in Cassidy’s robberies, the posse never even came close to catching the outlaws. However, the general run of outlaws was different from the amiable Cassidy. Many were violent men, and many were heartless killers. Some robbed and mistreated the poor as well as the rich. Thus honest cowboys rode armed and alert.

They often avoided “high lining” themselves— that is, they kept away from open hilltops and ridges where they would be outlined against the sky. “Trailing” another rider was not allowed. When a cow puncher discovered another man unobtrusively following his tracks, he often ambushed and shot the trailer, for such tracking was considered unfriendly.

COWBOYS WERE TOUGH, TOO

Rustlers and outlaws lived a dangerous life among the equally tough cowboys. Cattle ranches such as the LC (Laceys) were known to be violent outfits. They hired Texas cowboys and gunfighters to cope with rustlers. The LC punchers enforced the law themselves, and often died with their boots on. One member of the family continued to wear his six-shooter for years after he had become a Moab banker and no longer rode the range.

Cowboys did dangerous work commonly. Longhorned cattle were nervous beasts and could easily kill an unwary horse or rider. Sometimes a group of cattle became “rimrocked.” They wandered onto a ledge or mesa where they couldn’t get back from. Trapped, they ate all of the grass, then tried to escape. Unsuccessful, the beasts became terrified and enraged. The cowboy had to devise or dig a path for the crazed longhorns, then get them to follow it to safety. At the same time, he had to look out that the cattle didn’t injure or kill his horse or himself!

LIFE ON THE OPEN RANGE

Life on the Four Corners open range was not only difficult, but was very interesting and satisfying. It was a fascinating time of American history.

The “Texas-style” cow society placed the ranching business at the center of life. Ev- erything else revolved around the ranching activities. Cowboys were devoted to the ranch they worked for, with a loyalty almost unknown in other societies. The wages were small, but their pride and sense of satisfac- tion in doing the job well were great.

Although considered rude and indecent by many citizens of the towns, the cowboy’s sense of honor, and respect for proper females seem to have been above that of most people. Their Ranch family getting supplies in town. manliness, courage, and dashing appearance made them much too attractive to innocent young ladies, according to pioneer fathers and mothers in the settlements. Many of the wild cowboys married local girls, and thus lessened the dislike and suspicion between the ranchers and the townspeople.

The simple lifestyle of the pioneer ranchers was satisfying and generally comfortable. Good food was abundant, as the domestic livestock were of high quality. Wild game was plentiful. Gardens grew easily in the rich soil. Frontier society was cooperative and friendly, despite the sometimes fierce competition between ranchers. Neighbors were helpful without being nosey.

Houses were usually made in the Tonto style: built with an open breezeway separating the two parts. One end of the log building contained the living room and kitchen. The other had the bedrooms. The breezeway in between was roofed over for protection from rain and snow in winter, and from the hot sun in summertime.

The roof was often made of poles, covered with brush, then bark from the peeled juniper-log walls, with dirt on top. Later corrugated sheet iron was usually put over this when the rancher could afford the expensive imported materials. A fireplace and/or wood stove heated the house.

Jessie McCabe told of an interesting experience of life in such a log house in the Monument Creek range near Dove Creek. She had a set of prized silverware that was used only on special occasions. But it seemed that a fork or spoon was lost nearly every time she used the set. Seldom was the missing piece ever found. Also, she began to realize that some joker was leaving odd items such as dried cactus pads, old bones, or sticks on her dining table when the silver disappeared.

Not until the family replaced the log cabin with a frame house was the mystery solved. lvhen the cabin was torn down to re-use the cedar logs, the big ridge pole that supported the roof center was found to be hollow. Within the hollow log a packrat family had made its home. For years the friendly rodents had been collecting Jessie’s silverware, piece by piece. All of the missing cutlery was found inside of the log!

DAY TO DAY WORK ON THE RANGE

Much of the land was rough and broken. Many cows and steers evaded the cowboys at roundup time. Some hid in remote canyons or breaks, grew very large, and became extremely wild. Cowboys on the million-acre range of the Carlisle ranch devised a surefire method of getting such old “mossy backs” to the home corrals. Finding such a cow or steer, they would rope and hogtie it, then de-horn the snorting beast. Before releasing their captive, the cowboys would tie a stout rope around the wild one’s neck, with the other end secured to a burro. At first the enraged animal would jerk the little burro around fearfully. But persistence won out in the end, and the burro would lead the disheartened mossy back to the ranch corrals. The longest time taken by a homing burro was about a week!

Cowboys were sometimes out on the range for weeks without going to town or to the ranch headquarters. Punchers even stayed out for months in the wilder parts of the range. Al Scorup, called the “Mormon Cowboy” before the Mormon settlers approved of such people, spent months on end out in the wild fastnesses of White Canyon or in the Roost. Once in 1891, Al rode into Bluff for supplies. He was greeted by all of the single girls in town! The 13 or 14 young women carefully stayed away from the wild gentile cowboys; but they wanted to see a real cowboy close-up. So they met this lone Mormon puncher, who was from their own people.

Scorup soon became the hard-riding boss of the Bluff Pool, the cooperative venture of the small Mormon stock owners. The “Bluff Tigers” (as they became known among the Texas cowboys) became able to com- pete successfully with the hard-bitten Texans and other gentile cow outfits.

WATER RAN UPHILL

In the 1890s the settlers of Blanding, Utah, were digging a ditch up the side of Recapture Wash to bring Blue Mountain water to White Mesa. Due to the canyon wall, the ditch appeared to be going uphill. Some LC riders watched in amazement, and reported that those crazy farmers thought that they could make water run uphill. Later the same cowboys came across the ditch with water flowing through it. “What do you know, it they exclaimed, it the darned old fools did it!”

Once during an unusually cold winter, Henry McCabe was moving cattle on their winter range of Cedar Park. He camped below Nebro Mtn., about 15 to 20 miles southwest of Dove Creek. When the herd roused in the morning, one cow didn’t get-tip. She was frozen stiff. Henry thought that she must not have gotten enough to eat on the previous day. However, as the coyotes, ravens, and magpies ate the cow as it thawed out during the following weeks, her stomach was found to be full of feed. The weather had been just too cold.

A good stock dog was invaluable to a rancher. Well trained dogs could keep wild cattle in line better than a man on horseback. Also, it could bring a wild one out from a brushy place. Equally important was a dog who was trained to growl quietly rather than to bark at the approach of a visitor. An unknown rider (who often was an outlaw) might be approaching silently to catch the camping cowman unawares. The dog would warn his master without letting the intruder know that he had been discovered. A visitor bent on causing trouble would find an untended View southwest from Bug Point, of Cedar Park with campfire, with his intended victim waiting Nebro Mountain on the left in the middle distance. in the shadows covering him with a gun. This was winter range for the cattlemen

KIDS’ LIVES WERE INTERESTING, ALSO

Frontier children found life just as fascinating as did the adults. They often went to school in poorly heated buildings. At one such school, the inkwells sitting on the students’ desks would freeze, even while the stove was red hot. To thaw the frozen ink,-the kids would bring the bottles to the stove. if the teacher was too busy to notice, a pupil would place the inkwell on a hot spot, so the bottom of the ink would melt before the ice at the top could. The result would be a steam-powered explosion shooting ice and stopper to the ceiling with a report like a shotgun blast! Teachers were usually imported from “back east.” Most of the lady teachers were devoted to their jobs and students, and were well trained. But they were woefully ignorant of ordinary frontier life. The country kids delighted in doing practical jokes on the unsuspecting “school marms.”

Polly Dosier taught at a school in the Dolores River Valley. She decided to learn to ride a horse. Away from the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, there was no other practical means of travel. For wagon travel was so uncomfortable over the rough roads. The cow country boys were happy to help the pretty young teacher.

They brought a well-broken horse and saddled the animal carefully. Although she was green, Polly could see that something was wrong. The disappointed jokers did as she asked, and turned the backwards saddle around properly. Miss Dosier mounted the horse with a little help, then unwittingly made their day. Picking up the reins carefully, Polly spoke to the pony: “Please commence!”

The young people had many interesting pastimes when not helping with the family livelihood. Hunting was rewarding, since wild game, both large and small, was abundant. Edible wild plants included wild onions, juniper globe mallow, dandelions, sour dock, “deer moss,” and the many berries and nuts. Pinyon nuts grew in great quantities; wild currents, gooseberries, choke cherries, raspberries, strawberries, elder- berries, and in places hackberries were common.

Winters brought skiing, sledding, and ice skating. River valley dwellers played a hazardous game: ice rafting. Where the river rushed over rapids, the water didn’t freeze. So the youth would chop off ice rafts from the river above the rapids and ride the slippery craft down the wild waters to where the river was again frozen over below the rapids!

Camping, fishing, horseback riding, climbing and exploring the cliff-rimmed canyons, and investigating the many mesa-top ruins and cliff dwellings of the departed Anasazi (called “Mokie” ruins by the Anglo settlers) were fun. Social gatherings for the whole family included rodeos, parties, and all-night dances. INDIANS ROAMED THE LAND

The bloody century of 1775 to 1875 for the Four Corners Indians was ending. But the following 50 years were painful to Indian and white alike. All Indian tribes resisted the Anglo intruders and struggled hard to keep their land. They did not succeed, but fear and bloodshed rode the range with both races. There were no widespread wars, but many frightful and fatal incidents occurred. Prospector’s Merrick and Mitchell were slain at Monument Valley in 1881, after they had been warned away by Navajo warriors.

Burnt Cabin Springs massacre happened in that same year. Richard May and John Thurmond and maybe a third cowboy were camped by an unnamed spring near some tall pine trees. The water flowed eastward from Cedar Point into Monument Canyon a mile distant. The cabin was a mile or two east of the Utah boundary.

Evidently a roving band of Paiute or Ute braves rode silently up to the camp, killed the cowboys, burned the house and rode on into Utah. Little Captain, a Navajo, reported the killing to the whites; and a large posse from ranches and mines was formed. Tracked to the La Sal Mountains, a pitched battle was fought between the Indians and Anglos in Pinhook Valley. Nine posse members were killed, and between seven and eighteen Indians died.

UNLIKE CULTURES CAUSED MISTRUST

The unfortunate suspicion and fights between red and white were natural results of the different lifeways of the unlike groups. The Indians believed in cooperative living with shared property; use of the land but with no private ownership; and the use of natural resources by any who needed them. The whites believed in private ownership of land; of individual property rights; and of competition within society. The different value systems clashed painfully.

To expect the Utes, Paiutes, and Navajos to abandon the wide lands they had roamed over freely was not reasonable. The Indians were unwilling to stay on their newly established small reservations. Various bands from all three tribes continued to roam at will over the landscape until 1925 or later.

The Indian presence caused fear among the European settlers. Often cattlemen slept in cold shadows a hundred yards from their campfires. Numberless families removed from their log cabins and hid among the trees and brush for fear of being attacked during the night. The need for such caution was shown by the number of cabins burned by roving Indians.

The Indian belief that surplus goods could rightfully be used by other people in need, clashed with the cowboys’ belief in personal property ownership. When the Indians killed cattle along with the usual deer and elk, the ranchers thought them not only bothersome, but as outright thieves.

In 1885 the problems came to a head in the Beaver Creek Massacre. A small band of hunting Utes were camped on the creek. Some angry cowboys attacked the camp in the gray dawn killing six men, women, and children. The unfortunate incident caused terror and more blood-letting among both sides.

SOME WERE FRIENDS

All whites and Indians were not enemies. Many individual members of both races got along well and developed lasting friendships. Cowman Henry McCabe and his punchers rode in safety among Ute and Paiute chiefs Short Hair, Polk, Posey, and others. This was true even when the Indian warriors were engaged in hostile actions against other whites. McCabe stated that the Utes were better neighbors than many whites. He said that the Indians were so very honest, that it was seldom equaled by anyone.

CLOSE OF THE OPEN RANGE

The open range cattle society held the seeds of its own destruction. With no effective way of controlling the number of livestock on the grazing lands, too many cattle were puton the range. Gradually the grasslands were overgrazed. The lush native grass was eaten down to the roots, and tromped out by the heavy-hoofed cows and horses.

In the highland summer ranges, grassy parks and valleys slowly changed into stands of timber. The drier lower elevation winter ranges were taken over by less valuable shrubs in some cases, and in other places just turned into barren deserts.

The in-between lands such as the Great Sage Plain were taken over by sagebrush and other plants as the grass died out. The wonderful endless miles of waving grasslands were destroyed permanently. By about 1910 the range was in very poor condition, and getting worse steadily.

About 40 years of uncontrolled grazing by thousands and thousands of cattle and horses The Monument Creek Range were enough to change the balance of nature vastly. In addition to the domesticated animals eating off the grass, there were many less of the former deer, antelope, bighorn sheep, and elk to browse on the shrubs that competed the native grass.

HOMESTEADERS HASTEN THE END

Around 1910 to 1912, a few fearless farmers came into the area, and squatted on choice spots of land, usually by good springs of water. Their actions were done lawfully, but the laws were actually intended for the use of ranchers who could preempt ranch sites and water rights. The cowboys were outraged when the “nesters” fenced the water holes. Several years of increasing bloodshed between the tough settled ranchers and the equally hard-bitten homesteaders made headlines in Denver newspapers. United States marshalls were sent to the Dove Creek area to stop the trouble.

Freighters drove wagons like this one over the trail from Monticello to the Rio Grande Southern railhead at Dolores. During the closing years of the 19th century, the freighters and cowboys named a creek at about halfway between the towns “Dove Creek” because of the many doves in the area.

The government had the region surveyed in 1914, and opened to homesteaders. Hundreds and thousands of pioneer farmers flocked into the area. Houses, gardens, and fences sprouted across the landscape like toadstools after a warm summer rain! Within a few years the open range cattle country ended.

CHAPTER 7

HOMESTEADERS: THE DRYNESTERS APPEAR

Inez Martin found her head nodding sleepily. She held the reins loosely as the horses pulled the rocking wagon through the warm evening hours. Her two young sons napped in the shade of the canvas top, tired from the long day. Placed mid-way in the wagon train, her team needed little attention as they followed the two-track Dolores-to-Monticello road through the grassy sagelands of South- western Colorado. The track led northwestward, along the general route of the Old Spanish Trail that had been abandoned a half-century earlier.

The pretty five-foot two-inch widow was going west to make a new life in a new country. With the death of Doctor Martin her world had collapsed. As time healed the numbness, she had begun considering the future. Neighbors had been talking about cousins and friends who had preempted homesteads in the unopened high cool mesas and valleys of the Colorado and Utah Four Corners Country rangeland.

Wonderful tales had been told around the pot-bellied stoves in Texas, Oklahoma, and Missouri homes: summer nights in the new land were cool for comfortable sleeping. Days were never parched by hot, dry winds that burned tender crops. Wild game of many kinds was easily found in the forests, canyons, and rolling plains. The red soil was unbelievably rich. Summer rains came without fail. And the land was free!

So the young widow decided to break family ties and move to that distant country. An important influence had been the news of government survey and official opening of the region to homesteaders in 1914. Selling her possessions, Mrs. Martin bought a new wagon with canvas-covered top. Into it she packed necessities and some treasured items— then joined a group of families and individuals that was planning the long trip to the west. The large number of covered wagons gave the brave but worried young woman a feeling of safety.

The pioneers endured long weeks of travel after leaving Sparks, Oklahoma. After hundreds and hundreds of wearisome miles, the wagon train had reached the cool highlands.

Jolted awake as iron-tired wheels bumped over a rock ledge in the dirt tracks, Inez spoke encouragingly to the team, then looked around at the countryside. Sage covered the gentle hills and vales, purple in the evening sun. Grass as tall as the big sage waved in the breeze. A grove of evergreen trees grew to one side of the road, while others dotted the landscape. The vale they were descending into was mostly grass- covered. A softly shimmering mist was gathering above the brush farther down the valley.

Then she saw them: two small lakes, edged with green, shining in the bright sunlight. Such a lovely place to camp! Evidently like-minded, the lead wagon driver was turning his team out of the trail toward the lakes. Inez wakened Paul and John, who rubbed their eyes as they sat up. APPEARANCES COULD BE DECEPTIVE

Cooking fires were soon burning while women and girls prepared supper on nearby wagon end-gates. Boys, filled with new energy by the prospect of splashing in the ponds, had gathered fire wood and carried household water in record time. Already 20 happy urchins were hunting frogs, skipping rocks across the clear water, or wading bare-footed with rolled-up pants legs.

The chatter of the women was interrupted suddenly by a small boy’s announcement: “Mama, Mama, there’s fish in the lake!” “Fish?” “Are you sure?” “How big are they?” “Oh, they’re BIG!” exclaimed the youngster, as he held his hands apart to measure five or six inches. “And there are lots and lots of ‘em!” “Hum-m , said Inez. “That’s just the right size for crisp-frying so they can be eaten without worrying about the bones.” “You boys take some tow sacks for seines and catch us a big bucket full of those fish,” instructed the ladies. The job was soon done, with mothers and daughters briskly cleaning the small fish. Within minutes a startled exclamation from one of the girls caught their attention. “My fish has legs!” “So has mine!” “And mine, too!” joined in other voices as everyone began examining their ‘fish’ carefully. “These aren’t fish,” wailed an anguished mother, ”they are waterdogs!”

The unfortunate amphibians were discarded at the camp’s edge with eloquent shudders by the agitated feminine pioneers. Meat for supper consisted of bacon and jack rabbit. Sixty years later Grandma Inez Martin Hatfield retold the story with a merry chuckle. However, she remembered how keen had been the disappointment on that warm summer evening.

FREIGHTERS’ TRAIL THROUGH THE SAGE LANDS

An ungraded road had been developed from the railroad depot at Dolores through the range lands to Monticello, Utah. Used by freighters and ranchers of the region, the trail crossed Dove Creek only yards below the noon siesta site of the Escalante Expedition on August 15, 1776. The freighters named the creek because of the flocks of doves noticed there. But the cowboys may have named it first. The little valley was an overnight resting place on the hard three-day trip for the loaded wagons.

Log cabins and corrals had been built on the banks of Dove Creek by cowboys, and used when cattle were being worked in the vicinity. In 1912 and 1913 the bachelor Stokes brothers had lumber and other building materials hauled in, and constructed a substantial frame building about half way.up the hill west of the creek. The two men opened a general merchandise store, the first such business in the rangelands of western Dolores County. In 1910 there had been no residences along the trail west of Lewis, in the irrigated Montezuma Valley.

Mail addressed to residents of the area was left at the Stokes brothers’ store, where it lay on the counter until picked up.

Cow country society was still rather wild and free, with many men settling differences with violence. Peace officers were seldom seen around Dove Creek, so the Stokes brothers enforced the peace themselves. A supply of tough hardwood handles for picks, mauls, and shovels was kept in stock for sale to their customers. Often one of the storekeepers used a heavy handle to knock out an ornery cow puncher! The unconscious man was then dragged out of the store and left on the shady porch until he came to, sometimes with a headache.

The small settlement that grew along the hillside near the store was naturally known by the name of the creek that flowed nearby. In 1914 the federal government had the open range country surveyed and opened to homesteaders. A post office was established at Dove Creek, and the settlement became the center for incoming pioneer farmers. WILDLIFE OF THE AREA

The homesteaders were as impressed with the new country as the stockmen had been 40 years earlier. Among the interesting features was the abundant wildlife. Big game such as elk and antelope lived in the general area, but the formerly numerous big horn sheep had declined in numbers under the pressure of domestic cattle and the Europeans’ rifles. Outstanding were the big-eared mule deer, which roamed the land in ones and twos, and in herds numbering into the hundreds.

Mountain lions, bobcats, lynx, brown bear, badgers, at least three kinds of foxes and southwestern brush wolves were among the larger predators’ Timber wolves had been so costly to the ranchers, that they had been virtually all killed. The ever-present coyote was probably the most noticed of all the furry hunters. Pioneer children commonly fell asleep to the wailing songs of those wild vocalists.

The wide variety and large numbers of wild creatures were astonishing to the pioneers. Sage grouse (Called “sage hens” by the homesteaders) dwelled there in unnumbered thousands. Being as large as a heavy domestic chicken, they became an important item of food for many struggling families. Meadow larks, mourning doves, and mocking birds filled the morning and evening air with their songs. To many of the incoming drynesters, the land was indeed an Eden.

PARADISE FOUND

Some new arrivals were dismayed at the reality of the new land: dangers from natural features and violent people, deep winter snows, and the isolation from other settlements. Some moved on to other places, or returned home. However, many embraced the land, liked its character, and became successful settlers.

Enthusiastic homesteaders began to call the Dove Creek country “the land of no crop failures.” Life-here was free from devastating tornados and floods. Equally important to farmers was the lack of hot dry winds— winds that would blow back in their former homes for a few days and “burn” growing crops to death. Similarly, fields weren’t plagued with grasshoppers and other insect pests which could damage or destroy crops. Winter snow was nearly always plentiful, and summer rains were reasonably sure. The characters of the climate and soil caused the moisture to be adequate for many crops.

Farmers soon learned how to till their fields to raise good crop yields. The rich soil would produce better yields of corn and potatoes than the homesteaders had been able to produce back in Missouri and Oklahoma. Corn harvest on a dryland farm

Due perhaps to the high altitude (roughly 6500 to 7500 feet above sea leve1), the relatively southern latitude, and the peculiar geography— nearby high mountain ranges, lower deserts and semi-arid lands, and immense canyonlands— the climate varied from mile to mile in much of the country.

The homesteaders were skilled countrymen and selected good locations for their claims. Gardens were usually planted in spots with richer soil and often sub-irrigation moisture. Many homes and farmsteads were built in protected locations with lovely views of the countryside. HOMES WERE AS VARIED AS THE SETTLERS

Some pioneers came with little money, or at bad times of the year. Thus some of their first houses were poorly built or unsuitable for homes. One such temporary home was the three-sided log building with one side open to the sunny south. During winter months a large fire was kept burning next to the open side. Some settlers even occupied large caves formerly lived in by the long ago Anasazi!

A common early type of dwelling was the dugout. Some dugouts were dug into a hillside, with the back of the home being underground, and the front wall facing downhill so the door would be at ground level. Some such dwellings were elaborate two or three room apartments, but the one built by homesteader Merton Canfield southwest of Dove Creek overlooking Big Valley was of the more ordinary kind. It had one room about eight to ten feet wide by twelve to fifteen feet long. Dug into the level ground of his field, its roof was of poles, bark, and dirt— raised above the ground enough for a tiny window or ventilator at the back. A stairway descended into the ground to the front door of the underground home.

Some houses were built of adobe bricks, made on the site by the homesteaders. Some were laid up of sandstone— often recycled building stones shaped by the departed Anasazi long ago. With the early establishment of a sawmill by the Bairds a few miles east of Dove Greek, rough-sawn lumber was soon being used all over the high country for homes, businesses, and other structures. Excellent quality boards were produced from the large trees in the virgin pine forest.

The Ever-Present Log House

The most common type of dwelling erected by the drynesters was the log house. Like the ranchers before them, homesteaders often laid up walls of horizontal poles notched at the corners, with cracks chinked with wood and clay. An interesting variation was the cabin with vertical poles forming the walls. Many of both kinds were still standing in the 1980s. The logs were usually juniper (called “cedar” by the pioneers), since that wood resists rotting much better than pinyon. The houses varied from simple one-room cabins, to large comfortable dwellings with several rooms, screened verandas, gabled second-floor rooms, and interesting facilities for conveniences. The large log house on the Hurst homestead in the Coal Bed community northwest of Dove Creek boasted built-in storage boxes for firewood. The bins could be filled with stove-length firewood from outside, and emptied easily as needed from within the dwelling.

HAZARDS AND CHALLENGES OF LIFE

The homesteader whose claim included a good spring of soft water was lucky. In addition to household and animal water, it provided a cooler for milk, butter, and other perishable foods.

One newly-arrived homesteader located a fine piece of land with a strong spring of good water. Elated at his discovery, he rode into town for the evening and rejoiced over his good fortune with some other friendly immigrants. The next morning he headed his horse out from Dove Creek toward his prize. Reaching the place, he was amazed and disappointed to see newly-placed claim stakes on the land. One of his new “friends” had hurried out ahead of him and claimed the homestead!

Many drynesters developed hand-dug water wells. Some of them were only 10 to 15 feet deep, and provided adequate household water. Others were laboriously dug as deeply as 50 feet, into the sandstone bedrock. Some pioneers were rewarded with dry holes. A few had money enough to hire a “stomper” well drilling rig to drill a bore hole down to water.

Some “nesters” had only cisterns or barrels to store their water supplies. They learned to make the most of the scant amount of water. Water that couldn’t be collected from rain and snow on roofs, had to be hauled from springs or wells. Water for Thirsty Homes: Doc Brewer carried water in barrels to households in Dove Creek and vicinity that had no wells. Doc got 25 cents per barrel for the water. In this photo, taken in front of the Hunter Hotel, Doc was giving Walter and Myrlene Posey (local children) a ride.

As with the earlier cattlemen, some homesteaders came to escape the law elsewhere. In the frontier community, no questions were asked about ones past. However, some did not change their ways, with resulting lawlessness in the farming frontier. A measure of violence continued up to World War II, in the 1940s.

In the 1930s, a mail carrier named Mooney shot and injured some men who ambushed him between Dove Creek and Egnar. He left the country to escape revenge by family and friends of his ambushers. Bill Lindquist, a blockman for the John Deere Company, happened to witness a fatal knife fight along Dove Creek’s main street. The judge wouldn’t allow him to leave town until his evidence could be given in court. Bill wondered what he could possibly do to while away the time in such an out-of-the-way place until court convened. So he wandered around the area looking over the countryside. By the time he was allowed to depart, he had grown to like the area so much, that he decided to stay! He bought a homestead and lived in the community for the rest of his life.

HARD FEELINGS AND BLOODSHED BETWEEN RANCHERS AND FARMERS

Although the land had been open range and owned by the United States government, ranchers had acquired range rights. They had either settled on certain ranges before any other stockmen, or had purchased range rights from earlier settlers. The rights included control over and usage of the pasture lands, and ownership of improvements such as buildings, fences, corrals, improved springs, and livestock. They were worth thousands of dollars, and the ranchers paid taxes on them. So the stockmen thought of the range as belonging to them, and fiercely resented the incoming homesteaders.

Violence flared often between the two unlike classes of pioneers. In the 1960s old pioneer drynester Clifford Wright defended deceased pioneer cattleman Norris Tucker’s reputation when Tucker was called a rather violent man. Wright (whose Bug Point farm adjoined Tucker’s Bug Spring property) said: “Norris was not a bad man. He would not rustle your cattle, or burn your house or haystacks, unless you first did something bad to him! He lived by the rules of the time.”

A homesteader a few miles from Egnar had become annoyed at wire fence-cutting by cowboys, who turned their cattle into his fields of growing crops. Meeting the rancher he thought responsible, he used some strong language. As the story was told, stockman Rue King was angry at the homesteader’s stubborn refusal to move away, and furious at the cussing he got. Drawing his six-shooter, he killed the drynester as the farmer stood on his trampled cropland with his wife. County law officers were in existence by that time, and were usually loyal to the numerous homesteaders who had elected them. Therefore, the rancher fled the county before he could be arrested and jailed. His brother Lon spirited Rue away over the trail into Squaw Canyon, from his hidden headquarters on Bug Point (see picture in Chapter 6, page 62). The fugitive rode southwest into Utah and the Navajo country. King T s wife, who had been present at the murder, settled their affairs and joined him later in Arizona.

Strife and bloodshed became so bad that the U.S. government sent federal Marshals to the region. Arrests of stockmen were made, with bail sometimes set as high as $20,000! Dove Creek was headlined on the front page of the Denver Post. Stated the newspaper: “...A reign of terror ... has dominated the Dove Creek and Cross Canyon country in Dolores County for years.” Ranchers and cowboys were accused of “burning cabins, cutting fences, killing cattle, and ... even murder has been committed to keep out the ‘nesters’.

Homesteading farmers were not always the innocent victims of rough-and-ready cattlemen, of course. Re- portedly, many drynesters freely butchered ranchers’ livestock to help themselves survive difficult early years in the new land. Others sometimes even sold the stolen meat to local markets. And a number of pioneer farmers destroyed with dynamite the cisterns that held water for ranchers’ cattle. The cisterns had been hewn from solid rock by the Anasazi long before, and their destruction was a sad archaeological loss.

OTHER HARDSHIPS AND PERILS

Natural hazards imperiled the homesteaders, too. The teenage son of the Hansberry family on Squaw Point was looking for their milk cows. Riding his pony along the trail, he entered an arroyo, the path descending until the ground was about level with his shoulders. A large rattlesnake happened to be crawling on the arroyo edge. Startled by the passing rider, the poisonous reptile struck suddenly, hitting the youth on his head or neck. The Hansberry boy died from the poison.

Other troubles beset the farmers. Cottontail rabbits lived in the canyons and creek bottoms, and jack rabbits abounded on the flat mesas and plains. As fields were cleared and crops planted, the rabbits descended on the tender plants. As predators were killed, the rabbit population soared, with great damage to homesteaders’ crops.

Coyotes, bobcats, hawks, and owls raided the poultry of struggling farmers. Deer grazed on their corn, wheat, and bean fields. Even lightning struck and killed livestock!

A WAR OF WITS

A different kind of problem was shown by the experience of Charley Griffith, who homesteaded on Bug Point. Charley had located an excellent farm on the rim of Monument Canyon, that included several strong springs of good water. After staking the lines of his claim, the homesteader was resting and eating supper by his campfire in the pleasant evening hours, when visitors arrived. The cowboy arrivals greeted the newcomer agreeably, and were invited to supper. During the friendly visit the good points of the yet unregistered claim were discussed at length.

When Griffith rode into Dove Creek the next morning, he learned that his cowboy “friends” had arrived in town before him and had claimed the land for themselves. The government agent told the outraged farmer that there was nothing he could do unless he could beat the mail to Rico, the county seat. There- fore the homesteader rode the hard miles to Dolores, bought a ticket on the train to Rico, and arrived at that mountain town along with the mail. He leaped off the still moving train and beat the mail to the courthouse, where he filed claim to his homestead before the cowboys’ document reached there.

PIONEER SOCIAL LIFE WAS SOMETIMES EXCITING

Despite the hardwork and hardships, pioneer folk of the sage lands found joy and happiness, and a good social life. Entire families attended community affairs such as pie suppers and dances. The community school house was the center for most events. A dance usually began at dark, paused for a pot-luck supper, then continued all night. Kids played in and out-of-doors until they slept the sleep of happy exhaustion. In Dove Creek, the “old Opera House” became the center for many social events. Visiting preachers held church services in its large hall. Chautauqua gatherings were staged there. Box and pie suppers filled the building with happy homesteaders. And despite the anti-dance sentiments of many religious settlers, Saturday night dances drew large crowds. Some times a dance was ended in an unusual manner. (The names of some of the people involved in the following tale have been changed.)

A small gang of unusually hardy and strong young men attended most of the dances. Perhaps aided by the effects of the bootleg liquor they had drunk, members of the group became rowdy as the evening progressed. When dancers heard one of the voices of either Harry or Bill sing out, “Let’s clear the house, boys!” they realized it was a signal for smart people to leave the dance floor immediately. Dancers unable to vacate the room in time were swept up by the strong arms of the powerful men and thrown out through open windows and doors, or merely piled in heaps, until the dance hall was empty except for the gang members.

At the beginning of one such row, an annoyed dancer decided that too much was enough. He hurried to the next door Orr Hotel, and knocked loudly on the entrance of the dark building. His shouts brought the query, “What do you want?” Old Mr. Orr was already descending the stairs, kerosene lantern in one hand, double-barreled shotgun in the other. “I heard that the sheriff had come over here awhile ago,” stated the irate dancer, “And we need him bad to quiet a row over in the old Opera House. Where is he?” “Don’t know, it answered the arthritic hotelman. “Haven’t seen him. But there’s a skunk in my chicken house and I’m going after the varmint. Ain’t got no time to look fer the sheriff.”

However, after some persuasion, Mr. Orr agreed to hunt for the peace officer after shooting the offending skunk that was causing a flurry in his hen house. Accompanying the old gentleman to his poultry shed, from whence still came protesting squawks and flapping sounds, the complaining dancer held the lantern while Mr. Orr aimed his gun. But instead of a hungry skunk, they discovered, hiding in a corner among the fowls, the brave county sheriff! FROLICS AND FOIBLES

Practical jokes were done and enjoyed by many of the frontiersmen. Cattleman Henry McCabe caught a live bear cub on his range one day. The cub was quite large. Thinking of the dignified operator of the Hunter Hotel and Drugstore located across the street south from the old Opera House, Henry put the bear in the back seat of his Model T Ford car. His friend Dan Hunter had asked Henry to bring him a nice buck deer for his dining room when he could. Darkness had fallen by the time the Ford stopped before the hotel front veranda.

“I’ve brought you some venison,” called Henry as Dan came down the steps. Opening the car door, Mr. Hunter reached into the darkness of the back seat. Touching the furry body, the hotelman took a firm grip and began dragging the “buck” out into the lighter outside. Understandably irritated, the bear uttered a loud ferocious growl. The startled innkeeper jumped onto his veranda in a single bound!

Bootlegging had become a way of making a living for some ambitious settlers. Government revenue men made the illegal practice quite dangerous, however. Bootleggers became very ingenious in devising ways of fooling the lawmen.

One of the more clever tricks nearly ended in disaster. Steve was one of the most successful of the moonshiners. Being among the best drivers in the region, he knew the twisting roads well and always escaped the pursuing revenue officers when making deliveries. A surefire hiding place for one of his stills came to mind one day. His neighbor over south was known in the community as a very religious man who hated the liquor traffic. Nobody would ever search for a still on the farm of such a man, reasoned Steve.

Some time later William, the religious homesteader, was plowing one of his fields, when an odd smell was carried to him on a passing breeze. Recognizing the odor, William thought that his imagination was getting too strong. When the fragrance persisted, William stopped his horses and began searching for its source. Looking among some nearby pinyons and junipers, he found the still hidden there by Steve. The mash was bubbling and working. The anti-liquor drynester’s indignation and anger were nearly uncontrollable. After some thought, William decided upon poetic justice. Steve evidently wanted the still hidden; well, he would hide it! Therefore, he dug a large hole in his field, moved the entire still there, buried it, and then finished plowing the field. No trace showed of the hidden apparatus.

Finding his still gone, Steve searched for it far and near. Day after fruitless day of searching ruffled the moonshiner’s ordinarily hot temper to the boiling point. Noticing this, William’s sister Anna (to who he had told the story) got worried. She feared for William’s life, if the moonshiner got too mad, and came for William in wrath. So she urged her brother to go to Steve and tell him where to find the lost still.

Finally William agreed with Anna, and visited Steve at his cabin. Revealing the fate of the offensive still, the plowman warned his neighbor to never put such a device on his farm again. Angry but self-contained, the erring bootlegger dug up his still and removed it to a spring under the rim of Monument Canyon.

ZANE GREY VISITED HERE

Various famous American-c visited the area. Ex-president Theodore Roosevelt visited the newly-discovered Rainbow Bridge, lost in the wild canyons northeast of Navajo Mountain. Western writer Zane Grey was said to have stayed in the area several times. Reportedly, he did considerable research and writing for some of his popular novels here. Local resident Nathan Mellott told of seeing the author who rented a hillside half-dugout on the west bank of Dove Creek from his father.

One summer Grey spent several weeks at the cabin, at times riding over the nearby countryside, and at others writing at his table. The table was usually littered with manuscript sheets, according to Mellott. When a small boy, Nathan carried pails of fresh milk and eggs down to the author from the farm of his parents on the hill east of the creek. The local people regarded the famous writer as a very strange man. They feared that something must be wrong with a healthy, strong man who rode aimlessly over the land, and then spent days filling hundreds of sheets of paper with writing. Grey is commonly believed to have based one of the characters in a popular book on local cowboy “Little Bill” Goforth. The author is also credited with doing research and some writing of Riders of the Purple Sage while at Dove Creek.

POST OFFICES AND SCHOOLS

August of 1912 found only three homesteaders located west of the irrigated Montezuma Valley: the Handcocks, Vaughns, and Phillip Mellott. The year 1914 began the flood of settlers that continued for some years.

In 1917 Parley Butt, son of a Hole-in-the-Rock Mor- mon pioneer, purchased the Stokes brothers’ store, and operated the post office in the same building. Two other buildings were nearby: the stables and The Dove Creek Post Office was moved into this the school. Also in 1917 a post office was estab- building down near the creek in the 1920’s. The man lished in Cahone. Cahone was evidently named in white shirt and lady in white dress are the Harters, from the nearby canyon, from the Spanish “Cajun” the postmaster and his wife. The building burned and for box-perhaps from the early Escalante was replaced by the present building on the same site Expedition’s name 125 years before. occupied by the Dove Creek Press in the 1980’s.

Post offices sprouted like weeds all over the sage lands. Included were Yellow Jacket, Ackmen, Northdale, Urado, Sego, Willow Gulch, Slick Rock, Cedar, Ucolo, Lockerby, Egnar, and others. Egnar’s unusual name resulted from a disappointment. The community had selected the name “Range”. That was refused by the postal department because Colorado already had such a post office. The citizens merely reversed the letters and came up with “Egnar!” Schools were among the first institutions is founded by the drynesters. School districts were formed and buildings erected. Some buildings were rather primitive. Then the farmers searched frantically for teachers. Urban lady teachers thought the Four Corners Country to be the jumping off place of the world. But teachers did come and shared the hardships and joys of the frontier Alverda Carson, a new single lady teacher from the city, was impressed by the very crooked roads that twisted about through the trees until she lost all sense of direction. The first feeling that Miss Carson had on seeing the primitive school house on one of the points near Dove Creek, was that she had dropped back a hundred years in history!

Bus drivers who brought the uneasy city girls to teach in the Four Corners schools enjoyed frightening their pas- sengers, too. Fresh faced young ladies just graduated from normal school would be greeted with such questions as “Did you girls remember to bring your six-shooters?” They were told that the people were so poor that they ate mostly groundhogs; there were no bathrooms; and pri- vacy while bathing in a galvanized tub could be gotten only if someone held up a quilt around the tub!

Schools established included Dove Creek, Coalbed, Peel, East Side, Baird, Cahone, Prospect, Cross Canyon, Sego, “We finally found a way to finish our chores and Squaw Point, High Hill, Bug Point, Urado, Oak Grove, Big do our homework at the same time.” Valley, Upper, Middle, and Lower Lavendar, and others in Dolores County. Surrounding areas built schools at Fairview, Sylvan, Four Corners, Ackmen, Goodman Point, and other places in the Montezuma County sage lands; at Egnar, The Burn, Radium Seven, and Brush Valley in San Miguel County north of Dove Creek; and at Ucolo, East and West Summit Point, Lockerby, and Cedar Point in the San Juan County, Utah, portion of the Great Sage Plain adjacent to the Dove Creek country.

Land was being put into cultivation; mail was being cared for; merchandise was being bought and sold; and children were being schooled throughout the high sage lands of the Four Corners Country. FICTIONALIZED HISTORY

The following story tells of the homesteaders’ lives more closely than mere facts and dates do. This portion of drynester children’s experiences will show their toils, sorrows, and joys in daily life. The actual 160-acre homestead of the tale was on the northern edge of Big Valley, where Lower Monument Canyon enters the valley about four or five miles southwest of Dove Creek. It is the same general locale where the Anasazi girl Sara (see chapter 3) lived with her family in Pueblo III times.

Incidents told in the story actually happened, but not all to the people named. Characters in the narrative were real residents of the community, but The Wilson’s, 1917: A Real-life homesteading family. some names have been changed to avoid embarrassment to descendants of those people. Thus the following fictionalized history, placed in the 1920s, could be considered as true history. Only the family that the tale is about are fictional— but their daily lives are not!

A Week in the Lives of Homesteader Children

Beth leaned against the brown-barked cedar tree, gazing across the lovely valley. Next week, on Friday, would be her birthday. She, Elizabeth Ann Massey, would be twelve years old. Mama had promised her a special treat for the big day. Beth had wondered a hundred times what was planned for her, but Mama merely smiled with those pretty green eyes and would not reveal the secret. Mama .... Beth smiled as she thought of her mother. Mama — Mrs. Dora Bell Massey — was still pretty at the advanced age of thirty-four. A giggle escaped Beth as she remembered a secret she had discovered a few weeks ago. Climbing into their small attic to get some muslin material from the trunk for the grown- ups, she had also found a packet of letters. Love letters they were, from Daddy to Mama, written by a lonely homesteader to his young wife who waited back in Missouri while he made a home for them in the new frontier country.

Every letter had begun exactly the same: “Dear Dora,” and they ended the same, too: “Yours forever, John.” But even an eleven-year-old girl could catch the love and yearning on those pages. The last letter had told Mama how to come West with little Joey on the Rio Grande Southern Railroad to Dolores town; and that he would meet them there with his wagon and four horses. Beth giggled again.

Mama had told the story to Joey and her several times. How the puffing, snorting locomotive had clanked up to a stop at the depot; and how Daddy had dashed up to the coach when he had sighted Mama, and had swung her down to the platform. With the wagon soon heavily loaded with household effects, they had started westward on the road to Dove Creek. The four husky horses did not have easy going on the crooked primitive trail. The journey had required two days, with an overnight rest stop east of Ackmen.

Mama had endured an uncomfortable trip, she told them, because Elizabeth was born not ten days later. Daddy had given his “Dear Dora” a fright when he told her the name of the curve on the hill ascending from Alkali Wash. It was now called “Dead Man’s Corner,” he said, because a freighter who had bought one of those new Reo automotive trucks, had driven too fast for the road, and had overturned on the curve, killing both himself and a passenger.

Beth was proud of Daddy, too. Even his name was nice: John Paul; not funny like Norris, or Columbus, Rue, Alonzo, Geoffrey, or Fendol. Daddy was both strong and kind. Also he could read and recite poemsand sing; his tenor voice blended well with Mama’s alto. Her mind came back to the present as she saw Joey coming across the field down by the creek. Joey— Beth always called him Joseph Henry when she wanted to tease— was her big brother. He was already fourteen. Joey could ride a horse almost as well as those devil-may-care cowboys. He and she attended Big Valley School during the school term.

Across the valley stood the school, two-and-one-half miles distant. It stood out quite plainly from the purple sage expanses and the small cleared field to its west side. Mrs. Lela Miller was the teacher. She taught all eight grades.

Beth and Joey walked to school usually with the Canfields, the Livingstons, the Carter boys, and Maria Duran. In uncertain weather they sometimes rode horseback with two children on each horse. During the coldest winter months they could walk across country on top of the crusted snow. The deep snow covered even the tall sage brush.

Joey’s voice jolted her back to reality again. ‘Hey, Lizzie!” he shouted. HOW she hated that nickname! it Where’s your ears gone? Mama’s already hollared at you three times.”

A guilty flush spread over her cheeks as Beth heard the determined call, “Elizabeth Ann! Come here this minute.” When Mother used her full name, she meant business. Both kids answered, “Coming!” and ran toward the house.

The Neighbors

After drying the dinner dishes Beth asked permission to play with her special friend, Betty Jean Canfield. Betty Jean lived up the hill eastward. The Canfield homestead was a quarter-section like theirs, but it was more hilltop, and less valley.

The thirty-acre field by the Canfield house was larger than most fields cleared by the homesteaders. Mr. Canfield grew better crops of beans and corn on that north-sloping field than anyone in Big Valley. Better, even, than the Southcottes a mile farther toward town. However, Daddy raised better rye, oats, sorghum, and potatoes on their valley field beside Lower Monument Creek.

Mama and Beth planted their garden down by the creek, too. Mr. Bowen, whose homestead was in the higher country up north, called Big Valley “the frost belt,” and predicted that their garden stuff would be frost-nipped. But the soil was rich, deep, and moist, and most vegetables grew well during the warm summer days. Tomatoes were not very successful, though, for the autumn freezes often caught the fruit before it ripened. Not many weeds grew in the dark garden soil, except pursley (which Mrs. Miller, their teacher, called purslane). They used the pursley as a salad vegetable, so it was welcomed.

All of the farm families raised good gardens, but the Canfields seemed to do a mite better. Mr. Canfield thought that the prehistoric Mokies must have farmed his field, for he had carried many stone metates off the field, and scores of manos littered the ground. But the Canfield house was just a dugout, and they hauled water from the spring in barrels. Daddy and Joey had dug a well down near the creek, but carrying buckets of water to the house, especially when Mama canned fruit and garden vegetables, was wearisome. Water for washing came from the funny cistern or spring right west of the yard; it was a hole in the solid slick rock. Daddy said it was a spring; but the rancher Henry McCabe maintained that it was a cistern hewn out of the rock by the ancient Mokie Indians.

That evening as Beth gathered the eggs, she closed the door carefully to the log hen house so that no prowling coyote or bobcat could get to the chickens during the night. All of the farm buildings were made of horizontally-laid logs. Some had rough-sawed inch boards from the Baird sawmill for roofs. The barn, built into the cliff overlooking the creek, had vertically-placed log walls, and a backdoor opening into a natural passageway in the cliff; just like a stairway leading down through the solid sandstone.

The Massey House

Their own house, with its strong cedar log walls, was cool in summer, and easily warmed in winter. Daddy and Joey always gathered a big firewood pile east of the front yard, for the stoves. Large pretty flagstones formed the walkway to the front door. The house was roomier than it’s fifteen by thirty feet size appeared: there was a full basement walled with dry-laid stones, and two lean-to bedrooms on the west side. The floor was made of carefully smoothed sawed boards! From her kitchen window in the south wall, Mama could look out across the green and purple expanse named Big Valley by the cowboys. The wooded knoll their farmstead was located on provided a good vantage point. Their valley was beautiful!

Beth especially enjoyed the creek. Above its musically splashing water grew pussy willows and wild roses. Clematis bloomed in the cool moist soil at the base of the cliffs, and the huge white evening primroses fragranced the air! In the fall choke cherries and wild currants ripened. Only one had to beware of the poison ivy. Sometimes the Oregon grapes grew right among the ivy.

The golden days of autumn heralded pinyon nut picking time. Some trees produced bigger nuts than most, so Joey searched for the best and largest. The kids gathered many pounds of the delicious small nuts; so many that sometimes they traded some, pound for pound, for peanuts at the Butt Store in Dove Creek. Peanuts would not grow well in the cool climate of Big Valley.

Mokie Ruins

The sun rose next day on a perfect Sunday morning. Across the valley the ethereal mist was dissolving into nothingness above the miles of grassy purple sage. While dusting the throw rugs (Joey had hung them over the clothesline for her) Beth saw the riders coming up the road from the southwest. They were cowboys, she could tell by their outfits and the pistols they wore.

The taller, older man spoke first. “What’s such a pretty princess doing working so hard on this fine morning?” “Yes,” added the younger shorter cowboy, “It’s too nice a day for such drudgery! Give me that broom, young lady,” he invited, as he swung gracefully down from his pony. Surprised and gladdened, Beth watched as the small rider vigorously beat the dust from the rugs. At a call from Mama, Beth brought the cold sweetened choke cherry juice out to the visitors. The old cow puncher was Boyd Campbell. He said that his uncle had located on the range west of Monument Canyon back about 1880. The young cowboy was William Goforth, but “They call me ‘Little Bill,”’ he grinned. Joey liked Little Bill at once.

After a while the men noticed the flint arrow point Joey held in one hand. All kinds of arrow heads could be found on the farm, he informed them.

“Hum-m-m,” grunted Campbell. “Have you seen the Mokie ruin up the canyon? In the caves beneath the cliffs?” Yes, both Joey and Beth had explored several broken down Indian ruins, they responded.

“Well,” continued Campbell, “There are hundreds and thousands of cliff dwellings all throughout these great canyons. And mesa top ruins just as numerous. Some places the Mokie ruins cover a section or more. But I’ll bet that you’ve not seen the pretty little one up the creek a ways.”

Daddy and Mama said, “All right, but be back in time for dinner.” The cowboys lifted each youngster up into the saddle with one of them and rode up the trail that led northeast towards Dove Creek, about four or five miles away. Passing the Canfield yard, they found Betty Jean playing under a cedar; so she was invited to join them. The three excited children and two cowboys walked by the ponies as the Bug Point to Dove Creek trail descended into Lower Monument again.

Artifacts of the Ancients

Mr. Campbell had discovered the little Mokie cliff dwelling nearly twenty years earlier, so it took a few minutes to locate it again. The eyes of all three kids widened in wonder. It was pretty. Nestled under the sheer cliff back in a shady cave, its T-shaped door smiled mysteriously. “Sometimes you find things in these old ruins,” said Little Bill. “But the door to this one is open — either an animal, or some person has been here before us; or it just fell out — we’ll see.” Exploring the little room, and several other fallen-down ones along the cliff hidden by the oak brush, was fascinating. Mr. Campbell had worked for the famous Wetherill brothers on some archaeological expeditions, so could explain lots of things to Betty Jean, Joey, and Beth.

“This is called a griddle stone,” he stated as he held up a thin, smooth blackened stone slab. Betty had found it on a rock ledge in the back of the dark little room. “They probably fried or baked bread on it.” He examined the small decorated white pot Betty held; it had sat near the griddle stone, covered with the dust of centuries. Formed in the shape of a duck, the delicate design was painted in black. “Pretty as this is,” commented Mr. Campbell, “it is not as fine as some of the black-on-white ware I’ve seen. Maybe it was made by a girl who was just learning.”

The most exciting find, Beth thought, were the pearly white bracelets dug up in another dusty cave recess. They glowed with a heavenly sheen after the dust was carefully wiped off. The five polished seashell ornaments fit her slender wrists as if made for her.

“I wonder,” Beth mused dreamily, “if another almost-twelve year old girl long ago wore these lovely circles, and thought them as beautiful as I do?” Lifting her eyes from the ornaments, she gazed down at the creek, whose limpid slightly amber water gurgled from pool to shaded pool between grassy banks. During a quiet moment, the sound of the tiny rivulet farther east that splashed over a falls came to her ears.

The crowning discovery, to Joey, was the mummy. Back in a dry crevice behind some carefully laid stones, Little Bill had come upon a bundle wrapped in a turkey feather shawl. Careful unwrapping revealed the body of a small boy, mummified in the dry atmosphere of the cave. Beside him had been a basket containing a very dry turkey, and a small painted clay pot with a well-fitted cover. Inside were faded kernels of corn.

The girls thought that Joey was just plain cruel. How could anyone be so happy and excited over the mummy of a baby boy? How sad his mother must have been when she had laid her darling away forever. The Life of a Cowboy for Me!

True to their promise, Boyd and Little Bill returned along the trail from town two days later. Their boss, Hank Snyder, needed an active boy to help them move his herd of cattle up from Bug Park to the East Pines. Joey could earn three or four dollars in that many days.

As Joey rode off southward across the valley toward Bug Point with the men, Mama appeared worried. Daddy encircled her waist with a tanned arm and comforted, “They’ll take care of him, Dora. Joey’s capable and a darned good rider.” “But they’re so wild,” she fretted. “You can never tell what those cowboys might take into their heads to do!”

“Mama!” objected Beth. “Little Bill and Mr. Campbell are two of the kindest men I ever saw.” “Yes, so they seem,” answered her mother grimly, “But I’ve heard stories.”

The next day Joey reined in Spook, his black cow pony, and looked around him. Bug Park was lower country than up home. Beyond the bluff south lay Nancy Patterson Park that was even lower. The grass was already turning brown down here. He liked their farm in Big Valley because spring came earlier than it did in Dove Creek or up on the rim north of town; and winter snows arrived later in the fall. But springtime up home was already summer down here in the Park.

He looked southeast across Tin Cup Mesa to the Sleeping Ute Mountain, with some snow still on its northern sides. Beyond it, dim in the distance lay the famous Mesa Verde. Northeast on the far horizon were the great dark pine forests, with Glade Mountain, the pointed Lone Cone, and the lofty Wilson giants— blue and white against the clear sky.

The air around Joey was warm and scented by the blossoming cliff roses. His attention was brought back to his job as the pony snorted when a brush wolf casually loped across an open glade before him. He had to check that little canyon and its breaks for strays. Come on, Spook! Tales of the Purple Sage

They had reached the spring below the small breaks on the Canfield south forty. When the herd bedded down for the night there, Joey rode home, for his job with Hank Snyder was finished. The cattle would drift northeastward tomorrow, towards summer range in the pines.

He had so much to tell Beth. As they milked the cows before supper, the words tumbled out disorderly. He had seen Horse Thief Hideout that the boys at school had talked about. It was so well hidden under a cliff among the tall choke cherries that one could hardly find it. Little Bill had said that a posse had once tracked some stolen horses to the cliff, had lost the trail there, and had stood perplexed atop the rimrock— not realizing that the ponies were hidden in the big cave beneath them! The ornery rancher who head- quartered there had been accused by Fendol Sitton and John Dunbar with stealing a heifer of theirs. Old Cliff Gordon had merely spit at both men, and cussed! The cow was not seen again.

They had ridden past a sheep camp among the pinyons and cedars on the east edge of Monument Canyon. My, such a deep canyon! Boyd and Little Bill had said several really bad words about sheep, Joey re- counted in an awed tone. Noting a small mirror propped in a tree, Little Bill had drawn his six-shooter, and with hardly even looking, had shattered the glass with his first shot.

Joey felt that he would never forget the view from the hilltop north of the sheep camp. From home the notch in the horizon made by Monument Canyon had interested him; from the nearer hilltop the sight was breathtaking. Through the gap formed by the mighty rimrocks he could see a two-peaked mountain, blue in the distance. Farther beyond in the wilderness the desert ridges and mesas, mysterious and beckoning, stretched into the purple infinity.

He had met Steve Withem, too. He had a steely look in his eye, Joey thought. Steve was reputed to be a moonshiner, and a very tough man. He and his neighbor across the arroyo, a Mr. Jennings, wouldn’t even speak to each other anymore. Each man stayed on his side of the fence. And Alex Rucker, Joey continued, really did ride on a side saddle like the Eastern ladies. Boyd had assured him, however that Alex could ride in that awkward fashion quite as well or better than any cowpoke on the range. Rumors, never mentioned in Alex’s hearing, whispered that a Rucker had ridden with Quantrill’s Raiders— and nobody knew where Alex came from. The Masseys could see from their yard the huge cottonwood tree that stood up into the sky above the little canyon at Clear Spring; by the two-story house of Rucker, although it was miles away.

Then the milking was done, and Joey had to stop talking. Mama would never allow him to ride with the cowboys again, were she to hear him.

Urban Delights for Beth

The big day arrived at last. Elizabeth Ann was now a twelve year old lady. Why, twelve was almost thirteen, and thirteen was very grown-up.

After the special birthday dinner, Daddy and Mama told what they had planned for Beth as her special present. She could wear her new calico dress and visit her friend Clara Butt; she could stay over night in Dove Creek. She needed a little town polish, Daddy smiled. He would take her to Clara this afternoon. Beth was speechless with delight.

The joyous Beth was welcomed enthusiastically by Clara, who had shared in the secret. After putting away her things in Clara’s bedroom, the two girls walked past the large store owned by Uncle Parley. He had bought it some years before from those strange Stokes brothers. Across the Dolores-to Monticello road north were the stables. Northeast diagonally were the two-story Orr Hotel, and (up the hill a little) the Opera House.

Last night, Clara related, a visiting preacher had held a revival meeting in the Opera House. He had told exciting experiences as a missionary in darkest Africa preaching to the heathen. Clara thought that those African natives were really strange. Down the hill east toward the creek was the post office. Mr. Larrance owned the building; and his wife, Watha, was the post master. Loafers sat on the long porch whittling as they waited for the mail.

Arriving at the Hunter Hotel and Drugstore, the girls discussed whether to spend their pennies for ice cream cones or for sacks of candy. The ice cream cones were chosen. Later upon coming out of the store licking the delicious vanilla ice cream, Beth noticed a sandy-haired boy of about her age sitting on the porch edge with his feet hanging off. Looking up from the copy of The Inland Empire that he held, the boy laughed easily and invited, “Listen to this! Last week, he read aloud, “Dr. McNeil was called out to attend a patient named Crandell about twenty miles east of town. After a hard night ride, the doctor found his patient resting comfortably, and suffering from nothing worse than an overdose of watermelon.”

The boy, Nathan Mellott, was a school chum of Clara. While talking with them, Nathan said that this summer his mother had him carry a pail of fresh milk down the hill every day to a man who was renting the half cabin- half dugout on the west bank of the creek from his father. He also delivered fresh eggs to the renter.

“That renter is really funny,” continued Nathan; “he doesn’t do any work at all, just rides his horse over the country, sometimes not returning for two days. Then on other days he spends the whole time sitting at his table writing. The table is just littered with papers he’s scribbled on, confided Nathan in a puzzled tone. “Who is he?” queried Clara, between licks of ice cream. “I think his name is Zane Grey, or something like that,” came the answer. Dan Hunter, the hotel propri- etor, was stepping out of his door at that moment and overheard the last remark. “Boy,” he addressed the sandy-topped youngster, “did I hear you mention Zane Grey? Is he back in town?”

Assured that the gentleman was indeed there, Mr. Hunter grew quite excited and exclaimed, “Do you know that Mr. Grey is a famous author? He wrote that wonderful book, Riders of the Purple Sage! It is about our country right around here. And he’s written a number of other novels, too. He even patterned one of his characters after that wild Little Bill Goforth. Of course, no fictional cow puncher could be half as unsteady, or as brave and dare-devilish as that Little Bill.” Beth gulped at the strictures on her friendly cowboy. “Here!” commanded Hunter. “Hold this ladle for me. I’ve got to go down and talk with Zane Grey!” He handed the ice cream scoop to Beth, turned abruptly, and hurried down the road. As the tall spare figure receded toward the creek, Nathan grinned at the girls. “Mr. Hunter is kinda funny, too,” he decided.

Meadow Larks are Important

On the following evening, Saturday, the girls sat on the second story porch of the Butt Store. From that vantage point they could watch most of what was happening in town. Something always was happening in town, Beth thought. Living in town was exciting, and fun. You never knew what might occur next. it was not quiet and hum-drum as life was out in the country.

Just this evening three motor cars had stopped at the Hunter Hotel. Since they were still parked there, she supposed that the travelers would stay in that inn for the night. And over at the Opera House, preparations were being made for a dance. Beth had never been to a dance, for her folks didn’t hold with such loose behavior. Besides that, Clara had told her that there was a bunch of really wild young men who went to most of the dances— and they had some rough and tumble fights. But, thought Beth to herself, it would be fun to peek in the window and see what one was like!

As she sat listening for a moment, something seemed to be wrong— something was missing. Then she realized what it was: no bird songs. “I miss the meadow larks calling in the evening,” Beth recognized. “They’ll be singing right now in the valley below our house.” First Worksheet for Chapter 7 Homesteaders: The Drynesters Appear

1. They followed the two-track Dolores-to-Monticello road through the grassy ______of southwestern ______. 2. Summer rains came ______. And the land was ______! 3. A softly shimmering ______was gathering above the brush. 4. “Mama, Mama, there’s ______in the lake!” 5. “These aren’t fish.” wailed and anguished ______. “They are ______!” 6. In 1912 and 1913, the bachelor ______brothers constructed a substantial ______about halfway up the hill. 7. A post office was established at ______, and the settlement became the center for incoming ______. 8. The ever-present ______was probably the most noticed of the hunters. 9. Enthusiastic homesteaders began to call the Dove Creek country “ the land of ______. 10. A common early type of dwelling was the ______. 11. The most common type of dwelling erected by the drynesters was the ______. 12. Doc ______carried water in ______to households in Dove Creek. 13. Drawing his six-shooter, he ______the ______as the farmer stood on his trampled cropland. 14. “A reign of terror has dominated the ______and Cross Canyon country in Dolores ______for years.” 15. His cowboy “friends” had ______the ______for themselves. 16. Kids played until they slept the ______of ______exhaustion. 17. In Dove Creek, the “old Opera House” became the ______for many social ______. 18. They discovered, hiding in a corner among the fowls, the ______. 19. The startled innkeeper jumped onto his ______in a single ______. 20. He dug a large ______in his field, moved the entire ______there, and buried it. 21. Western writer ______was said to have stayed in the area. 22. In 1917, Parley Butt purchased the Stokes brothers’ ______. 23. Urban lady teachers thought the Four Corners Country to be ______of the world. 24. Schools established included ______, Coalbed, Peel, East Side, Baird, … and others in Dolores County. Second Worksheet for Chapter 7 Homesteaders: The Drynesters Appear

1. It is the same ______locale where the Anasazi girl ______lived. 2. She Elizabeth Ann Massey, would be ______old. 3. ______they were, from Daddy to ______, written by a lonely homesteader to his ______. 4. The journey had required ______, with an overnight ______. 5. Across the valley stood the ______, two-and-one-half miles ______. 6. Daddy raised better rye, oats, sorghum, and ______on their valley field beside ______Creek. 7. But the Canfield house was just a ______, and they hauled ______. 8. From her kitchen window Mama could look out across the ______and ______expanse named ______by the ______. 9. Above its musically splashing ______grew pussy willows and ______. 10. The young cowboy was William ______, but “They call me ______,” he grinned. Joey ______Little ______at once. 11. Nestled in a shady cave, its T-shaped ______smiled ______. 12. “I wonder if another almost-twelve-year-old ______long ago wore these lovely ______and thought them as beautiful as ______?” 13. The air around Joey was warm and ______by the blossoming ______. 14. Farther beyond in the ______the desert ridges and mesas, ______and beckoning, stretched into the purple infinity. 15. And nobody knew where Alex ______. 16. She needed a little ______, Daddy smiled. 17. He had bought it from those strange ______. 18. Then on other days he spends the whole time sitting at his table ______. 19. He wrote that wonderful book, ______. 20. Beth ______at the strictures on her ______. 21. Just this evening three ______had stopped at the ______Hotel. 22. At the ______House, preparations were being made for a ______. 23. “They’ll be ______right now in the ______below our house. CHAPTER 8

OLD TRAILS GROWN DIM: THE LAST HALF CENTURY

The calls of ever-present western meadow larks; the varied songs of mockingbirds, and the sad cooing of doves beautified the evening peacefulness. However, on a typical June day in 1941, the songbirds shared the air with harsher sounds than the usual “ack, ack, ack” of magpies. The brash noises of rural America at work competed with the age old natural sounds.

DOVE CREEK IN THE 1940S

All over the little town of Dove Creek energetic citizens plied their trades. From the blacksmith shop of Sam Ferris came the ringing peal of hammer striking red-hot iron. Down the hill eastward nearer to the creek, mechanical noises came from the tractor repair shop of Bill Larrance. At the post office next door, operated by Watha Larrance, the mail carrier tossed mail sacks into his car as he made ready to leave on his Sego Route. A door slammed on the office in the creekside residence of Dr. A.L. Black)as the medical man left for a house call.

On the east side of the creek, situated on a leveled site part way up the hill, the flour mill produced a variety of growls and squeaks as it ground locally grown wheat into fine flour. Farther up the hill at the new Romer Mercantile and Grain Company buildings mechanic Hubert Sellard was checking a shiny green John Deere Model A tractor, hauled out that day by truck from the narrow gauge train depot at Dolores; the deep-throated “pop-a-chug-a-lug, pop-chug-a-lug” of its powerful two-cylinder engine echoed across the valley below. Down in the valley northwest was a group of happy school boys digging another cave into the red-soil creek bank, scarcely a stone’s throw south of the spot where the Escalante party of explorers rested during the hot noontime of August 15, 1776. On the west bank of the creek, across the road south from the:home of the doctor, a carpenter added to the- tumult as he pounded nails, building an addition onto-the old squared log cabin erected in about 1918 by Little Bill Goforth and another cowboy. Perhaps fifty yards westward still stood the part-dugout log cabin that Phillip Mellott had rented to novelist Zane Grey during some of his numerous sojourns in Dove Creek, while he researched and wrote of the frontier West.

Westward on top of the hill, across the asphalt ribbon of U.S-. Highway 160 northwest of the P.R. Butt Store (then leased to Lawrence Cash), John Dunbar was unloading boxes of goods from a Barker Transfer truck at his general merchandise retail business. On down the hill farther west from Dunbar, Frosty Thompson concentrated on carrying sacks of groceries from his gray stucco store.

Had he been attentive, Frosty would have heard the heavy laboring of a John Deere Model D tractor a half mile away in the countryside. There on the former Carl Butt farm, a refugee from the Oklahoma dust bowl was clearing the virgin purple sage to provide more land for cultivation. John Dicken had adapted his 1938 tractor for the difficult job.

The homesteaders had had few machines to help them clear off the brush, so generally had only small fields to farm. Using hand tools or horse-drawn equipment had made hard, slow work of the task. But farmers in 1941 were beginning to devise more effective machines for removing the brush and trees from the fertile land. Dicken had replaced the steel wheels of his tractor with big rubber tires, and had equipped it with a front end “brush bumper.” He was cutting down the tall sage with a big disk oneway.

As the energetic citizens concentrated on their daily tasks, few were aware of the feathered musicians, until supper calls and then twilight stilled the human noises.

RURAL LIFE IN THE SAGELANDS

By 1940 Dove Creek had grown to a population of about 400. Hundreds more dwelt on farms and ranches in the countryside surrounding the town. Other smaller settlements were prospering also, including Cahone, Pleasant View (which had just replaced old Ackmen when U.S. Highway 160 had been straight- ened and paved in 1937), Egnar, Slick Rock, and others. With better roads, the Sage land communities weren’t as isolated as before, but the drive to Cortez still took an hour or longer; a drive to the better shopping center of Durango required a half day!

So Dove Creek became an inter-trade center for the smaller communities of the highland farming and ranching country. By the mid-1980s, about 1000 inhabitants were happy to call the town home. The late 1920s and the early 1930s were especially hard times for the residents of the region. Many, many homesteaders moved away. Transportation difficulties made hauling farm and ranch products to distant markets cost more than they were worth! Many of those drynesters who remained, faced two choices in how to earn a living: spend time digging for Anasazi artifacts to sell, or becoming moonshiners and turning cheap grain into more valuable (but illegal) bootleg liquor. Both activities were common all across the sage lands.

The late 1930s saw a second wave of farmers immigrating to the Great Sage Plain. Refugees from dust storms and grasshoppers elsewhere, they moved onto deserted homesteads, repaired abandoned farmsteads, and rejoiced in their newfound land.

However, some of the smaller communities did not recover from the Great Depression. The post offices of Lockerby, Cedar, Urado, Ucolo, McPhee, and others disappeared from the maps.

DAN HUNTER, AND THE DOVE CREEK PRESS

Hotel operator Dan B. Hunter had enjoyed a varied career before coming to this Four Corners community. Innkeeper, writer, archaeologist in Mesoamerica, school teacher, farmer, and carpenter, he was about to begin something new. He established a newspaper in the building behind his hotel.

In May, 1940, he printed the first issue of The Dove Creek Press. The pages of the Press informed readers of current news, and sang the praises of “the inland empire.” The volumes he produced for five years were art as well as information. Editor Hunter wrote in the dignified style of an era when men were gentlemen and women were ladies, and people had time enough to act the roles properly!

The paper pushed for improved life and better facilities in the area. Ru- ral electricity, better roads, a Dolores River dam to provide water for Dove Creek and irrigation of 50,000 acres in Dolores County, better edu- cation, fair government, improved farming methods, and other crusades were carried on the pages of the paper.

Other editors carried on the good work, with local residents Doug and Linda Funk editing and publishing the Press in the 1980s. Most of the causes Hunter pushed became reality in later years. The “Sage of Dove Creek” was a force in local developmental politics, and received-numerous honors.

Electricity came to the farms and small towns in the 1940s, and McPhee Lake was formed on the Dolores River. But the larger community of Cortez managed to divert most of the river water to dry lands in Montezuma County, and moved the offices of Empire Electric Associ.ation from Dove Creek to Cortez.

Newspaperman Dan Hunter PINTO BEAN CAPITAL OF THE WORLD

By the end of the 1940s, the small fields with their thousands of acres of cultivated land had been increased tenfold. Summer and fall breezes usually carried the fragrance of burning sage. Many nights were lighted by miles of burning brush windrows or piles of pinyons and junipers. Most of the endless reaches of purple sage and a large part of the evergreen forests were replaced by broad fields of beans and wheat. Beginning in the middle 1920s, pinto beans and hard red winter wheat had begun to replace the potatoes, corn, alfalfa, cane, and other crops first grown by the drynesters. Yields were high and quality was good.

Pinto beans became the chief cash crop for the area. So many acres. were grown, that the Dove Creek country replaced the drought-stricken Estancia Valley in New Mexico as the leading bean producer. Dove Greek became the “Pinto Bean Capital of the World,” a title still claimed in the 1980s. Broad agricultural lands as seen from Bug point looking across Big Valley toward Dove Creek.

BOOM AND BUST

Farming flourished and ranchers prospered. Uranium mining became a mainstay of the regional economy. Then the years of gentle breezes, of deep snow and generous rains, ceased. With the 1950s came drought. Wild winds from the southwest blew away the moisture bearing clouds, and lots of topsoil, too. Farmers learned to farm differently to control the blowing soil, and the drought went away. But the moist years did not return; farms became larger with each operator caring for the acreage formerly occupied by several families. Ranches changed into larger operations, too. Oil and gas fields were developed in various locales of the region, with pipelines supplying Southern California and the Pacific Northwest. The uranium industry became a major world producer of nuclear energy. During the early 1980s, when the uranium industry nearly died (competition from foreign mines, and government indifference), petroleum fields in the area helped keep local families and businesses going. However, the early 1980s also saw federal government programs lowering the prices Four Corners Country farmers received for the crops they raised. The double trouble of closed mines and “non-profit” farms caused a severely depressed economy in the Dove Creek and adjacent communities.

However, tough times don’t last; tough people do. And the people of the Four Corners Country are the toughest of the tough. Sons and daughters, and grandsons and granddaughters of the last pioneers, the present inhabitants of the high Country are hanging in there! Visitors in the Four Corners remark-about the fruitful fields and ver- A common site in the Four Corners dant countryside; but longtime residents remember the former moist Country today. luxuriant land with nostalgia.

MODERN DEVELOPMENTS IN THE HIGH COUNTRY

Wind is no longer a problem in the 1980s, and farmers are used to moderate yields. The quality of the pinto beans raised is probably better than beans from anywhere. Thousands of acres of dryland fields have been devoted to alfalfa, just as the first homesteaders did! A new trend is the large number of fields planted to permanent grass under a new federal program. Perhaps more cattle ranching will return, like a hundred years earlier!

Uranium production is largely “on hold,” and development of the extensive high quality coal deposits is waiting, too. But a growing carbon dioxide production industry is promising more money in the area. Irrigated fields from the Dolores River irrigation water, stored in McPhee Lake, will offer more profitable choices for many farmers. McPhee Lake, second largest in Colorado, provides boating and other recreation in a scenic location. It will add to the income from tourism for the region. Adobe Milling, occupying the location and buildings of the former Romer Mercantile mentioned earlier, is cooperating in finding exotic crops for the Dove Creek highland farmers. Such crops as amaranth (food of the Anasazi) may prove to be profitable plants.

Still a scenic land with a pleasant, comfortable climate, the sage lands provide a more unstressful life style for area inhabitants. Residents still feel as fortunate to live in the high Four Corners Country as did the frontier cattlemen and later drynester homesteaders.

The development of good transportation, effective communication, high quality schools, mechanization of farming and ranching, an astonishing modernization of homes, and increased personal family wealth after the 1940s are appreciated by the people. But the changes in lifestyle have not been altogether good. And those residents who grew up in the 1930s and 1940s, before the old ways of life disappeared, feel a deep gratitude for the cherished world. After the mid-1950s, it was a different world.

GROWING UP NEAR DOVE CREEK IN THE 1940’S

The pace of life was slower and people attended more to human values: neighbors visited more often, men had time to sit on the bench at the post office and whittle, and community parties were common. A family did not need nearly as much money to live well, so the family spent more time together, with more happiness and less stresses.

Children and youth were largely free from organized activities, They strolled the paths of green flowery spring together, picked bouquets of wild flowers and lilacs, and marveled at the newness of plant and animal life. By the still waters of summer they tended their fishing poles, baked potatoes under the campfire while frying fish over it, and breathed the mingled fragrances of sage, pinyon, and cedar. The golden aisles of autumn they trod, and gathered the abundant stores of pinyon nuts when not helping with the generous harvests of garden and field.With skates, sleds, skis, and makeshift cardboard toboggans kids tasted the frosty delights of winter. Time was available for living, and life generally was not rushed.

Parents and children often worked together at tasks. An interesting note on gardens is about purslane: used by both the prehistoric Anasazi and early drynesters who called the plant “pursley”) as a food plant, it was generally regarded by later gardeners as one of the most pesty weeds!

Doing things together as families, extended families, and small community groups helped develop young people into stable, happy, and effective adults. Without the intrusion of Hollywood and New York show business via television, no gap of understanding between grown-ups and kids was seen. Not all was foolishness.

Foolishness, fun, and practical pranks were parts of life: The streets echoed with laughter on one morning after Halloween, when passersby noticed an old horse-drawn buggy perched on the roof of Frosty’s grocery store! Several outdoor toilets shared similar fates. Actual juvenile problems such as burglaries and van- dalism were nearly unknown, however. And unwed mothers were unusual. The melodic ringing of the big cast iron bell at 8:30 a.m. called pupils to school in the mornings. A hand bell rung out of an open window by the vigorous arm of the teacher brought students back to class from recess. Youngsters learned basic skills along with important moral and ethical values.

Such a lifestyle produced outstanding adults— evidenced by the high quality of inhabitants in the area today, and some unusually successful citizens who moved from here to other locations. State senator Decker dwelt at Northdale; Governor Knous’s mother lived on main street; Baylor University’s Dr. Bill Bowles is from Dove Creek; and imminent civil engineer Mike Barret grew up here. DUSTY DELIGHTS OF LIFE “IN THE STICKS”

Young people usually devised much of their own entertainment, a valuable preparation for adult life. Ro- deos were common in communities throughout the area, including a rousing Fourth-of-July celebration held in Dove Creek. It was later named the Pick-n-Hoe celebration and remained a popular and valued event in the 1980s. Neighborhood and church parties were held often. Moonlight swimming excursions to various ponds, and overnight hiking and camping expeditions down into the Dolores River canyon were common.

Children wandered along the dusty streets and paths for a nickel ice cream cone at the Hunter Hotel, or later enjoyed sundaes and strawberry sodas at the fountain in the main street drugstore owned by Mr. Stull. Rollo Hall, pharmacist at the previous drugstore located on highway 160, could tell time of day by whom of his regular teenage customers was coming into buy a malt or banana split!

Small excitements were the spice of life. Many drynesters and their children experienced their first airplane-ride when a several-passenger single engine plane used the hard-packed stubble field west of town as an airport. For a dollar, family could look down amazed at the town and countryside for some minutes. Two youth found the mangled slot machine stolen in town during the night darkness— it still contained a large number of nickles. The honest finders showed it to the sheriff; and forty years later remembered their disappointment at not receiving a penny of reward!

The quality of life remains superb in the Four Corners Country. Clear air, bright sunshine, blue sky, and a peaceful landscape bless its inhabitants. The howling of coyotes still grace the night air, and mule deer bound gracefully across the land. Evenings are calmed by the plaintive cooing of doves, and meadow lark songs adorn the morning quiet. And the friendly sons and daughters of the pioneers greet one with smiles. Worksheet for Chapter 8 Old Trails Grown Dim: The Last Half-Century

1. All over the little town of ______energetic citizens plied ______. 2. The flour mill produced a variety of ______and ______as it ground wheat into flour. 3. Mechanic Hubert Sellard was checking a shiny green ______tractor. 4. John Dunbar was unloading ______of ______from a truck. 5. Frosty Thompson concentrated on carrying sacks of ______from his gray stucco ______. 6. He was cutting down the ______with a big disk oneway. 7. By 1940, Dove Creek had grown to a ______of about ______. 8. The late 1920’s and early ______were especially hard times. 9. Refugees from dust storms and grasshoppers elsewhere moved onto deserted ______and rejoiced. 10. The post offices of ______, ______, ______, ______, McPhee, and others disappeared from the maps. 11. Dan B. Hunter had enjoyed a varied ______before coming to this community. In May, ______, he printed the first issue of ______Press. 12. Electricity came to the ______and small ______in the 1940’s. 13. Pinto ______became the chief ______for the area. 14. Dove Creek became the “______Bean ______of the ______”. 15. However, tough times ______; tough people ______. 16. McPhee Lake, ______in Colorado, provides boating and other recreation. 17. They strolled the ______of flowery spring together, and picked bouquets of flowers. 18. They gathered the abundant stores of ______nuts. 19. Passers-by noticed an old horse-drawn ______perched on the roof! 20. The big cast iron bell at 8:30 o’clock called ______to ______. 21. Young people devised much of their own ______. 22. Children wandered along the ______streets and paths for a ______ice cream cone at the ______Hotel. 23. Still standing north of Dove Creek is this ______-style log ______. 24. Clear air, bright ______, ______sky, and a ______landscape bless its ______.