A History of Land Use and Natural Resources in the Middle San Pedro River Valley, Arizona Na T H a N F

PRING S 3 Volume 53 Number 1 JOURNAL OF THE SOUTHWEST Spring 2011 TUCSON UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA THE SOUTHWEST CENTER Journal of the Southwest, founded in 1959 as Arizona and the West, began publishing in its current format in 1987. A refereed journal published quarterly by the Southwest Center at the University of Arizona, Journal of the South- west invites scholarly articles, essays, and reviews informing any aspect of the Greater Southwest (including northern Mexico). Dedicated to an integrated regional study, the journal publishes broadly across disciplines, including: intel- lectual and social history, anthropology, architecture, literary studies, folklore, historiography, politics, Borderlands studies, and regional natural history. Submissions (typed, double-spaced, in duplicate, and on CD) and inquiries should be made to Joseph C. Wilder, Editor, 1052 N. Highland Avenue, Uni- versity of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721. Telephone (520) 621-2484. 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POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Journal of the Southwest, 1052 N. Highland, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0185. Microfilm and indexing of issues of Arizona and the West (1959–1986) and Journal of the Southwest (1987–current) are available from Pro-Quest, 300 North Zeeb Road, PO Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346. Copyright © 2011 by the Arizona Board of Regents. All rights reserved. ISSN 0894-8410 JOURNAL OF THE SOUTHWEST Volume 53, Number 1 Spring 2011 Edited by Joseph Carleton Wilder THE SOUTHWEST CENTER UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA TUCSON Assistant Editor JEFF BANISTER Production DESIGN & TYPOGRAPHY : WILLIAM BENOIT , Simpson & Convent Editorial Advisors BARBARA BABCOCK MARTIN PADGET University of Arizona University of Wales, Aberystwyth DONALD M. BAHR SYLVIA RODRIGUEZ University of Arizona University of New Mexico LARRY EVERS THOMAS E. SHERIDAN University of Arizona University of Arizona BERNARD L. FONTANA CHARLES TATUM Tucson, Arizona University of Arizona JACQUES GALINIER FRANCISCO MANZO TAYLOR CNRS, Université de Paris X Hermosillo, Sonora CURTIS M. HINSLEY RAYMOND H. THOMPSON Northern Arizona University University of Arizona MARIO MATERASSI Università degli Studi di Firenze Journal of the Southwest is published in association with the Consortium for Southwest Studies: Austin College, Colorado College, Fort Lewis College, Southern Methodist University, South west Texas State University, University of Arizona, University of New Mexico, and University of Texas at Arlington. Contents VOLUME 53, NUMBER 1, SPRING 2011 Bringing the Dam to the Dam Site: How Technology, Labor, and Nature Converged in the Microcosm of a Northern Mexican Company Town, 1936-1946 MIKAEL WOLFE 1 Pedro de Perea and the Colonization of Sonora DAVID YETMAN 33 A History of Land Use and Natural Resources in the Middle San Pedro River Valley, Arizona NATHAN F. SAYRE 87 A History of Land Use and Natural Resources in the Middle San Pedro River Valley, Arizona NATHAN F. SAYRE This paper reconstructs and interprets the land use and natural history of a poorly studied reach of the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona (figure 1). The paper is organized chronologically, beginning with a summary of prehistoric conditions and human activities. Greater emphasis is placed on the historic period, however, for which human uses and impacts are better documented, more directly relevant to current conditions and issues, and generally more significant than in centuries past. Social, political, and economic topics are covered only to the extent that they bear on the use, ownership, and management of land, water, vegetation, livestock, and wildlife. Similarly, events that occurred outside of the study area are treated only insofar as they affected local conditions and activities. Elevations in the study area range from 800 m at the north end of the river corridor to more than 2,600 m at the top of the Rincon Mountains. The San Pedro River falls roughly 230 m on its way through the area. Average annual precipitation increases with elevation from roughly 25 cm to more than 60 cm. The terrain is extremely rugged, characterized by deep tributary canyons and washes cut into the foothill slopes on either side of the river. Vegetation communities include cottonwood-willow riparian forests and mesquite bosques along the San Pedro River, mixed broadleaf forests in tributary canyons and washes, Upper Sonoran desertscrub on lower elevation uplands, Sonoran and Chihuahuan semidesert grasslands at intermediate elevations, and madrean oak woodlands in the surrounding mountains. Conifer forests occur at the very highest elevations. Development is very limited. The three roads that serve the area are unpaved and minimally maintained. Two towns—Redington and Cascabel—appear on the map, reflecting past locations of schools, stores, NATHAN F. SAYRE is associate professor in the Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley. Journal of the Southwest 53, 1 (Spring 2011) : 87–137 Figure 1. Map of the Middle San Pedro River Valley, Arizona. The river flows from south to north. The area covered by this study encompasses the lands tributary to the river from the Narrows (a geological feature that separates ground- water basins above and below it) downstream to Alder Wash and Kielberg Canyon. (Source: Arizona Geographic Information Council.) Land Use in the Middle San Pedro River Valley ✜ 89 and post offices, but neither has an identifiable commercial center at present. Electrification occurred in the late 1950s and telephone service arrived in 1993. The current population, estimated at 175 year-round residents, is less than was found in the area in the early twentieth century, and probably less than occurred during some prehistoric periods. Crop agriculture and livestock production have been the dominant land uses since the arrival of Spanish missionaries in the region 300 years ago, although these activities were limited and sporadic due to the threat of Apache depredations until the late 1870s. State lands are leased to private ranchers for grazing, as are most national forest and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. A modest amount of min- ing occurred in the mountains early in the twentieth century. Hunting is a long-standing land use throughout the area, now limited to fall and winter seasons; other recreational uses are generally concentrated on U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and National Park Service (NPS) lands at higher elevations. In the last 30 years, conservation and residential land uses have increased in significance, but in terms of overall area they remain secondary to agriculture. METHODS AND SOURCES Compared to the rest of the San Pedro River valley, the study area has experienced relatively little historic human activity and scholarly attention, and consequently it is poorly documented in published sources. Prehistoric settlements did exist but are smaller and less studied than sites elsewhere in the valley. The earliest sites of significant historic activity were upstream at Tres Alamos (Tuthill 1947) and downstream at Aravaipa (Hadley, Warshall, and Bufkin 1991). Later, major mines were established to the south (at Cananea, Bisbee, and Tombstone) and to the north (at San Manuel, Mammoth, and Winkelman), but not in the study area. A railroad was contemplated through the area in the late nineteenth century, and a paved highway was planned in the 1960s and again in the 2000s, but neither was ever built. Recently, rapid residential growth and attendant environmental issues have drawn renewed attention to the upper San Pedro River around Sierra Vista, but the Cascabel-Redington area has remained comparatively obscure. As a result, reconstructing the history of the middle San Pedro watershed is often difficult. Census data, for example, tend to lump the 90 ✜ JOURNAL OF THE SOUTHWEST study area together with surrounding locales such as Tucson, Benson, or Willcox, making it difficult to determine population numbers with precision. Historical treatments of southeastern Arizona are numerous, but they rarely focus on the area in question here; there are only a few ecological studies specific to this reach of the San Pedro (Zimmermann 1969; Lombard 1998). Resource information is much more abundant for the upper San Pedro (BLM 1998), but its relevance to the study area cannot be assumed. Archival research and interviews were the main methods employed for this study. Major archives included the Arizona Historical Society, the University of Arizona libraries, the Tucson office of the BLM, the Tucson and Willcox offices of the Natural Resources Conservation

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