Pinal County, Arizona
History
Pinal County was organized in 1875
from portions of Pima, Maricopa and Yavapai and contains an area of
5,368 square miles, and had, by census of 1900, a population of 7,779
exclusive of Indians. The boundaries of this county are as follows: on
the north, Maricopa and Gila Counties; on the east, Gila and Graham
Counties; on the south, Pima County, and on the west by the County of
Maricopa. Every county of Arizona is very important on account of some
product or products useful and beneficial to the human family, either
in arts, commerce or subsistence. Pinal County has, within its
boundaries, the elements to be of great use to the world. There are
fully six hundred thousand acres of land, and all that is lacking to
render it as productive as any in the world is water, which can be
supplied by a system of reservoir storage of what now is allowed to run
to waste. The Gila River runs directly through this county from east to
west, and at times carries a vast body of water. At such times a
sufficient amount should be deflected to fill the necessary reservoirs
to spread over the land as needed when the river has receded. It is
traversed from west to east by the Southern Pacific Railroad and a road
puts off from the Southern Pacific at Maricopa and runs about north to
Phoenix in Maricopa, and on via Wickenburg and Prescott in Yavapai
County to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad at Ash Fork.
Florence, the county-seat, is in the
fertile valley of the Gila on the southern side and is a flourishing
town of about 1,500 inhabitants, some twenty-seven miles north from the
Southern Pacific Railroad, with which it is connected by a daily stage
at the station of Casa Grande.
In making the trip to and from the
railroad to Florence the stage passes in sight of the old Casa Grande
ruins, which have stood in the desert like the sphinx of Egypt watching
earth's slowly revolving centuries from times anterior to written
records of America.
This evidence at least of the partial
civilization of a prehistoric people stands in the midst of a great
plain that might be rendered very productive if only a sufficiency of
water would be gotten to it. The ancient builders of the structure
brought water from the Gila by means of an acequia or canal, some
thirty miles in length, the course of which can be traced today. The
water would not flow in the canal at all times, though the supposition
is the river then carried a larger flow of water than it now does.
A reservoir was constructed inside
the enclosure of the Casa Grande, where quite a body of water could be
impounded for emergencies, showing that the structure was erected for
defensive purposes. From the construction of this old building it must
be inferred that it was intended for defense against the assaults of a
primitive enemy, for while the works would be impregnable to an enemy
armed only with spears and bows and arrows, they could not long hold
out against the ordnance of this day.
Arizona is at once the oldest and
newest country now composing a portion of the United States. Something
over three hundred and sixty years ago Alvar Cabeza de Vaca, Andres
Durantly, Alonzo del Castillo Meldonado, and Estevan, a negro slave,
were the first Europeans to set foot on Arizona soil. From what can be
gleaned from the old records it would seem probable that the African
slave, Estevan, was really the pioneer into Arizona, as he seems to
have been a man of great physical strength and energy, who kept mostly
in the advance, driven on by his temperament, and love of adventure;
maybe his passion for the native
women urged him forward, as an
attempt to gratify his passion cost him his life among the jealous Zuni
Indians. This party was shipwrecked in 1527 on the coast of Florida;
made captives by the Indians and held for seven years. Upon escaping
from captivity they made their way over great plains, through forests,
over mountains and across rivers to New Mexico and Arizona, and thence
to Culiacan in Mexico.
De Soto is credited with discovering
the Mississippi River, yet this party crossed that stream ten years
before he stood upon its banks; visited the Moqui and Zuni villages,
where was found a peaceful, semi-civilized people, a full quarter of a
century earlier than the first settlement of St. Augustine, Florida,
and nearly a century earlier than the vaunted landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers upon the canonized Plymouth Rock.
After leaving these peaceful villages
of Indians, Cabeza de Vaca and his party proceeded south and visited
the Casa Grande, even then in ruins. An inquisitive mind cannot look
upon this ancient building, knowing its history for over three hundred
years and that it was a ruin at that time, without asking himself the
question, "By whom was it erected and what has become of the builders?"
No written records have come down to us, we know only from their
irrigating canals and methods of defense that they ever existed. Who
were those enemies it was necessary to fortify against and where did
they come from? The Indians of today, Pimas, Papagoes or Maricopas have
no traditions of the builders of these fortifications, but say the
ruins were there as now when they first came into the country.
Does it not appear to be a fact,
demonstrated by the ruins, that there have been many attempts to
struggle toward civilization, on the part of different,portions of the
human race at different times and in different portions of the world.
Some have been destroyed by convulsions of nature; others by invasions
of savage, but more warlike people, while others have slowly decayed by
the lapse of time and the changing of commercial centers. Egypt is the
great example that carried the arts and sciences far, in fact we can
never know how far; her monuments that have falsely been styled
everlasting attest her knowledge of geometry and astronomy equal, where
applied, to anything now known, while we are driven to her monuments
and her tombs to ascertain her hoary history. O Egypt, thy sphinx is
emblematic of thee! Thy stony eyes have looked out over the Egyptian
deserts for more than sixty centuries known to written history; hast
seen empires rise and go down through the lapse of time, yet keepest
thine own secrets. Our most profound thinkers discovered amid the mass
of fable regarding the past, a few broken threads of truth, but how
much of the history of the world and its inhabitants is shrouded in
impenetrable darkness and must ever so remain.
The human race has passed through
many changes in its progress from savagedom towards civilization. Each
body of land of any size found in the oceans that occupy much of the
earth's surface has had human beings, or at least animals having the
human form upon them, many of them in the lowest state of savagedom;
some so low as to eat their food raw, not having advanced to the use of
fire; and the natives of the Andaman Islands have just now arrived to
the use of fire.
Asia, Africa, Europe, America, have
all had their cave- dwellers, and, where practicable, lake-dwellers.
Away back in past times and in parts of Africa today are found the cave
and lake-dwellers and through a great extent of Central Africa, the
natives are yet cannibals. Whether the human race became scattered over
all the earth as is recorded in the rather legendary Semitic records,
when languages were confounded at the Tower of Babel, or whether
separate continents developed separate Adams and Eves matters little in
the discussion; each appears to have started from lowly beginnings and
pursued about the same course toward civilization; some have become
more advanced than others. Some are today in the full fruition of an
advanced civilization, others have disappeared and left only broken and
decaying evidences that they have existed.
While it is true that there are large
bodies of low-grade ores in Pinal County at this writing, there are few
mines producing. This may be in part owing to the low price of silver
in comparison with what it was some years ago. The Great Mammoth Mine
that has in the past produced largely would now be lying idle were it
not for the tailings that were considered of no value now being worked
over for the metal known as molybdenum by a distinguished metallurgist
to good advantage to himself as he continues to work some forty men.
I find the following description of a
mining region now within the boundaries of this county embraced in an
official report made to the Federal Government by one of its competent
engineers as long ago as 1860. Deeming that this report will be more
likely to meet the eye of some one who will be interested, I insert
below the main portion of the report upon a particular location:
"Maricopa Lode.—This lode sometimes
called Gray's Mine, situated about seventy miles north of Tucson and
four miles south of the Gila River, is considered one of the best
copper deposits in southern Arizona. Mr. Gray thus describes the.vein
in a general report made in 1860:
" 'The formation of the district is
primitive, chiefly granite, and sienite, with metamorphic and
sedimentary rocks, and injected dikes of trap and quartz. The lode was
traced and measured 1,600 feet, having a width of from eight to twelve
feet plainly marked by its walls and outcropping ore. The veinstone is
quartz with seams of argentiferous copper ore, at the surface a few
inches wide, but which at six feet down appears nearly solid, covering
the greater part of the lode. The copper-glance and gray ore
predominate, though at top the carbonates and silicates were
intermixed. A branch vein shows itself near the place of greatest
development. Here it traverses an elongated hill intersecting it
lengthwise, and protruding above the surface from one end of the hill
to the other, a distance of seven hundred feet. The hill is sixty to
one hundred and twenty-five feet higher than the valleys and ravines
surrounding it, and slopes for half a mile in the direction of the lode
to the west, when the ground descends northward towards the Gila at a
rate of two hundred and fifty feet to the mile. The course of the lode
is very regular, north 84^/2° east or 5^2° north of true east
and 5J4° south of true west. The dip is to the north, and about
75° from the horizon, very nearly vertical as far as could be
observed. The elevation of the Maricopa Mine determined by me with a
fine cistern barometer, is 3,378 feet above the level of the sea, and
1,497 feet higher than our camp established on the Gila River, six
miles off, selected as a good site for smelting works.' "
W. R. Hopkins, civil engineer, in
connection with the same report, speaks as follows:
"We have traced the copper lode by
distinct pieces of heavy ore for 1,600 feet about east and west; also
three other veins. The lode appears to be from eight to twelve feet
wide on the surface. The shaft we have commenced is on the main lode
and on a hill that rises from sixty to one hundred feet above the
surrounding gullies. It is now seven feet square and six feet deep. The
ore is increasing in richness, and the veins widening. The vein
containing the copper-glance, specimens of which you will receive, is
now twenty inches wide, and occupies the south side of the lode. Next
to this come gray and green ores and red oxide of copper. The lode is
now occupied with the ore, so that nearly all that is thrown out goes
into the pile to be smelted. The dip of the lode is now slightly to the
north, and we suppose that it will run into another lode twenty-five
feet north of it, and form a wider bed of ore than we now find. We
would express to you our confidence in the extreme richness of the
mine, both from our own observation and the opinion of experienced
miners throughout this section of country. We find water-power on the
river abundant (at times). Mesquite is in sufficient quantities to
furnish charcoal, which is of the best quality."
Frederick Brunkow, assayer and mining
engineer, made a report in January, 1860, upon some selected specimens
from this mine, from which this extract is taken:
"The specimens consisted of the
outcrop ore of a powerful vein and bore unmistakeable signs of a true
vein. As commonly by all outcrop ore so here carbonates and
silicates make their appearance, while the main body of the vein, to
some extent below the surface probably, will consist in general of gray
sulphurets of copper, and other ores, which already, in large
quantities, appear upon the surface. *** I divided the ores into
different classes and assayed them accordingly: i, sulphurets, mixed
with carbonate, contained to the ton 50 per cent copper and 104 ounces
silver; 2, gray sulphuret containing to the ton 60 per cent copper and
93 ounces of silver; 3, silicate of copper containing 20 to 25 per cent
copper and 20 to 25 ounces of silver to the ton; 4, carbonate of copper
containing 25 to 50 per cent copper and only a trace of silver, as
carbonates and silicates are secondary formation, a large yield of
silver could not be expected. The ore of this vein would be the
quickest and cheapest way to reduce in a blast 'furnace and run into
copper ingots, which could be shipped and afterwards be stripped of
their silver. Iron crushers for breaking the ore, as well as the
necessary blast, could be driven by water-power of which there is an
abundance (at times) in the Gila River."
The immense resources of Pinal County
must ultimately rest upon her vast bodies of agricultural land, and to
render this land productive, water must be gotten upon it, as the
natural rainfall is not sufficient or at least could not be relied
upon, and, therefore, it becomes necessary that reservoirs be
constructed upon a large scale in the seasons of rains, when the
streams are at floodtide, to be filled and taken out over the soil
through canals and aqueducts when needed in seasons of drought or as
long as shall be necessary for the maturing of crops.
There is an excellent school at
Florence, employing an able corps of fine teachers. There are several
churches and a number of secret societies, a commercial club and two
weekly papers edited with much ability.
The northwestern portion of the
county along the Gila River is occupied by the Pima and Maricopa Indian
Reservation. This reserve embraces much fertile land, considerable of
which is tilled by these industrious people, who have ever been at
peace with the whites, and in the first settlement of the Territory
were a wall of defense against the plundering, murderous Apaches. The
United States Government has supplied schools for these Indians, and
the rising generation of the race has now adopted many of the methods
and customs of an advancing civilization. Many of them live in
comfortable houses, have American plows and other farm implements,
wagons, etc. In their houses the women have sewing machines, and in
many an Indian farmhouse the piano is heard. They are getting up to a
higher plane of civilization and a higher life. Thus has it been
demonstrated that the Indian race is capable of higher development if
once started upon a higher plane by honest hands. Assessed value of
property, $2,898,347.25 for 1903.
Source: The History of
Arizona: From the Earliest Times Known to the People of Europe to 1903
By Sidney Randolph De Long, Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society
Published by The Whitaker & Ray company, 1905
