Portal, AZ - Rodeo, NM

Serving The Communities Of Portal and Rodeo  (www.portal-rodeo.com)

Paradise Remembered

Courtesy of Dick Zweifel

EXCERPTS FROM THE CHIRICAHUA BULLSHEET 

Pertaining to Paradise, AZ and Suburbs 


The Chiricahua Bullsheet, an entertaining and highly opinionated newsletter and journal of local history written by Carson Morrow (with occasional other contributors) appeared in 38 issues published at the Southwestern Research Station by means of mimeograph at irregular intervals between May 7, 1957 and July 17, 1959. Mr. Morrow, who as a child had been in Paradise in the town's early boom years, wrote many pieces dealing with the those times. Reasoning that present landowners and inhabitants of Paradise, rather lackluster lot that we are, may wish to know more about our area's colorful past, I have gone through the Bullsheet and extracted articles dealing with Paradise and immediate surroundings and transcribe them here. Apart from choosing what to transcribe, my only editing has been to correct obvious typing errors. (I suspect that doing this on a mimeograph stencil was too daunting.) I have not tampered with eccentricities of spelling, punctuation and capitalization that I judge are the author's and not the typists'. These articles appeared mostly under the heading "Digging up Skeletons." Each is preceded here by the date of publication. I am indebted to Jeanne Williams for lending me her file of the Bullsheet, and to Work as Play, Ray Mendez, prop., for use of his publishing facilities. 


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May 7, 1957 


We propose to publish in each issue a thumb nail sketch of one or more of the people who resided in or near the Chiricahua Mountains during the Period 1903 to 10. These sketches will be written from memory and since our memory isn't the best and since a good many of those peoples pasts were more than somewhat sketchy before they came here we'll just tell it the best we can and, apologize for any offensive mistake we might make. That is, if we can't lick or out run the offended. 


Many yarns, lies, stories and songs have been written about the old time Peace Officers, outlaws and other swashbucklers of the old west but at least two of the most outstanding characters who ever inhabited Cochise County, Arizona have been entirely overlooked or ignored. Parson Chenewith and Stephen B. Reed these men were honest, hardworking pioneers who came to this country in the late 1870's by ox wagons, established homes, raised big families and started the development of the civilization we now enjoy. 


The Parson settled at the San Simon Cienega and Mr. Reed in Cave Creek in the Chiricahua Mountains. Neither of them made any pretense of being Tough Hombres, in fact they were, each in his own way, mild mannered, friendly and courteous. Yet they had something about them that caused the Tough Boys to tread a little more softly when they were around; certainly they did not command the respect [of] both the outlaw and marauding Indian on account of their looks or manners but because when the chips were down they knew that these old boys would play for keeps, and no holds barred. 


During the 80's and 90's, murder, robbery horse stealing and cattle rustling were rampant and the Apaches were promiscuously killing settlers, burning ranches and raising hell in general throughout Arizona. The Chenewth and Reed ranches were never molested although Bands of renegade Indians camped within sight of their houses many times, and both peace officers (so called) and outlaws came to put their feet under the table, all were welcome so long as they behaved themselves. 


So far as is known Mr. Reed was never called upon to prove his superiority as a fighting man, and was content to tend to his own business and shoot a bear once in a while for amusement. But the parson was challenged a few times. He had no Church or regular congregation so he preached his sermons in dance halls, saloons, bunk houses or out in the open to any and all who cared to attend. 


One time when he was in Galeyville for a preaching one of Curly Bills henchmen, who was probably somewhat in his cups, decided it would be fun to bait the Parson a little, but he promptly learned a lesson which didn't benefit him much because in answer to one of his jibes the parson landed an upper cut on his jaw and killed him deader than a hammer. The parson then helped make him a coffin and dig his grave in the Galeyville Graveyard and preached his funeral. 


 On another occasion the Parson met one of the Tough boys on a trail in the Chiricahua Mountains. The Tough Boy drew his pistol and ordered him to dismount and take his saddle off as they were going to trade horses. The Parson stepped off of his horse on the side away from the outlaw, drawing his rifle from the scabbard as he did so, and when the Tough boy glanced down to see how thing were going he found the tables turned and he was looking full into the business end of a .50 calibre Buffalo gun pointed from underneath the horses belly. 


The Parson then explained that he wasn't in much of a trading mood that day and didn't want to trade horses at all, but that being as how his old saddle was about to fall to pieces and that the outlaw had such a nice new one, they would just trade saddles. 


There is no record of him having converted anyone to Christian faith and he probably didn't instill much reverence for the scriptures in many of his listeners but they surely learned to take off their hats and bow their heads in some semblance of reverence when Parson Chenewth went into action with either his fists, his Buffalo Gun or his Bible. 


June 15, 1957


Let's saddle up our burros and ride up to the spring in Silver Creek and visit old Albert Fink and the Duffner brothers. Albert came from Germany in about 1875 and settled down to digging prospect holes in Silver Creek, soon after he arrived. He like most of the old boys who inhabited this part of the country in those days was a genuine "rainbow chaser" and expected to strike it rich with each stroke of his prospectors pick. Practically all of the prospect holes in Silver Creek were dug by him or the Duffner Brothers who came much later than Albert but stayed a good many years after he had gone to fiddlers green.


Several people residing here now will remember Otto and Max Duffner. Albert claimed to be and probably was of the German Nobility and received a regular allowance from the old country until World War One broke out which terminated his grub stake and probably had quite a lot to do with ending his sojurn in Silver Creek, he was taken to the county hospital where he died before the end of the war.


When anyone would ask Albert how long he had lived here he would reply in broken English liVen I vos first here nobody vas here.~ This was understandable at least to the extent that he was undoubtedly one of the first permanent settlers on the east side of the Chiricahuas.


Alberts cabin was constructed of adobe mud and was equipped with port holes in each wall for Indian fighting purposes. However if [he] was ever besieged by Indians he never mentioned it.


The fire place and part of the chimney still stands, it is located on the north bank of the creek near the spring and about one hundred feet south west of the sheet iron cabin which is presently claimed by Troy Jones.


In 1903 the Duffner brothers lived in an adobe house which was just around the bend in the creek above Albert's place. The walls of that house are also partially standing now. They later built the sheet iron house and lived in it most of the time until they hit the prospectors trail on which the burro tracks all point in the same direction.


They also held mining claims and had cabins near Paradise and at Nipper Peak.


They were second generation Germans and did not have a permanent grub stake like Albert so were obliged to and did, engage in numerous occupations aside from mining to keep the bean pot boiling. Otto clerked in stores, caught butterflies, sold them, sold mineral specimens, engaged in photography, and kept bees.


Max was a highly skilled mechanic, when he was able to work he excelled as a locksmith, gunsmith and in repairing typewriters and adding machines.


At one time they shipped several tons of crystals from the crystal cave in Cave Creek, and it was they who drove the tunnel into the cave which is now used as the entrance.


Their primary reason for coming to Arizona was to try to cure Max of the narcotic habit which he had acquired back east. The theory being that narcotics would be harder to obtain, and too that a change of environment would help. However the experiment was unsuccessful and although he lived to be 80 years of age, he was either hopped up or drunk most of his life. If narcotics weren't available he would use liquor as a substitute.


Otto was an exceptionally kindly and sociable fellow and was universally liked. He also lived to be nearly eighty. Both brothers died in the County Hospital at Douglas.


At the time of his death Otto had hundreds of photographs and negatives of Paradise in it's heyday including pictures of freight wagons moving the big boilers from Rodeo to the Chiricahua Mine with as many as thirty four horses in one string pulling them.


Soon after his death his cabin was robbed and vandalized and all the negatives and pictures were either destroyed or carried away.


July 24, 1957


WANT TO BUY SOME MINING STOCK?


Farming and mining are pretty closely related in some respects. Some years ago Billy Wright and Fred Bernudy shipped several trunk loads of something pretty heavy from Cripple Creek Colorado to Paradise Arizona. There was considerable speculation at the time, as to the contents of the trunks, some guessed it was fertilizer of a specific kind others that it was mining equipment etc. But Billy and Fred were in the mlnlng business and knew all the angles. So after the trunk episode was forgotten, they struck the richest gold and silver ore ever known in these parts and sold thousands of dollars worth of stock in their mine to the very people who had been wondering about the trunks. The boom lasted only a few days before the mine pinched out and then the suckers didn't wonder any more.


What brought this to mind was seeing two of our most prominent mining men, John Shad and John Pence hauling a truck load of what appeared to be manure out of Rodeo the other day and so far as we know they aren't farming.


September 13, 1957


When Paradise first came into existence if you were traveling from Rodeo to Paradise by wagon you either went up the canyon through Round Valley or you took the longer route around through the lower Box in Turkey Creek above the old Red Top ranch, as there was no passable road through Silver Creek. With an automobile the difference in distance would be negligible but by horse mule or burro it wasn't, so the old Paradise boys didn't appeal to any organization to build a road through Silver Creek, they elected a fellow by the name of Luke Short (not the old famous one) Constable and an old worn out miner who was fairly literate by the name of Big Foot Jim Williams, Justice of the Peace, and informed them that they wanted law enforcement well mixed with building a road through Silver Creek and those two officials proceeded to get the job done.


The old Chiricahua Development Company was going full blast and employing in the neighborhood of five hundred men who worked twelvehours a day seven days a week, except they nearly all layed off on pay day which was the first day of the month. That was the day when Luke and Big Foot Jim recruited most of their Road workers. Luke would arrest all the miners who got too boisterous and handcuff them to a chain stretched between two trees and after they had sobered up a little the next morning he would get on his horse and walk them down to the Court which was generally held in Jim's shack located about 5 miles north of Paradise on the East Bank of Turkey Creek. Occasionally Frank Derfield or the Chamberlain and Hawkins Grocery would donate the use of a wagon to convey the prisoners and some of the thirteen Paradise Saloon Keepers might donate a bottle of rot gut to cheer the boys up on the way to the Bar of Justice.


The miners were supplemented occasionally by a cowboy who happened to imbibe too much red eye and tried to do a little roundup work inside a saloon on horseback and several of the old town Bums, including Old Dorsey, Jack Buford and Dutch Arthur also made their unwilling contributions to the development of the Country. The old boys who dug the Road over Silver Creek hill with pick and shovel and those who caused them to do it have all drifted on now, nearly all of them to "Fiddlers Green" but you can still see the road off to your left as you follow the newer road for a mile or so en route to the Paradise Cemetery from Portal.


Judge Williams was defeated by Jim Handcock for the Office of J.P. and Luke Short resigned and left the Country sometime before his second term as Constable expired. He was somewhat of a ladies man, among a lot of other things and he was visiting a miners home one night while the miner was supposed to be on shift but wasn't. Luke went out the back door with his boots in his hand fast enough that the miner coming in the front door in the dark couldn't positively identify him, but the next day after having a few drinks the hard rock boy dropped a few remarks around town regarding his strong belief in the sanctity of the home and the infallibility of a ten gauge shot gun to keep it that way, so Luke saddled up and drifted toa lower climate - he evidently didn’t want to speed up the change of climate by dropping straight from Paradise to the fiery furnace carrying a few ounces of Buck Shot to accelerate the trip.


December 23, 1957


We have had a number of requests for a story about Galeyville and we would love to oblige, but father time and mother nature have just about wiped out all the evidence.


The town took its name from the founder, John H. Galey, he discovered some silver ore just west of the old Townsite and sold the mine to a man by the name of Wessels for one hundred thousand dollars in October 1880.


We know this to be true from the original sales agreement bearing Galey’s signature, which is all the documentary evidence at hand. He named his mine the !!Texas! which indicated that he was either a Texan or felt sure that it wouldn’t amount to much.


When Paradise was on the boom in 1903 to 1907, there were still a few old fellows around who had resided in Galeyville. From their tales, which are not too well remembered and from the physical aspects at the site we will try to give you some idea of what it was like.


Ruben Hadden, Albert Hoch and Jim Handcock were the old residents referred to, together with Old man John Sulliven who lived on White Tail Canyon; Albert Fink on Silver Creek; Lew Scanlan down at the big bend in Turkey Creek and Baldy George Walker, with residence just about where ever night happened to overtake him.


No doubt Steven B. Reed also visited Galeyville occasionally as he settled in Cave Creek on what is now the Southwestern Research Station at about the time mining and smelting operations there were at the peak.


The town and smelter were located on a mesa a short distance west of Turkey Creek and about two miles North of Paradise. The slag dump is visible from the present road.


There are no houses or even any walls still standing, the only indication of past habitations are graded out places where the wooden structures stood and mounds of dirt where the Adobe ones tumbled down. The old dance hall was still in pretty good condition until about 1908, when it caught fire and burned all the wood work, the adobe walls have completely weathered away.


An old fellow by the name of Mills was living in it at the time it burned. He was the last resident but he had moved in quite some time after the town had been abandoned.


No census was ever taken but judging from old stories and from the building sites there were probably about one hundred fifty regular residents, supplemented from time to time by hundreds of visitors, good and bad, mostly bad.


Billy the Kid; Big Foot Wallace; Curly Bill Brosius and his numerous followers were frequently there. It has been said that Big Foot Wallace shot Curly Bill through the neck one night in a saloon brawl. Bill didn’t die from it, but Big Foot might have. There doesn’t seem to be any record of him ever being seen after he hurriedly left town the night Curly was shot.


Many years later Bill Sanders found the skeleton of a man in a crevice in the rocks on a little hill just North of Grapevine Spring, an old rotted saddle was on top of the skeleton and Bill thinks this might have been the remains of Big Foot, he probably having been Dry Gulched by some of Curly’s henchmen.


There have been a lot of Blood and thunder stories told and written about Galeyville, but if they are true, you can come to one of two conclusions, either those people practiced cannibalism or they were the worlds poorest shots as the graveyard had exactly three graves after the smoke had cleared and the population had departed entirely. One of those was reportedly occupied by one of Curly Bill's men who Parson Chenowth killed with a blow from his fist, another was a stranger who was found dead on the street one morning with his head bashed in by a pick handle in the hands of a party or parties unknown; the third died of Pneumonia.


There is no one alive today that was in Galeyville at that time, so the chances of verifying this is nil, but the fact that there are only five graves is indisputable and several of we old Paradise residents know for sure that two of them are occupied by the bodies of people who died in Paradise before the present graveyard there was established.


One of them was a little boy about ten years of age by the name of Willie Shipman and the other was a miner whose name is not remembered.


Jim Handcock, who in later years (and until the time of his death was Justice of the Peace and Postmaster at Paradise) was inclined somewhat to the Blood and Thunder with his Galeyvil1e tales.


Albert Hoch was a taciturn old German blacksmith who seldom talked of the past or the future either for that matter.


Baldy George Walker was generally drunk from the time he hit town until he ran out of money, so he only knew which saloon he bought the first drink in and the last place he bummed a meal before heading back to work on some ranch. He sometimes worked for Old Man Shanahan who was the original owner of the Red Top Ranch which now belongs to Sam Mosely. Ruben Hadden had a better memory and was the most conservative and interesting story teller of the lot. He claimed to be a Utah born Mormon and that he quit the church because of the Mountain Meadow massacre, which occurred in 1857. He said he was about nine years of age at the time and helped drive away the stock after the older Mormons had murdered the Immigrants. As soon as he was big enough to shift for himself he came to Arizona and was at Galeyville throughout its active existence.


He never mentioned his own activities during that time but whatever they were they must have been lucrative for throughout the ensuing years of his life he seldom if ever engaged in any gainful occupation, yet always lived well and paid for everything he bought either in gold coin or with gold certificates.


According to him Galey never could make ends meet on his mining and smelting venture until after Curley Bill robbed the Mexican smugglers in Skeleton Canyon and brought their loot to Ga1eyvi11e and blew it on wine, women and song.


Galey acquired something over two hundred thousand of the Mexican Silver Pesos at reduced rates and ran them through his smelter to sweeten up the values of the low grade ore. In that manner he not only recovered the silver in the form of salable bullion but boosted up the figures on his smelter certificates, which enabled him to sell out to Wessels.


January 16, 1958


Sometime ago we published a little story predicting that Portal would move away from its present location to a site further up the creek and everybody thought we were joking. Maybe we were but Portal has moved one time before.


When it first came into existence in about 1905, it adopted the name of Portal because it was considered a gateway to Paradise, which at that time was a thriving mining camp.


Not one of the present buildings were any part of the original town, nor were there any buildings on the present site. The only thing that is left of the original town is the name and the only original residents still living in this part of the country are Mr. and Mrs. Ed Epley, who now reside at Paradise.


The founders of the town had, or thought they had a good reason for building up on the Mesa to the west of what is now Newmans store, rather than down along the creek in the shady spots. About that time a flood came down Cave Creek which covered all the bottom land to a depth of several feet and left drifts up in the trees as a reminder.


Old Portal had a considerably larger population than at present. Ed Epley was the first Postmaster and ran a grocery store and meat market in connection with the Postoffice. He soon sold out to Emmett Powers and Fitch McCord. They built a large General Merchandise store stocked with all kinds of supplies and implements for ranching and mining. They also erected and put into operation a small hotel which was nice but not modern by present day standards. Neither of these ventures ever did very well financially. After a few years the hotel was torn down and moved away and the store burned down, or was torn down and moved away.


There were two saloons, one in a walled up tent was operated by a man by the name of McManus,who had a wife and daughter. The daughter, Minnie, married a fellow named Frank Hunter while they resided here.


The other saloon was housed in a lumber building and was owned and operated by a man by the name of Boswell, he was a nice appearing quiet spoken man but nevertheless shot and killed two men in his saloon. The first was a fellow by the name of Reed (no relation to Stephen B. Reed), and the others name was Jewell. Reed is buried across the creek to the east of Newmans store, Jewell was buried in a prospect hole on the slope near the old Virtue Mine tunnel but some time later his brother who was here with him went back to Texas on the train and came back with a wagon and team, disinterred the body and hauled it to Texas for re-burial.


Reed and several others had been on an all night binge at Boswells and when the party broke up about day break he went home and got his rifle, forced his way into the saloon and attempted to shoot Boswell who got his pistol from under the bar and shot him in time to save his own life.


The second killing also occurred after a nights drinking and gambling spree, and before day break, Jewell came back to Boswells and demanded another drink. Boswell had gone to bed in his living quarters which adjoined the bar and refused to get up and let him in, so Jewell who had armed himself with a heavy caliber rifle shot the lock and part of the door facing off and came in anyway. Boswell got up and went into the bar room to pour him a drink. While he was doing that Jewell shot out the light os Boswell ran back into his bedroom, picked up his double barreled shotgun and mowed him down.


Two old time Portal residents, Jim Coachman and Hugh Rowe went insane and were committed to the Insane Asylum at Phoenix. Some little time before this occurred Coachman told Ed Epley that Row was going crazy, that he could tell from the look in Rowe's eyes. It so happened that Coachman went off the beam first and was sent to the bug house several months before Rowe. When the officers arrived there with Rowe, Coachman came up and shook hands with him and said "Hello Hugh, I knew damned well you would be here before long, I told them fellows down there that you was going crazy a long time ago."


Several different things contributed to the short lived prosperity of the original town. The Savage Mine in Round Valley of which Jim Reay was superintendent was employing several miners and some of the men in building a small smelter, which by the way never did go into operation as it was built before the mine was developed, or should we way over developed? Anyway when all was said and done there was no ore to smelt so the whole works was shut down, the machinery sold and moved away. Jim Reay moved onto his homestead down at the mouth of Cave Creek and started farming and raising cattle and horses.


The Virtue Mining Company with Ed Epley as superintendent was employing several miners driving the long tunnel into the limestone mountain Northwest of town. That work was all done without benefit of machinery. They used single and double jacks (four and eight lb. hammers) with hand turned steel drills. This operation lasted longer than the Savage did but the results were the same. No Ore.


Filing Homestead claims on Government land was just getting underway in this part of the country at that time. Fred Finnicum homesteaded the place which now belongs to the Toles sisters; Hugh Rowe's claim was on the north side of the lane just to the west of town; Powers and McCord filed claims on most of the land lying between the Ranger Station and the Post Office, and a widow whose name is not remembered homesteaded the land covering the little seep spring on the mountain side about two miles directly west of town. She married old Walt Finnicum while holding down her claim but they didn't stay hitched very long. The main part of the AVA Ranch was homesteaded several years later by an ex Forest Ranger by the name of Billy Stewart. There were a good many other homesteaders or Nesters as they were commonly called located further down in the valley who did most of their trading in Portal. Considerable trade came from people traveling between Paradise and Rodeo up to the time when Paradise went on the rocks for the same reason the two aforementioned mines did. No pay dirt.


A lot of wood was being cut and shipped to Douglas, Bisbee and Tucson, Frank Kelsey had a big bunch of Mexican wood cutters camped about where the John Hands dam is now. Powers and McCord and some others were also in the business, the wood was hauled to Rodeo with wagons and shipped from there on the Railroad.


Portal never did die completely, as the old town died out a few buildings were built on the new site and now as we have told you before the same thing is happening again. The only new construction that has been done for the past several years has been further up the creek. Wonder if it will take the name with it this time? If not we suggest that the new town be called Jack Maloney, Arizona.


January 28, 1958


Now that Ingwold Isaacson has acquired the old Paradise jail and remodeled it into a dwelling some of our readers have requested that we tell them the history of it.


Well right at the beginning we will tell you that it is not the original Paradise jail. the first one was an open air establishment consisting of a log chain stretched between two oak trees. The prisoners were shackled to the chain.


(One of the trees is still standing.) That served very well at the time as most, if not all the customers were in "durance vile" for the crime of being drunk and disturbing the peace, which meant in plain english that the culprit had spent all his money for booze and was disturbing the peace of one of the many bar tenders by trying to mooch a free drink. Women were seldom arrested but once in a while one of the girls from across the creek, as the Red Light district was called, would go on a binge and carve up her man a little or throw a few whiskey bottles and glasses through the big mirror behind some bar. Instead of shackling them to the log chain they were shackled to an old style iron bedstead in the back room of one of the Honky Tonks. Old man Hiram Fisher who owned a saloon in Paradise used to relate some pretty lively tales about that but we can't re-tell them in a pure publication like this, so remind us to tell you about it sometime when there are no ladies present.


Paradise began to boom when Cap Burns sold his mining claims, which were located at the head of the north fork of what is now called Hospital Canyon to the Chiricahua Development Company in 1903, and Busted during the Money Panic of 1907. The present jail was built at about the time of the Bust or a short time thereafter, so probably never housed more than a half dozen prisoners altogether. However, it was the scene of one of the most spectacular jail breaks on or off any record, anywhere, which was effected by an hombre by the name of Pablo Zuniga, who ordinarily was one of the most un-spectacular "pata de ules" who ever came up from Mexico. Pablo, in his own opinion was a man of considerable consequence and by Chiricahua Standards he was quite wealthy. He had about ten burros and pack saddles, a big fat wife and seven or eight kids, from about 10 years of age down. He could cut and pack into town a cord of wood every day which he could sell, at that time, for two good round American dollars.


Flour for tortillas and Frijoles were cheap so he would frequently get enough ahead to buy a few bottles of Vino and go on a spree. At such time he invariably wore out a few doubles of pack rope on Maria and the kids or striped them up pretty good with the "Tapejo" which he used at other times to whip the burros or to blindfold them if they tried to run away while he was stacking the wood. There was nothing wrong with that in his way of thinking, nor in the families way of thinking either. How were they to know that he was the "Macho" and that he truly loved them if he didn't beat hell out of them once in a while?


They all lived in a small tent with not many holes, had pretty fair clothing and led a happy life until one of the nosey gringo neighbors happened to go by while the Zuniga family was being set to rights and being assured of his undying love by their lord and master and that was the beginning of the end. The neighbor, not knowing that class of mexicans or their way of life, rushed to town and told Mart Moore, who succeeded Luke Short as Constable, that Pablo was beating his wife. Mart couldn't see anything very wrong with that as he had a mexican wife and three half breed kids himself. he had lived among them all his life and knew all their idiosyncrancies (boy, ain't that a dandy word). In fact he had shot and killed three wood cutters in a brawl in Ben Milams saloon not long before. But the complainant was so insistent that he went out and collared Pablo and threw him in the clink. Now Maria didn't understand gringos and their strange ways any better than the nosey neighbor understood Mexicans. Who ever heard of throwing the head of a family in jail for exercising his rights and attending to his duty? She took a big monkey wrench down to the jail and proceeded to twist the bars out of the window before Mart Moore hardly got the door in front locked.


That occurred in the middle of the afternoon. Anyone but Pablo would have waited until night to escape but he was still full of Vino and feeling "muy Bravo" so he crawled through the twisted bars and started climbing straight up the mountainside east of the jail. Evidently the further up the mountain he climbed the more brave he felt. When he got about half way to the top he stopped and started yelling and cursing all the gringos at large and Mart Moore in particular, inviting Mart to come and get him if he was man enough and not a damned coward. He was in plain view of practically everybody in town and his yelling soon afforded him a large audience. In the annals of jail breaking it is doubted that an escapee every had that many eye witnesses. Although he was in a position to see everything that moved in town he failed to see Mart saddling his horse and riding across the creek toward him and when he finally did, it was much too late. He climbed as he had never climbed before but the belly full of Vino slowed him up and Mart overtook him just before he topped out so he layed down on his back and defied anything or anybody in the world to take him back to jail. At first Mart whipped out his pistol, apparently with the full intention of putting Pablo out of business for keeps, but before he "lowered the Boom" he realized that he was in plain view of practically the entire population. Although Pablo was still "playing to the Grandstand", shouting and daring Mart to shoot him, it wasn't the right thing to do under the circumstances. Like we said before, Mart knew his Mexicans, so instead of shooting he put his pistol back in the holster, pitched the lop of his rope around Pablos feet and started dragging him down the mountain toward the Calaboose, a distance of two hundred yards or so.


Just like Mart knew he would, Pablo soon changed his tune and began begging, "Please shoot me like a man, don't drag me like a dog", the physical punishment of being dragged through the boulders on the seat of his pants wasn't what did it. He would have actually preferred being killed to the humiliation of being treated like anything less than the "Hombre Valiente" he felt himself to be at the moment.


So Mart let him get up and walk back to the jail where he was shackled to the "bull ring" embedded in the floor until he sobered up and promised to leave town. Prosecuting him for wife beating was out of the question as Maria absolutely refused to testify against him.


Foot note - A fellow by the name of Henry Paulhemus laid the stone walls of the jail. Later a man of the same name was Chief of Police of Yuma. It might have been the same man.


A way back yonder when the Cub was a Cub and not a grizzly old Boar Bear as one of our readers recently referred to him, there was a hard rock miner at Paradise who became famous for his eating ability. His name was Lewis Bradshaw but everybody called him Billy Bow Legs, and that was no misnomer, his legs almost formed a complete circle.


One night in Dad Hayes' Restaurant someone remarked on the enormous supper Billy had just eaten, to which he replied that he was still hungry enough to eat fifty fried eggs. The other fellow offered to bet fifty dollars that he couldn't and the bet was called.


The fifty eggs were stowed away pronto and the other guy being a little bit peeved about losing the bet, said "I suppose you are still hungry" to which Billy replied "Well I could eat a couple more eggs if I had some ham to go with them". Dad Hayes furnished the ham and two eggs on the house. Needless to say, Billy had no trouble downing them too.


March 17, 1958


Rustlers Park came by its name honestly through being used as a hangout by a lot of honest people.


Beginning back in the 1870's and ending along about 1902, just about every outlaw or rustler and probably a few honest men who drifted through southern Arizona spent some time there.


In those days when lightning fires burned up the fallen pine straw in accordance with the will of the Almighty instead of being put out by the present day proteges of bureaucracy, Rustlers Park was a veritable Paradise for hungry trailweary animals. Wild oats together with about every other kind of forage indigenous to this neck of the woods grew in abundance. Where now you find nothing but pine straw to a depth of anywhere from a few inches to a few feet.


There is no one left who remembers which ones of the rustlers did it, but some of them built a drift fence of poles extending across the middle of the park from one peak to the other. When cattle and horses were stolen on the west side of the mountain, they were held on the east side of the fence and vice versa until they were prepared for market. Generally such preparation consisted of resting and fattening them, altering brands, and then finding a buyer on the opposite side of the mountain from where they had been stolen.


Curly Bill Broccius and his gang were credited by some with handling most of the stolen stock. Others contended that John Ringo was the kingpin of them all. There is no way of resolving that question at this late date, but it is safe to assume that they both, along with the Clantons, McLowerys and a good many others of the same stripe have built camp and branding fires under some of the pines that are still standing in Rustlers Park. Parts of the pole drift fence were still in evidence as late as 1911. The reason we picked the year 1902 as aboutthe time stock rustling as a big business came to an end is that that was the time when the presently much touted Arizona Rangers came into full bloom. Most of the old notorious boys had drifted on by that time, but there were plenty of younger sprouts following in their footsteps. When the Rangers were organized, a good number of these younger bucks were recruited into the service -- which might or might not have been a wise move on the part of the powers that were.


They were probably going on the old adage "send a thief to catch a thief", but it did go a long way toward breaking up the rustler gangs.


There were some honest men in the service, notably the three consecutive Captains -- Mossman, Tom Rynning, and Harry Wheeler -- and probably a few others but they were by far in the minority. It was utterly impossible for the captains to keep a very close watch on their underlings who were scattered throughout the state, so the young thugs on horseback never had it so good. Beside having the authority to chase their erstwhile pals out of business and draw a salary from the state while doing it, they had ample opportunity to carryon their old trade and enjoy almost complete immunity from the law at the same time. Should they have been caught handling stolen stock, all they ad to do to clear their skirts was to claim that they had recovered them from some other thief who had escaped arrest.


As one example of how the Rangers operated, when W. K. Morrow moved into Douglas in 1902, he brought sixteen head of good horses with him, and within a week everyone of them had disappeared. The theft was reported to Captain Rynning the morning after the horses were stolen, and the Rangers stationed at Douglas went into action. Before sunset they came in and reported that the horses had all been tracked into Mexico, which of course took them out of their jurisdiction as they had no authority in Mexico.


The only one of these horses that was ever recovered was found several months later at Barfoot Park working in a logging team. The men who had him claimed that he had bought him from an Arizona Ranger and produced a signed Bill of Sale to prove it. No prosecution was instituted and the ranger involved departed for parts unknown, but some year later returned and lived in Douglas for a good many years. The Ranger organization only lasted a short time.


One of the last horse-stealing escapades known to have terminated in Rustler Park occurred in about 1913. Bill and Frank Price and Rusty Tulk, all of the West Turkey Creek area, had drifted over near Steins Pass and gone to work for the Seven Twelve Cattle Co. 01 Mart Taylor was the Wagon Boss of that outfit. Some people still think that he was the real Billy The Kid and that the man killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett at Fort Sumner, New Mexico was just a phony. We will refer you to Buford Martin on that question as he knows more about it than we do, and get back to our horse stealing.


One morning Rusty rode away from the Seven Twelve Ranch, presumably to range brand some calves, riding the top horse of the outfit. When he didn't show up by the next morning, Mart Taylor took his two other hands, Bill and Frank, with him and set out on Rusty's trail. They discovered or remembered that Rusty had taken a pistol and a 30-30 rifle with him so they armed themselves accordingly.


The trail wasn't hard to follow as they knew the horse's tracks about as well as they knew the horse, and the tracks pointed straight for the high part of the Chiricahuas. They followed the trail right to Rustlers Park, but stopped just before they rode out of the timber into the clearing as they could see the horse they were looking for from there grazing out in the middle of the Park, but Rusty and his saddle were not visible. After a short consultation, they decided to go to Paradise and enlist the services of Constable Mart Moore. They knew Rusty well enough that they didn't think he took the guns along to shoot chipmunks.


After they told the whole story to the Constable, he decided that he had a lot of unfinished business about everywhere except in Rustlers Park, and that it would be several days before he could possibly find time to go after the horse. They didn't want to go back to the ranch without the horse, but they didn't feel quite up to going after him either as it looked like a sure thing that Rusty was camped out in the timber watching the horse in hope that they would come after him in person. So they took their troubles to Carson Morrow who was a bigger chump at age seventeen than he is now if that is possible, and paid him ten dollars to go and get the horse. Either Rusty didn't care to waste a cartridge on that big a damned fool, or his bravery might have faded out and he had simply caught another horse and gone on to Turkey Creek. "Pues, Quen Saves?"


May 12, 1958


The story of Paradise is deserving of a much better job than we can do, but as more capable writers have shunned or neglected it we feel that our poor efforts might be appreciated by some of the younger generation who are interested in who did what, back during the times when frijoles and jerky were the principal food items and ragged assed overalls were the height of fashion.


In past issues we have mentioned a few of the people who resided in Paradise during its heyday. This time we will give you the names, occupations and as much other data as we remember regarding each person mentioned.


The thumb nail Biographies will of course be sketchy but factual, in so far as our memory serves. We will appreciate it if the few old Paradise residents who are still around will tell us about any mistakes or mis-statements we might make and supplement any of the stories with anything of interest they might remember.


As we have mentioned before, Paradise began in the early part of 1903, reached its peak in 1907 and has had several ups and downs since that time. Mostly downs. Until presently there is only one person living there who has called Paradise his home continuously since it started, that is William W. Sanders and he is living in one of the three remaining houses which were part of the original town.


Since the old burg started on the down hill slide there have been a good number of other people come and go, some of which we have no knowledge. So for this first series we will only deal with the original inhabitants covering the period 1903 to about 1910. As is not unusual for us, we are getting the horse ahead of the cart by telling you of the life and demise before we say anything about the birth so we will here regress a little. There had been mining and prospecting activities in that area farther back than anyone knows. There is some indications that the Conquistadores at least looked it over an probably did some prospecting. Parts of one of their saddles and an old flint lock pistol bearing the stamp.of the Spanish Crown and the date 1513, have been found in fairly recent years over in Wood Canyon and the Millstones of Arrastas (crude Spanish of Mexican gold mills) have been found in both White Tail and Wood Canyons.


From that time down through the years many old rainbow chasers such as George Dunn for whom Dunn Spring and Dunn Mt. are named, John H. Galey of Galeyville fame and old man John Sullivan of White Tail Canyon kept up the burro hunting and prospect hold digging until old Cap Burns sold his diggings, located in the heads of Jhus and Chiricahua Canyons to the Chiricahua development Company in the latter part of 1902 or early 1903. Soon after that group of Eastern Capatalists made the purchase they began developing the property. They started to make preparations for the installation of a gigantic (for those times) plant of mining machinery, some parts of which required more than thirty horses to pull in from the railroad on a wagon. They proceeded to sink a vertical shaft which ultimately reached a depth of more than four hundred feet with thousands of feet of drifts in every direction, also to construct offices, a boarding house and residences necessary to such an operation.


There was no suitable site for a town at the embryo mine and a sizeable adjacent town was in the cards. So Paradise was conceived by two men by the names of George A. Walker and George Myers. Now don’t get any funny notions, they only the idea. They laid out the townsite and sold lots to a lot of other people who helped them to cause the new and once thriving town to be born.


As the two Georges were the instigators and also the first ones to open up business establishments in Paradise, we will tell you what little we know about them first. Walker had the first grocery store and Myers the first saloon. They both started business in a tent and later built and moved into buildings constructed of lumber sawed by Boyer and Sanders in Barfoot Park and hauled to Paradise by wagon and team over the old sawmill road, parts of which can still be seen from the present road. Practically every building in town was built of Chiricahua lumber and as there was no planing mill, the city presented a pretty rough exterior which of course was somewhat in keeping with the interior, fixtures, furnishings, and inhabitants alike.


George A. Walker originated in Missouri, made the gold rush to the Klondike, wandered around over a good part of the north American Continent, and finally finished his career in Paradise and is buried in the Paradise Cemetery. When he first came to this part of the country he married Lulu Reed, eldest daughter of Stephen B. Reed. They had three children. A daughter Georgia who married Barney Lee and they live in Tucson. Reed and Elmore the two sons. Reed presently lives at Douglas and Elmore at Canyon City Col. Mrs. Walker resides at Douglas. At one time George's brother Jay Walker and the father Grandpa Walker lived at Paradise. They have been long dead and it is thought that one or both might be buried in the Paradise Cemetery. We will appreciate it very much if one of the family will write us a more complete story of George for publication in a later issue.


Nothing is known of the origin or life of George Myers before he came to the Chiricahuas except that he was also a Klondiker. He was a runty little guy and his wife Marie was a strapping big six footer.


They had two children. A daughter names Jessie and younger son, George Jr. They left Paradise soon after the boom and settled somewhere up around Ray Arizona. There George ran amok over a love affair, real or imagined, between Marie and a fellow by the name of Earl Riggs and shot and killed her then committed suicide. No one seems to know what became of the children.


In as much as saloons were the biggest and most lucrative business we will tell you about the Saloon keepers next. And as we know of one of them who is still very much alive we will lead off with him. Mr. John A. Bendle, who now resides in Phoenix, Arizona. During the good old days he was popularly known as John the Swede, although he is actually full'blood German. The old boy was quite a sportsman in his younger days and still goes hunting once in a while. He plays a first class game of poker every chance he gets and buys at least a two dollar ticket on some horse in about every race.


He was born and grew up down around Beeville Texas and married Maggie Chapman of Del Rio, Texas when they were both just big kids. They moved to Douglas, Arizona in 1902 then out to Paradise in 1903. When they arrived in Paradise they had only two children, Bertha and Frances. Bertha has been Mrs., Ernest E. Lee of Tucson for a lot of years and has two fine kids of her own, a cute little blond daughter named Gail and a son, Ernest jr. who is well over six feet high. Frances married a fellow by the name of Johnny Kelly and they have six or seven grown children.


The Bendles had five other children born after they came to Paradise, three boys, Fred, Robert and Johnnie and two daughters Barbara and Kathryn. Fred and Johnnie are both dead. Robert is married and has a family at Phoenix. The two younger girls are married and one or both of them live at Phoenix.


John moved his saloon to San Simon about 1910 when that village literally spurted to boom proportions on account of artesian water being struck there. Later on he homesteaded in Wood Canyon for a good many years. He then sold out and put in a service station about eight miles west of Bowie where the Safford road turns off the main hiway.


Ben Milam, nicknamed Boozer, at one time had two saloons. That is one saloon in the main part of town and one dive "across the creek", as the red light district was called. He was living with and later on married a prostitute by the name of Madge. She managed the dive while he hobnobbed with the upper crust of Society in the saloon over on the main drag.


A bunch of Mexican wood cutters started a free for all fight in his place one night and when the smoke cleared Boozer was carved up with a knife to the extent that it looked like he was going to cash in his chips and there were three dead Mexicans on the floor all well ventilated with bullet holes. The story generally accepted around town was that, constable Mart Moore who was in the Saloon when the ruckus started had done the ventilating but since it looked like curtains for Boozer, it would simplify the matter by letting him claim the glory or accept the blame as the case might have been. Anyway that procedure would and did dispense of a lot of red tape, court procedure etc., which could have at least discomfited Mart to some extend possibly even to the extent of being tried for murder, since the "Muertos" were not armed. Mart did get hit in the eye with a beer bottle. Years later Boozer and Madge were running a saloon in Hachita, New Mexico and from there on "pues quien saves".


May 31, 1958


Frank Witte drifted into Paradise among the first and opened up a saloon. For all we know about him before that time he might have escaped from prison or deserted a pulpit.


But be that as it may, he was a nice looking young fellow and quite popular with the fair sex on both sides of the creek.


Miss Daisy Hawkins, sister of Mrs. Henry Chamberlain (More about Mrs. C later) soon took him out of circulation via the matrimonial route. Daisy was one of the most popular members of the young social set and quite active in Church andSunday school work. Although Paradise never had a church of any kind, the little heathens were rounded up occasionally and made to attend Sunday School, She was one of the teachers.


Parson Gus Chenowth and a very few other sky pilots held preaching once in a while in the school house or in other buildings. Frank and Daisy had a son whose name was Harry. They moved away from Paradise To San Simon. Frank died while the son was a little fellow and he and his mother lived with the Chamberlain family there until he was about grown, then moved to Phoenix where it is believed they still reside.


Some months ago an old fellow by the name of Reuben Nelson called at the CBS Editorial Office. At one time he tended bar in Witte's Saloon and is one of the few men still alive who worked in the old Chiricahua Development Company Mine. He now resides at San Diego, California.


The Two Wheelers, Old Joe and Little Joe, haled from Magdalena, New Mexico. Old Joe was Little Joes uncle and in later years came to be generally known as Uncle Joe Wheeler. The were both good cowboys and Little Joe rated himself pretty high as a Bronco rider and made a lot of spectacular rides; That is in Bar Rooms and around camp fires. His ability to talk a good ride and his in-ability to actually stay on top of a bucking horse was the direct cause of his untimely death.


On the Fourth of July 1904, Paradise put on an Independence day celebration which included among other attractions, free barbecue, dancing and bronco busting. The word went out for everybody to bring in their bad bucking horses and for all the gents who thought they could ride them to get set.


Only two horses were brought in but they both had a reputation earned by unseating a number of the best cowboys in the business. Henry Buckelew and his step sons, the Noland boys, furnished a black mare whose mother had thrown and dragged Mrs. S. B. Reed to death and the daughter kept up the family reputation by bucking Little Joe off in about a jump and a half. She didn't kill him right on the spot but his foot hung in the stirrup and he was dragged and kicked until he died some months later from internal injuries. As we remember he was buried at San Simon.


The name of the owner of the Bay gelding is not remembered but the horse was plenty salty. A fellow by the name of Jack Townsend was making a pretty good ride on him until he bucked into a black Jack Oak tree and not only knocked him off but tore most of the skin off Townsends face and head.


Babe Stidham, from over in the Animas Mountains rode the horse to a squealing stop a few hours later and also rode the black mare for a purse of five dollars.


The Wheelers owned and operated one of the larger Combination Saloons and dance halls "Across the Creek" during the boom days of Paradise. When Oscar Cochran resigned as Wagon Boss of the San Simon Cattle Company, [illegible]. In about 1909, Old Man Joe got the job. He stayed with the Company until they were completely Nestered out of the Cattle business a few years later, then bought the remnant of the cattle and some of the range. he got married in his old age and settled down up near Mal Pais Tank and became a rather wealthy and respected citizen before he cashed in his mortal chips, some years ago.


Charles M. Randolph was born and grew up at Roswell New Mexico. His uncle A. T. Prather was in the mercantile and hotel business at Rodeo for a good many years; Being the builder and one time owner of the building which now houses the Rodeo Post Office also the Gypsum Block store building presently owned by Buford Martin. Charley came to Paradise in 1903 and went in partners with W. K. Morrow in the Saloon Business.


There is an old road sign now in the John Hands Museum at Portal which advertised their business among others. They remained partners for only a short time when he bought Morrow's interest (More about the Morrow tribe later). Charley was a tall extremely thin man and wore a big handle bar mustache in keeping with the times. He was kindly, Gentlemanly, and universally liked. He suffered most of the time with some sort of stomach trouble, probably cancer, and died in 1906, while still in his thirties. he was the second person buried in the Paradise Cemetery.


Patrick Welch was a little old fat Irishman who came to Paradise from the Old Country Via. God knows where. He was always well dressed and mannerly and just about as wide as he was high. His Saloon Building was one of the last of the business structures to be torn down and moved away.


After the mine shut down and the town started going to pieces, Pat became his own best and just about only customer. Some time before his liquor stock was entirely depleted and the Pink Elephants, Green Lizards etc. got to chasing him and he was committed to the Insane asylum at Phoenix. He probably died there as nothing has been heard of him since.


Alejo Bedoya owned and operated the Mexican Saloon. It was located on the road leading up to the Chiricahua Mine just West of the main drag. He had a family of two daughters and one son, Frances, Minnie and Alejo Jr. His wife had died some time before he moved to Paradise from Solomonville, Arizona, she was a sister to old Mart Moore's wife, Maria.


Frances was a big fat girl and Minnie was as cute as a speckled pup. Several of the young blades of about Walter Reeds vintage used to squire her around when they got the chance. Alejo Jr. was almost a genius at arithmetic and often did Carson Morrow and other's lessons for them just for fun.


When the crash came old Alejo moved back to Solomonville where he finally cashed in; The girls both married Syrians who used to run fruit and vegetable stands in Douglas, and later moved out to California. They visited the writer at Border patrol headquarters in Tucson about ten years ago and they were both so big and fat that they could hardly get in through the wide door.


Alejo Jr. died of acute alcoholism at Solomonville before he was thirty years of age. He had acquired the habit while he was still going to school at Paradise from snitching liquor out of his old man's saloon.


June 23, 1958


This Paradise story has begun to look like an interminable job, but we will keep plugging at it and try to finish up with the salon men this time. We have already told you about six of the which leaves only seven to go.


This time we will start the column off by quoting a couple of letters received from other old timers who have been good enough to lend us a helping hand by supplementing some of the previous stories:


Portal, Arizona, 5-16-58


Mr. Carson Morrow Portal, Arizona


Dear Carson, in BS on birthday I see you written brief history of founders of old paradise. I want to add what I know of their first years in the District George Walker and George Myers come to turkey creek in early 1900, and made camp on ground across the creek the road from where Brown and Slater store stood. First Post Office were set up and I can not remember the name they gave it before changing it to Paradise. This was shortly after they traded some cowboy a Horse they bought for $35.00 for the Lead Ville mine which Bill Sanders now owns. They opened up a good vein of good lead and begin shipping from San Simon, I believe were 1901 and continued on for several years, from that operation is what interested the Chiricahua Developing Company to buy the Cap Burns Property which were the boom on beginning of Paradise we next met up with Walker and Myers in April 1900 when they were prospecting up near Cochise Head as they thought they might been Gold there Mrs. George Walker might remember the name of first Post Office.


Yours AF Noland

we enjoy the Bull Sheet

San Diego, California June 8, 1958


Mr. Carson Morrow,


Portal, Arizona.


Dear Sir.


Just a few lines to let you know that received the last issue of Bull Sheet and thank you heaps for sending it along certainly look forward to receiving it, am also sending along a token for same. Would like very much to get to see you to get there at present-- Just a few lines in regards to the Boozer incident--I was very close when the shooting took place. Those Mex were playing roulette and were loaded and lost all there money, and started to get nasty Well Boozer was sitting on the end of roulette table and facing the door, and as they walked out past Boozer, one of them stabs the knife in his back. Well Boozer was packing a gun, and he put that bunch away. Well a lot of shooting was going on outside and a few gents were running out in the creek. Well Mart Moore put his head around the door and he got the bottle. if I have it right there were five that got shot that night, two outside and two more were arrested and had the trial in the morning and were sent to Tombstone. Also later I was told that two of them Mex. were buried alongside of the road back of Boozers place Also Carson, Mart Moore was not Constable at that time it was Luke Short.


That same night at the turn of the road going to the mine in the Mexicans place there was some more shooting that Night. In one of the Sheets you mentioned about a miner that was buried in the Galeyville Graveyard, well he was a good friend of mine, he got killed by rock sliding in out of shaft. His name was Pat Kelly. One night in the salon next to the dance hall, do not remember shift boss at the mines name but believe it was Boyle, do not remember his first name. He Hit the wheel one night for $1200.00 dollars, and put it in a sack and went up the street about 2 AM in the morning.


Reuben G. Nelson


4644 1/2 East Mt. View Dr. San Diego, California


Hiram Fisher ran a combined saloon and Chili Joint in a building located in the Southwest corner of Boyer and Sander's wagon yard and Livery Stable. Hiram was a jolly old cuss and after taking a few shots of his stock in trade, liked to get out on the street and whoop and yell. One night he outdid himself and woke up next morning attached to Constable Luke Short's log chain jail by a pair of hand cuffs. When he came too and fully realized what had happened and where he was, He really went on the war path, but Luke was wise enough to keep him fastened until he cooled off some. He never did get in a good humor about it. He would still cuss and fume when the incident was mentioned thirty years later. He was one of the first children born to American parents in California right after the Gold Rush. He drifted from there to Arizona in his early youth and worked as a cowboy and miner, made the gold stampede to Alaska in the late nineties but failed to make a million. Then came back to Arizona where he finished his career some years ago.


After he went out of business in Paradise he went prospecting over in the Dos Cabezas range and discovered a gold prospect in Wood Canyon which he named the Tiger. It contained a small rich vein of gold bearing quartz but he never could make it pay, so as he was too old and stove up to make a hand at cowboying anymore he got a job cooking for the Riggs Cattle Company through roundup seasons and worked at that for a good many years to provide a grub stake for his mining activities between times.


After Hiram cashed in his chips Will De Borde filed a claim on the Tiger property and still holds it; More for sentimental reasons, we think, than with the idea that it will ever make him rich. Will and his wife Berta sort of adopted the old fellow for the last several years of his life.


Hiram often told the story of his trip to Alaska which is almost unbelievable but we think it was true and are sorry that we can’t remember more of the details. He and nine other men started from Steins Pass New Mexico with a herd of about two thousand big steers with the intention of driving them overland to the Klondyke, where they had heard that beef was selling for a dollar a pound.


They had been on the trail for almost two years and had made it to within a few hundred miles of their destination before they were snowed in and the whole herd including their saddle horses were frozen to death.


Their original plan was to break a number of the larger, stronger steers to the yoke as they went along by changing ox teams on the chuck wagon often and then when they had made their way with the herd up into the country where the timber was too dense and the snow too deep to handle the herd, they planned to slaughter all the steers except the ones which had been broken to draft and pull the frozen beef the rest of the way on sleds which they would build at the site of the slaughter and then slaughter the draft animals too upon arrival at the destination.


It all turned out to be just another good theory that wouldn't work. All they got out of it a lot of experience and two years hard work.


Some of you young sprouts who think you want to be cowboys might try to duplicate the trip. Of course beef is selling for more than a dollar a pound right here now So why take the chance unless you think a trip like that would be fun.


Scotty Cobaugh and Jim Coachmam owned and operated the C06k A Too Saloon which was housed in the second lumber building constructed in Paradise. Upon completion of the building and before the Bar and fixtures were installed a big dance was given, everybody was invited and a big crowd gathered from miles around.


A character by the name of Tod Katy who was breaking broncs for Stephen B. Reed at the time got full of panther juice and shot out the lights with his pistol which broke up the baile and sent all the women and kids and most of the men scurrying for home.


Cobaugh was a prospector from Colorado and in addition to the saloon business he worked a mining claim which was located about a mile South of town and about a half mile East of S6ldier's Flat. His claim covered a little round, isolated hill which is still called Coubaugh Hill by the few old timers who were here at that time. He camped in a

tunnel which was dug into the hill from the north side. He had a little Mexican mule that he used to pack water and grub to his camp. The mule had bucked him off every time he tried to ride it, so he claimed it couldn't be rode and bragged about its Buckability until Alvin Dunnagan rode it bare backed with only a rope around its neck for a purse of two dollars and a half at a Fourth of July Celebration.


When Paradise begin to fold up, Scotty faded out of the picture mule and all. We told you about Jim Coachman winding up in the "Casa Verde" at Phoenix in a previous issue.


Joe Larrieu ran a combination Saloon and billiard hall in one of the larger buildings in the main street. Joe was born and grew up over around Fairbank and Tombstone Arizona. His father John Larrieu was justice of the peace at Tombstone for several terms and only went out of office a very few years ago. The last we heard of Joe, he was somewhere in California. He was a quiet sort of a fellow, but was married to a gal who was lively enough to keep the family in the limelight most of the time. She engaged in a few hair pullings and fisticuffs with some of the other ladies around town occasionally.


There were three other original "Cantineros" at Paradise but we know so little and remember so much less about them that are mentioning them that are only mentioning them to complete the record.


Charlie Collins was a partner of Charlie Randolph for a while. We don’t know where he came from or where he went.


Jack Cross stayed at Paradise for several years and prospected and mined after he quit the saloon business, but about all we know about him is that his wife went insane and was committed to the asylum at Phoenix. he married again after she died.


Another one, a red headed gink by the name of Cochrahan was owner and operator of one of the dives “across the Creek".


We will tell you about the Merchants etc. next time.


July 21, 1958


We finished telling you about the 13 original saloon keepers in our last issue. During most of that time there were two general merchandise stores, one combined hardware store and lumber yard, one dry goods and ready-made clothing establishment, one variety and notion store.


Joe Slater and Dick Brown bought the first store that started business in Paradise from George A. Walker and ran it for several years. Slater finally bought Brown's interest. Brown left the country and so far as we know hasn't been heard of since. Slater stayed in business until he went broke on account of extending credit to just about every dead beat who came along; although he was of the Jewish race he was a sucker for hard luck stories. When he finally left Paradise he moved to Douglas and started a second hand store on the corner of Tenth street just west of the police station. It was called "Uncle Jim's Place". After a good many years there, he died in the county hospital and is probably buried in the Douglas Cemetery.


Henry S. Chamberlain and Tom Hawkins came to Paradise right fresh from San Saba, Texas, and erected the largest building this town ever had. They stocked it with groceries, hay, grain and general ranch and mining supplies. They prospered until the mines shut down on account of the panic of 1907 then gradually lost money until 1910, when they sold the building and the remaining stock to George A. Walker, then all moved to San Simon where Mrs. Chamberlain started a restaurant and Tom Hawkins went into the poultry business and farming. Artesian water was developed in that part of the valley at that time, so they, like hundreds of others, filed on government homesteads. Tom developed his and made a good living from it for the balance of his life. Chamberlain patented his homestead but never developed it. He was elected justice of the peace, dabbled in real estate and his wife ran the restaurant and was postmistress until San Simon petered out to considerably less than it is now. Then they sold out their holdings and moved to Phoenix, where they presently reside. The Chamberlains had four children: three boys, Cliff, Teddy and Billy Bryan, and one daughter, Dorothy, nicknamed Bumpsy.


Mrs. Chamberlain was a sister to Tom Hawkins, and several others of the family accompanied them when they moved to Paradise, two brothers, Frank and Alex, one sister, Daisy, and their father, Judge Hawkins. Later on, Frank married Miss Jessie Cornforth of Rodeo, New Mexico, who, after Frank's death, moved back there and now resides with her brothers George and Percy.


Alex got a job as Wells Fargo Express messenger running between Nogales and Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico. The lure of the easy fast buck got him and he absconded with several thousand dollars and didn't show up in this part of the country again until long after the statute of limitations for prosecution had tolled--and then under another name.


As we told you in a previous issue, Miss Daisy married a saloon keeper by the name of Frank Witte.


Old Judge Hawkins only stayed here a short time and went back to San Saba. He had the appearance of a typical "Southern Gentleman" or "Kentucky Colonel" and evidently was about as well off financially as that type generally is. While he was here he heard of an elderly maiden lady who owned a big cattle ranch over on the Sulphur Spring side of the mountain. So he borrowed a horse and went to see her, with avowed matrimonial intent. The lady was away from home when he arrived, so he picked up a clean chip or small slab of wood out of the wood pile and wrote an introduction together with a proposal of marriage on it, placed it in a conspicuous place and returned to Paradise to await results. The lady took it as a good joke and the judge was soon the laughing stock of the country, which no doubt had some bearing on his hasty return to Texas.


Old man Kidder (full name not remembered) was the proprietor and operator of the Variety Store. he dealt in grab bags, vegetables and a little bit of just about anything else you can think of. Nothing is known of his origin or destiny.


Frank H. Christy and John Rock had the only dry goods and ready-to-wear clothing store, although the other merchants all stocked Buckingham and Hecht hob-nailed shoes, Levi Strauss and Company overall, jumpers, etc. Christy was married but had no children. When Paradise folded up he bought Rock's interest and moved the stock of goods to Globe.


John Rock was a full blooded Indian (probably Apache) who had been captured by U. S. troops when he was a small child and raised up by a white family. Nothing was known of his parentage, so they gave him that name. He was well educated and apparently never thought of himself as an Indian. He was quite a politician and was elected to various county offices in Cochise county. It is believed he finally moved to California. His life story would be a good one for the Brewery Gulch Gazette to dig up and publish, as there are, no doubt, several people in Bisbee who still remember hi m.


The Sweeney family came to Paradise from Duluth, Minnesota, and started a hardware store and lumber yard. Soon after they bought the sawmill in Barfoot Park from Curly Bill Sanders and Ed Boyer. The family consisted of John Sweeney and wife and three children, Jack, Edward and Irene. The old folks and Irene went back to Duluth. Ed drifted around over the country and visited Paradise occasionally for several years but finally faded out of the picture. Jack married Henry Chamberlain's sister Hollice and stayed in Paradise until practically everyone else moved to San Simon and then followed along. He stayed there until the time of his death, only a few years ago.


Jack developed into quite a poker player, and between what he made out of running the store at one time and a saloon at another and what he won in poker games from railroaders and ranchers he massed quite a several thousands of dollars. He and his wife had one son, John, who was killed in an automobile-train collision near Bowie when he was about 16 or 17 years of age. Mrs. Sweeny died at San Simon several years before John was killed.


September 13, 1958


We have a letter from Mr. C. A. (Bally) Morrow "down under" in West Australia. He asks that we not forget to write a story about old man John H. McClellan who was one of the outstanding stalwarts of Paradise. We will quote a few paragraphs from Bally's letter, which describes this old gentleman perfectly:


"Mac had a littl e white mustache and goatee, trimmed and twisted to the style of that time. He was always a soldier and a perfect gentleman, drunk or sober, in any company. He and I were the best of pals regardless of the age difference. I was about six or eight and he was some 60 years plus, but he was a friend to everybody."


Mac was getting well along in years when he came to this part of the country from Harqua Hala, Arizona, in about the year 1900. Having gone there from Colorado on account of quite a gold boom which was started by another prospector finding a gold nugget weighing in the neighborhood of 70 pounds. (Our memory might be at fault as to the weight, or the story might have been exaggerated before we heard it, but anyway it must have been exceptionally large.) The nugget was found right on the surface and both placer and lode mining produced a lot of gold for several years in that vicinity.


Quite a change has taken place since Mac left there. After the mines petered out, the town was practically abandoned for muchos anos and deteriorated to the point that it was almost a blank spot on the map, as it is located out in what is known as the Harqua Hala Desert, where water was just about the unknown element and firewood almost as scarce.


But with the advent of modern thinking, modern pumping machinery and some man, or group of men, with an overgrown imagination and the luck of the devil, it was discovered that the vast, level desert is underlaid by a fairly shallow stratum of pumpable irrigation water, so that now thousands of acres of cotton are growing where Mac used to wander around looking for his burros and gold nuggets.


He was born in Missouri, date unknown, but evidently some years before the Civil War, as he frequently talked of events that occurred about that time but never mentioned having participated in the war.


Most of his stories about mining and prospecting in and around Cripple Creek, Colorado, and of occurrences while he was an Indian Scout or a member of an Army pack train. He was no windbag or braggart, so his stories really made for good listening, especially to all we kids. The grown-ups generally listened quite attentively, too, and seldom ever tried to "trump" any of his ace stories. He was never heard to lift his voice in anger or to argue. When the copper mining industry began to soar right after the turn of the century, he and Cap Burns were holding a group of mining claims in what is now known as Hospital Canyon. Their property was near the Chiricahua Development Company, and soon after it started big development work Mac sold his interest to Cap Burns and an easterner by the name of Hammond for a good price and lived well on the proceeds for a good many years.


Like most of the old boys of that time (and this time, too, of that matter) he liked his liquor but seldom got drunk. One of his favorite stories was about him and another mule packer being caught in a blizzard up in Colorado and snowed in for several days. They had one mule load of liquor and one load of HHH linament. He said they drank the liquor right away but that it took quite a bit longer to drink all the linament. That brand of linament had a high alcohol content and some other ingredients which would raise a blister pronto when rubbed on the skin of even a mule.


During the time old Mac was in the money, he lived pretty high on the hog by the standards of those days. He built himself a nice three-roomed house and a good barn and corral for his horse and burro. he was proud of his animals and took excellent care of them. He would lend his burro, which he called Balaam, to some favorite kid once in a while, but the horse was never ridden by anyone else except on one occasion:


When William Noland was accidentally shot and Frank Noland foundered his horse coming to Paradise for the doctor, Mac lent him his horse to ride back home, which was then at the old Buckelew Ranch, a couple of miles north of Nipper Peak.


If he had a family or was ever married no one knew about it. The only mention he ever made of his relatives was to the effect that his grandfather or uncle was the inventor of the McClellan saddle which was used almost exclusively by the U. S. Army for many years.


Like most of the old Paradise residents who had no family, he died in the county hospital at Douglas and is buried in the Douglas Cemetery.


He passed over the great divide about 1918 or 1919.


On December 23, 1957, we published a story in the Bullsheet in which we told all we knew or could find out at the moment about Galeyville, Arizona. We have recently received some additional data which might be of interest. Mr. Thomas M. Galey of Owensboro, Kentucky, read an article in the Saturday Evening Post under date of March 14, 1958, about Mrs. Lillian Riggs of Faraway Ranch, which is located here in the Chiricahuas. So he, in turn, wrote her a letter and submitted photographs of John H. Galey, the founder of Galeyville. She kindly sent it to us. If you are interested in knowing what that illustrious old gent looked like, drop in at the Bull Ranch and we will show your the pictures.


The caption on the photographs read as follows: "John H. Galey, San Francisco, Cal., in the gold mining days soon after the Civil War. John H. Galey was born in Armstrong county, Pennsylvania, February 4, 1840, and died in Joplin, Missouri, April 12, 1918. He entered the oil business at its inception. The Oil and Gas Journal referred to him as oneof the boldest of the early prospectors. His name is known and honored in every field where oil is produced throughout America. He was a persistent worker, fearless, original, the initiator of many ventures. After 1880, his operations were in association with Col. James M. Guffey, under the firm name of Guffey and Galey."


One paragraph of Mr. Thomas Galey's letter to Lillian reads as follows: "It was in 1889 (evidently an error in typing, as JNG founded Galeyville in 1879) that Uncle John went to Arizona to pioneer in the mining of silver. I have traveled with him in a number of oil ventures in later years; I was born in Bradford oil field in 1884. In 1911, I was with him in an oil venture in Tampico area of old Mexico. And in 1912 I helped him to drill three wells at Seven Lakes, New Mexico, near Grants". In another paragraph: "He was pretty handy with the ladies and admired beautiful women. A very prominent lawyer in New York owes his mysterious origin to that admiration."


November 18, 1958


"As plentiful as fiddlers in Hell" is an old simile that might well have been applied to Paradise, Arizona and all the surrounding country during it's balmy days and for several years thereafter.


Back in the time we are talking about there were no radios, very few phonographs and only a very few Player Pianos which were usually located in a Honky tonk and therefore not available for general public entertainment. (If you don’t know what a Player Piano is, ask your granddaddy), In other words there was no canned music.


But never the less we had music and some singing on about every occasion and the occasions were frequent. Seldom a week passed that there wasn't one or more dances somewhere within horseback distance and in between dances it was not unusual for groups ranging from two or three to a couple of dozen in number to get together just about any where and fiddle and sing a little.


Mark Chapman was the head fiddler around Paradise, except when Ira Scheley would drop in once in a while from up on Blue River. Mark was really good but Ira was in a class alone. He had won the title of Worlds Champion Fiddler at the Saint Louis Exposition in 1904.


When he showed up it was something like the Pied Piper coming to town. All the male population would follow him from saloon to saloon to hear him play and by night fall Ira would drift down to the town dance hall where all the female population would join the males and the grand Rompin and Stompin would go on until day break the next morning.


While Ira and Mark were conceded to be tops in the Fiddlin Business there were plenty of others who could get the job done too. The Bass brothers, Hon and Del who had a cabin down the creek near Old Dutch Arthur's place made their living by playing in saloons and for public dances. Hon played first fiddle and Del accompanied him on second fiddle. he had the Palsy or Saint Vitus dance as it was sometimes call pretty badly, so all of their music was timed Del's shakes which increased in tempo as fatigue and excitement abetted by a few shots of Red Eye began to take effect. So generally by the time the dance broke up the dancers were stepping pretty lively.


Frank Botete and Bud (Big Nose) Sanders were another brother; that is half brother Fiddlin Team. Frank played the fiddle while Bud beat out the time on a Spanish Guitar which sometimes had all six strings and seldom had less than four.


George (Scotty) Murry, an old prospector who lived down near the Rube Hadden Spring was about the only musician around who claimed to be a Violinist that could play classical music. Maybe he was right but it was very noticeable that no one ever listened to him play second time if it could be avoided.


Bill and Willie Clark, a Cousin Combination team from Mogollon, New Mexico beat out a good many thousand Hill Billy tunes at dances and other gatherings around Paradise in later years.


In addition to all those there were a good many other lads who could wield the Bow and make the Cat Guts scream or get some rhythm out of a guitar, among them were Bill Sanders, Ralph and Roy Morrow, George Coryell and Walter Reed. In fact just about everybody fiddle a little back in those times except your Cub Reporter and Bill Reed and it seems like Bill would play a Jews Harp but he couldn't sing very good but he would try by moaning about Billy Venero and the Old Oaken Bucket as long as he would get anyone to listen.


The Riggs Settlement over on the West slope was another great place for fiddlers they didn't just have them in pairs over there, they had them in whole families and old fashioned sized families at that.


There must have been at least half a dozen fiddlers in the Kennedy family and somewhere near the same number in the Amalong family.


As we remember the Kennedy family there were Frank, Dave, Carmen, Ambrose, Cicero, Weely, Clarence and a sister whose name has been forgotten (Tom Stafford would probably remember).


The Amalongs were Harvey, Joss, Virgil, Elmer, Walter George and two sisters, Ivy and Gerty.


Those people all did their stuff with fiddles and guitars. Generally at the El Dorado School House or at the Ash Creek School House or at the long ago defunct City of Light, Arizona.


December 8, 1958


Does anyone, anywhere, have a copy of a newspaper called the Paradise Record? The Record was a weekly published at Paradise, Arizona, from 1904 to 1910, by Mr. Renwick White. Renwick was a post office employee at Douglas before he started his paper at Paradise but as to his place of origin, Pues Quien sabes?


When artesian water was developed at San Simon in 1910, he like many other Paradise residents moved down there. He took his Old Franklin press and other paraphernalia with him and started a paper called the San Simon Artesian Belt. The duration of that paper is not remembered but it ran over a period of several years.


The artesian boom slowly petered out as the wells dried up and San Simon regressed from a little city with a bank, hotel restaurant, stores, churches etc. to a tumbleddown village a lot smaller than it is now. So Renwick packed up and eventually landed in Ajo, Arizona, where he began publishing the Ajo Copper Belt, which is still in business, altho Renwick has been dead for several years. Your Cub Reporter and ex-printer's devil of the Paradise Record visited the Ajo Copper Belt and its owner-publisher several times. Renwick had really prospered at Ajo. He had a modern printing outfit, rotary press and all, and had two or three hired hands to help him.


At Paradise he was the "whole cheese" -- editor, printer, typesetter, reporter and circulation manager, except for the printer's devil, who was paid the handsome salary of two dollars for one day's work each week. Monroe Dunagan, who now lives over in the Animas Valley, was the first devil employed, and when he and his folks moved away a kid from Portal by the name of Noble Justice got the job. He commuted from Portal to Paradise on press days by burro.


After Noble and his family went back to Texas or some other foreign country, the Cub took over and held down the job until the Record went out of business.


February 10, 1959


On July 23, 1903, a happy go lucky fellow by the name of Frank (Banty) Caldwell rode out of the mouth of Jhus Canyon which is located in the Chiricahua Mts. on the East side. He had just finished doing some assessment work on a mining claim up the canyon and was carrying a miners pick on his shoulder and had a lot of camp gear and other tools tied on his saddle.


About three hundred yards from where the trail leaves the canyon and comes out on to White Tail Flat it passes through a clump of mesquite brush, Banty didn't get through that brush alive. Old One Armed Jim Gould was hidden in there and as Banty passed by he shot him between the shoulders in the back with a high powered gun. He probably never knew what struck him. When the shot was fired Banty's horse jumped and broke into a run, about where he came out of the thicket he fell off, landing with his head on one point of the pick which was driven completely through his head.


From the sign on the ground and from testimony later given at Goulds trial, he had been waiting in the thicket every day for three or four days before Banty came along.


Gould went out to see where Caldwell fell and turned him over on his back. Then got on his horse and disappeared for several months. It was rumored that he hid out in the Mogollon Mountains in New Mexico.


At the time of this occurrence the nearest law of any kind was at Bowie, Old Cap Tevis who was Justice of the peace there was summoned and impaneled a Coroners Jury which rendered a verdict of "Death of a gunshot wound inflicted by a person unknown" (Verdict not verified).


After-the few good neighbors living in the country at that time had gathered at the scene they decided to wrap the corpse in a bed tarp and bury him where he fell, as he had no known relatives.


But Frank Noland who was present says that Steve McComas insisted that a coffin be provided and that Caldwell be dressed in a suit of clothes which he kept at McComa's house. Lumber for the coffin was secured from Cap Burn's Mining camp and the grave was dug on a little hill about fifty yards East of where the killing took place.


The grave was unmarked until just a very few years ago. Frank Noland chiseled an inscription on a rock and set it in concrete at the head of the grave. Frank probably the only man still living who attended Caldwell's funeral or has any first hand knowledge of the affair.


It was generally understood that rivalry for the favors of a married woman who lived at the old Rock HouSe Ranch (now Kolmar) was the cause of the murder. She must not have been very choosey about the size and looks of her suitors. Her husband was a medium sized fellow, slightly inclined to corpulency. Gould weighed about 140 pounds while Caldwell was a little husky fellow about 5'6 in height. Tom Stafford says Caldwell was about forty six years old at the time of the murder.


During the time Gould was in hiding the Town of Paradise grew to the point that it boasted both a Justice of the peace and a Constable. So when Gould got ready he came in an surrendered to the law there. He was given a preliminary hearing and as he was apparently the only witness he told the story that he had met Banty at Jhus Canyon by accident and that after an exchange of shots Caldwell lost his nerve and turned to run when Gould shot him in the back just as he turned.


His bond was fixed at One Thousand Dollars and he was bound over to appear for trial in superior Court in Tombstone some months later. Old Man Gabe Choate furnished his bond. It was quite a different story when Gould came to trial. Witnesses didn't exactly sprout on bushes but a good number of people appeared to testify who had a lot of first hand knowledge of the murder they had kept quiet about what they knew simply because they had no doubt that Gould would kill them too if he got any inkling of their knowledge.


Henry Buckelew and his step sons, Will and Frank Noland had been riding after cattle while Gould was waiting for Caldwell to come along and had seen his horse tied to the thicket every day for three or four days before it happened. They had also seen Gould going to the place and heard the shot when he killed Caldwell .


They were at the scene almost as soon as Gould was out of sight and all being experienced cowboys and woodsmen could and did read the sign on the ground and interpret it until they knew what happened just about as well as if they had seen it.


Everything was kept so quiet that Gould fully expected to be acquitted in Superior Court but when Henry Buckelew, The Noland boys and a few others gave their testimony the picture changed. The Jury brought in a Verdict of "Murder in the First Degree" and he was sentenced to spend the balance of his natural life in the Territorial Prison at Yuma, Arizona.


When the judge pronounced sentence he told Gould that the only reason he didn't sentence him to hang was because he only had one arm. He served about nine years of his sentence. Arizona then came into statehood and the prison moved from Yuma to Florence. Gould and several other prisoners who had been sentenced specifically to Yuma Prison were released on that technicality. (not verified).


After he was released he went to Duncan Arizona and killed another man but was exonerated by the coroners jury. After that he came over to Rodeo, New Mexico and filed a homestead claim near where Fred Darnell lives now. Y entonces, Pues quien sabes.


March 29, 1959


We have previously told you about all tradesmen, merchants, saloon keepers etc. of old Paradise except the butcher, W. K. Morrow.


He started out as a cowboy in Texas and like many others, drifted to New Mexico, then on to Arizona. However; unlike most of the others he didn't run for sheriff when he arrived here, although at one time he did own and raise a lot of hogs.


He operated Paradise's only meat market and slaughter house from October 1903 to 1908 steadily, and intermittently for several years thereafter.


He did well financially so long as he stuck to the butcher business but after he was well established and prospering the MINING BUG bit him and he sunk all his savings and property, including about three hundred head of cattle into a copper prospect known as the Malachite which was located couple of miles east of the North end of the old town.


A vertical shaft was sunk to a depth of 265 feet in hard rock and also a lot of tunneling and drifting, but when he got down to where the pay dirt was supposed to be he found nothing but more hard rock.


That failure didn't stop him by any means. He went right on chasing the rainbow for the rest of his life with little more of success than he had in his first venture.


Well we now have W. K. Morrow in \ Paradise, Arizona and in business so maybe we had better take time out and tell you how he got there. Soon after he arrived at Roswell, New Mexico, he met and married Miss. Eva. R. Corn, a daughter of old man Mart Corn who settled in that country soon after the Civil War. That old gent was a prolific old boy, He had twenty children of his own and two adopted children.


The Morrows didn't do quite half so well, they only had nine; Rosaline (Mrs) J. S. Stephens of Willcox, Ariz; Carson, resident of the Bull Ranch and Cub Reporter; Ralph, Game Ranger, Cattleman and general neighborhood nuisance; Chester (Bally) who wandered off to Australia nearly thirty years ago and couldn't find his way home; Roy, Deceased; John, World traveller, presently mining at San Manuel, Arizona; Kitty May, Deceased; Dorothy, (Mrs. Ray ... ) Tucson, Ariz; Mary (Mrs. Bob Gresham) Santa Ana, Calif.


In the latter part of the year 1900, W. K. sold his cow ranch located about 30 miles North of Roswell, loaded his wife and the first four kids into a covered wagon and pulled out for Colorado. They spent the winter of 1900-1901 at Telluride, Colo. then loaded up and headed for Arizona, arriving at Eagle Creek which is about 40 miles North of Clifton, Arizona the same year.


They Homesteaded on Eagle Creek about one mile above the old Double Circle Ranch and tried farming until 1902, when they hooked up the same old team to the same old wagon and moved to Douglas, bringing along fourteen other horses acquired at Eagle Creek.


We have previously told you about all his horses being stolen soon after he arrived in Douglas and never being recovered.


The Calumet and Arizona Smelter was under construction and Douglas, as we know it was just starting to build. Most of the population lived in tents and shacks just to the North of the S. P. Depot. He had contracted to build a street car track from town to the Smelter but had to give that up when he lost his horses. After that he did a little bit of just about everything including carpentry and running a saloon in Agua Prieta, Sonora until October 1903, when he again hooked up a different team to the same old wagon and moved to Paradise.


By the time the Morrow family had rambled around and arrived at Paradise they had travelled in the neighborhood of two thousand miles by wagon and had one more child, Roy was born at Douglas.


Two days after they arrived at Paradise, W. K. was in business. He stretched up a couple of tents, one to live in and one for a meat market, built some racks to hang the meat on, sawed a block out of a big sycamore tree for a meat block and slaughtered an old brown cow, purchased from Mrs. Henry Buckelew.


At that time George Walkers store was housed in the only lumber building in town.


As the town build up, he went along with it. His next shop was an adobe building next door to the Chamberlain and Hawkins store. A big rain melted the walls and it tumbled down on top of several hundred pounds of meat. He then built a pretty fancy shop (for those times) on Market street near the bridge but it was only used for a short time before the mine shut down and Paradise started on its long down hill slide .


In the mean time (1904) he built a residence of Chiricahua lumber (one room later another room was added) about a mile south of town. That was sold to George Franklin along about 1912, for $75.00. Franklin moved the old house about fifty yards to the west where it still stands. It is presently owned by Bill Kambitch.


Two Morrows were born in that house, Johnny and Kitty May.


His next venture outside of mining was a Homestead what is now known as the old "Bill Lee" Ranch located about four or five miles north of Paradise. Water was ditched out of Turkey Creek, an orchard of over two hundred fruit trees was planted and about forty acres of other crops were raised successfully from rain fall for a period of three or four years. He also built up quite a herd of cattle but during those years the "Pea Vine" or Jimmy Weed Loco made its appearance just about everywhere in the foot hills of the Chiricahuas and put nearly every body including him out of the cattle business.


The Jimmy Weed made its first noticeable appearance in about 1909, and thrived until the drouth of 1922, partially killed it out. There is still quite a lot of it sparsely scattered over most of the ranges biding its time until another good rainy cycle gives it another chance to set the old cows to coughing and falling down unable to get up.


In 1916, the Hill Top Mine moved its camp over to the White Tail Canyon side of the mountain and W. K. sold the ranch to Lee Fountain and moved over to White Tail. He layed out a Townsite called Paint Rock, built a Store and restaurant and sold lots to other individuals who built a hotel and pool hall.

Paint Rock as a town didn't last long. The Hill Top Company built their own Store Boarding House, Residences etc. up on the side of the mountain. So the Restaurant and Pool Hall were soon torn down and moved away and the Hotel burned down. He ran the store for several years and kept the Post Office until it was changed to a Rural Route. He and his wife made the old Store building their home for the balance of their lives and now sleep side by side in the Paradise Cemetery.


Apr i l 14, 1959


In early days Paradise, Arizona had the distinction of having two residents who bore the same name, yet were not blood relations. Their names were Duncan McDonald. They were both Canadians by birth and followed mining and prospecting for a livlihood. There the resemblance ended. They were generally known as "Bull Hill" Dunc and "Narrow Face" Dunc.


Narrow Face came by his nickname honestly; he was a skinny hatchet faced guy and outside of being known as a first class hard rock miner, never did anything out of the ordinary.


Bull Hill was cast in an entirely different mold. He got his nickname from having been Mayor of Bull Hill, Colorado before he came to the Chiricahuas. He was a stocky built husky fellow and always in for a good time, but it playing a joke or a drinking bout. He only worked in the mines for wages to make a grub stake and then he was off on a prospecting trip or to do the assessment work on some of the mining claims he had located.


He held several claims in Indian Creek and had done quite a lot of development work on them. In about 1907 or 09 he ran short of grub and went out to work for wages to replenish the larder. While he was away a fellow by the name of Clare or Claire who held some claims over in Wood Canyon at what is now know as the old Bob Taylor cabin, came over the divide and jumped his claims.


When Bull Hill came back and saw what had happened he loaded up his 30 x 30 and headed for Wood Canyon. We only have his story for what happened when he arrived there but the way he told it was undoubtedly true as there were only two eye witnesses and after the smoke cleared away there was only one. Bull Hill. He could have told any kind of story he wanted to or none at all and it would have been next to impossible to convict him ofkilling Clare, but he evidently made no attempt whatever to make the affair look any worse or any better for him than it was. He said that when he arrived at Clare's cabin early in the morning that he called out, "Come out here Clare you dirty son of a bitch. I'm going to kill you." and that when Clare walked to the door unarmed he shot him through the heart. He then walked from Wood Canyon to Paradise where he surrendered to the law; saying "Old Clare is dead, I killed the old Son---over in his cabin this morning." When he came to trial at Tombstone he went on the witness stand; which according to the law he wasn't obliged to do, and told substantially the same story which would add up to First Degree Murder in just about any Court. No doubt the jury was swayed to find him guilty of Homicide in a lesser degree by the testimony of his many friends, who flocked to Tombstone to testify as to his good moral character and integrity. His own straight forward story probably didn't leave any doubt in the jury's minds as to his integrity and little doubt as to his fool hardiness. Be that as it may Bull Hill was sentenced to five years at hard labor in the Territorial Penitentiary at Yuma. He only served part of the sentence and was Pardoned or Paroled. He came to Bisbee and worked in the mines for several months - then mysteriously disappeared. Several months later his body was found in the hills near Bisbee. The evidence indicated that Bull Hill had ended his own life with the same gun he had used to wind up Clare's career.


It is thought that "Narrow Faced Dunc" died in the County Hospital some years later.


End of the Bull Sheet Narrative.