Mormon Settlement in Arizona: A Record of Peaceful Conquest of the DesertMcClintock, James H.
History
Mormon Settlement in Arizona: A Record of Peaceful Conquest of the Desert
McClintock, James H.
Arizona -- History -- To 1950; Latter Day Saints -- Arizona -- History
In 1876 appeared Isador E. Solomon, who for many years occupied a leading
position. He came primarily to burn charcoal for the rude adobe furnaces
that had been erected by the Lesynzskys to smelt the free ores of the
famous Longfellow mine in Chase Creek Canyon, a few miles above Clifton.
For charcoal Solomon found abundant material in an almost unbroken
mesquite forest that stretched for many miles along the river. Solomon
purchased a road house and small store that had been established near
Pueblo Viejo by one Munson, and the place soon became a trading post for
a large extent of country, its importance increasing with the development
of the great mining region around Globe. I.E. Solomon still is living,
an honored resident of Tucson, his children prominent in the business
affairs of the State. Solomonville was so named, in 1878, by none other
than Bill Kirkland, who raised the American flag in Tucson in 1856 and
who, for a while, carried mail from Fort Thomas to Clifton.
[Illustration: SOUTHEASTERN ARIZONA. The Salt, San Pedro and Gila Valleys
and Routes of travel]
Apostle Erastus Snow appears to have been the first of the Mormon faith
to cross this Gila Valley region. His party arrived on the San Pedro
River, October 6, 1878. The most easterly point reached in the Gila
Valley was at old Camp Goodwin, not far from the present railroad station
of Fort Thomas and at the extreme western or lower end of the present
farmed area. It would require a separate volume to follow Apostle Erastus
Snow on his journeyings through the Southwest, where he appears to have
served as a veritable inspector-general for his Church.
On the 1878 trip, L. John Nuttall of Snow's company, writes of passing
into the Gila Valley through a rocky canyon, "a terrible place, almost
impassable, the dread of all who travel this way." The same road is very
little better to this day.
At one point was passed a ridge known as Postoffice Hill, where was found
the grave of a white man, killed several years before by Apaches. Every
time an Apache passed, he put a rock on the grave mound, at that time
about twenty feet square at the base and four feet high. The travelers
added another rock, on the principle of, "When in Rome, do as the Romans
do."
Mormon Location at Smithville
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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