READING ARIZONA S VERDE VALLEY:

Transcription

1 READING ARIZONA S VERDE VALLEY: AGRI- ECOLOGY, INDUSTRY, LANDSCAPE CHANGE, AND PUBLIC HISTORY By Mary A. McCarthy A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Sustainable Communities Northern Arizona University May 2014 Approved: Michael Amundson, Ph.D., Chair Steve Rosendale, Ph.D. Peter Friederici, M.S.

2 Abstract READING ARIZONA S VERDE VALLEY: AGRI- ECOLOGY, INDUSTRY, LANDSCAPE CHANGE, AND PUBLIC HISTORY By Mary A. McCarthy Focusing on the relationships between agriculture, extractive industry, land change, and sense of place, this thesis explores the dynamic landscapes and shifting identities of the Verde Valley from the establishment of a permanent regional Anglo presence in 1864 to the burgeoning agricultural renaissance in It argues that despite the valley s evolving economic orientations and social change, agriculture remains a continuous and important part of the Verde Valley s physical and cultural landscape that could and should be better represented in regional public history exhibits. Using an eclectic methodology that highlights the voices of valley residents, archival research, observation, and public history theory, this thesis take an agri- ecological approach that places agriculture within the Verde Valley s larger historical socio- economic- environmental ecosystem. This perspective internalizes the effects of agricultural upon the landscape, but also situates agriculture within the region s historic industrial identity and contemporary sense of place that is heavily influenced by tourism and residential development. This thesis also includes an analysis of the valley s public history sites and their engagement of its agri- ecological narrative. This history is often underexplored ii

3 or hidden behind scripted stories of place that reflect popular interest in the region s mining past and pioneer history but fail to acknowledge the important and evolving role of farming. Renarrativization and the incorporation of living history museum techniques are two methods that can integrate and highlight the valley s agricultural past in an existing site, such as Slide Rock State Park, or a future public history site, such as the Verde Valley Agricultural Heritage Center. Increased accessibility to and the public celebration of the valley s agri- ecological history will provide the impetus for future preservation efforts of remaining agricultural knowledge and finally acknowledge the fundamental and continuing importance of agriculture on the social and environmental landscape of the Verde Valley. iii

4 Acknowledgments As befits a thesis originating in the Sustainable Communities program, this work is the product of a diverse network of people. Each person provided a unique form of guidance that, when spun together, gave me the strength and support to embark upon and complete this project. I especially thank my committee chair, Dr. Michael Amundson. We first met when he took a chance on a group of Sustainable Communities students, of whom I was one, and implemented our idea for a hybrid sense of place history class. Under his guidance, that class became the most enriching experience of my graduate career and sowed the seeds for this thesis. Many thanks to my other committee members, Dr. Steve Rosendale and Peter Friederici who, despite knowing almost nothing about me or my abilities, gamely joined me on this academic journey. My heartfelt thanks goes out to each Verde Valley resident who gave me access to their lives, archives, and other resources. I especially thank the seven interviewees who agreed to meet with me, a stranger, and delve deeply into their memories. These generous people are Don Godard, John Tavasci Sr., Kathy Pendley Shaw, Andy Groseta, George Kovacovich, Bob Kovacovich, and Cody Canning. I extend my thanks to Mr. Godard s daughter, Connie Phillips, whose kindness of spirit facilitated my research. I also give my gratitude to Steve Ayers who gave me free access to his huge collection of primary source documents on the Verde Valley. His willingness to share these carefully accumulated resources and knowledge for little in return is a quality too often lacking in this world. Finally, I thank Dr. Marshall Whitmire and Dr. Jane Whitmire, both of whom encouraged me to think iv

5 creatively about the public history components of my thesis and provided immeasurable academic support and encouragement. Finally I thank my family and friends for their incredible support during this long process. Thanks, mom, for reading every draft! And to my partner, Patrick Pfeifer: your love and patience buoyed me through bouts of writer s block and transformed visits to the archives into adventures. Thank you, all! v

6 Table of Contents ABSTRACT... II ACKNOWLEDGMENTS... IV TABLE OF CONTENTS... VI LIST OF FIGURES... VIII 1. FINDING THE VERDE VALLEY... 1 READING THE LAND... 1 VISITOR ON THE VERDE: A DRIVE THROUGH THE VALLEY... 5 THIS PROJECT: PROBLEM AND PURPOSE REVIEW OF LITERATURE LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK PORTRAITS OF A SHARED WORLD: EARLY INDUSTRY, AGRICULTURE, AND LANDSCAPE CHANGE ANCIENT ROOTS SPANISH AND EARLY ANGLO- AMERICANS THE VALLEY AS A HINTERLAND: LIVESTOCK AND RIVERBANK INCISION TENSIONS, TROUBLES, AND TILLING THE SOIL DIGGING DITCHES: MAKING THE BOTTOMLAND BLOOM LURE OF THE MINES: HINTERLAND AS DEVIL S BARGAIN THE END OF THE ERA WHEN THE SMOKE CLEARED: COPPER BUST AND THE POST- INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE, SHATTERED SENSES OF PLACE ECONOMIC DECLINE AND THE CREATION OF A POST- INDUSTRIAL LANDSCAPE TRICKLE- DOWN DECLINE: INTO THE VERDE VALLEY OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW AGRICULTURE IN THE POST- INDUSTRIAL ERA: CONTESTED SPACE AND THE BATTLE FOR SENSE OF PLACE CONTESTED SENSES OF PLACE CHANGING FARMS AND THE CREATION OF A POST- AGRICULTURAL LANDSCAPE TOURISM AND THE BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF THE PLACE THE NEW FACES OF VERDE VALLEY AGRICULTURE RECOGNIZING THE VERDE VALLEY AS CONTESTED SPACE vi

7 5. VOICES OF THE VERDE VALLEY: NARRATIVE AND PUBLIC HISTORY (IN)ACTION. 144 EXISTING PUBLIC HISTORY OPPORTUNITIES IN THE VERDE VALLEY UNDERSTANDING HISTORY AS CONSTRUCTED NARRATIVE DEMYSTIFYING THE VERDE VALLEY: PROPOSALS FOR AGRI- ECOLOGY IN PUBLIC HISTORY CELEBRATING THE SOULS OF THE PLACE THE VERDE VALLEY AS PALIMPSEST: HISTORY, SUSTAINABILITY, AND POSSIBILITY BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX A: CATTLE BRANDS OF THE VERDE VALLEY, CIRCA APPENDIX B: COPPER REFINING APPENDIX C: SEDONA CASE STUDY- THE JORDAN ORCHARD APPENDIX D: THE VERDE VALLEY AGRICULTURAL HERITAGE CENTER vii

8 List of Figures Figure 1. Oblique Map of the Verde Valley...6 Figure 2. Detail of Verde Valley from an Oblique Map.7 Figure 3. Map of the Verde River Watershed.8 Figure 4. A View of the Valley During the Late Monsoon 11 Figure 5. Aunt Molly Marksbury with Prizewinning Pumpkins..54 Figure 6. Belle and Esler Monroe in Field of Irrigated Corn..54 Figure 7. Satellite Photo of the Verde Valley, Figure 8. Drawing of Original United Verde Smelter and Mine Buildings.66 Figure 9. Smoke from the United Verde Smelter in Jerome, Figure 10. Panoramic Photo of the Verde Valley from Jerome, Figure 11. Map of the Verde Valley, Arizona, Smoke District, Figure 12. Clarkdale Moves Toward a New Community Horizon! Figure 13. Sinclair Roadmap, Figure 14. Arizona State Highway Department Map, Figure 15. Arizona State Highway Department Map, Figure 16. Verde Realty Advertisement, Figure 17. Map of Verde Valley, Figure 18. Map of Verde Valley, Figure 19. Hank Wingfield House Map 179 Figure 20. Wingfield and Van Deren Cattle Brands.215 Figure 21. Cattle Brands of Sedona, Jerome, and Camp Verde..216 Figure 22. "Roasting Copper Ore on a Gigantic Scale at Jerome, Arizona 219 Figure 23. Aerial Photo of Jordan Orchard, Figure 24. Aerial Photo of Jordan Orchard, Figure 25. Aerial Photo of Jordan Orchard, Figure 26. Aerial Photo of Uptown Sedona, viii

9 Chapter One Finding the Verde Valley Land is, without question, composed of bits and pieces of information that can be cataloged and described. It is soil, landform, river gradient, temperature, precipitation, plant communities, and faunal species. But landscape is more, embracing those ineffable qualities of cognition, sentiment, and meaning that link people with the earth. - Vanishing River 1 Reading the Land Lined with broad- leafed sycamores, aromatic Arizona walnut, and the musical rustling of cottonwood, the Verde River travels more than 180 miles in a northwest to southeast route from its headwaters near the rural town of Paulden, located about fifty miles southwest of Flagstaff, to its eventual confluence with the Salt River just east of the Phoenix metropolitan area. 2 The shade- dappled perennial waters of the Verde, which drain some 6,600 square miles of Arizona s High Country, range from fast moving white- water to a muddy, silt- laden brown as it courses over its boulder- strewn bed and slows to ease around an ox- bow. 3 A dynamic river, forty miles of which are designated as Arizona s only Wild and Scenic River under the 1968 Act, the Verde is divided into three distinct sections, Upper, 1 Stephanie Whittlesey, Richard Ciolek- Torrello, and Jeffrey H. Altschul, eds.,vanishing River: Landscapes and Lives of the Lower Verde Valley The Lower Verde Archaeological Project (Tucson, Arizona: SRI Press, 1997), 3. 2 Katharine L. Jacobs and Bonnie G. Colby, eds., Arizona Water Policy: Management Innovations in an Urbanizing, Arid Region (London: Routledge, 2007), ; Upper Verde River, Northern Arizona University: Arizona Heritage Waters, accessed September 8, 2013, 3 James W. Byrkit, A Log of the Verde: The Taming of an Arizona River, Journal of Arizona History 9 (1978): 31. 1

10 Middle, and Lower, that correspond to unique landscapes, histories, and ecological zones. 4 It is the Middle Verde, from the southern end of Sycamore Canyon to approximately a mile downriver of the confluence of West Clear Creek, where the steep walls of the river corridor give way to the wider floodplains of the Verde Valley. 5 Roughly twenty- five miles wide and forty long, the valley is chiseled between the ponderosa highlands of the Mogollon Rim of the Colorado Plateau and the shadowed, rocky green of the Black Hills. 6 Receiving just over twelve inches of annual rainfall, it is classified as a semi- desert climate" with summer temperatures topping one hundred degrees and winter lows often dipping into the twenty- degree range. 7 Spaced along the length of the valley are three perennial tributaries that deliver runoff from the Rim to the Verde below. These creeks, Oak, Beaver, and West 4 Fossil Creek, a tributary of the Verde, is designated as the State s only other Wild and Recreational River. Arizona, National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, accessed September 8, 2013, Vanishing River, In order to understand a place, it is important to define its physical boundaries. While it is a seemingly simple task to define what land area is included in the Verde Valley, the unique topography and settlement history of the region resulted in several historically different conceptions of what is and is not included in the valley proper. For example, Robert H. Mason, in his self- published collection of stories and remembrances entitled Verde Valley Lore, conceives of the Verde Valley as the area where the Verde meets the Salt River, near present- day Fountain Hills. This demarcation, however, appears to be an outlier as the general scientific and colloquial understanding of the Verde Valley places it solely within the Middle Verde stretch and identifies the confluence of the Salt and Verde as occurring in the reaches of the Lower Verde. Robert H. Mason, Verde Valley Lore (St. Paul, MN: L.J. Schuster Co., 1997). Vanishing River identifies the confluence of Fossil Creek as the lower end of the Middle Verde, but this thesis places the end of that section about a mile downriver of West Clear Creek. I determined this demarcation by studying satellite images that show the downriver extent of farming activity. See Figure 1 for additional information. 6 Whittlesey et al., Vanishing River, 4-5; Byrkit, A Log of the Verde, Jeff Schalau, The Natural Resources of Yavapai County, University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, Yavapai County, accessed October 8, 2013, resourcesofyavapaicounty.html. 2

11 Clear, each have their own origins and sense of place, but all perform the essential function of bringing water and nutrients from the high country to deposit on the rich Verde floodplain. The fluvial soil, presence of perennial surface water, and the valley s moderate climate, combine to create a region attractive to agriculturalists. The fields, orchards, and pastures that blossom along these riparian areas are at the heart of this agri- ecological history of the Verde Valley. Agri- ecology, a term I coined for the purposes of this thesis, is related to the established subfield of ecology called agroecology, yet differs in several substantial ways. First, agroecology is an evolving term that has only recently expanded to include the social sciences in addition to its more traditional usage to refer to the technical science of improving crop production. Though agroecology is now sometimes used as a new way to think about the relationship of agriculture to outside forces such as environmental constraints and economic pressures, it often focuses on the application of interdisciplinary techniques in an attempt to create an agricultural system that mimics the complexity, and sustainability, of a healthy ecosystem. 8 In contrast, agri- ecology is an approach that places agriculture within a larger socio- economic- environmental system. Within the confines of this thesis, agri- ecology is used as a systems- theory approach to understanding agriculture and land use in a specific place over time. This approach internalizes the effects of agricultural upon the landscape, but also situates agriculture within the larger network of supply and demand that similarly induce landscape and agricultural changes. Agri- ecological history, as presented in this work, specifically focuses on 8 A. Wezel et al., "Agroecology as a Science, a Movement and a Practice. A Review," Agronomy For Sustainable Development (EDP Sciences) 29, no. 4 (October 2009): 506,

12 agricultural history while also encompassing ecological changes that accompany the introduction of livestock, irrigation ditches, and other changes in land use. Focusing on the relationships between extractive industry, agriculture, and land change, this thesis explores the dynamic landscapes and shifting identities of the Verde Valley from the late 1800s to Of special interest are the ways in which the legacies of agriculture and extractive industry are etched upon the land and its people. This thesis also broaches the topic of public history, a term used to refer to the real- world application of historical knowledge in publicly accessible places, and the ways in which the agri- ecological history of the Verde Valley is currently presented and how it could be shared. I argue that the history of the Verde Valley is best told in a way that acknowledges the complicated set of relationships between agriculture and industry. These relationships, in turn, produced changes in land use and ecological health that continue to resonate in the valley s politics, landscape, and economic orientations. Unfortunately, the region s agricultural history is often ignored or hidden behind scripted public history narratives that focus on other aspects of the area s history, such as mining or Anglo settlement, and rarely speak to the power that each sector had over the other. An agri- centric public history site that highlights the symbiotic relationship between industries, farming, and land change would add value to the valley s already rich public history landscape. Two possibilities for creating such a site include the implementation of living history techniques and the renarrativization, or re- storying, of an existing public site, such as Slide Rock State Park, and the creation of a new public history venue, like the Verde Valley 4

13 Agricultural Heritage Center. 9 These sites could teach the skills necessary for reading the valley s landscape palimpsest and provide a public space in which to engage the continuously evolving nature of regional agriculture. 10 The public embrace of this history will in turn provide the impetus for future preservation efforts of remaining agricultural knowledge and finally recognize the fundamental importance of agriculture in the settlement of the Verde Valley. This introductory chapter begins with a drive through the Verde Valley in order to give the reader a sense of place, and to begin the analysis of what is visible and hidden in the contemporary valley landscape. Following that tour is a discussion of this thesis project, including its guiding questions and purpose. A review of relevant literature is then presented to contextualize this project within the frame of existing research and thought. The introduction concludes with a chapter outline for the remainder of this work. Visitor on the Verde: A Drive Through the Valley My earliest memory of the valley, captured on a vacation from my undergraduate studies in Tucson in 2009, is of kaleidoscopic greens, tall reeds, and sheep pasture flanking the interstate bridge. At the time, I found the valley to be a fleeting refuge viewed from the speeding Interstate 17 corridor on what was otherwise a dry and rocky journey. 9 J. K. Gibson- Graham, Post- Capitalist Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), Palimpsest is defined as: 1) a manuscript, usually of papyrus or parchment, written on more than once, with the earlier writing incompletely erased and often legible; 2) An object, place, or area that reflects its history. American Heritage College Dictionary, 4 th ed., s.v. Palimpsest. 5

14 Figure 1 Oblique map of the Verde Valley situated in perspective with Flagstaff, Williams, and Prescott. Tau Rho Alpha and United States Geological Survey, Upper Verde River, Arizona, map (Reston, V.A.: U.S. Geological Survey, 1970), from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection, accessed October 3, 2013, 6

15 Figure 2 Detail of Verde Valley from an oblique map of the Upper Verde River. Alpha, Upper Verde River, Arizona, from David Rumsey Map Collection. 7

16 Figure 3 Map of the Verde River Watershed, used with permission from its creator, Curtis Bradley. Note the slight variation in the upper, middle, and lower designations than those provided in this thesis. This map identifies the transition between middle and lower as occurring at the confluence of Wet Beaver Creek. I place it about a mile downriver of West Clear Creek. There are no concrete boundaries of where the three sections begin and end; indeed the designations appear to be somewhat determined by the needs of the cartographer/ researcher. Curtis Bradley, Verde Watershed Map, from the Center for Biological Diversity, accessed September 30, 2013, save_the_verde/map.html. 8

17 Subsequent visits complicated my initial assessment of the valley as rural oasis caught between cactus and pine. As more river silt settles into my bootlaces, and as books about the region build hoodoos on my desk, the valley unfolds as a palimpsest of interconnections of people and place, creation and extraction, native and newcomer. On a recent trip during the late- August monsoon we followed the gradual descent of the volcanic malpaís ridge that forms the backbone of Interstate 17 from Flagstaff to the valley floor. 11 Thinning forests of ponderosa pines were eventually replaced by thick scrubs of heavily- fruited juniper and pinyon pine that gave way to stands of rain- scented creosote, yucca, and prickly pear. Viewed from the elevated Interstate roadbed, the gently undulating dryland hills of the valley made the riparian corridor of the floodplain glow in vibrant green. The Interstate crosses the river in the town of Camp Verde, located on the southeastern end of the valley. Beaver Creek meets the river within the Camp Verde town limits while, further downriver, the earliest Anglo agricultural settlements in the valley are located where Clear Creek meets the muddy waters of the Verde; upriver from Camp Verde lie the towns of Cottonwood and Clarkdale, Tuzigoot National Monument, and the confluence of Oak Creek and the Verde River. The community of Cornville, located on Oak Creek, is east of Cottonwood while the town 11 Malpaís is an easily identifiable landform used to describe a volcanic landscape characterized by broken lava flows and hardened pumice. James W. Byrkit, The Palatkwapi Trail (Flagstaff, AZ: Museum of Northern Arizona, 1988), 31. 9

18 of Sedona, also located on the creek but in the transitional zone between the Mogollon Rim and the valley, is upstream. 12 As I remembered from my earliest visit, the Interstate approach into Camp Verde is a polychrome of green in this exceptionally wet monsoon season. Linear rows of pecans flank the road, and several acre- sized fields are wedged triangularly against the Interstate and its exit ramps. Surrounding the increasing density of mobile homes and faux- adobe single stories are flat, rectangular plots overgrown with pioneer species that thrive in areas recently transitioned from agricultural to residential development. 13 Weedy amaranth and downy brome grass crowd around abandoned barbed wire fence lines that sag to the ground. Originating in this transition zone between rural and urban, Salt Mine Road, on the right side of the Verde River, wends its way through a succession of irrigated pastures for pleasure horses before climbing slightly out of the floodplain. 14 Briefly visible from the road are the rusted remnants of the Camp Verde salt mine, just one of many short- lived extractive industries to benefit from the valley s mineral bounty, 12 Cornville is not, in fact, named for the crop but is instead a misspelling of the town s first name, Coaneville. Henry M. Coane, postmaster of the small community, suggested naming the town after himself but when the name was sent to Washington to be registered it was misread as Cornville. Story borrowed from Isabel J. Simmons, ed., Cottonwood, Clarkdale, and Cornville History (Cottonwood, AZ: Cottonwood Chapter 2021, American Association of Retired Persons, 1984), Pioneer species is an ecological term used to refer to the first colonizers of disturbed or damaged areas (e.g. after a fire or in a construction zone). These hardy organisms are typically tolerant of a wide range of conditions and indicate the dynamic process of ecological succession. Leslie A. Duram, Encyclopedia of Organic, Sustainable, and Local Food (ABC- CLIO, 2010), Though the Verde River generally follows a northwest- to- southeast route, its meandering path is full of oxbows and wiggles, making it difficult to describe which side of the river a particular place is located. To combat this confusion, I adopted the traditional left and right used by fishermen and boaters to indicate the distinct banks. The sides of the river (left or right) are determined by the observer s position looking downstream. Stream Terminology, Geology Labs On- Line, accessed September 30, 2013, 10

19 collapsing into an eroded hillside coated with a thick white mineral rind. 15 Further down the road traces the riverbank above the incised channel with the chocolate water gurgling below. Figure 4 A view of the valley during the late monsoon, August 29, Photo by author. The Clear Creek River Access Area is a microcosm that encapsulates some of the landscape and cultural changes the valley has undergone over the course of thousands of years. Miniature arroyos forming from parking lot runoff reveal the distinct angular edges of prehistoric ceramics: potsherds in red buff, black, and tan, having eroded from floodplain silt, lay glinting dully in the sun. The people who Steve Ayers, Images of America: Camp Verde, (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010), 11

20 made this pottery, perhaps belonging to the Yavapai- Apache, Sinagua, or Hohokam tribes, once cultivated a spider web of irrigated fields along the valley floor. Today, the sound of flowing water farther down the hill reveals a modern, concrete- lined irrigation ditch running parallel to the river. Below the ditch, the hill steepens and drops into the riverbed that is cast in the ruffled shade of willow (Salix gooddingii), canyon grape (Vitis arizonica), and cottonwood (Populus fremontii). Here, pressed into the wet soil at the water s edge, is the distinct skid mark from a canoe being pulled from the river. These themes, the revealing and burying of the past, the presence and invisibility of agriculture, the reimagining of productive areas as places of recreation, are essential parts of the Verde Valley s history that are too often hidden in the tourist- centric narratives that simplify the messy complexity of place and identity. 16 Following the river upstream, on the north side of Camp Verde, are the remains of the agricultural fields of Middle Verde and a collection of dilapidated trailer homes. Here the air is humid from the recent rains, but also from the slow- moving river and irrigation ditches that dissect the floodplain. Sandwiched between a trailer park and the river, several large alfalfa fields are tucked away on a washboard road lined with abandoned bikes, rusted paint cans, and torn plastic bags. The United States Census Bureau reports that 29.5 percent of Camp Verde s residents, and 20.2 percent of Cottonwood s, live below the poverty line, in 16 For example, Jerome is known as The Billion Dollar Copper Camp and Camp Verde is identified by its historic fort. While these identities help to preserve important aspects of each towns history, they often have the unfortunate effect of smoothing over more complicated interactions and dynamic evolution over time. This is helpful to tourists who often want a place to be presented in an easily understandable manner, but it is detrimental to those whose stories do not fit within the chosen narratives. 12

21 comparison to the statewide average of 16.2 percent. 17 The five tribal communities of the Yavapai- Apache Nation, including Tunlii, Middle Verde, Rimrock, Camp Verde and Clarkdale, suffer from a legacy of marginalization and displacement. 18 Today, their presence remains largely invisible to the casual observer passing through the valley towns with the notable exceptions of the Cliff Castle Casino, the Distant Drums R.V. Park, and the tribally owned gravel operation. Traveling northward from the junction of I- 17 on Highway 260, also known as the Camp Verde- Bridgeport Highway, the road passes by the mud- colored buildings of the Yavapai County Jail and the tall look- out towers of the Out of Africa Wildlife Park, a theme park capitalizing on the similarities between African savannah and the valley s dryland scrub. Across the road from the barbed wire of the jail and the tall fences of the park, Old Highway 279 parallels the more recent Highway 260. Near the junction of 279 and 260, and barely visible from the main road, the Yavapai- Apache Sand and Rock plant, an enterprise of the Yavapai- Apache Nation, churns dust into the air as conveyors sort rocks into standardized piles according to size and type. 19 For the next ten miles, 260 cuts through creosote- covered hillocks and over dry washes. This portion of the valley is largely undeveloped, though the shiny plate- glass windows and smooth asphalt of the new- 17 For further comparison, the tourist red- rock town of Sedona, located on the Verde River tributary of Oak Creek, has only 10.9 percent of its population below the poverty line. State and County Quick Facts, United States Census Bureau, accessed September 29, 2013, 18 Welcome, The Yavapai- Apache Nation, accessed September 8, 2013, apache.org. 19 Welcome to Yavapai- Apache Sand and Rock, accessed September 30, 2013, 13

22 looking Steve Coury car dealership hints at some of the valley s recent changes. Incongruously arranged around the dealership s sign are the rusted remains of hay rake and several other pieces of farm machinery. On the outskirts of Verde Village, a bedroom community abutting Cottonwood, imported saguaros, stunted and scaly from the occasional cold snap, lean against signs for fast food restaurants, chain grocery stores, and rundown motels. The anemic graveled landscaping contributes to the sense of place- lessness. The river is hidden, out of sight, and the main drag looks much like those found on the outskirts of Tucson or Phoenix. Drive a bit further to where 260 becomes U.S. Route 89A, however, and the historic buildings of downtown Cottonwood, some of them shaded by the town s namesake trees, bustle with visitors and residents enjoying the locally owned shops and gourmet restaurants that have reinvented this town as a burgeoning tourist destination. Seen from U.S. Route 89A, the bleached bones of the prehistoric Tuzigoot pueblo crumble into their hilltop home, overlooking a bright green, artificially flattened field covered with native forbs, grasses, and dark- barked mesquite. Once, pueblo residents may have tended rock gridded fields of corn, beans, and squash on this land. More recently, it was the site of a large tailings pond from the nearby Clarkdale smelter that operated from 1915 to Today these pasts are buried under imported dirt and clay that trap the remaining toxic industrial waste from leaching into the Verde. 20 Near the entrance gate to the monument, a tall chain- link fence announces its message: Freeport- McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc./ 20 Tuzigoot: Disturbed Lands, National Park Service, accessed March 12, 2013, lands.htm. 14

23 Warning/No Trespassing. Beyond the fence, hidden from view and inaccessible to the public, is Pecks Lake, once an important reservoir for the smelter and a recreational site for its employees. The presence of extractive industry on the landscape is made more visible from the panoramic views of the valley afforded by Tuzigoot s hilltop location. Across the river, on the right bank, lies the monstrous black shadow of the smelter slag dump next to the dilapidated shell of the concrete smelter plant. Almost directly ahead, the mountainside town of Jerome glints white in the distance, abutting the mine tailings that flare from the giant pit mine. Between Jerome and the smelter, tucked into dryland hills, is the Phoenix Cement plant, one of the few hints of the valley s current industrial identity to break its skyline. Continuing on U.S. Route 89A, Clarkdale, the most northern town in the valley, abuts its sister city of Cottonwood. Upscale retirement communities and treeless new subdivisions encircle the original historic core of the company town. A copper- sheathed gas station- turned- gallery hints at the source of the town s original wealth while large public buildings dating from the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s overlook tidy bungalows of the same vintage. 21 Once the double stacks of the smelter towered over the town, bringing jobs and acrid smoke, but today the brick 21 Helen Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital: Culture in an Industrial Western Company Town, Clarkdale, Arizona, (PhD diss., Northern Arizona University, 2008), 33,

24 stack lies broken and the metal one scrapped. 22 Upriver the valley narrows and ends at the steep walls of Sycamore Canyon and its namesake wilderness area. At Clarkdale, U.S Route 89A turns west and mirrors the twists of the river below as the road wends upwards to Jerome and, eventually, over the pass to Prescott. The narrow streets of town are almost stacked upon one another, earning Jerome the nickname America s Most Vertical City; the numerous empty lots and condemned buildings gave it another moniker: The Largest Ghost Town in America. Today Jerome, reinvented as an artist community and tourist destination, is bustling and its permanent population of roughly 450 finds employment working in the numerous restaurants, B&Bs, and galleries. The town is, however, a shadow of its former self. In the 1920s the population of the town and the immediate unincorporated area peaked at 10,000 and the mines, the impetuses for building a community halfway up a dry mountainside, worked at full production. 23 The Little Daisy Mine and The Big Hole, owned by the United Verde Extension and United Verde Copper Company, respectively, produced the billion dollars worth of copper ore that kept the smelters smoking in the valley below Dr. James W. Byrkit Interview, Ecological Oral Histories Collection, 2005, box NAU.OH , folder 8, Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff. 23 Nicknames for Jerome borrowed from Jerome, Arizona, AZJerome.Com, accessed October 2, 2013, Many sources, including AZJerome.Com, list the peak population figure for Jerome at 15,000. In After the Boom, however, Eric Clements writes that the town s population certainly never reached that large number. Using census data, Clements estimates the town s peak population to more around 5,000 for the town and 10,000 including residents in its immediate area but outside the incorporated city limits. Clements, After the Boom in Tombstone, United Verde Copper Company, Arizona Geological Survey, accessed October 2, 2013, keywords/united- verde- copper- company. 16

25 Above Jerome, Woodchute Mountain is bare of large trees or shrubs, its semi- denuded state a powerful but oft- unnoticed reminder of the many ecological legacies left by the mining industry. First, residents stripped the mountain of wood to provide fuel for the growing city of Jerome and material for its extensive underground mine shafts. Sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid expelled by the smelter stacks then prohibited the regrowth of pines and junipers, resulting in sunbaked soil and eroded washes unsuitable for seedlings. 25 Passing through the tourist- clogged streets of town, the road switchbacks through a canyon bejeweled with mine tailings and wildcat digs. A scenic view turnout offers a final panorama of the valley below: the quilted ranchettes stitched to gated subdivisions, a smattering of cultivated fields, the dark shapes of cattle chewing in the mesquite shade, the mobile homes and bricked downtowns, and the unifying ribbon of the Verde. This Project: Problem and Purpose This thesis sprouted from my personal and perennial interests in historical agriculture, landscape change, and public history. As I began the search for a suitable research topic, I realized that I knew little about the agricultural history of the nearby Verde Valley and, more importantly, that the story was not readily accessible to those who sought to learn about it in an academic or public history setting. While there are several books dedicated to pioneer stories that include kernels of information about farm life and the changing landscape, there are no books written about the Verde Valley that place those narratives within the larger framework of demographics, economy, and ecology. Additionally, no existing 25 Dr. James W. Byrkit Interview, Ecological Oral Histories Collection. 17

26 literature examines the evolving identity of the valley, nor the consequences to the practice of public history and sense of place that occur as a result of that dynamism. While the valley has several cadres of dedicated volunteers and staff that run local museums such as the Clemenceau Heritage Museum in Cottonwood, the Camp Verde Historical Society Museum, and the Clarkdale Historical Society Museum, the valley s agricultural legacy is often relegated to a few photographs or detailed descriptions of its more romantic ranching side. Overlooking the green floodplain, Jerome s museums present the story of the mining town as if it were its own self- sufficient entity instead of noting its reliance on the Verde Valley agricultural zone. In the town of Sedona, nestled amid the red rocks eroding in the transitional zone from the Colorado Plateau to the Verde, there are two public history sites located on agriculturally significant properties, yet even these sites, the Sedona Heritage Museum and Slide Rock State Park, do not comprehensively explore the region s agri- ecological past. Recognizing these gaps in the spheres of public history and literature, I embarked on this project with the intention of weaving together the various loose threads of available narratives to provide a cohesive story of historic farming and land change in the Verde Valley from the mid- 1860s to In order to accomplish that goal, this thesis emphasizes the stories of those who participated in, advanced, and experienced that evolution. Additionally, this thesis questions the interconnectedness of agriculture with other industries located in the valley specifically to understand the influence of smelting, tourism, and other economic activities on valley farming, the regional landscape, and the changing sense of place. 18

27 My second interrelated line of inquiry deals with the field of public history, how the valley s agricultural narrative is shared, and how living history techniques might be used to enrich those stories. 26 From my perspective as a person passionate about land and food production, it is unfortunate how the history and identities of valley farmers are often obfuscated behind narratives of heroic miners or brave Anglo pioneers. This thesis examines the ways in which agriculture is included and excluded from the metanarratives told about the valley, and also explores methods and techniques for increasing the visibility of this aspect of the valley s past. Review of Literature Although my project relies heavily on archival sources, interviews, and observations, there are a handful of published works that significantly informed my thinking and approach to this project. Several of the works I engage in conversation with my own ideas, some are used as points of reference, and others as counterpoints. Donald MacMillan s book Smoke Wars: Anaconda Copper, Montana Air Pollution, and the Courts, contextualizes the Verde Valley s own Smoke War between the farmers and the copper companies with the experiences of other Western communities such as Butte, Montana, and Salt Lake City, Utah. 27 MacMillan s work attests to the similarities between the Verde Valley history and those of other communities reliant on an extractive industry. While he focuses on 26 Jay Anderson, Time Machines: The World of Living History (Nashville, Tennessee: The American Association for State and Local History, 1984). 27 Donald MacMillan, Smoke Wars: Anaconda Copper, Montana Air Pollution, and the Courts, (Helena, MT: Montana Historical Society, 2000). 19

28 the struggles of urban Butte residents, MacMillan does touch upon the effects of the smoke on farmers, crops, and livestock in Montana s Deer Lodge Valley. The ways in which the farmers of Deer Lodge confronted Anaconda Copper follow a similar trajectory to the Verde Valley story. Similarly, Anaconda s reaction also foreshadows the corporate responses of the United Verde Copper Company (UVCC) and the United Verde Extension (UVX). Surprisingly, McMillan makes the claim that no attempts were made to abate air pollution in Arizona, where copper became the leading mineral in the late nineteenth century and provided the base for a stable mining industry. He continues by hypothesizing that conflicts failed to develop in the state because emissions did not affect agricultural property. 28 My thesis contests this claim through research that shows Arizona farmers in the Verde Valley did indeed attempt to control air pollution from local copper smelters, and entered into legal struggles against the UVCC and UVX in order to do so. Another master s thesis completed at Northern Arizona University, Smoke Men on the Hill: The Environmental Effects of Smelter Pollution in the Verde Valley, Arizona, , further refutes MacMillan s claim by providing a fairly narrow history of Verde Valley agriculture that focuses almost exclusively on the valley s smoke- war era. Christine Beard presents a well- researched analysis of environmental damage that occurred during the smoke- war era, but her historical scope of Verde Valley agriculture leaves the entire post- copper- boom era unexplored. Similarly, while she acknowledges the role of farmers in the smelter- smoke lawsuits, Beard does not place them at center stage but instead hones in on 28 MacMillan, Smoke,

29 the environmental damages produced by valley mining operations. Smoke Men is not an agricultural history, but rather an environmental history exploring the interactions between industrial pollution and environment; because of this, only one of her three interviews is with a farmer. Finally, Beard does not attempt to address issues of identity or public history. Thus she leaves space for further explorations into the public history and agricultural history angles of the valley s agri- ecological story. 29 One of the few scholars to focus on the period of industrial decline is Eric Clements whose book, After the Boom in Tombstone and Jerome, Arizona: Decline in Western Resource Towns, tracks the boom and bust trajectory of the mountainside mining town of Jerome with particular focus on the post- mining era. 30 Clements, however, does not extrapolate the effects of the 1950 s decline to the Verde Valley below, thus obscuring the symbiotic relationship between Jerome, its satellite smelter towns of Clemenceau (Cottonwood) and Clarkdale, and the valley that provided much of the miners food Beard interviewed Walter Jordan, one of the leading farmers in the smoke suits, in The other interviews were with a liaison with Phelps Dodge and a habitat specialists from Arizona Game and Fish Department. Christine Dickson Beard, Smoke Men on the Hill: The Environmental Effects of Smelter Pollution in the Verde Valley, Arizona, (Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University, 1990), Eric L. Clements, After the Boom in Tombstone and Jerome, Arizona: Decline in Western Resource Towns (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2003). 31 While I ascribe the adjective symbiotic to the relationship between mining town, smelting towns, and agricultural areas in the Verde Valley, it should be noted that I am not implying that each are fundamentally dependent upon the others. Jerome existed for more than a decade without the smelter towns of Clarkdale and Clemenceau, but the two towns never would have been constructed without the presence of the Jerome mines. Thus the smelter towns had an obligate relationship with Jerome, in the sense that they were entirely dependent upon it for their initial existence; however, this relationship changed as the economy of the valley diversified after the mines shut down. Conversely, the agricultural fields of the Verde Valley and the industrial had a facultative 21

30 My thesis tackles the absences left by Clements by drawing from the work of environmental historian William Cronon, specifically from his book Nature s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. Cronon emphasizes the symbiotic relationship between urban and rural, and illustrates how the human tendency to dichotomize places as either city or countryside obfuscates the common threads of supply and demand, as well as consumption and production, that inextricably link seemingly disparate locations. As Cronon endeavored to tell the story of Chicago as a unified narrative of city and country, so too must the story of Anglo agriculture in the Verde Valley be interwoven into the region s mining narrative. Using the lens of Cronon as a framework, I argue that valley farms must be reimagined not simply as pastoral, rural places but rather as parts of an economic, industrial, and ecological hinterland of the region s extractive industries. 32 Some work has also been completed that deals with the current state of agriculture in the Verde Valley. Nancy Gottschalk, a graduate of the Masters of Sustainable Communities program at NAU, wrote a thesis titled Barriers and Limitations to Expanded Participation in Local Food Systems, Cottonwood, Arizona. Although Gottschalk does provide a short summary of historical Verde agriculture, she primarily focuses on current farming ventures in a single Valley town (Cottonwood) by providing comparative case studies performed in Tucson, Flagstaff, and Chino Valley. Gottschalk relies on street surveys, focus groups, symbiotic relationship, that is, when each had the ability to exist independently. Symbiosis, Miami University, accessed September 29, 2013, ws/biodiversitysymbiosis/symbiosis.htm. 32 William Cronon, Nature s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992), xvi. 22

31 demographic data, and interviews to inform her work, which she then interprets through various sociological lenses such as civic engagement and rationalization. While she recognizes the value of understanding the historical context of agriculture in Cottonwood, Gottschalk s motivation is to provide an analysis of barriers that inhibit the expansion of contemporary Verde Valley farming rather than to understand the inter- relationships between valley industry, agriculture, and ecology. 33 By exploring the theoretical underpinnings and several concrete case studies conducted by other scholars, the next set of literature addresses the role of public history in the construction of sense of place and identity. John Falk and Lynn Dierking, in their book Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning, explore how museums encourage learning through dynamic visitor engagement. Their contextual model of learning acknowledges that learning is place- based and always in a contextual relationship identified as situated cognition. The authors also enter into a discussion of the role and function of museums. They write of the implicit and explicit communication practiced by museums: explicitly museums communicate information about objects and history while implicitly they communicate messages about authority, power, and the values of the dominant culture. The implicit communication practiced by museums 33 Nancy B. Gottschalk, Barriers and Limitations to Expanded Participation in Local Food Systems, Cottonwood, Arizona, (Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University, 2012), 61-70;

32 is key to understanding how and why the narratives of valley farmers are or are not privileged in current museum exhibits. 34 Once again, the work of William Cronon informs my discussion and thoughts about the process of constructing historical narratives. In his essay A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative, Cronon underscores the influence that community has upon historical story- arcs and didactic narratives. He notes that historians insert their own community affiliations and belief systems into the stories they tell and the conclusions they draw from them. 35 Like Falk and Dierking who discuss the contextual model of learning, Cronon s argument implies a contextual model of storytelling that acknowledges the implicit power of the historian in crafting a narrative. 36 The acknowledgement that history is actively constructed is an important part of my investigation into the ways that the Verde Valley s agricultural heritage is represented in existing public history sites. The work of folklorist- scholar Jay Anderson engages the idea of using living history techniques to create dynamic museums that incorporate public memory and sensory experience. Living history sites intertwine the message of the historical narrative with the mode used to tell the story. Anderson speaks to the strengths of such sites in their use of live interpretation and demonstration to share stories and experiences that might be excluded from more traditional static museum settings. I 34 John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, Learning From Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2000), xi, 59, William Cronon, A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative, The Journal of American History 78 (March 1992): Falk and Dierking, Learning, xi,

33 use his work as a launching point to imagine how dynamic history sites might be created in the Verde Valley to complement and enrich the existing public history landscape. 37 Finally, my thesis draws upon the work of feminist- economic- geographers Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson (known by the shared pen- name of J.K. Gibson- Graham) to explore the politics of what they call renarrativizing a place. 38 Renarrativizing is the act of transforming an event or an experience into a story and is a post- modernist attempt to literally re- story a place by framing it in ways that are outside the boundaries of its contemporary mainstream discourse. This new framework allows for the generation of alternative conceptions of place that in turn make space for new or previously suppressed ideas. Gibson- Graham focus on alternative economies, such as bartering and gift giving, in an attempt to foster community in industrial areas socially, economically, and environmentally decimated by neoliberal capitalism. By encouraging residents to think about their economic system and physical place in new ways, the authors lead residents toward an even larger re- imagining of their identity and value. Similarly, this thesis project begins the process of providing an additional narrative to those currently ascribed in Verde Valley history. Following in the footsteps of Gibson- Graham, this renarrativization of the Verde Valley opens a space for residents to reimagine the 37 Jay Anderson, Time Machines: The World of Living History (Nashville, Tennessee: The American Association for State and Local History, 1984), Gibson- Graham, Post- Capitalist Politics,

34 identity and future of their communities, the importance of place, and the interconnections between agriculture and industry. 39 My own work has, of course, its own set of absences. This thesis does not present a holistic history of the Verde Valley, but instead focuses on certain facets pertaining to agriculture, environmental change, and trade during a time when the boom and bust of various extractive industries shaped the socio- economic and ecological landscape of the region. Absent from this thesis are lengthy discussions of race and class. While the presence of the Yavapai- Apache Nation has extremely potent effects on the historical and current identity of the Verde Valley, their stories are somewhat divergent from the narrative I wish to share in this thesis and warrant their own in- depth analysis and research. Similarly, though this thesis does rely on the voices of women who experienced and participated in the changing landscape of the Verde Valley, I do not engage gender issues in great detail. Again, that topic is worthy of further research and representation, but it is largely outside the scope of this work. From some perspectives, the above absences are evidence that I am perpetuating the racial and gender marginalization too often associated with traditional historical research. Inclusion of these topics, however, would further complicate my main topic of inquiry and perhaps result in an unwieldy thesis. That said, my chapter on public history does open a space for discussion about inclusion and manufactured 39 This perspective is echoed in Elliot West s Contested Plains, another influential book I refer to later in this thesis. Elliot West, The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998). 26

35 invisibility that could, at some point in the future, be extrapolated to include issues of race, class, and gender. Looking Forward, Looking Back The remainder of this thesis is divided into five additional chapters. Chapters Two, Three, and Four focus on multiple facets of the Verde Valley s agricultural history with special attention paid to the period from 1864 to 2014; Chapter Five on the theory and practice of agri- ecologically themed public history in the valley; Chapter Six on a summation of major themes and a discussion of the ways in which this thesis is meaningful in regards to the creation and maintenance of sustainable communities. Chapter Two begins with a brief synopsis of Verde Valley agriculture beginning with its earliest inhabitants up through the first Anglo settlers in the mid- 1860s who laid the foundations for current valley agricultural infrastructure and culture. The central theme of this chapter is the relationship between early extractive industry, agriculture, and landscape change. I apply William Cronon s hinterland concept to explore the changing relationship between regional copper mining and Verde Valley agriculturalists from 1864 to The history of the Verde Valley is continued in Chapter Three that discusses the economic and ecological effects of the collapse of the regional copper industry between 1953 and This chapter functions as an industrial 40 Cronon, Nature s Metropolis. 27

36 interlude to the thesis agricultural focus. Once again, Cronon s hinterland lens helps to explain the creation of the valley s post- industrial landscape. This chapter ends with the entrance of a new heavy industry, cement production, and the socio- economic effects of the industrial revitalization on the valley s urban and rural sense of place. Chapter Four picks up the story of agriculture and landscape in the post- copper era and traces it up to Of specific interest in this chapter are the valley s changing landscape and the cultural and economic implications associated with shifts in land use and development. The dramatic socio- ecological changes along the Oak Creek riparian corridor support my discussion of the valley as a contested space with multiple groups vying for control over resources and sense of place. The voices of individual residents speak of fundamental changes in the valley s agricultural orientation but also of the Verde Valley s evolving rural identity. Discussion of identity and representation is the theme of Chapter Five. Primarily focused on the theory and practice involved in the creation of an agri- ecological public history of the Verde Valley, this chapter analyzes current examples of public history to assess the level of representation given to the valley s farmers and land changes. The chapter then presents ideas to create more agri- ecologically centered public history sites. Finally, Chapter Six revisits the agri- ecological history of the Verde Valley by interweaving themes related to agriculture, industry, land change, sense of 28

37 place, and public history. I then connect this constructed narrative to key concepts of my Sustainable Communities graduate program to explore why this type of history is an important tool in sustaining essential stories of place. ~~~ This thesis reflects the stories of older generations and refracts the ramifications of their decisions as they played out over the landscape and identity of the Verde Valley. Some of the narratives shared here might soon be lost if they are not captured for the future. They are the stories of a disappearing generation, the last folks who inhaled the smelter fumes, saw the gardens wither, and eventually heard the smoke stacks fall. This thesis is also an opportunity to confront the legacy of land use and mis- use so that future decisions pertaining to production, resources extraction, and development might be made with long- term effects in mind. The landscape of the Verde Valley is a palimpsest of mining scars and shrinking marshland but also of grassroots efforts to stop environmental degradation and community coalitions to save important historical structures. 41 It is within this potent mixture that this thesis spins together loose threads to create a narrative centered on the relationship between people and place. 41 Many grassroots groups are focused on water quality and quantity; the Verde Watershed Restoration Coalition, based in Cottonwood, is composed of federal and private stakeholders in an effort to eradicate invasive riparian plants ( Home, accessed September 29, 2013, the Verde River Institute, out of Clarkdale, is similarly focused on the riverine health of the valley ( Home, accessed September 29, 2013, The Verde Valley Land Preservation group is oriented around efforts to protect open space through conservation easements and increased community outreach ( Home, accessed September 29, 2013, ( Sedona Verde Valley Tourism Council, accessed September 29, 2013, verdevalley.com/campverde/thehistoricalsociety.html). 29

38 Chapter Two Portraits of a Shared World: Early Industry, Agriculture, and Landscape Change When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. -John Muir 1 City and country are inextricably connected and market relations profoundly mediate between them. A rural landscape which omits the city and an urban landscape which omits the country are radically incomplete portraits of their shared world. -William Cronon 2 This chapter explores the establishment of and relationships between Anglo agriculture, heavy industries, and landscape changes experienced in the Verde Valley from 1864 to The starting date of 1864 marks the founding of Fort Whipple in Chino Valley, just over the Black Hills from the Verde Valley. While not within the geographic confines of the Verde Valley, the fort was a significant development as it was the first permanent Anglo settlement in the region, provided the first market for area produce, and encouraged further development. Eighty- nine years later, in 1953, Clarkdale s copper smelter permanently closed, ending the first era of industrial growth in the Verde Valley. 3 The period encapsulated within these years is marked by incredible transformation of place that distinguishes it from 1 John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1911), William Cronon, Nature s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992), Helen Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital: Culture in an Industrial Western Company Town, Clarkdale, Arizona, (PhD diss., Northern Arizona University, 2008),

39 earlier eras and also set it apart from the changes experienced after the smelter closure. 4 In order to understand the significant economic, cultural, and ecological shifts that occurred in the Verde Valley between 1864 and 1953, it is important to first provide a pre- Anglo context of anthropogenic land change and agriculture in the Verde Valley. This background information should confirm to the reader that Anglo settlers in the Verde Valley were not unique in their alterations of the natural world, or in their pursuit of agriculture, but rather that they expanded upon a history of anthropogenic change and resourcefulness. The remainder of this chapter delves into the time period of interest identified in the chapter title, with special focus on changes in riparian ecosystems along the Verde and its tributaries, the establishment of large- scale irrigation networks, the development of industry and markets, and the effects of industrial pollution. The work of William Cronon informs the stories I share and my analysis of the relationship between people and place. Cronon advocates for a systems- theory- like approach for understanding the city and its hinterland, the countryside. While it is impossible for any history to be completely holistic, Cronon argues that the city/country dichotomy, which hides interconnections and cause- and- effect 4 The post- smelter period from, 1953 to 2014, is similarly marked by unique and notable transformations. Those shifts in agriculture, identity, and place are discussed in chapters Three and Four. 31

40 relationships, gives the misleading impression of urban and rural areas as distinct units rather than parts of a larger, complicated whole. 5 This chapter challenges the concept of the Verde Valley as a bucolic, singularly rural place by providing evidence for the fundamental connections between regional industry and the physical and psychological changes within valley ecosystems and identities. In the same vein as Cronon s analysis of Chicago, I argue that the socio- economic- ecologic landscape of the Verde Valley is not a dualistic contrast between industrial and agricultural areas, but rather a textured and dynamic series of relationships. Thus, this chapter presents portraits of a shared world, one where ecological changes are not taken at face value or the relationship between the mining company towns and neighboring farms viewed in black and white, but a world where networks are analyzed as a complicated ecosystem of markets, producers, polluters, and residents. Ancient Roots Anglo agriculturalists first established a farming settlement in the Verde Valley at the confluence of Clear Creek and the Verde River, near the current town of Camp Verde, in January From the start these farmers had more than a self- sufficient community in mind; the growing territorial capital of Prescott, and the 5 Cronon, Nature s Metropolis, 51; Historian Dan Flores also discusses the systems- theory behind Cronon s Nature s Metropolis. Flores writes since the early 1970s we ve had a set of mechanisms they sprang particularly from ecologist Eugene Odum s influential studies of ecosystems known collectively as systems theory to explain the diverse web of connections that tie local places to larger economic and ideological systems some of the best recent place- based environmental histories [he identifies Nature s Metropolis here along with other works by Donald Worster and Richard White] have made the concept of systems central to their work, primarily by tracing the role of the global market in a materialist age. So Cronon shows how an urban area like Chicago created a system that exploited everything from soil to buffalo hundreds of miles distant. Dan Flores, The Natural West: Environmental History in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003),

41 increasing population of settlers and miners, promised reliable markets for valley produce. 6 The new fields along the banks of the Verde were not, however, carved from unpopulated wilderness but were, instead, merely another iteration of anthropogenic change in a valley that already bore the marks of millennia of occupation. While the Native American experience is not at the center of this thesis, it is important to acknowledge that the valley s succession of Native American tribes were not benign but active sculptors of the landscape. Though nomadic peoples traveled, gathered, and hunted in the valley at least 11,000 years ago, it was not until the Cloverleaf Phase, approximately A.D. 700, that the first evidence of agricultural production appears in the Verde Valley archeological record. 7 The Verde Valley was a promising place to shift from hunting and gathering to more sedentary agricultural pursuits due to the presence of perennial surface water, rich fluvial soils, and a moderate climate. Stylistic changes in metates, or mealing stones, from basin mortars to large trough mortars, indicate a transition from small, wild- harvested nuts and seeds to the processing of cultivated grains, namely corn. 8 Accompanying this shift was the arrival of the Hohokam 6 Edward Palmer and Lonnie E. Underhill, eds., Dr. Edward Palmer s Experiences with the Arizona Volunteers, , Arizona and the West, 26, no. 1 (Spring, 1984): Early Inhabitants of the Verde Valley, Verde Valley Archeology Center, accessed August 30, 2013, Heather A. Downey, Prehistoric Agricultural Viability of the Sacred Mountain Gridded Agricultural Complex, Verde Valley, Arizona (M.A. Thesis, Northern Arizona University, 2006), Chronology of early residents borrowed from Downey, Prehistoric Agricultural Viability, 33

42 people, known for their impressive canal building abilities in south and central Arizona, who introduced irrigated agriculture to the valley. The Southern Sinagua people entered the valley during the Honanki Phase, A.D , marked by the construction of the dramatic dwellings found at Tuzigoot National Monument, Montezuma s Well, and Montezuma s Castle. Analysis of ceramic styles and the presence of non- locally sourced obsidian indicate extensive trade relationships between valley residents and their non- valley neighbors. Salt beds located near the current town of Camp Verde, a legacy left by ancient receding lakes that once covered the region, provided another tradable commodity. Similarly, mines near the modern- day town of Jerome yielded copper ores, especially azurite and malachite, which were ground into colorful powders for ceremonial or market use. 9 The next era identified by archeologists, the Tuzigoot Phase (A.D ), was a period of cultivation of low- lying areas through the use of irrigation ditches to provide consistent crop production needed to support large population centers clustered in the pueblos. During an survey of the Verde Valley under the auspices of the Bureau of Ethnology, architect- turned- surveyor Cosmos Mindeleff noted: The former inhabitants of this region were an agricultural people, and their villages were always located either on or immediately adjacent to some area 9 Albert H. Schroeder, Did the Sinagua of the Verde Valley Settle in the Salt River Valley? Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 3, no. 3 (Autumn, 1947): ; Wayne Ranney, The Verde Valley: A Geologic History (Flagstaff, AZ: Museum of Northern Arizona, 1989); The salt mines continued to be actively mined by the Yavapai several hundred years later, as noted in Aliza Caillou, ed., Experience Jerome and the Verde Valley: Legends and Legacies (Sedona, AZ: Thorne Enterprises, 1990); James W. Byrkit, The Palatkwapi Trail (Flagstaff, AZ: Museum of Northern Arizona, 1988), 3. 34

43 of tillable soil Owing to the character of the country, most of the tillable land is found on the eastern side of the river, and as a consequence most of the remains of the former inhabitants are found there also, though they are by no means confined to that side. 10 Mindeleff s report included some of the earliest published illustrations of ancient irrigation ditches. His meticulous observations recorded the relationship of the ditches to ancient settlements, their proximity to modern American ditches, and strange terraces covered by small water- worn bowlders [sic] scattered so thickly over it that travel is seriously impeded. These rocked spaces, with bowlders arranged so as to inclose [sic] small rectangular areas connected with the old ditch, are likely the rock bordered grids identified by more recent archeologists as sites of intense cultivation. Mindeleff s survey, however, also indicated some of the challenges associated with maintaining irrigation systems in a dynamic, riverine environment: all of the ancient ditches he described were filled with sediments, washed out, buried, or experienced some combination of destruction. 11 Archaeologists agree that by A.D massive change rocked the valley. For reasons unknown, though the cause was perhaps a combination of climate change, flood, disease, and warfare, the great Verde Valley pueblos, including Tuzigoot, were 10 Cosmos Mindeleff, Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona, in Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, , ed. J.W Powell (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1896), J.W. Powell, ed., Thirteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1896), xxxvii; Mindeleff, Aboriginal Remains, 244, ; Downey, Agricultural Viability, 2. 35

44 abandoned. The Southern Sinagua exited, leaving behind a valley scattered with potsherds, lithics, and crumbling masonry. 12 Spanish and Early Anglo-Americans One hundred and seventy years after the archaeological record at Tuzigoot abruptly ended, a Spaniard, Antonio de Espejo, came into the Verde Valley led by Hopi guides. By 1583, the Northeastern Yavapai occupied the valley. The Yavapai practiced a nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle supplemented with small harvests of corn. Their thatch- roofed huts were more ephemeral, and more dispersed, than the pueblo dwellings favored by their Sinagua predecessors. 13 Antonio de Espejo, in keeping with the Iberian Zeitgeist, entered the area in search of rich mines of silver and gold but was disappointed with what the valley had to offer. The chronicler of the de Espejo expedition recorded that the mines, located near present- day Jerome, were so worthless that we did not find in any of them a trace of silver [or gold], as they were copper mines, and poor. 14 Though subsequent parties of Spanish explorers and missionaries passed through the valley, there were no attempts to establish agricultural settlements. The first Anglo presence in the Verde Valley mimicked the hunter- gatherer lifestyle of its contemporaneous Native American inhabitants, the Northeastern 12 Downey, Agricultural Viability, James W. Byrkit, A Log of the Verde: The Taming of an Arizona River, Journal of Arizona History 9 (1978): 32-34; Albert H. Schroeder s A Study of Yavapai History and Pat H. Stein s The Yavapai and Tonto Apache as referenced in Christine Dickson Beard, Smoke Men on the Hill: The Environmental Effects of Smelter Pollution in the Verde Valley, Arizona, , (M.A. Thesis, Northern Arizona University, 1990), A quote taken from the log of Diego Perez de Luxan, as found in Byrkit, The Palatkwapi Trail,

45 Yavapai. The year 1826 brought a band of transient mountain men- fur trappers who made their way up the Verde River northward from its confluence with the Salt River. Though these first Anglo adventurers made few marks upon the place, the valley left enough of an impression on members of the group that several returned three years later to trap beaver and muskrat in the lush riparian zone. Luckily for the beaver in the Verde Valley, the demand for beaver pelts declined in the 1830s, only a few years after the first mountain men passed through. Thus the Anglo fur trappers did not have the market incentive to over- harvest the Verde beaver populations as they had along the better- known southern rivers, such as the San Pedro and the Santa Cruz. The lack of change precipitated by the arrival of Anglo mountain men in the Verde Valley holds them in stark contrast with the wave of changes unleashed with later Anglo settlement. 15 The presence of these riparian rodents likely contributed to the soggy state of the Verde corridor encountered by Anglo settlers when they arrived in the 1860s and 1870s. George Hance, a colorful resident of Camp Verde who held many positions in the valley community ranging from postmaster, notary public, to census marshal, among other duties, captured this remembrance of a time when beavers ruled the river: When I came to the Verde valley [in 1868] there was not one- third as much water flowing in any of the streams as at the present time. This was caused by a heavy undergrowth of all kinds and sorts of water grass, tulles, cat tail, flag, etc., and so 15 Byrkit, A Log of the Verde, 34-35; Robert H. Webb and Stanley A. Leake, "Ground- water Surface- water Interactions and Long- term Change in Riverine Riparian Vegetation in the Southwestern United States," Journal Of Hydrology 320, no. 3/4 (2006): ; Christopher D. Carrillo, D. L. Bergman, J. D. Taylor, P. Viehoever, and M. Disney, An Overview of Historical Beaver Management in Arizona, Proceedings of the Wildlife Damage Management Conference 13 (2009):

46 on, and also innumerable beavers that held the stream in check by a series and most complete lot of dams that held the water in terrace- like lakes, one above the other for miles. That is the reason of the name of the stream Beaver creek. 16 Another observer, the Army surgeon- explorer Edgar Alexander Mearns, kept a detailed log of his beaver encounters near Fort Verde between the years of He wrote in April of 1887 that beavers are numerous Mr. J.P. Milligan took 120 beavers on the Gila and Verde rivers during the winter of and sold the skins at $2.50 a pound, about $5 apiece. 17 To understand the importance of beaver in the creation of the braided riverine environment that the earliest Anglo settlers encountered, imagine a classic masonry arch with a keystone at the top, equalizing the forces and holding the whole structure together. In many riparian environments, beaver fulfill the role of that keystone; through their dam building and manipulation of water, beavers alter the environment in ways that allow a unique ecosystem to form, one that is ultimately contingent upon the existence of that keystone species. 18 By 1899, however, when George W. Hance published his article about the jungle- like Verde River of an earlier era in the Arizona Daily Miner, beaver were much more scarce. Hance noted that as the white man and the beaver are not co- 16 For more detailed information of the life and legacy of George Hance, see Steve Ayers article George Hance: Majordomo of the Verde Valley, The Camp Verde Bugle, May 6, 2009, accessed October 16, 2013, SectionID=702&S=1; George Hance, The Verde Valley and Eastern Yavapai County, Arizona Weekly Journal- Miner, August 30, 1899, Edgar Alexander Mearns, Mammals of the Mexican Boundary with the United States (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Offices, 1907), Backyard Gardner: Arizona Beaver, Arizona Cooperative Extension, accessed September 1, 2013, 38

47 workers together, and with the advent of stock having the free use of the range, the Beaver, and all undergrowth of brush disappeared, leaving a free flow of water. 19 Though the beaver- trapping season was not officially closed until 1927, by that time populations of the rodent were in decline throughout the state. 20 As expanding Anglo populations reduced beaver habitat, water that had once been slowed by dams and lodges began to move faster. The cienegas, or marshes, that lined the Verde River with lush grass and sedge became more susceptible to destructive flood events. 21 The irrigation networks constructed by later Anglo settlers would, in some ways, restore the Verde s braided, riparian environment. In the future, it would increasingly be human manipulation of dams and canal gates that would spread and disseminate the Verde over the bottomlands. The Valley as a Hinterland: Livestock and Riverbank Incision In the mid- 1860s people of the Northeastern Yavapai tribe, as well as displaced Tonto Apache from other parts of the Territory, lived on the rich bottomland sought after by Anglo farmers. The creation of Fort Whipple in 1864, the 19 George Hance, The Verde Valley and Eastern Yavapai County, For a more detailed account of historical trends in beaver populations and management strategies, turn to: Christopher D. Carrillo, D. L. Bergman, J. D. Taylor, P. Viehoever, and M. Disney, An Overview of Historical Beaver Management in Arizona, Proceedings of the Wildlife Damage Management Conference 13 (2009): George Kovacovich, born on a farm in Camp Verde in 1920, corroborates the scarcity of beaver in the valley until fairly recently. In an interview he remembered: when I was little we trapped muskrat and everything, but I don t remember any beavers. His son Bob Kovacovich, also born in Camp Verde and still working the family farm, added: we didn t have [beaver] for quite awhile, but just in the last few years they are kind of coming back George noted that once beaver did reappear on the farm, they occasionally chewed through the cedar fence posts along the river. Bob mentioned that the presence of beaver has slightly increased the amount of downed wood and chewed logs needing to be pulled from the irrigation ditch. George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14,

48 temporary capital of Arizona Territory and predecessor to the town of Prescott, initiated local demands for livestock, fodder, and produce that the nearby Chino Valley, devoid of a large perennial river, could not meet. Additionally, the lower elevation of the Verde Valley, at just over 3,000 feet above sea level, ensures a milder climate while Prescott, at almost 5,500 feet, often experiences colder winters. Recognizing the fort as an opportunity for a reliable market, settlers then identified the Verde Valley as a promising farming location. Wales Arnold, a well- known resident near the Camp Verde area, was one of the first settlers to set up a farm in the valley in 1864 and became established by growing hay for Fort Whipple livestock. 22 Others followed his lead and worked to transform the valley floor into a cultivated quilt of patchwork farms and rangeland. Introduction of livestock, primarily cattle, horses, and sheep, by Anglos proved to be the first considerable ecological change wrought by European Americans in the Verde Valley. From the start, many settlers engaged in traditional field- crop farming and cattle raising, supplementing their income and their diet with homegrown vegetable produce and fruit from their orchards, a fact that later led a community historian to remark that it is impossible to separate the ranching and farming; their interdependence has merged them into one business and way of life. 23 In addition to clearing ground for planting, settlers cut bottomland grass for fodder and the hooves of their livestock compacted the fragile soil, resulting in Steve Ayers, Images of America: Camp Verde, (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010), 23 Aliza Caillou, ed., Experience Jerome and the Verde Valley: Legends and Legacies (Sedona, AZ: Thorne Enterprises, 1990),

49 serious incidents of soil erosion and riverbank incision. 24 To ensure that the large numbers of livestock would not harm crops and produce, residents instituted a fence law in the valley by One booster wrote that the fence law ensured that agriculture and stock raising can be carried on together to good advantage. 25 The law, however, also had the effect of concentrating stock on the sensitive riverbanks and marshlands that, since they were unsuitable for farming, were deemed prime grazing land. As noted by George Hance, the once overgrown and slow- moving waters of the Verde transformed into a free flow of water as browsing cattle chomped down the riparian trees and settlers removed beaver dams. 26 There are many other accounts from both primary and secondary sources that corroborate the seriousness of environmental change in the Verde Valley caused by stock. 27 Changes in the vegetation and condition of the river due to grazing are prevalent in many of the memory books (i.e. self- published pioneer history such as Those Were the Days: A Pioneer History of Sedona and Vicinity, Experience Jerome and the Verde Valley: Legends and Legacies, etc.) written by Verde 24 Interview with Dr. James W. (Jim) Byrkit, NAU.OH , Ecological Oral Histories Collection, 2005, Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff. 25 Our Cattle Interests: Progress of the Cattle Raisers in the Verde Valley, The Arizona Champion, September 5, 1885, George Hance, The Verde Valley and Eastern Yavapai County, It should also be noted, however, that today some residents dispute the role of free- range cattle in riverbank erosion. As governmental organizations, such as the Forest Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as grassroots non- profit environmentalist groups, became increasingly involved in stock management and water protection, the relationship between cattle and the health of the Verde River has correspondingly grown into an extremely political disagreement pitting some newcomers against old timers, regulation supporters against those opposed to government intrusion. Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19,

50 settlers and their ancestors; indeed, stories about the change from thick grass to overgrazed and eroding stubble is the most commonly cited example of environmental transformation in the pre- smelter era. 28 Inez Lay, a member of the Sedona Westerners, wrote very few people came to the Verde Valley without bringing horses, cattle, or sheep. In a few years the stock ate the grass down and trampled the spongy land down to solid ground, thus causing the rainwater to run into the river channel. 29 Scientific sources also validate the more colloquial accounts of changes in the land caused by stock. Cosmos Mindeleff, initially hired by John Wesley Powell to conduct a survey of pueblos located in the territories of New Mexico and Arizona, traveled through the Verde Valley in 1891 and included a physical description of the country along with his previously mentioned surveys of ancient irrigation ditches in his report for the Bureau of Ethnology. 30 Mindeleff noted within the last few years the character of the [Verde] river and of the country adjacent to it has materially changed... this change is the direct result of the recent 28 This phenomenon was not unique to the Verde Valley. In Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country, Marsha Weisiger explores the relationship between increasing stock rates, decreasing forage, and federal policy on the Navajo Reservation. While the Reservation had much more severe overgrazing, largely due to a fumbling federal presence, different climate, and different cultural context, Weisiger s work speaks to universality of landscape changes wrought by the introduction of livestock. Marsha Weisiger, Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2009). 29 Westerners International is a non- profit foundation, initiated in 1959, composed of amateur historians organized into local corrals and posses who gather to discuss Western history and tradition. Welcome, Westerners International, accessed October 15, 2013, international.org/index.html; Sedona Westerners, Those Early Days A Pioneer History of Sedona and Vicinity (Sedona Heritage Publishing, 2012), Steve Ayers, The Remarkable but Little Known Mindeleff Cavates, Verde Independent, March 6, 2012, accessed September 24,

51 stocking of the country with cattle. He continued with his observations of diminished forage and overgrazing in the riverbed: One of the results of this overstocking is a very high death rate among the cattle; another, and more important result, is that the grasses and other vegetation have no chance to seed or mature, being cropped off close to the ground almost as soon as they appear. As a result of this, many of the river terraces and little valleys among the foothills, once celebrated for luxuriant grass, are now bare, and would hardly afford sustenance to a single cow for a week As a further effect of the abundance of cattle and the scarcity of food for them, the young willows, which, even so late as ten years ago, formed one of the characteristic features of the river and its banks, growing thickly in the bed of the stream, and often forming impenetrable jungles on its banks, are now rarely seen. 31 Without thick groundcover to slow and absorb precipitation, monsoon rains triggered sheet- runoff and erosion events. The year 1891 was an outlier in a decade of drought; the El Nino of that year was particularly severe and caused exceptional amounts of erosion- inducing precipitation that, in combination with overgrazed riverbanks, cut arroyos and incised channels across the Territory. Mindeleff bemoaned the fate of the Verde: Now, however, the flood of each year is more disastrous than that of the preceding year As a result of these floods, the grassy banks that once distinguished the river are now but little more than a tradition, while the older terraces, which under normal circumstances would now be safe, are being cut away more and more each year Mindeleff, Aboriginal Remains, Thomas E. Sheridan, Arizona: A History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), 141; Mindeleff, Aboriginal Remains,

52 The ecological destruction caused by the overgrazing of the Verde range is, however, part of a larger portrait of supply and demand rather than a simple sketch of too many cattle. William Cronon uses the word hinterland to describe the areas around Chicago that provided the raw materials (including labor, along with other resources) necessary to transform a small camp into a great city; similarly, the overstocking of the Verde Valley was a symptom of its hinterland status. The word hinterland is of German origin, coming from the words hinder and land, translated to mean the land behind. In English, hinterland is used to describe the parts of a state that appear removed, and yet remain connected to, more populated areas. Dictionary definitions range from: 1) The remote or less developed parts of a country, the back country ; 2) An area or sphere of influence in the unoccupied interior claimed by the state ; 3) An inland area supplying goods, especially trade goods, to a port. 33 A hinterland necessarily exists in a dialectical relationship with the front country or market hub. Without the pull and push of a port, city, or urban area the hinterland would not be considered remote, nor would it have a market hub to be contrasted against, and therefore could not exist as a land behind. The relation of the dynamic push- pull existence of hinterland to market hub is elucidated in Cronon s work. Specifically, he illustrates how demands for food and timber created by the growing city of Chicago contributed to the plow- under of Midwestern 33 Dictionary.Com, s.v. Hinterland, accessed March 25, 2014, 44

53 prairies, deforestation of northern forests, and a fundamental reorganization of the region s ecosystems. 34 The establishment of Fort Whipple and the subsequent concentration of livestock in the Verde Valley was the first iteration of major landscape change caused by the valley s hinterland status. While the first Anglo fur trappers were similarly motivated by the market demands for pelts in faraway cities, the constriction of that market resulted in the trappers leaving few marks upon the land; in contrast, Fort Whipple initiated a feedback loop of supply, demand, and landscape change in the valley. Once the fort was established, links formed that bound the pattern of valley settlement and industry to market fluctuations that, in turn, influenced the decisions of residents, and therefore the physical landscape of the valley. All across Arizona Territory, the late 1800s were a time of herd expansion. In July of 1890 alone, one beef cattle company had 900 head grazing on summer pastures in the Verde Valley. 35 Many valley farmers often ran just a few cattle along with one or two milk cows and continued to practice other forms of agriculture, such as vegetable production, in order to market a wide variety of products to the growing valley population. By this time, however, some cattle ranching outfits tended large herds and recognized the Verde Valley as prime grazing land. (See 34 The relationship between city and hinterland affects upon both parties. Cronon writes [Chicago s] unprecedented growth in the second half of the nineteenth century was in no small measure the creation of the people of the hinterland, who in sending the fruits of their labor to its markets brought great change to city and country alike. So too did the market demand for Verde Valley produce influence its environment. Cronon, Nature s Metropolis, 97, Local Brevities, Arizona Republican, July 22, 1890, p. 4, accessed October 22, 2013, 22/ed- 1/seq- 4/. 45

54 Appendix A for a brief discussion of transhumance in the Verde Valley as well as examples of local brands.) While initially Verde- raised beef cattle were destined for the nearby markets of Fort Whipple, Camp Verde, and finally Jerome, the expansion of the railroads allowed for large- scale cattlemen to ship cattle in and out of Arizona Territory thus limiting reliance on local markets. Routes like the Munds Trail, later Schnebly Hill Road, enabled ranchers to drive their herds from the valley bottom up the steep incline of the Mogollon Rim. From there, some pushed on to Flagstaff, the Colorado Plateau town that served as the regional railroad connection since the 1882 arrival of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Railroads freed cattlemen from the vagaries of local consumers, but in turn subjected them to the whim of far- off markets in California, Kansas, and beyond. Ranchers whose cattle grazed the Verde s banks now sought to fulfill regional, territorial, and even nationwide demands. 36 By 1891, the governor s annual report documented 720,940 cattle in the Territory, but unofficial observers estimated the true number to be 1,500,000 head. The effects of this greedy exploitation of the region s water and vegetation resources was paid for during the droughts of and 1895, when the lack of rain in an already arid region combined with overgrazed grasslands and resulted in massive 36 After William Andrews Clark founded the smelter town of Clarkdale in 1912, the Verde Valley Railroad, a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, offered an alternative shipping point for local ranchers. George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, 2013; Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, 2013; Lisa, Schnebly Heidinger, Janeen Trevillyan, and the Sedona Historical Society, Images of America: Sedona (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007), 49, 59; Thomas Paradis, Theme Town: A Geography of Landscape and Community in Flagstaff, Arizona (Lincoln, NE: iuniverse, 2003), 77;William Cowan, Images of America: Verde Valley (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2011), 74,

55 cattle death tolls. 37 According to a bulletin released by the University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station in 1910, many parts of the Territory experienced losses of 25 to 50 percent, with the survivors being so weak as to require another season to recover. 38 The land, however, did not regenerate on so short a time scale. The Verde River, once able to release its energy across the floodplain, now down cut into its banks. Just as the prairies succumbed to the siren call of Chicago markets, the thick native grasses, stands of cottonwood, and beaver dams that once identified the banks and marshes around the river were transformed into a hybridized agri- industrial landscape defined by the exploitation of its natural resources. Tensions, Troubles, and Tilling the Soil As the number of cattle increased in the Verde Valley, conflicts escalated between Anglos and Native Americans. Growing numbers of white settlers interrupted nomadic migration patterns and provided competition for resources, land, and cultural dominance. A year after Wales Arnold established his homestead in 1864, Anglo farmers in the Verde Valley appealed to the federal government for protection from raids by Native American residents as well as assistance to remove them from the prime farmland. In response to the settlers pleas, the First Arizona Volunteer Infantry dispatched in the fall of 1865 to halt depredations by the Apaches. Anglos hoped that the establishment of a military post called Camp Lincoln (later called Camp Verde and then Fort Verde) would intimidate the previous residents of the land to give up their ties, but white Arizonans remained 37 Sheridan, Arizona, John James Thornber, The Grazing Ranges of Arizona, bulletin of the University of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station, Tucson, no. 65 (1910),

56 compelled to march out to plow, sow, or reap, armed with rifle, pistol, and bowie knife to ward off unexpected attacks and to protect their crops from the now starving and displaced Yavapai- Apache. 39 In addition to conflicts over ownership of the valley, Anglo settlers suffered from difficulties associated with homesteading, such as lack of medical care, loneliness, and endless physical labor. Malaria was a serious threat and remained prevalent in the bottomlands, which also were the best farming areas, until the denuding of the riverbanks by stock contributed to the incision of the river, at which point malaria was not heard of anymore. 40 Until that time, however, the establishment of Anglo agricultural communities was wrought with challenges. Dr. Edward Palmer, a botanist accompanying the Volunteer Infantry, wrote: I can say that farming in the Rio Virde [sic]will never be my choise (sic). Some disheartened settlers left the Valley under the most trying circumstance, broken in fortunes and spirits and with the loss of many months of hard labour amid continued fear and anxiety for life and property [which] rendered their stay in the valley the most wretched. After leaving, they could not be expected to recommend others to settle, as they had done, on the Virde. 41 As more Anglos moved in and the U.S. government contained the Yavapai- Apache in the nearby Rio Verde Reservation, established in 1873, the sense of place in the valley shifted as the fields of individual families overtook the more informal agricultural areas of the Yavapai- Apache. By 1879, the federal government renamed Camp Verde to Fort Verde to signify its more permanent status. Fort Verde joined 39 Palmer and Underhill, Experience with Arizona Volunteers, 43, Sedona Westerners, Those Early Days Palmer and Underhill, Experience with Arizona Volunteers,

57 Fort Whipple as a ready market for valley farmers and many settlers began to trade produce from their orchards and vegetable patches for dry goods at the sutler s store. 42 Digging Ditches: Making the Bottomland Bloom Since prehistoric times the purposeful manipulation of water, be it by check- dams, irrigation ditches, or aqueducts, has drastically transformed Arizona s landscape. In the Verde Valley, the construction of irrigation ditches allowed for some semblance of human control over a dynamic environment, allowing farmers the elusive power to consistently regulate water flow to their fields, pastures, and garden plots. As noted earlier in this chapter, native peoples practiced irrigation agriculture in the Verde Valley for more than six hundred years before the first Anglo agriculturalists entered the area. 43 The continual overlay of prehistoric Native American and historic Anglo agricultural efforts is especially noticeable at Montezuma s Well, a unique spring- fed limestone sinkhole located just upstream on Beaver Creek from what is now Montezuma s Castle National Monument. Though there are disputes about whether the Hohokam or the Sinagua peoples were the original builders of the Montezuma Well ditch, there is archeological evidence that the ancient ditch ran near the route of Beaver Creek Road between the Well and the current Beaver Creek Elementary School and was used to irrigate at least sixty acres of farmland. Wales Arnold 42 Fort Verde State Historic Park, Arizona State Parks, accessed April 7, 2013, Ayers, Camp Verde, 33, Schroeder, Sinagua of the Verde Valley, ; The oldest irrigation ditch in the Verde Valley, circa 1200 A.D., is still in active use. Steve Ayers, Irrigation Ditches of the Verde Valley, Verde Independent, June 30, 2009, accessed October 26, 2013, 49

58 claimed and homesteaded the land to the West of the Well in 1863, and used the creek to irrigate twenty acres of alfalfa he cultivated to sell at Fort Verde. William Back purchased parts of Arnold s property in 1889 and 1898, and used the ancient ditch to irrigate his family s vegetable garden, orchard, and pastures. A realignment of the ditch, likely carried out by Back, diverted the ditch to more closely parallel the southwest trend of Beaver Creek instead of its original northward trajectory. 44 Unlike the first ditch builders, who probably used the irrigation water to provide for more immediate kin, Back had regional markets in mind for his produce. A 1901 report on water and irrigation in the Verde Valley records that Back had a ready and constant market in Flagstaff for all he can raise on his 150 acres. 45 The integration of the Verde Valley into the market economy precipitated the expansion of agricultural infrastructure that, though founded on an ancient system of production, helped to increase the size of the farms and the scale of the hinterland. In his 1891 report Cosmos Mindeleff, ever the observant visitor, further discussed the relationship between prehistoric Native American and historic Anglo (he uses the terms modern and American ) agricultural settlements. Mindeleff wrote: All the modern settlements of the lower portion of the Verde Valley are located on terraces or benches, and such localities were also regarded favorably by the ancient builders, for almost invariably where a modern settlement is observed, traces of a former one will also be found [However,]the American settlements 44 Kayo Parsons- Korn, President of the nonprofit Friends of the Well, e- mail message to author, October 26, 2013; Omar Asa Tourney, Water and Irrigation on the Verde River and its Tributaries, Arizona (Cleveland: Cleveland Daily Record, 1901), Tourney, Water and Irrigation, 3. 50

59 are always made on the bottom lands themselves, while the aboriginal settlements are almost always located on high ground overlooking the bottoms. 46 The Anglo tendency to settle on the bottomlands is indicative of several things. Unlike their Native American predecessors, Anglos did not tend communal fields but purchased individual plots of land to build both their homes and their agricultural infrastructure. Similarly, once the federal government sanctioned the internment of the dispossessed Yavapai- Apache into the reservation system, Anglos had little use for the strategic, defensible positions that their predecessors sought on small hillocks and human- excavated caves called cavates. In addition, the relationship between Anglo agriculture in the valley and the expanding markets of military installations and mining communities encouraged agricultural pursuits on a larger scale than the valley had ever before supported. In order to fulfill market demand, Anglos in the Verde Valley became wedded to water drawn from the Verde and its tributary streams. 47 During the initial era of Anglo settlement in the Verde Valley, irrigation from live streams and rivers was fairly common throughout the Territory, as groundwater pumping was still in the early stages of development. Relying largely 46 Mindeleff, Aboriginal Remains, While dry- farming was seen in the late 1800s and early to mid 1900s as a promising means of turning the perceived wastes of Northern Arizona Territory into productive farmland, there is little evidence to suggest that Anglo farmers in the Verde Valley ever pursued un- irrigated agriculture on a large scale. Though the Arizona Agricultural Extension Service supported dry farming efforts near Prescott in 1911, most farmers in the Verde Valley sought to actively use the water resources that set their valley apart from its arid surroundings. Some families, however, did experiment with dry- farming; for example, in the 1920s the Willard family experimented with dry- farming in Red Canyon, near Sedona, and grew fine crops thanks to their soil conservation efforts and good rainfall. Richard A. Haney, College of Agriculture: A Century of Discovery (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona, 1985), 56; Bud Purtymun, Arch of Time: Sedona Oak Creek, (J Purtymun, 2002), ; Mindeleff, Aboriginal Remains,

60 on gravity to deliver the water, irrigation of the bottomlands was thus much more desirable, and much easier, than attempting to provide water to the high rocky terraces of the valley dryland hills. 48 In this vein, an editorial from 1866 proclaimed the agricultural value of the Verde bottoms is now beyond question. The soil is exceedingly fertile and easy to work [and has an] abundance of water in the river." 49 With constant and unwavering demand for their products, farmers quickly embraced irrigation as insurance against drought. Anglo settlers entered the valley during an era defined by its mindset founded on the improvement of native people, land, and agricultural technique. Irrigation was the means of increasing yields as well as transforming what was thought of as underutilized and wasted land into highly productive areas linked to the civilizing influences of the market. 50 The application of water via irrigation allowed for the introduction of non- native crops, such as eggplant, peas, and strawberries, that required more water to produce prize- winning fruit than the native climate could provide. 51 (See figures five and six for images showing the impressive results some valley residents achieved with the application of irrigation on improved varieties of traditional crops such as pumpkins and corn.) 48 One of the valley s earliest pump systems was located on the grounds of Camp Verde but was, however, still drawn from the Verde River itself. A steam pump drew water from the river to a hill- top tank where the pressurized water was then distributed by gravity to the post. Ayers, Camp Verde, 40; Haney, College of Agriculture, The Governor on the Verde, Arizona Miner, August 8, 1866, Haney, College of Agriculture, Verde Valley farmers received forty- eight prizes for best in show for these crops as well as prizes for sorghum, barley, wheat, onions, pears, and winter squash, among others, at the 1914 Northern Arizona Exposition. Products Premiums Awarded at Northern Arizona Exposition, Weekly Journal- Miner, October 28, 1914, 6. 52

61 Other introduced plants, however, quickly moved from the category of improved to pest. Some, like Johnson grass, were soon labeled as noxious weeds. Johnson grass (Sorghum halepense), likely introduced to the Verde Valley in the 1880s for fodder, was once claimed to be one of the most valuable of all the grasses and in this country, where the land can be irrigated, it will doubtless yield as much or more than alfalfa, and the quality of the hay is much better for working animals. 52 By 1890, however, valley residents identified the invasive habits of Johnson grass and its tendency to compete with crops and other forage. The grass followed the well- watered irrigation ditch banks, quickly colonized along the Verde River, and was later discovered to be toxic to livestock due to the presence of hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid) in its foliage. 53 It is telling of the extent of the problem that in May of 1933, Ralph E. Monroe of Camp Verde published a patent for a Johnson Grass Root Digger which is described as an agricultural machine for gathering for destruction roots of Johnson grass and other weeds and that is extremely effective 52 Alfalfa and Johnson Grass, Tombstone Epitaph, November 26, 1887, About Johnson Grass: Arizona Said to Be Too Dry to Nourish the Pest, Arizona Republican, February 8, 1901, 4; C. L. Rhykerd and K. D. Johnson, Minimizing the Prussic Acid Poisoning Hazards in Forages, Purdue University Agronomy Extension, accessed November 3, 2013, 53

62 Figure 5 Marksbury s prizewinning pumpkins grown near Camp Verde, date unknown. Aunt Molly Marksbury, photograph, Camp Verde Historical Society Archives. Figure 6 Belle and Esler Monroe in field of vigorous irrigated corn, Mr. & Mrs. Monroe in Tall Corn, photograph, Camp Verde Historical Society Archives. 54

63 in eradicating weed roots. 54 As time wore on, and settlers introduced more plants to the valley, irrigation ditches increasingly acted as corridors for invasive escapees to extend their reach. Though the fundamental purpose of these ditches was to mold the landscape into one more suitable for introduced crops, the alternative function of the ditches as conduits for invasive species and pollution from a growing human population ultimately had a huge impact on the Verde Valley landscape and its ecological health. The tension between the intended purpose of the irrigation system and its unforeseen functions is indicative of the Verde Valley s transformation into a hybrid landscape governed by both human and natural forces. In his book Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West, environmental historian Mark Fiege uses the concept of a hybrid environment to explain the interplay between environmental changes induced by the Anglo settlement and the ecological feedback they precipitated in the Snake River Valley in Idaho. Fiege argues that the attempts by humans to regulate and exploit nature through vast irrigation networks resulted in a landscape that was partially driven by human intervention and partly by what he calls natural forces (i.e. drought, pests, seepage from irrigation lines, etc.). Manual labor and human ingenuity never accomplished the complete mastery over nature that settlers sought. 54 Ralph E. Monroe, Johnson Grass Root Digger, U.S. Patent A, filed March 31, 1932, issued May 16, 1933, accessed November 3, 2013, d2uvawf6hoyahyvogyaw&ved=0cdcq6aewaa. 55

64 Instead of dominating nature completely, the Snake River Valley irrigation works unleashed a torrent of unintended ecological and social effects. Just as in the Verde Valley, the species that flourished along the Snake s anthropogenic waterways and unintended riparian areas were, as Fiege writes, integral to, and therefore ineradicable from, the irrigated landscape. 55 Similarly, the environmental changes in the Verde Valley during the initial Anglo- settlement phase resulted in a changed landscape that operated under the shared influences of humans and nature. The result in both the Snake River Valley and the Verde Valley was a hybrid landscape that was not fully natural nor completely under human control. 56 Such a landscape, however, required continuous and ongoing inputs of human labor in order to keep the more destructive forces of nature at bay. Every spring, roots, algae, and other organic materials had to be scraped and removed from the canals by pitchfork and horse- drawn spring- tooth harrows. 57 In addition to annual cleaning, the water demanded daily attention in order to distribute it from the main canal to the various laterals that ran off of it. Farmers participated in the daily ritual of opening and closing the head gates each day for certain amounts of 55 Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999), 44, 63, Fiege, Irrigated Eden, Today much of the annual maintenance work is completed using backhoes and other heavy machinery. Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, 2013; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19,

65 Figure 7 Satellite photo of the Verde Valley from Though the amount of irrigated acres dedicated to production farming has declined since the early days, this view still offers a glimpse of the areas in the Verde Valley with the highest concentration of irrigation ditches. Note how the thin green line of the Verde River, oriented northwest to southeast in the red trapezoid, increases in size in certain areas. Similarly, the area of Oak Creek just North of Cornville is also a wider strip of green. Irrigation ditches and their lateral channels disperse water previously concentrated in a few main waterways, resulting in expansion of hybrid riparian- agricultural areas. Google Earth image modified by author. 57

66 time depending on their water allotment, the needs of their crops, the needs of their upstream and downstream neighbors, and the weather. 58 The irrigated, hybrid landscape of the Verde Valley fostered its own set of social interactions to complete infrastructure maintenance and monitor the allocation of water to individuals. The result was the creation of cooperative ditch associations, which became a way of organizing valley communities. 59 In addition to providing some settlers their first means of employment in the valley, the digging of an irrigation ditch was often a primary act of landscape alteration pursued by Anglo settlers in the late nineteenth- century arid West. Because this activity required a large organized labor force, it subtly undermined the American ideal of individualism and provided a project that had the power to knit rootless new communities together. 60 In the 1899 Governor s Report to the Secretary of the Interior, the irrigation infrastructure of the Verde Valley, as the largest of its kind in Yavapai County, received attention: Approximately 60 per cent of the irrigated area of [Yavapai] county lies on the cooperative plan. Among the leading irrigation 58 As the Ditch Boss of the Cottonwood Ditch, Andy Groseta coordinates and monitors the annual cleaning. Ditch associations are only responsible for the cleaning of the main ditch. In the Verde Valley, annual spring cleaning usually occurs in March. Property owners and water users along the laterals are responsible for the maintenance of their spur. Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, Two of the Verde Valley residents interviewed for this thesis act as ditch presidents for two large valley irrigation channels. Andy Groseta, of the WDart Ranch in Cottonwood, volunteers as President of the Cottonwood Ditch Association while Bob Kovacovich, of Camp Verde, is President of the OK Ditch. Groseta and Kovacovich both inherited the position of ditch president from their fathers. Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, 2013; George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, Ruth F. Jordan, Following their Westward Star: An Oral History, Photos and Paintings of Arizona s Verde Valley and Sedona s Red Rock Country (Sedona, AZ: Sedona Heritage Publishing, 2012), 18; Fiege, Irrigated Eden, 79,

67 systems are the Verde Canal, which is 15 miles long, cost about $20,000, and irrigated 1,500 acres; the Lower Verde, 15 miles long, cost $12,000, irrigated 900 acres; the Reservation ditch, 7 miles long, cost $5,000, irrigated 1,000 acres; and the Central Verde, O.K., Pioneer, Eureka, Fain & Co., and Tipton ditches, all cooperative properties in this district. 61 Though not all ditches were operated in a cooperative manner, the total number of ditches, and amount of irrigated land, increased dramatically in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1896, George Hance recorded thirty seven irrigating ditches that covered from a small farm of a few acres to several hundred acres, and vary in width from 2 to 12 feet, and are from 2 to 15 miles in length. Nearly every one of these ditches could be enlarged and extended, and would cover and could be made to irrigate double the quantity of land now under cultivation under each ditch, and will in time be utilized to their full capacity. 62 By 1905, a newspaper article identified sixty- seven ditches irrigating a total of 8,000 acres of fertile bottomland. Paralleling the expansion in agricultural infrastructure, the population of the valley similarly grew. Quoting the 1900 census, the same newspaper article tallied 1,512 white folks in the Verde Valley and expressed satisfaction that the population had steadily increased in the intervening years between the census and the article s publication Report of the Governor of Arizona to the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Offices, 1899), George Hance, "Verde Voice- An Interesting Discussion on School Matters," Arizona Weekly Journal Miner, May 5, 1896, Figures for the article were furnished by the census enumerator for 1900 and the present commissioner of irrigation for Yavapai County. This article was originally printed in the Prescott Courier and reprinted in the Bisbee Daily Review. Alfalfa Squealers, Bisbee Daily Review, December 3, 1905, 2. 59

68 The Territorial government and Verde Valley residents deemed irrigation essential to the success of not only the region s agricultural ambitions and local farmers, but also to the efforts to tame what was considered a wild and sometimes inhospitable frontier. Some boosters even went so far as to link irrigation in the Verde Valley to the creation of a regional railroad, the success of neighboring Coconino County, and the establishment of Flagstaff as a city. In a front- page editorial entitled Found a Farmer s Paradise from 1895, Wilson Hamilton, a resident of Flagstaff and an investor in the proposed Durango, Flagstaff, and San Diego Railroad Company, wrote with just a pinch of hyperbole: Flagstaff has some land nearby that produces good crops every year without irrigation but that quantity is limited in comparison to the large amount that they would produce with irrigation. The question of irrigating the Verde Valley is one of keen interest to all our citizens, and it has long been a subject of earnest consideration by all who have the growth and prosperity of Coconino and Flagstaff at heart. In fact it is an absolute necessity. We can't prosper without it. But with it every commercial, business and property interest of Flagstaff will be increased, as experience teaches, from fifty to a hundredfold. 64 Later that year, in a public letter between Mayor David Babbitt of Flagstaff and Wilson Hamilton, the railroad itself was presented as the means to open a country more fruitful in mining and agricultural products, thus resulting in the complete irrigation of the Oak Creek and Verde Valleys. 65 The mutualistic relationship between that particular railroad and Verde agriculture, as painted in these articles, failed to thrive as the Durango, Flagstaff, and San Diego Railroad never materialized. 64 Wilson Hamilton, Found a Farmer s Paradise: A Writer s Impressions of the Verde Valley Portrayed in Graphic Style, The Coconino Weekly Sun, January 10, 1895, David Babbitt, Should be Outspoken Friends: Says Mayor Babbitt of the Durango, Flagstaff, and San Diego Railroad," The Coconino Weekly Sun, April 11, 1895, 2. 60

69 The articles also, however, illustrate the importance of the Verde Valley s agricultural products as essential parts of the food hinterland in a region where resource- driven boomtowns expanded quickly in population. As the Verde Valley grew into its role as a regional market supplier, canals increasingly dissected the valley s riverine ecosystems. Irrigated pastures and gardens full of introduced plants drew water away from the main water channels, creating a hybrid landscape governed by human attempts to regulate the environment and the environment s adaptations to the anthropogenic changes. Lure of the Mines: Hinterland as Devil s Bargain Almost as soon as the creation of new farming communities and the expansion of agricultural infrastructure shifted the Anglo conception of the Verde Valley s identity from wilderness to productive farmland, that identity was soon under attack by the entrance of the next big industry: copper production. Thus began an era of devil s bargains for the Verde Valley. 66 The growth of the mining industry brought better transportation, electricity, and demand for agricultural products but simultaneously decreased the valley s already- limited autonomy and created a legacy of environmental pollution that threatened residents and their livelihoods. 66 In his book Devil s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth- Century American West, Hal Rothman examines the costs and benefits of the growth of the tourism industry in the western states. He uses the term devil s bargain to refer to the ill effects experienced by towns reliant on tourist dollars and the inability of those towns to redirect their economy towards different industries. Just as in towns dependent on tourist dollars, the Verde Valley similarly benefited and lost key elements of its identity, autonomy, and ecological health due to its relationship to the United Verde Copper Co. and the United Verde Extension. Hal K. Rothman, Devil s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth- Century American West (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998). 61

70 Albert Sieber made the first claim in the Jerome mining district in 1877 and named it Verde not, according to a publication by the Arizona Department of Mineral Resources, due to the cottonwood- lined river meandering in the valley below but because of the green carbonate stain that colored the rock. 67 In the act of naming his claim, Sieber foreshadowed the growing tensions between the mining industry and the valley agriculturalists that would blossom, a few decades later, into a divisive struggle for control over the valley s landscape and sense of place. In 1885 a journalist wrote that, in comparison with the surrounding country, it would seem that in [the Verde Valley s] formation nature had exhausted itself of all the good qualities which it bestowed on the most favored lands created by its power, and the result was the creation of a paradise in a comparative desert. 68 Contemporaneous sources expound the valley s rich fluvial soil, agricultural possibilities, and the presence of smiling little farms flourishing along the Verde and its tributaries. 69 Four years later, 2,500 people lived in Jerome. Its incorporation on March 9, 1899, led to a distinct shift in the region s sense of place and identity. From then on it was copper, not crops, that put the valley on the map Frank J. Tuck, Stories of Arizona Copper Mines: The Big Low- grades and the Bonanzas (Phoenix: Arizona Department of Mineral Resources, 1957), Our Cattle Interests, Charles F. Lummis, Strange Corners of Our Country, St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young People XIX (May October 1892): 702; Hamilton, Found a Farmer s Paradise, Jerome Incorporated, The St. John s Herald, March 18, 1899, 1. 62

71 ~From Crops to Copper~ Farmers initially considered the opening of the United Verde mine in Jerome to be a boon in a time of social and economic reorientation for the West. The end of the Indian Wars brought a drawdown of military installations in Arizona, and resulted in the closure of posts such as Fort Verde. The boom of a nearby mining town filled the economic void left by the retreating military and assured farmers a good market that was more easily accessible than the other important population centers of Prescott and, later, Flagstaff. 71 By 1894 individual mining claims scattered around Cleopatra Hill and Mingus Mountain, located in the Black Hills, gave way to corporate control and the incorporated United Verde mine gained notoriety as one of the great copper mines in Arizona Territory. 72 The excitement of the boom was contagious, and reverberated through the farming communities on the valley floor. Six years later, in a report to the Secretary of the Interior, the territorial governor of Arizona reported: The demand for [Verde Valley] products is greater than its supply a fact which is proven in the price paid for hay, grain, fruits, and farm produce, each of the above commodities ranging in price in near- by markets from 25 per cent to as high as 50 cents over that shipped in from outside points. 73 With many fields already cleared and most of the irrigation networks in place, valley farmers were primed to take ultimate advantage of the budding relationship with Jerome which, due to its mountain- side placement, relied on imported goods and 71 Sedona Westerners, Those Early Days 166; Untitled, closure of Fort Verde by Secretary of War, Mohave County Miner, October 25, 1890, accessed October 31, 2013, 25/ed- 1/seq- 2/. 72 Tuck, Stories of Arizona Copper, Agriculture and Kindred Pursuits, Report of the Governor of Arizona,

72 foodstuffs. Valley farmers traveled up treacherous mountain roads to deliver fresh meat and live chickens to the numerous boarding houses, hay for the horses and mules working the mine, and sold squash, apples, and other produce out of wagons parked on the busy streets. Other farmers augmented their vegetables with meat sales, including live chickens, hunks of ham, mutton, beef, and live turkeys. Though the trip to market from a Camp Verde farm to Jerome often took more than twenty- four hours round trip, the high prices and assured sales made the trek worth the effort. 74 The year 1894, however, also brought ore- roasting heaps and a mountainside smelter in Jerome that dispersed their poisonous smoke over the Black Hills bordering the valley s right bank. 75 During this period overharvesting of wood and toxic emissions from the smelter and roast heaps destroyed a majority of the native vegetation of Woodchute Mountain, such as Ponderosa pine and juniper (see Figure 8 for image showing original vegetation- type found in Jerome, and figures 9 and 10 for denuded hills of Jerome). The toxic emissions are an important contributor to the landscape left behind by the mining industry s presence in the Verde Valley. Roasting and smelting copper are integral parts of the refining process that transforms large quantities of ore into percent pure copper necessary 74 George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, Tuck, Stories of Arizona Copper, 72; for a detailed discussion of the evolution of mine ownership near Jerome, turn to Chapter Two: The United Verde Copper Company and the United Verde Extension, A Tale of Two Empires, in Christine Beard s thesis Smoke Men,

73 for efficient electrical transfer and other applications (see Appendix B for a more detailed technical explanation of the copper refining process). 76 Because the refining process necessarily reduces the large amount of impurities often intermixed with raw ore, in which copper is only one in a complex of other materials, it is much more efficient to ship refined copper to far- away markets than to send gigantic quantities of ore. The ore coming out of the mines around Jerome contained a great deal of sulfur, between 15 and 32 percent, of which the majority had to be removed before the ore could be economically smelted. 77 Heap roasting provided the means for burning out much of the sulfur before it entered the smelters. Sulfur, which is highly combustible and responsible for many underground fires including one in the United Verde Copper Company mines that burned for twenty years, undergoes a chemical reaction and turns into sulfur dioxide (SO2) when exposed to heat and oxygen. Other impurities found in the ore are released as volatile oxides. 78 These oxides, and sulfur dioxide in particular, were responsible for the toxic qualities of the smelter smoke capable of killing plants, inhibiting future plant growth, and causing respiratory ailments. When exposed to moisture, typically 76 Woodchute Mountain is further discussed in Chapter One; City Collegiate, Metallurgy of Copper, accessed September 3, 2013, 77 Armour Institute of Technology, Roasting Copper Ore, The Technical World Magazine (March, 1911): Midge Steuber and the Jerome Historical Society Archives, Images of America: Jerome (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2008), 82; City Collegiate, Metallurgy of Copper, accessed September 3, 2013, 65

74 Figure 8 Drawing circa 1880 showing transportation routes, mining activity, and an early smelter in Jerome. Note the vegetated state of Cleopatra hill, complete with Ponderosa pines, in contrast to the denuded and disturbed ground around the settlements. As the town grew and mining activities increased, so did the disturbed area. Compare this image to the photographs shown in figures 9 and 10. Drawing of Original United Verde Smelter and Mine Buildings, drawing, from Jerome Historical Society Archives, HVY ; This image is also found in Diann Ellen Peart, The Spatial Distribution and Land Use Association of Ailanthus Altissima in Jerome, Arizona (M.A. Thesis, Arizona State University, 1988), 4. 66

75 Figure 9 Smoke from the United Verde Smelter in Jerome, circa Note the lack of vegetation on the surrounding hillsides, a result of overharvesting of wood, toxic fumes, and extensive disturbance. United Verde Smelter, photograph (Los Angeles, CA: West Coast Arts Co., c. 1909), Panoramic Photographs, from Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, accessed November 4, 2013, Figure 10 Portion of a panoramic photo of the Verde Valley taken from the Jerome town site, circa Note the smoking smelter stack on the right; the new town of Clarkdale sits directly under the smoke cloud that slowly floats down river towards Cottonwood and Camp Verde. The snow- covered San Francisco Peaks, near Flagstaff, are just visible on the left horizon. For complete photo, please see the Library of Congress digital photograph collection. Albin N. Aveldson, The Verde Valley from Jerome, Ariz., , photograph (Los Angeles, CA: West Coast Arts Co., c. 1916), Panoramic Photographs, from Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, accessed November 4, 2013, 67

76 from dew or rain, sulfur dioxide becomes sulfuric acid. 79 One valley resident remembered the dire warnings from his father, a metallurgical engineer at the United Verde Copper Company (UVCC), telling him to never wear a wet handkerchief over his mouth. This colloquial method of dealing with the smoke could present dangerous repercussions to the wearer when the sulfur smoke reacted with the moistened cloth. 80 In 1912, the UVCC was in the midst of relocating its mountainside smelter from Jerome to the Verde Valley. Driven by the discovery of a large ore body located directly beneath the Jerome smelter, as well as pressure to increase production, the UVCC cannibalized its original structures. The company then constructed a modernized smelting complex, and the company town of Clarkdale, along the right bank of the Verde River and near the town s segregated ethnic Mexican community called Patio Park. The first Clarkdale smelter began operations in 1915, but due to the valley location of the new stacks, pollutants no longer dissipated over mountain ranges as they had in Jerome. Instead, airborne waste settled in the flood plain, poisoning the town, its local food supply, and the larger environment. 81 ~Fighting the Smelter Smoke~ Due to its location between the Black Hills and the steep incline of the Mogollon Rim, the Verde Valley often experiences an inversion of the atmosphere, 79 Beard, Smoke Men, Helen Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital: Culture in an Industrial Western Company Town, Clarkdale, Arizona, (PhD diss., Northern Arizona University, 2008), 59; Interview with Dr. James Byrkit, Ecological Oral Histories Collection, NAU. 81 Eric L. Clements, After the Boom in Tombstone and Jerome, Arizona: Decline in Western Resource Towns (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2003), 49; Interview with Dr. James Byrkit, Ecological Oral Histories Collection, NAU. 68

77 which traps cool air within the valley walls underneath a cap of warmer air. This phenomenon inhibits the dissipation of airborne pollutants into the atmosphere, and sometimes resulted in the smelter smoke being caught on the valley floor until the wind direction and temperature shifted. In an effort to combat the propensity of the smelter smoke to hang over the valley, the UVCC constructed a massive smokestack that emitted pollutants hundreds of feet into the air. The first UVCC smelter located in Clarkdale, completed in 1913, was a 400- foot, 450 ton steel tower that measured fifty feet in diameter at the base and thirty at the top. Unfortunately for the company, the corrosive nature of the sulfuric acid began to weaken the structure very quickly, leading to the construction of the taller and more stable brick stack. This second brick stack was thirty feet taller than the steel one in a final effort to emit the smoke far above valley towns and farms. At 430 feet, it was the tallest structure in Arizona at its completion in 1922, but even that great height was not sufficient to eliminate the presence of smoke during an inversion. 82 The establishment of the United Verde Extension Company s (UVX) town of Clemenceau, near Cottonwood, and its corresponding smelter in 1918 further exacerbated the pollution problems Smelter statistics taken from a photograph caption in the Fort Verde State Park archives, 1913, in top of steel smokestack at Clarkdale, AZ, photograph, VV- 64, Fort Verde State Historic Park Archives; interview with Dr. James Byrkit, Ecological Oral Histories Collection, NAU; Article from the Arizona Republic, October 28, 1966, as cited in Isabel J. Simmons, ed., Cottonwood, Clarkdale, and Cornville History (Cottonwood, AZ: Cottonwood Chapter 2021, American Association of Retired Persons, 1984), Home Page, Clemenceau Heritage Museum, accessed March 15, 2013, Interview with Dr. James Byrkit, Ecological Oral Histories Collection, NAU. 69

78 When an inversion did occur and the smoke came down to the valley floor, the sulfur dioxide had dramatic effects on flora and fauna. 84 George Kovacovich, born in 1920 on a farm in Middle Verde, remembers the smoke coming into the valley during the early 1930s. Middle Verde, located in a bend on the left bank of the river and today included in the town of Camp Verde, is still home to the Kovacovich family. It was hard to breathe, George Kovacovich notes, and you could tell that there was something wrong. When he was about ten years old, Kovacovich remembers a field of alfalfa that was waiting to be cut by his father. Overnight, the smelter smoke descended on the valley, and ruined the Kovacovich alfalfa crop that turned as white as if it was frosted. 85 The smoke affected town folks, too. Jim Byrkit, who grew up in Clarkdale in the early 1930s, remarked if you look at pictures there is not a tree, there s no grass, there s no shrubs Even before there was a smelter in Clarkdale, Jerome s smelters were pumpin out stuff. Byrkit remembered that only the non- native chinaberry tree (Melia azedarach) was able to withstand the pollution. 86 As noted in Christine Beard s comprehensive exploration of the effects of sulfur dioxide on Verde Valley crops, SO 2 can affect plants acutely and chronically. 87 The alfalfa in Kovacovich s field exhibited acute sulfur dioxide poisoning, leading to the immediate ruination of a crop by destroying its foliage in a dramatic 84 Interview with Dr. James Byrkit, Ecological Oral Histories Collection, NAU. 85 George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, Interview with Dr. James Byrkit, Ecological Oral Histories Collection, NAU. 87 Beard, Smoke Men,

79 and visible fashion. By September of 1915 the Jordan family, a well- established farming family in the Verde Valley, experienced the smoke. Stella Jordan, on a farm near Bridgeport (near Cottonwood), noted in a diary entry from September 17, 1915, that temperatures are cooling a bit now I noticed a haze and a stench when I scattered feed and fetched the morning eggs. 88 Though the smoke was a health risk to those who lived in the valley towns, it was a direct assault on the health and the livelihood of those who made their living off the land. In response to these assaults on their livestock and land, 110 farmers in the Verde Valley organized the Verde Valley Protective Association in The United Verde Copper Company and United Verde Extension used their deep pockets to convince ninety seven of those farmers to sell their damaged farms to the companies, who then attached a smoke easement and resold the land at much reduced prices. The land was often resold to different families, some of whom may not have been able to afford the pre- smoke easement price and saw this as an opportunity to buy their first farm or add additional acreage to existing holdings. 90 Thirteen farmers, headed by the Jordans, refused to agree to the smoke- easements proposed by the companies and prepared for legal battle. This group of thirteen eventually took the case to the United States Supreme Court where, in 1925, they 88 Stella Jordan, diary, September 17, 1915, as published in Ruth F. Jordan, Following their Westward Star: An Oral History, Photos and Paintings of Arizona s Verde Valley and Sedona s Red Rock Country (Sedona, AZ: Sedona Heritage Publishing, 2012), Jordan, Westward Star, 100; Beard, Smoke Men, Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25,

80 Figure 11 Map of the Verde Valley, Arizona, Smoke District drawn in 1920 to accompany a report made by Alfred Atkinson. Atkinson spent part of the summer surveying valley farms for smoke damage accompanied by J.R. Marston of Clarkdale, an employee of UVCC. The Black Hills around Jerome are described as an area of slight general SO 2 [sulfur dioxide] injury ; the asterisks accompanied by capital letters are indicative of SO 2 trace detected at farms on the valley floor. Alfred Atkinson, Map of the Verde Valley Smoke District and a Report by Alfred Atkinson about Inspection of Farms in the Verde Valley District, 1920, 67665, United Verde Copper Company Collection , from Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff, accessed November 6, 2013, 72

81 finally won, but only received one- third of the requested settlement. 91 George Kovacovich remembers the story of a neighboring farmer, near the Kovacovich farm on Middle Verde Road, selling his acreage to the copper company for about $30,000. The company placed a smoke easement on the land, thus undermining the efforts of any future owners to sue the company for damages, and re- sold it for only $3, To Kovacovich, the buy- outs, smoke easements, and attempts to stay out of court only provided further proof that the UVCC and UVX knew that their smelting activities were seriously damaging crops in the Verde Valley. In addition to the smelter smoke, the dumping of smelter slag encroached on the Verde River and forced the river into a new channel that cut through one of the Jordan family s farms. The Kovacovichs, incensed by the actions of the companies, decided to sue for damages caused by the smoke. Though, after a lengthy trial, the judge ruled in the Kovacovich s favor, it could not be decided what the adequate compensation for damages would be, so the family did not receive any money from its victory. The Kovacovich farm site remains one of the few agricultural properties near Middle Verde that never acquired a smoke easement. 93 The interdependent yet often tense relationship between the mining industry and agriculturalists is one that played out across the western states and territories. 91 The courts awarded the thirteen farmers $33,000 in 1925, but the copper companies did not pay until Due to the delay, the courts added an additional 6% interest to the settlement amount. Jordan, Westward Star, 100, George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, 2013; Jordan, Westward Star, The smoke easements on neighboring properties remain in effect. Sally Jackson, discussion at the Clarkdale Historical Society and Museum, Clarkdale, Arizona, September 22, 2013; George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14,

82 One bulletin published by the Utah Agricultural Experiment Station in 1903 illustrates the universality of the devil s bargain relationship between mining and farming even in regions with different historical contexts. While Utah had a powerful agrarian sector, composed largely of Mormon settlements with direct ties to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter- day Saints and, thus, the governing State body, the bulletin illustrates an inherent predicament that also faced Verde Valley residents: The interests of all phases of mining ventures are furthered by the proximity of prosperous agricultural communities. Agriculture and mining, the two great industries of this region, are mutually helpful, and both aid in the development and growth of the State [yet] occasionally, the interests of these two industries clash. 94 ~A Devil s Bargain and a Copper Collar~ The clash between mining and farming could lead to intense battles for control over natural resources, but the mutual dependency of mine and farm necessitated the continuation of a relationship. In the Verde Valley, this symbiotic relationship often resulted in residents moving back and forth between a mining and agricultural identity in response to market forces that vacillated between pulling people off of the failing family farm or encouraged them to save their wages to purchase agricultural property. The Jerome mines, and their satellite smelter 94 Jared Farmer, On Zion s Mount: Mormons, Indians, and the American Landscape (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 221; John A. Widtsoe, "Bulletin No The Relation of Smelter Smoke to Utah Agriculture" (1903), Utah Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletins, paper 39, accessed November 5, 2013, 74

83 towns of Clarkdale and Clemenceau, acted as powerful magnets for newly arrived immigrants as well as eastern residents looking for new opportunity out West. 95 Though the first waves of Anglo settlers to the Verde Valley were farmers and those attached to the military post, by the early 1900s the mining industry became the main draw. The start of World War One dramatically increased demand for copper, which in turn resulted in ramped- up production and need for a larger workforce. In June of 1916, a special newspaper correspondence described the population of Jerome as increasing by 800 to 1,000 residents during the previous twelve months, while the country around Jerome increased by 500. Clarkdale s population was similarly noted to be steadily increasing with a present population of 2, As is typical of a traditional community based on a boom- and- bust extractive industry, however, the population of Jerome was often transitory and impermanent. Though the efforts of the mining companies to hire married men may have helped to quell the drifter tendency, many passed through the twisting streets of the boom town just long enough to save enough money to move on to somewhere else. 97 Some of those miners, like Nick Kovacovich, father of George Kovacovich interviewed for this project, and Paul Tavasci Sr., were initially attracted to the area by family members and friends who wrote letters filled with promises of jobs and good wages but who ultimately viewed their mining jobs as temporary. Both men 95 Clements, After the Boom, 60-61, 149, ; George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, Population in Verde Valley is Increasing, Weekly Journal- Miner, June 7 th, 1916, Clements, After the Boom, 155,

84 used their saved wages to eventually move their families to the Verde Valley, Nick Kovacovich to a farm near Middle Verde in 1916 and Paul Tavasci Sr. to the UVCC- sponsored Clarkdale Dairy twelve years later in Acknowledging that immigrant families rarely had the means to fund a large- scale dairy project without assistance, Charles Clark, son of Clarkdale s namesake William Andrews Clark, leased 250 acres near the Tuzigoot ruins to the Tavascis and their Italian- American partners, the Mariannis and the Rezonnicos. Together the three families ran the Clarkdale Dairy, one of six in the Verde Valley that provided milk and cream to Jerome and towns in the valley. Seed money from Clark funded the construction of outbuildings and the families worked cooperatively to construct irrigation ditches and, simultaneously, drain the nearby marsh (now called Tavasci Marsh). The partnership lasted until 1946, when the Tavasci family bought out their partners. Riding through the takeover of UVCC by the Phelps Dodge Corporation, and even the end of the copper era, it was one of the last commercial dairies in the Verde Valley until it closed in The dairies also created secondary markets for hay and grain for the cows as well as additional agricultural jobs. Some farming and ranching families, such as the 98 The patriarch of another prominent valley family, the Grosetas, also worked in the Jerome mines from 1906 until Phillip Wright, Andy Groseta Takes Reins of AZ Cattle Grower s, The Verde Independent, July 21, 2011, accessed October 31, 2013, George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, 2013; John Tavasci Sr., interview conducted by author, digital recording, Clarkdale, Arizona, October 7, John Tavasci Sr., interview conducted by author, digital recording, Clarkdale, Arizona, October 7, 2013; The National Park Service commissioned a special report of Tavasci Marsh, and the Clarkdale Dairy, in It provides a detailed description of changes to the area s landscape, land- use, and inhabitants. United States Department of the Interior. Tuzigoot National Monument: Tavasci Marsh Special History Study by William Stoutamire. National Park Service, Intermountain Cultural Resource Management, Santa Fe, Accessed January 7, tavasci_marsh_final_3_8_11.pdf. 76

85 Grosetas of Bridgeport, handily added to their income by selling alfalfa to neighboring dairies. Conversely, other farmers sought employment in the mines and smelters. Carl Godard, whose family lived on 212 acres near Camp Verde High School, moved off of the farm to work at the Clarkdale smelter in 1939, then owned by the Phelps Dodge Mining Corporation, but continued to shoe and break horses and cowboy for Pete Groseta on the WDart Ranch. 100 The narratives of Verde Valley families such as the Kovacovichs, Tavascis, and Godards express the web of interrelation between the valley agriculturalists and the markets they served. In her collection of memoirs and oral histories, Ruth F. Jordan notes: Undeniably, the success of [the Jordan family s] agricultural enterprises was linked to the phenomenon of Jerome. When Clark s United Verde Copper Company was being sued by the Jordan Family and other families in the valley for smelter smoke damages to their crops, the company s agricultural experts liked to point out that the mining community was the chief farmer s market in the region and the reason for the growth of farming. 101 Ironically, the very places that supported valley agriculture through consumer demand also provided immense environmental and economic pressures that threatened the very existence of nearby farms, leading to the re- creation of the Verde Valley as an agri- industrial landscape. The hinterland status of the valley 100 Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, 2013; Don Godard, Carol and Don Godard, Cornville, Arizona, unpublished memoir in author s collection; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, Jordan, Westward Star,

86 forged a copper collar that inextricably bound valley farms into a symbiotic relationship with the growth of the mining and smelting industries. 102 The Verde Valley s role as a hinterland resulted in a copper collar of a different sort. This collar blurred any remaining division between the industrial areas and the agricultural communities in the sense that tangible elements of the mining and smelting industries literally etched the landscapes of these non- industrial areas, yellowing orchards and turning green fields of alfalfa into frosted waste. Though the smoke damage suits created tension between the smelter towns and the surrounding farms, the flow of labor between them continued to bind the communities together until the closure of the smelter. When Phelps Dodge, having entered the valley in 1935 after buying out the United Verde Copper Company, decided in the late 1940s that the Jerome mine was exhausted, it began the shutdown process and finally closed the mine and Clarkdale smelter in By this point, both the valley s farming culture and its ecological landscape bore the scars of almost a hundred years of market reorientation and resource exploitation. The End of the Era The introduction of livestock, the construction of irrigation ditches, and the destruction of vegetation by smelter smoke are all indications of the Verde Valley s 102 The copper collar, a term coined by Verde Valley resident and scholar Dr. James Byrkit, originally referred to the power possessed by the copper companies, specifically regarding wages and workers rights, throughout the region in Arizona s late- territorial and early- statehood days. James Byrkit, Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona s Labor Management War of (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1982). 103 Helen Palmer Peterson s thesis Landscapes of Capital incorrectly states the final depth of the mine at 47,000 feet, but a more accurate figure is 4,500 feet. Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital, 174; Lon Abbott, Terri Cook, Geology Underfoot in Northern Arizona (Missoula, Montana: Mountain Press Publishing, 2007),

87 status as an agri- industrial hinterland. In each example, the market demanded something from the Verde Valley and the residents responded; in each case, the process of demand and supply initiated a feedback loop of landscape change that transformed the valley s sense of place. This interconnection between industry, urbanization, and agriculture resonates with the argument put forth by William Cronon in his book Nature s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West in which he argues for an ecosystem- type understanding of the links between urban and rural. Valley farms must be reimagined not as pastoral, rural places but rather as parts of the economic and ecological hinterland for the people and industries nourished by valley resources. 104 After the closure of the mines and smelters, the Verde Valley once again reoriented towards new markets. The growing population centers of Flagstaff, Prescott, and Phoenix now exerted a greater force on valley residents and land use. Agriculture, while remaining a visible part of the landscape, was increasingly under threat from expanded transportation access that brought with it tourism and suburbanization. The legacy landscape of industrial and agricultural extraction became an invisible landscape, a tangible history that was often bulldozed, labeled as ugly, or simply ignored. The following chapter examines these contemporary changes in the landscape and the cultural and economic implications associated with shifts in land use and development. 104 Cronon, Nature s Metropolis, 97,

88 Chapter Three When the Smoke Cleared: Copper Bust and the Post- Industrial Landscape, When we change the shape of the Land, we alter the contents and contexts of our collective, familial, and personal memories If the Land can be preserved long enough for its stories to be told, and retold, perhaps we all as custodians of both place and memory stand a chance at real preservation. -Ari Berk 1 With the exhaustion of the Jerome mines, the miasma of smelter smoke that hung over the Verde Valley lifted. The disappearance of the smoke was bittersweet; it once threatened the valley s farms and divided neighbors through ugly litigation, but the sulfurous cloud also symbolized industrial prosperity, and its absence signaled economic uncertainty. Without the guidance of the copper companies, the hierarchy that once molded the valley s economy, social interactions, and landscape crumbled. 2 Ironically, the departure of the smoke complicated and obscured the valley s sense of place as an agri- industrial hinterland. While the previous chapter focused on the establishment of and relationship between market- based agriculture and extractive industry in the Verde Valley, this 1 Ari Berk Dot Com, Ari Berk, accessed November 17, 2013, 2 While the United Verde Extension did not regulate its company town of Clemenceau as completely as the United Verde Extension maintained its town of Clarkdale, it should be recognized that the power of the employers over their employees significantly affected the structure of copper- era politics and society. As mentioned in the previous chapter, farmers were often similarly bound in hierarchical relationships with the copper companies. Many farmers worked sporadically in the mines or smelter to augment the family cash flow. Farmers also relied upon the markets created by the booming copper towns. Helen Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital: Culture in an Industrial Western Company Town, Clarkdale, Arizona, (PhD diss., Northern Arizona University, 2008), 2, 11-14; Eric L. Clements, After the Boom in Tombstone and Jerome, Arizona: Decline in Western Resource Towns (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2003),

89 chapter charts the reorganization of the valley economy after the closure of the Clarkdale smelter in 1953 to the demolition of the symbolic smokestack in I argue that the end of the copper era challenged the Verde Valley s established agri- industrial sense of place, replacing it with a less definitive, unified identity. The declining presence of the United Verde Copper Company (UVCC) and United Verde Extension (UVX) created a power vacuum that reduced the valley s fairly stable identity to a hazy post- industrial sense of place loosely defined by decline, reorientation, and adaptation. 3 To understand these changes as they transformed the valley s identity and physical landscape, this chapter is divided into several sections that touch upon major contributing factors and their effects. The first engages the term sense of place as it applies to the Verde Valley s post- copper void. Next I explore the declining prominence of extractive industry in the Verde Valley, with particular focus on the creation of a dynamic post- industrial landscape. In this period between 1953 and 1966, symbols of the industrial prowess of the Verde Valley disintegrated, from both benign neglect and active destruction, while the introduction of new vegetation altered the look of disturbed and polluted areas. 4 Finally, I examine the entrance of a new industry, cement production, that helped to reverse the valley s 3 Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; John Tavasci Sr., interview conducted by author, digital recording, Clarkdale, Arizona, October 7, Interview with Dr. James W. (Jim) Byrkit, NAU.OH , Ecological Oral Histories Collection, 2005, Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff. 81

90 economic hemorrhaging and spark a new era of development. 5 Yet even this promising industry, however, failed to define the valley s sense of place as copper extraction once had. Shattered Senses of Place The term sense of place is a surprisingly abstract idea to refer to the emotional association with sights, sounds, and smells affiliated with a location. Tim Cresswell, a scholar of human geography and history, writes that it refers to the "more nebulous meanings associated with a place: the feelings and emotions a place evokes. Cresswell further argues that it can be individual, based upon a personal biography, or shared, in which case it is based on mediation and representation. 6 A shared sense of place can define a community by creating a cohesive and unifying narrative that knits its members together. Conversely, disjointed and competing associations can transform a location into a contested space, with multiple groups vying for control over its identity and, as historian Hal Rothman would say, its soul. 7 The arrival of large corporate copper companies in the mid- 1890s challenged the established agrarian soul of the Verde Valley. As the UVCC and UVX accumulated more power over the region, the copper companies constructed a new agri- industrial identity for the valley. This dualistic sense of place united existing 5 Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, Emphasis added. Tim Cresswell, Place (Blackwell Publishing, 2004), accessed January 17, 2014, 7 Rothman, Devil s Bargains,

91 farmers in a hinterland relationship with the industrial markets of Jerome and its satellite smelter towns. This association was sometimes tense but always strong, and operated on a framework often driven by the needs and desires of the influential UVCC and UVX. The litigation surrounding the smelter smoke suits strengthened this connection. The copper companies solution of placing smoke easements on valley agricultural land legally bound farm fields to the mining companies and thus cemented a hybrid sense of place that was neither completely industrial nor completely rural. 8 The closure of the mines and smelters muddled the clear sense of place forged by the mutual needs of Verde Valley farmers and the copper companies. The fraying of the copper collar that bound the Verde Valley communities together plunged the regional economy, and identity, into chaos during the early 1950s. 9 Residents remember this as an era of hard times, one without the reassuring presence of hegemonic corporations to fuel the valley economy and provide an identity. It was unclear what would replace the Verde Valley s shattered agri- industrial soul and landscape Frank J. Tuck, Stories of Arizona Copper Mines: The Big Low- grades and the Bonanzas (Phoenix: Arizona Department of Mineral Resources, 1957), 70; Christine Dickson Beard, Smoke Men on the Hill: The Environmental Effects of Smelter Pollution in the Verde Valley, Arizona, , (M.A. Thesis, Northern Arizona University, 1990); Jordan, Following their Westward Star, James Byrkit, Forging the Copper Collar: Arizona s Labor Management War of (Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1982). 10 Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; John Tavasci Sr., interview conducted by author, digital recording, Clarkdale, Arizona, October 7, 2013; George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, 2013; Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25,

92 Economic Decline and the Creation of a Post-Industrial Landscape After the 19th century introduction of non- native plants and animals, the creation of irrigation networks, the construction of homesteads, and the installation of fencing, the pace of agricultural- induced landscape changes in the Verde Valley slowed. By the late 1800s and early 1900s, settlers established many of the fundamental elements of the valley s Anglo- agrarian landscape, and further agricultural changes, such as the expansion of irrigated orchards and introduction of nonnative plants, tended to follow as variations upon these themes. 11 In contrast, the rise to prominence of copper conspired to fundamentally change the look and feel of the valley while, similarly, the industry s fall transformed an active area into a post- industrial legacy landscape. 12 Like most single- industry towns, Jerome weathered several cycles of boom and bust before its final demise. Historian Eric Clements explores in great detail the community's physical and psychological disintegration during the bust. Reduced demand for copper during the Great Depression lowered prices and made mining uneconomical. Clements suggests Jerome limped along, ultimately losing more than half of its population between 1930 and For those that remained, the town imposed a high tax in an attempt to stabilize the town, only to see homeowners instead abandon or dismantle their houses. Other structures succumbed to arson or subsidence, a common occurrence in a town undercut by 11 Steve Ayers, Irrigation Ditches of the Verde Valley, Verde Independent, June 30, 2009, accessed October 26, 2013, =1029&ArticleID= Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital,

93 extensive tunneling. Phelps Dodge subsumed the bankrupt United Verde Copper Company (UVCC) into its holdings in 1935 as the United Verde Branch. The United Verde Extension (UVX), worse off than UVCC, simply closed in 1939 and then demolished its smelter in Clemenceau with little fanfare. More than a decade before Phelps Dodge finally closed the United Verde Branch in 1953, Jerome's population loss and decimated built environment made it look like and feel like a ghost town. A final blow came when Phelps Dodge shut the town's company- owned hospital and library just before closing the Branch, a loss that symbolized the town s reliance on industrial patrons and its impending death. 13 In an interesting twist that illustrates a point of connection between Verde Valley farmers and the regional copper industry, some farmers bought (or salvaged ) building components from the town, mines, and smelters for agricultural reuse. Despite the fact that the smelter smoke forced the Jordan family into a long legal battle against UVCC, family members trucked windows taken from company buildings in Jerome to install in their fruit packing shed. After the owners of the Verde Central mine announced that it was slated to close, the Jordans purchased almost three thousand feet of pipe to improve the irrigation system for their orchard on Oak Creek. Other farmers incorporated lumber and scrap metal into their homes and outbuildings, and many repurposed mining equipment for farm and ranch use. The act of dispersing outdated or unneeded mining equipment to valley farmers had its precedent in an earlier era when the copper companies updated their infrastructure. For example, when the United Verde Copper Company 13 Clements, After the Boom, 14-15, 45, 90, ,

94 decided to mechanize its mule- drawn ore transfer system, the Tavasci family took three teams of mules from Jerome to use on its Clarkdale Dairy. John Tavasci Sr. remembers riding the mules down the mountain with his father and brother, and how much the extra horsepower helped the family s business. As a young boy, he used the teams to plow, cultivate, and harvest produce as well as alfalfa needed for their growing dairy herd. 14 By the late 1940s and early 1950s, the deconstruction and salvaging of the industrial landscape served as a powerful indicator of the copper companies economic decline. Jerome's slow hemorrhaging resulted in a role reversal of its urban- rural hinterland relationship with the Verde Valley and the surrounding region. Instead of Jerome acting as a powerful magnet for people and goods, its residents and infrastructure now scattered across the country. Many mine employees moved on to the fledgling defense industries in California, a trend that led scholar Eric Clements to remark World War II may have actually accelerated [Jerome s] decline by luring families toward better paid, and often safer war- related work. 15 The relocation of entire houses served as another powerful symbol of Jerome s decline. Some families, still feeling the effects of the Depression and spurred by supply shortages during the Second World War, dismantled their homes 14 Site visit to the Sedona Heritage Museum, February 18, 2013, Sedona, Arizona; Helen Jordan, diary entry, as published in Ruth F. Jordan, Following their Westward Star: An Oral History, Photos and Paintings of Arizona s Verde Valley and Sedona s Red Rock Country (Sedona, AZ: Sedona Heritage Publishing, 2012), ix, 93; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; John Tavasci Sr., interview conducted by author, digital recording, Clarkdale, Arizona, October 7, Clements, After the Boom,

95 into components that could then reassembled in Prescott and other neighboring towns that had better economic opportunities. 16 A more extreme measure, and one that became more common after the 1953 shutdown squelched hopes of an industrial renaissance in Jerome, involved transporting complete houses on flatbed trucks. Don Godard, born in Cottonwood in 1936 and involved in both agricultural and industrial pursuits in the Verde Valley, stated that when the mines and smelter closed a lot of people moved out of here, and a lot of houses moved with them. He recalled trucks carting a surprising number of houses up the narrow, twisting road in Oak Creek Canyon for delivery in Flagstaff. The distribution of Jerome s residences to surrounding areas strengthened the town s new post- industrial identity while simultaneously changing the landscape of communities outside of the confines of the Verde Valley. 17 ~ Ailanthus altissima and a New Ecosystem~ With the mine closures, Jerome completed its metamorphosis into a post- industrial landscape with a drastically altered sense of place. Abandoned homes, burnt- out buildings, and empty lots now defined the once- bustling urban environment. The gaping open- pit mine created an inversed mountain on the site of the United Verde Copper Company s original Jerome smelter. 18 Mine shafts pockmarked the surrounding hills, and a hundred years of disturbance and 16 Clements, After the Boom, Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, Clements, After the Boom,

96 industrial pollution resulted in very little vegetation on the steep slopes. 19 The lack of soil- securing roots, combined with the town s subsidence problem and its steep angle of repose, created a very unstable environment. Jerome even adopted a new nickname, The Town on the Move, not in reference to its flat economic growth, but to the tendency of buildings to slide down the mountain and roads to cave in. 20 A particularly severe landslide in 1964 frightened the remaining residents enough to pursue mitigation measures. In response, a caretaker for Phelps Dodge air- seeded forty pounds of Tree- of- Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) seeds over the town and nearby slopes with the idea that this non- native, pollution- tolerant tree would have a stabilizing effect. In her 1988 master s thesis, Diann Peart notes that the Tree- of- Heaven seeds failed to sprout on the sunbaked hillsides surrounding Jerome. Heavy rainstorms later carried soil and seeds downhill into the town itself where, due to more favorable growing conditions, many of the seeds germinated. Once mature, the Ailanthus trees quickly reproduced and became an established part of the urban fabric. The Ailanthus, however, did not end its journey in Jerome but continued to travel down washes and roadsides into the valley below. Now considered a pest because of its unpleasant odor and messy growth, the plant s 19 Armour Institute of Technology, Roasting Copper Ore, The Technical World Magazine (March, 1911): 485; Interview with Dr. James W. (Jim) Byrkit, NAU.OH , Ecological Oral Histories Collection, 2005, Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff. 20 Carlos Schwantes, Vision and Enterprise: Exploring the History of Phelps Dodge Corporation, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000),

97 propensity to follow waterways created a hybrid landscape in both Jerome and in the Verde Valley. 21 The Tree- of- Heaven invasion wrought a significant change to the look and feel of the Verde watershed. The high degree of disturbance along the river and irrigation networks caused by shifting water levels, compounded by annual maintenance of the ditches, grazing stock, increased suburban construction, and cycle of flood events, produced a habitat in which Ailanthus thrives. In addition to its ability to live in disturbed areas, the tree is an allelopathic species, meaning that it secretes chemicals to hinder the growth of nearby plants. 22 By reducing its competition, the tree quickly grows dense monocultures that remove habitat from native vegetation and also create the jungle- feel of the Verde River corridor that can be experienced along much of the river s length today. While the banks of the Verde River once were thick with stands of willow, cottonwood, and other native riparian plants prior to the introduction of livestock, the overgrown nature of the Tree- of- Heaven invasion has the potential to create an unproductive and less diverse ecosystem. The plant also contains a bitter chemical in its bark and leaves that that make it unpalatable to livestock and other native grazers while the dark, 21 Mark Fiege explores the changing sense of place in Idaho s Snake River Valley wrought by Anglo settlement and construction of agricultural infrastructure. Just as in the Verde Valley, the unintended and purposeful introduction of species, such as willow, created new hybrid ecosystems that worked both for and against the humans who introduced them. Fiege, Irrigated Eden, 50; Diann Ellen Peart, The Spatial Distribution and Land Use Association of Ailanthus Altissima in Jerome, Arizona (M.A. Thesis, Arizona State University, 1988), iii, 14; Diann Peart, Reader Comments, in Most Wanted Plants (Or is it Least Wanted?), by Steve Ayers, Verde Independent, August 6, 2011, accessed January 13, 2014, &articleID= Jeff Schalau, Backyard Gardener: Trees Gone Bad, University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, Yavapai County, accessed December 2, 2013, 89

98 malodorous leaves make viewing and accessing the river difficult for human residents and visitors. 23 What began as an effort to stabilize the post- industrial landscape of Jerome resulted in unforeseen ecosystem- scale changes in the Verde Valley and its tributary creeks. The spread of Ailanthus extended the extractive industry s legacy into the valley below. 24 Once again, the Verde Valley bore the symptoms of its geographic relationship to the mother- mines of Jerome. Trickle-Down Decline: Into the Verde Valley The Ailanthus seeds were not all that trickled down into the Verde Valley from the mines above. Due to the symbiotic relationship between the copper industry and the Verde Valley region, the 1940s and early 1950s were also a time of industrial decline for the communities and residents along the Verde River. When queried about this period, interviewees all used a similar vocabulary to describe its condition: the valley died, it was empty, the people and businesses moved on Another serious factor contributing to the overgrown nature of the riverbanks was the elimination of grazing stock during the 1990s. In 1997 the U.S. Forest Service evicted 15,000 cattle off of 250 miles of riparian habitat scattered across New Mexico and Arizona. On the Verde River, the edict removed cattle from Forest Service grazing allotments stretching from the river s headwaters near Paulden through the Verde Valley. Without cattle to crop the vegetation, the riverbanks became thick with plants. Several Verde Valley livestock owners interviewed for this thesis project shared their frustration with the federal government s actions as well as concern over the health of the river. Tony Davis, Healing the Gila, High Country News, October 22, 2001, accessed December 30, 2013, Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, 2013; George Hance, The Verde Valley and Eastern Yavapai County, Arizona Weekly Journal- Miner, August 30, 1899, 3; Ailanthus altissima, United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, accessed December 2, 2013, 24 Fiege, Irrigated Eden, Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; John Tavasci Sr., interview conducted by author, digital recording, Clarkdale, Arizona, October 7, 2013; George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital 90

99 Of course, even during this period, the valley was far from abandoned. In 1955, a newspaper article in The Arizona Republic estimated its population to be between 7,000 and 8,000. Though the newspaper acknowledged the total [population] was obviously much higher when Jerome and Clarkdale were in their heyday, enough people remained to support a modern hospital and recreational opportunities. 26 The feeling that the valley was dying, however, permeated the place after the loss of its single major industry. In 1955, the Arizona Republic ran a ten- page feature story on the Verde Valley that attempted to highlight only the most positive aspects of valley life yet also had strong undertones of economic hardship. A photograph on the newspaper s front page pictures Jerome s welcome sign with the twin smokeless stacks of the Clarkdale smelter visible in the distance. The sign marks Jerome s declining population in crossed out numbers, beginning at the boom- time high of 15,000, then 10,000, 5,000, and finally 1,000. Below the outdated estimates, Jerome s latest population figure does not even garner a number. Rather, the sign simply states Ghost City. Similarly, on the interior pages of the story, a black and white photo shows the defunct smelter plant surrounded by a mess of old, empty buildings and denuded hills. The photo s caption reads Big question mark in the Verde Valley s future is the old smelter plant in Clarkdale. 27 recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, 2013; Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, This population estimate includes the communities of Sedona and Oak Creek. Ed Peplow, The Verde Valley Story, Arizona Republic, July 10, 1955, 18; In her thesis Landscapes of Capital, Helen Palmer Peterson notes of the over 2,000 former employees [in Clarkdale], less than 125 remained in town after the 1953 smelter closure. Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital, The identification of Jerome as a ghost city was likely largely for tourism interest, yet it also indicates the stark reality of population loss and abandonment. Front page, Arizona Republic, 91

100 The Arizona Republic captured the feeling of uncertainty that hung over the Verde Valley after the copper played out. Despite the article s efforts to list many impending improvements, such as the completion of a new highway to Phoenix, it is clear that at the time of publication the security of the Verde Valley lay largely in the past and the future rather than the present. 28 Camp Verde resident Don Godard remembers that many young people moved away to search for employment as businesses closed or cut their work force during this period, a factor that further contributed to the sense of decline in the valley. 29 The declining status of the Verde Valley in the regional economy, the decay of valley infrastructure, and the specter of depression experienced by its communities spoke to the vulnerability that accompanied the valley s hinterland status. 30 The selling off and privatization of Clarkdale reflected this air of uncertainty. Built by UVCC owner William Andrews Clark as a progressive, orderly company town, the Phelps Dodge Corporation purchased it along with the rest of the United July 10, 1955; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; It should be noted that Eric Clements debates 15,000 as peak population of Jerome. In After the Boom, he estimates the town s peak population to more around 5,000 for the town and 10,000 including residents in its immediate area but outside the incorporated city limits. Yet promotional literature and amateur historians often identify 15,000 as Jerome s peak population. Clements, After the Boom in Tombstone, 14-15, 45, 90, 136; Peplow, The Verde Valley Story, Peplow, The Verde Valley Story, Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, In Nature s Metropolis, Cronon describes a similar situation of a lost hinterland relationship that developed between northern forests and the growing city of Chicago in the mid to late 1800s. Greedy overharvesting played out forests and simultaneously glutted lumber storage yards while railroads brought increased connection to, and competition, from other more Western cities. In response to the changing circumstance, Cronon writes many lumber dealers began to cast about for other lines of business. Some reoriented and reduced the size of their operations; some left the trade; some moved elsewhere; some went bankrupt. William Cronon, Nature s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992),

101 Verde Copper Company holdings in Phelps Dodge had little incentive to maintain the town s sense of place that Clark had modeled after the City Beautiful movement. Yet Clarkdale s company town ethos remained until the decision by Phelps Dodge to shut the UVCC in 1953 and sell the town to W.L. Allison that same year. Allison, a Phoenix industrialist, took the opportunity to dismantle components of the unused smelter complex to use as scrap for his company, Allison Steel. One year later Allison abruptly sold the town to Erle P. Halliburton, a wealthy Texas oilman. 31 Halliburton, assessing his new investment, ran a half- page advertisement in the Arizona Republic the following year that noted the valley s uncertain evolution: our country s way of doing things continually changes the outlook for every community. Clarkdale is currently passing through such a transition period. 32 Whereas Phelps Dodge and Allison allowed the town to disintegrate but maintained some semblance of top- down control, Halliburton envisioned Clarkdale s transition period as an opportunity to sell bungalows to individual buyers. (See Figure 12.) Since its inception, the company molded Clarkdale s landscape and identity to fulfill specific functions that furthered the corporate agenda. 33 The decision by Halliburton to remove the company from the town's identity was yet another manifestation of outsider altering its sense of place. Yet, 31 Peplow, The Verde Valley Story, 16; Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital, 36, Clarkdale Moves Toward a New Community Horizon! advertisement, Arizona Republic, July 10, 1955, Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital. 93

102 Figure 12 Erle P. Halliburton purchased the town of Clarkdale from Phoenix industrialist W.L. Allison in Allison previously purchased the town in 1953 from the Phelps Dodge Corporation, who acquired it with the United Verde Copper Company holdings. E.P. Halliburton sponsored this advertisement. The ad acknowledged the town s struggles but lauded the opportunities accompanying the arrival of Halliburton s new cement plant. Note the reference to the town s glorious past with the illustration of train cars waiting in front of a copper smelter running at full blast. Clarkdale Moves Toward a New Community Horizon! advertisement, Arizona Republic, July 10, 1955,

103 ironically, that decision ultimately increased the autonomy of Clarkdale residents by allowing them to shape the town rather than follow a proscribed vision handed down from company management. In 1957 a grassroots group called the Clarkdale Community Betterment Association formed to promote incorporation, a cause that garnered an 86% approval rating from local homeowners. Later that year, the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors incorporated the Town of Clarkdale on July 1. For the first time, residents had the opportunity to elect a town government reflective of their vision for the community. 34 ~Into the Realm of Cement~ Even in this post- copper company landscape, however, boosters still heralded heavy industry as the means for Clarkdale, and the whole valley, to escape its economic blues. Neither ranching nor farming could make up for the jobs and capital that disappeared with the loss of the copper industry, a fact that compelled many to embrace possible new extractive and manufacturing businesses as the best hope for regional revitalization. 35 E.P. Halliburton, in addition to selling off Clarkdale s bungalows, envisioned a new type of industrial future for the Verde Valley led by one of his companies, the Phoenix Cement Plant. One year after the purchase, Halliburton placed a newspaper advertisement proclaiming from a copper age [Clarkdale] is moving into the realm of cement, a reorientation that 34 Town of Clarkdale, The History of Clarkdale, accessed February 19, 2014, 35 Clarkdale Moves Toward a New Community Horizon! advertisement, Arizona Republic, July 10, 1955, 18; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19,

104 promised to bring economic and social stability to the town. Construction on the Phoenix Cement Company plant began in 1958 and the kilns fired for the first time on September 1, With a work force comprised of 130 to 140 people, the plant was the largest employer in the Verde Valley at that time. 37 Daily operations at the cement plant included mining and refining limestone taken from a quarry at the base of the Black Hills. After locating a limestone shelf, workers excavated twenty- foot holes and then blasted the rock open with dynamite. Thirty- ton trucks, later upgraded to sixty- ton, hauled the broken material to a series of crushers that reduced the particle size. From there, the crushed rock traveled to ball mills that further ground it to a super- fine flour. The material then traveled to the kilns that, similar to the copper smelting process, heated it to burn off unwanted impurities. Transformed into clinker, the material returned to the ball mills for a final grinding and then was loaded into storage silos for use as cement. Two wells near the cement plant supplied water to cool equipment, much of which recirculated through the plant. 38 In the months surrounding the opening of the Verde Valley plant, the Phoenix- based Arizona Republic newspaper ran multiple stories on the company, its new sixteen- million- dollar facility, and the wonderful economic boost it would 36 See Figure 12. Clarkdale Moves Toward a New Community Horizon! advertisement, Arizona Republic, July 10, 1955, 18; Cement for Mighty Dam, Arizona Republic, September 2, 1959, The Phoenix Cement Plant, while a great boost for the Verde Valley, was hardly comparable to the thousands of people once employed by the copper companies. Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, Don Godard worked at the cement plant from 1959 to Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19,

105 provide to Arizona. 39 Initially, some valley residents worried that the cement plant might produce negative environmental effects similar to those associated with copper mining and smelting. Years before the plant opened, some residents publicly questioned the possibilities of cement dust polluting the air. Yet the plant s boosters quickly assuaged such concerns by announcing that the plant would include state- of- the- art air filtration system and dust control measures. 40 In the end, the economic allure and big- money support for the cement plant overwhelmed any local concern. In the months leading up to the opening of the plant, advertisements from local and Phoenix- based business littered the newspaper s margins, thanking the cement company for saving the valley economy and contributing to the development of the entire Southwest. 41 It was not hyperbolic boosterism to suggest that the cement plant would help to change the face of the Southwest. Fueling the plant s construction was its federal contract to supply concrete for Glen Canyon Dam, a project that, with the Verde Valley s material contribution, had a huge environmental impact on the Colorado River that reverberated through the rest of the region. Many Arizona residents considered the dam project vital to the electric power supply for the entire 39 Cement for Mighty Dam, Arizona Republic, September 2, 1959, 10; The Valley Bank Salutes Phoenix Cement Co., advertisement, Arizona Republic, November 8, 1959, Peplow, The Verde Valley Story, 16; Page Project s Cement Plant Nears Completion, Page Signal, April 29, 1959, In 1959, the year the plant opened, many local businesses took out newspaper ads to thank the Phoenix Cement Company and also align themselves with the progress associated with the arrival of the new company. The Arizona Republic similarly ran several multi- page stories on the construction and early days of the plant. Two prime examples of this grass- roots support are The Valley Bank Salutes Phoenix Cement Co., advertisement, Arizona Republic, November 8, 1959, 180; and Cement for Mighty Dam, Arizona Republic, September 2, 1959,

106 Southwest, and, therefore, regional prosperity and progress. 42 Once wired to the electrical grid, Glen Canyon Dam produced enough electricity to supply 425,000 households located in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. 43 Moreover, the plant's cement could also be used to construct new highways, concrete- lined agricultural irrigation systems, and material for thousands of homes. 44 And there were thousands of homes to be built. Just as Jerome s copper helped to build the country after 1900, Verde Valley cement transformed Arizona desert into Sunbelt suburbs. The post- World War II building boom drastically altered the state s demographics, sense of place, and the demands it placed on the environment and nearby producers. 45 By providing the raw materials needed for public and private infrastructure, the Verde Valley once again spurred and supported development and industrialization both within and outside of the valley walls at the expense of its autonomy and its resources. The Phoenix Cement Company plant was an important step on a long road to economic stabilization for the Verde Valley. The good wages and benefits offered to plant workers attracted new residents to the valley for the first time since the 42 The Valley Bank Salutes Phoenix Cement Co., advertisement, Arizona Republic, November 8, 1959, 180; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, Frequently Asked Questions, Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program, accessed December 15, 2013, 44 The Many Uses of Cement, Arizona Republic, November 8, 1959, An exploration of these themes may be found in Janine Schipper s Disappearing Desert: The Growth of Phoenix and the Culture of Sprawl (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008). An example of these shifts was the opening of Del Webb s Sun City, located in the Phoenix metropolitan area, on January 1, 1960, less than a year after the launch of the Phoenix Cement plant. John Findlay, Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 4. 98

107 closure of the mines in the Black Hills. 46 Don Godard remembers the first trailer parks near the cement plant going in around this time, heralding a new era of valley development and the creation of a vernacular landscape dominated by mass- produced, prefabricated homes on suburban- sized lots. The plant offered Godard a steady income, benefits, and the ability to eventually retire. It also returned a sense of purpose and pride to valley workers who, before the cement plant, often had to cobble together various informal jobs without the assurance of worker s compensation or social security. 47 Yet even after the Phoenix Cement plant opened and signaled a reversal to the Verde Valley s economic drought, the valley did not experience an immediate recovery from the loss of the copper industry. The decline of the late 1940s and early 1950s set the stage for an economic rebound defined by a new type of development, one that was founded on easy transportation, the construction of 46 Initially, plant laborers started out at $1.88 per hour, yard truck drivers at $2.01, and quarry truck drivers at $2.35. After eight hours of work, overtime pay kicked in and the employees made time and a half; after twelve hours the workers made double time. In the spring of 1960, cement plant employees elected the United Cement, Lime and Gypsum Workers union to represent them. This resulted in a $7.00 an hour raise. The United Cement, Lime and Gypsum Workers represented the cement plant employees until the employees voted in 1965 to switch to the Teamsters Local 83. Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; Cement Plant Union Votes to be Opened, Prescott Evening Courier, April 21, 1960, 1; Cement Workers Okay Teamsters, Arizona Republic, March 26, 1965, Godard spent time working odd jobs for neighboring ranchers and was briefly employed by Petersen s Saw Mill in Cottonwood, which specialized in Ponderosa pine lumber harvested off the nearby mountains. A nearby planing mill provided a few more positions to valley residents, but there were very limited opportunities for reliable work. Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; John Brinkerhoff Jackson, a well- known scholar and author concerned with landscape form and function, would likely identify the dominance of mobile housing in the valley as a vernacular landscape, which is identified with local custom, pragmatic adaptation to circumstances, and unpredictable mobility. The small house sizes and large percentage of trailer homes are a legacy of industries that engaged the valley in an economic cycle of booms and busts; they are the homes of miners, smelter employees, and cement plant workers who came and went with the jobs. John Brinkerhoff Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (London: Yale University Press, 1986), xii. 99

108 bedroom communities, and tourism. Despite the presence of the cement industry and several locally owned quarries, heavy industry no longer molded the Verde Valley s sense of place to the degree that it had during the copper era. The Phoenix plant was a partial, if incomplete, step towards economic recovery from the post- copper depression. Out with the Old, in with the New On October 27, 1966, Clarkdale s 430- foot brick smelter smokestack disappeared in a mountainous cloud of dust and rubble. It took 275 pounds of dynamite and thirty seconds to topple the smokestack that the Arizona Republic touted as the last symbol of a once dynamic era in Arizona s copper history. 48 The destruction of a defining Verde Valley landmark, and a key element to Clarkdale s identity, was a clear signal that the valley was in a time of transition. Four decades after the dynamite detonated, one valley resident still remembered what it felt like to return home from college to a stack- less skyline: I was traumatized by that! These were the symbols [of the community]- - and this is kind of ironic, because I consider myself to be environmentally sensitive- - at the same time, here I have an affection for two smokestacks that produced vile chemicals that got in our lungs. 49 The loss of the brick smokestack only forty- four years after its completion in 1922 was a powerful example of the fragility of the Verde Valley s economic identity, and 48 Verde Landmark Blasted: 430 Foot Smokestack at Clarkdale Disappears, Arizona Republic, October 28, 1966, as quoted in Isabel J. Simmons, ed. Cottonwood, Clarkdale, and Cornville History (Cottonwood, AZ: Cottonwood Chapter 2021, American Association of Retired Persons, 1984), Interview with Dr. James Byrkit, Ecological Oral Histories Collection, NAU. 100

109 one that was made painfully obvious to every long- term resident who scanned the empty skyline. The end of the smelter- smoke thrust the Verde Valley into a period of economic free- fall, but the disappearance of the region s primary industry also opened up new opportunities. While the entrance of the Phoenix Cement Company assured that heavy industry would continue to shape at least some part of its identity, the size of the plant s workforce and limited plans for expansion made it clear that cement would not replace copper as the region s socio- economic driver. 50 Fortuitously, the arrival of a modern road system connected the valley to Phoenix s rapidly growing metropolitan area. 51 As access improved, a new wave of settlers transformed its identity and physical landscape. Increasingly, local boosters and outside investors re- imagined the area not as an industrial place, nor even an agricultural one, but rather a place defined by tourism, recreation, and residential development. From its relatively clear historic agri- industrial identity, to the hazy sense of place of the post- copper era, the valley now embarked upon a new period of contest between native and newcomer to define and shape the region s landscape and character. 50 Former plant employee Don Godard estimates that the cement plant employed between 130 and 140 people. Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, Mark Pry and Fred Andersen, Arizona Transportation History, Arizona Department of Transportation, accessed December 23, 2013, arizona's- transportation- history- in- its- entirety-.pdf?sfvrsn=0. 101

110 Chapter Four Agriculture in the Post-industrial Era: Contested Space and the Battle for Sense of Place The late 50s and early 60s was [sic] really when farming went to hell and houses went to building. -Don Godard 1 The demolition of the Clarkdale smelter stacks occurred during a period of intense socio- economic reorientation for the Verde Valley. The post- copper depression gradually lifted as the post- World War II boom finally trickled into the region, bringing new residents, visitors, and business opportunities. As their numbers grew, these outsiders, or neonatives, competed with area s natives for influence over its resources and sense of place. 2 Despite the erosion of the local agri- industrial sense of place, the area retained some semblance of its agricultural identity in the face of an onslaught of new residents and the suburban development that accompanied them. While this shift to suburbanization reduced the importance of its traditional role as a regional food producer, some agriculturalists adapted to 1 Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, Thomas E. Sheridan, Arizona: A History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), ; John Findlay, Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 18, 29; Historian Hal Rothman discusses natives and neonatives in his book Devil s Bargains. Rothman describes neonatives as those who are attracted to the places that have become tourist towns because of the traits of these transformed place. Conversely, natives are those whose residency predates the tourist- transformation or were attracted to the place by other reasons. In the context of this thesis, neither native nor neonative carry any moral judgment. I use these terms merely to differentiate between the older wave of Anglo settlers who came to the Verde Valley primarily to participate in the extractive or agricultural industries and the more recent wave who came primarily for reasons relating for climate, recreation, and non- extractive jobs. Hal K. Rothman, Devil s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth- Century American West (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998),

111 the needs and wants of the post- industrial valley by integrating neonatives and tourists into the new agricultural landscape. In this chapter I argue that the Verde Valley is a contested space with competing senses of place that became progressively dominated in the post- copper era by the area s evolving suburban- urban relationship. 3 By the mid- 1950s, the needs of a service- based economy increasingly drove land use patterns and visible landscape changes, while the influence of those who worked the land for a living waned. In this era, tourism and suburbanization gained prominence in the Verde Valley s socio- economic ecosystem. The evolving nature of the Verde Valley s physical environment and cultural identities underscores its position as a contested space with an ever- shifting relationship between people and place. In order to understand the Verde Valley s transition from its rural- industrial hinterland identity to one more defined by rural- suburban relationships, I first explore the idea of contested space. This chapter next examines the decline of the Verde Valley s agricultural identity and its shrinking importance in the regional economy. Increased connectivity to areas outside the confines of the steep valley walls, largely due to the paving of U.S. Route 89A, the completion of State Route 79, and the construction of I- 17 as northern Arizona s major North- South corridor, boosted access to the once- remote valley. The remainder of this chapter discusses 3 I use the word development in reference to non- agricultural and non- industrial construction. For example, the construction of residential units, shopping centers, roadways, subdivisions, resorts, and recreation venues, all fall under the banner of development. I borrow the idea of contested place from the work of historian Elliott West. In his book Contested Plains, West examines the interconnected yet disparate ways that Native Americans, Anglo settlers, and goldseekers interpreted and interacted with the environment of the American Plains. Elliot West, The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998). 103

112 the relationships between agriculture, industry, tourism, and suburban development. These last two factors brought renewed economic security at the expense of the legacy landscapes produced by the valley s agri- industrial past, an example of the classic devil s bargain presented by historian Hal Rothman. 4 Using Rothman s work to inform my perspective, I examine the destruction and reinterpretation of these landscapes by neonatives who contributed to the creation of new identities that complicated the Verde Valley s sense of place previously defined by agriculture and copper. Contested Senses of Place That the Verde Valley has long been a contested space with multiple senses of place confirms that the valley fits into an accepted mold of conquest and development in the American West. 5 Throughout its recorded history, the valley experienced multiple waves of outsiders who reimagined it in terms of their own needs, culture, and visions. It is this repetitive cycle of the newcomer challenging the old that creates the area s contested landscape history. Early Anglo migrants clashed with resident Native Americans over resources and conceptions of what the valley was and what it could be. Anglos established Fort Lincoln (later Camp Verde) to protect their pastoral vision. In the copper era, the prospect of striking it rich attracted a large number of outsiders to the area, including William Andrews Clark, 4 As discussed in Chapter Two, Rothman uses the term devil s bargain to refer to the costs and benefits accrued by communities that embrace tourism as the means toward economic security. Rothman, Devil s Bargains; Mark Pry and Fred Andersen, Arizona Transportation History, Arizona Department of Transportation, 60, accessed December 23, 2013, arizona's- transportation- history- in- its- entirety-.pdf?sfvrsn=0. 5 Rothman, Devil s Bargains,

113 of Montana, and James S. Douglas Jr., originally from Canada. Both newcomers, Clark and Douglas accumulated vast influence and power through their respective copper companies and transformed the valley from a rural place to one with a strong agri- industrial identity. 6 In the post- copper era, the void left by the departure of the copper kings undermined the Verde Valley s industrial identity and opened a space for the latest wave of newcomers to contest the remaining fragments of its historic agricultural sense of place. Hal Rothman suggests that at times such as these, when a community s bonds are under threat, subrosa tension, buried in the fictions of social arrangements, surfaces as the impact of change throws the soul of the place, any place, up for grabs. 7 Changing Farms and the Creation of a Post-Agricultural Landscape Two years after the 1953 closure of the smelter and four years before the opening of the Phoenix cement plant, the Arizona Republic presented a semi- upbeat portrait of the Verde Valley in which the newspaper identified the area s three 6 The complicated and dynamic Native American presence in the valley adds a dimension that is largely outside the purview of this thesis but is still an important and relevant topic highly worthy of further academic study. Heather A. Downey, Prehistoric Agricultural Viability of the Sacred Mountain Gridded Agricultural Complex, Verde Valley, Arizona (M.A. Thesis, Northern Arizona University, 2006), 23-25; Eric L. Clements, After the Boom in Tombstone and Jerome, Arizona: Decline in Western Resource Towns (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2003), 45-47, 68-69; James S. Douglas, Jr., Improvement in Processes of Extracting Copper From its Ores, U.S. Patent 86,754, filed February 9, 1869, accessed February 3, 2014, George Hance shared many of his visions of the prosperous agricultural future of the Verde Valley in numerous newspaper editorials. George Hance,"Verde Voice- An Interesting Discussion on School Matters," Arizona Weekly Journal Miner, May 5, 1896, 1; Fiege also notes how farmers in Idaho s Snake River Valley equated irrigation with the myth of transforming heathen wilderness into a civilized Eden. Mark Fiege, Irrigated Eden: The Making of an Agricultural Landscape in the American West (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1999), Rothman, Devil s Bargains,

114 primary sources of income. In this time of limited economic opportunities, the article stated that the main industries were, in order of their current importance; livestock, tourism, and agriculture. These industries, the article emphasized, were ones on which the Verde has depended since its early history and would undoubtedly see the area through the hard times and, perhaps, develop into a prosperous future. Though its dependence on tourism since its early history is questionable, the newspaper recognized the dependability of agriculture in the economic well- being of the valley. Yet, the valley s identity as an area of intense agricultural production dwindled during the late 1950s and 1960s as the region s economy diversified and land use shifted toward development. 8 There are myriad reasons behind the declining presence of production agriculture in the Verde Valley. First, it is important to realize that other industries, such as tourism, drastically increased in importance and thus assumed a more prominent position within the local economy that displaced older aspects of the its sense of place. Beginning in the 1950s, the Verde Valley again became a contested space as agriculture competed with recreation- based industries, such as art tours and vacation rentals, to define the area s landscape and identity. Second, the nature of agriculture transformed across the entire United States in the post- World War II era. In 1945, right at the end of the War, the United States 8 The Verde Valley s dependency on tourism since its early Anglo history is overstated as a strong tourist industry was only made possible with the construction of good roads and the growth of nearby population centers like Phoenix and Flagstaff. By 2012, the director of Yavapai County s Cooperative Extension listed the principal industries of the county as tourism and recreation, ranching, manufacturing, and mining. Production farming, or agriculture to use the language of the 1955 Arizona Republic article, no longer featured on the list. Jeff Schalau, The Natural Resources of Yavapai County, University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, Yavapai County, accessed October 8, 2013, Peplow, The Verde Valley Story,

115 had 10 million farm employees and a total national population of almost 140 million. In 1955, the United States had 8.4 million farm employees and a total population of million. Ten years later, the number of farm employees dropped precipitously to 5.6 million out of a total population of million Americans. Advances in agricultural technology, such as the self- propelled hay baler, the multiple- row planting drill, and the increasing ubiquity of the tractor, decreased the need for farm laborers at the same time other types of technology created new industries and manufacturing jobs. Across the nation, the rural exodus paralleled the growth of the suburban landscape. 9 In Arizona, federal military policy and local boosterism during and after World War II ignited the development of Tucson and Phoenix and, correspondingly, agricultural decline in both the Santa Cruz and Salt River Valleys, home to the burgeoning cities. During this period, the alfalfa and cotton fields that once defined the Salt River Valley shrank as the largest agricultural center in the Southwest began its metamorphosis into one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country. Phoenix s population increased fivefold by 1970 and, that same year, the city housed nearly 60 percent of Arizona s population. By comparison, in 1940, only about one- third of the state s entire population resided in urban areas John T. Schlebecker, Whereby We Thrive: A History of American Farming, (Ames, IA: University of Iowa Press, 1975), 279, The 1954 Census also indicates that the number of large farms (those comprised of 220 acres to more than 1,000 acres) stagnated and declined statewide between 1950 and Conversely, during that same period, the number of small farms (those under 10 acres) jumped from 66 to 95. This might indicate the increasing presence of suburban- fringe farms and large vegetable patches tended party for profit and partly as a pastime for retirees. United States Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Agriculture: 1954, prepared under the supervision of the Agricultural Division (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1956), 200; Thomas E. Sheridan, Arizona: A 107

116 ~Delivering the Harvest~ Changes in the types of products and services demanded by consumers accompanied shifts in Arizona s demographics and cultural geography. Similarly, the locations and identities of the hinterlands evolved to meet new potential markets and to cut ties with old, outdated ones. In the Verde Valley, the contrasting trends of state- wide boom and local bust during the late 1940s and early 1950s resulted in a depressed sense of place that set it apart from the growing megalopolis to the south. The closure of the Clarkdale smelter in 1953 left the valley s agricultural communities without the local market hubs that once sustained the region. In order to stay afloat, Verde Valley farmers turned towards markets outside the confines of the valley walls. The construction of a modern roadway system in the mid- 1950s made extra- valley trading more economical. 11 Prior to the construction of that system, traveling to and from market was a source of hardship for early Verde Valley farmers who had to contend with rough single- track trails, circuitous routes, and the almost complete lack of quality road infrastructure. Poor roads severely limited the ability of early settlers to deliver large quantities of produce to market, and many sources document the troubles faced by those traveling in and near the Verde Valley. One such source recounts the travails of farmer Jim Thompson who, in the 1880s and 1890s, was forced to make the four- to- five day round- trip from his farm at Indian Gardens on the Verde s Oak Creek tributary to sell Irish potatoes, his principal crop, in Jerome. Thompson could History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), , 273; Statistics on the growth of Phoenix and Arizona found in Findlay, Magic Lands, 18, Pry and Andersen, Arizona Transportation History,

117 make part of the trip with horse and wagon on the primitive, hand- cut wagon roads he constructed, but had to transition to packhorses when the roads petered out and the country got too rough. Because of this, Thompson could only transport ten to twelve sacks of potatoes at a time, worth about one dollar per hundred- pound sack, making for time- consuming and inefficient trips to market. 12 To address this perpetual issue of poor transportation, Coconino County finally hired local workers at three dollars per day to complete the first rough road that connected many Oak Creek Canyon homesteads in It was not until the second half of the 1930s, however, that workers improved the canyon road with bridges and pavement to finally allow easy automobile and wagon access to and from market hubs and the canyon orchards and fields. Despite the expansion of roads and advances in building techniques through the 1920s and 1930s, many of the routes between farm and town remained unpaved, resulting in long travel times and occasionally dangerous conditions. The Pendleys, a family of orchardists who farmed within Oak Creek Canyon, traversed these roads each autumn in trucks loaded with fruit. On one occasion, a trucking trip over the Black Hills and through Prescott Valley to deliver apples to Phoenix ended in disaster when the REO Speed Wagon crashed, injuring an employee who was asleep atop the load. The wrecked truck, a substantial and recent investment, was a total loss and the family had to begin saving for its replacement The story of farmer Jim Thompson s trips to Jerome is recorded in Sedona Westerners, Those Early Days A Pioneer History of Sedona and Vicinity (Sedona Heritage Publishing, 2012), David Diamond, " The Pastoral and the Sublime: The Pendley Family Homestead and the Creation of Slide Rock State Park, The Journal of Arizona History 42, No. 2 (summer 2001), 136; 109

118 The Pendleys needed a new truck to haul their harvests that increased with each passing year as the fruit trees matured and produced greater yields. The large harvests outstripped local demand, and the family and hired hands traveled to Williams, Holbrook, Phoenix, and even Tucson in the pre- Interstate era just to get the crop to market before it spoiled. If the crop was especially big, family members and a few hired hands might transport a portion of it to Flagstaff where they placed it on railcars and shipped the fruit to Los Angeles. It was not until the 1950s when, goaded by the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 and the simultaneous development boom in Phoenix, the roads and highways in and near the Verde Valley received attention on a much larger and more formal scale. 14 For the Kovacovichs of Middle Verde, a well- established farming family, better roads meant that they could ride out the loss of the local copper- fueled markets. The family initially relied on selling multiple types of meat and a wide assortment of vegetables to boarding houses in Jerome, and also grew hay to sell to local ranchers. In the early 1940s, the family branched out by selling melons, peppers, squash, and other vegetables to the Prescott Piggly- Wiggly and Pay and Take grocery store chains. It was not until the mid- 1960s, however, that George Kovacovich started hauling hay and produce to Phoenix to access a much larger market. This allowed the family to reduce its dependence on the depressed local Sedona Westerners, Those Early Days, 39; Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, The Pendleys planted their first orchard in Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, 2013; Pry and Andersen, Arizona Transportation History,

119 economy but, at the same time, increased the influence of valley outsiders on the farm s finances and decisions about crop choices. 15 In accordance with this national and local trend, the Kovacovich farm transitioned from producing many types of livestock, fruits, and vegetables in small quantities to specializing in a handful of varieties grown in large volumes. The farm stopped raising pigs, sheep, turkeys, and chickens for market as it had during the 1920s and 1930s and reoriented almost exclusively to growing fresh produce. Starting in the 1960s, the Kovacovichs delivered some 4,000 boxes of squash annually to Phoenix- including butternut, spaghetti, acorn, and banana varieties. The booming metropolitan area of the city allowed, and demanded, its suppliers to grow in size. By this time, George s son Bob was old enough to help with cultivating the expanding fields. Carving pumpkins joined the list after a retailer asked the Kovacovichs to grow the decorative squash for the urban (and suburban) market. Bob also tended a watermelon patch in the summer and the family sold the large, juicy fruit to customers who sought it as a respite from the desert heat of the Salt River Valley. To refresh the soil, the Kovacovichs rotated clover and alfalfa through the fields that, when cut and dried, they both trucked to the Salt River Valley and sold in the Verde Valley to feed the growing number of nonworking pleasure horses George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, George Kovacovich remembers the wide variety of produce grown by his father. He notes that the family of 8 mostly lived off what they could produce, and sold the extras to gain a little spending money and pay for farm improvements. George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14,

120 Phoenix offered a welcome outlet for the large quantities of squash that could not be absorbed by the limited demand found in the Verde Valley. For twenty- five years, the Kovacovichs hauled their goods out of the Verde Valley to sell to Phoenix- area grocery chain stores including Safeway, El Rancho, and Food City. Via the chain distribution networks, one could purchase their produce across much of the state. To supply the market, they rented land from neighbors, including one hundred acres located across the Verde River specifically to grow hard squash. In an era when agriculture was increasingly decentered as a primary industry in the Verde Valley, it may initially seem odd that George and Bob Kovacovich scaled up their production. Yet the expansion of the Kovacovich farm was in accordance with a nationwide trend in agriculture. 17 Even as the overall acreage devoted to farming decreased in the valley, the production farmers who did remain tended to enlarge their holdings (through lease or purchase) in order to stay competitive. To get their large quantities of produce and hay to market, the Kovacovichs sometimes had to make as many as nine trips a week to Phoenix during the peak season. The construction of Interstate 17 in the early 1970s allowed them to make the deliveries; before the road went in, it was a five- to- six hour trip between the two valleys In 1945 there were 5,859,169 farms in the United States, with an average of acres, and the total land in farm at 1,141,615,000 acres. In 1964, there were 3,157,857 farms with an average acreage of and a nationwide acreage of 1,110,187,000. Schlebecker, Whereby We Thrive, Lifetime Verde Valley resident Don Godard estimates that in the early 1950s, there was in the neighborhood of 5,000 to 6,000 acres farmed in valley. At the time of our interview in 2013, Godard estimated that number was down to about 1,500 acres dedicated to production farming. Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; Andy Groseta also made a point to say that large scale agriculture is actually increasing in the valley in the sense that current production agriculturalists tend larger plots today than they did previously. Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 112

121 ~Highways as Conduits of Landscape Change~ Improved transportation routes between the Verde Valley and the cities of Flagstaff and Phoenix is the second most important factor, behind the loss of the copper industry, that influenced the area s evolution as a post- agricultural landscape. The construction of roads such as State Routes 69 and 79 and, eventually, Interstate 17 facilitated the reorientation of Verde Valley suppliers to external markets and simultaneously brought neonatives into it. The Black Canyon Highway, the stretch of State Route 79 between Phoenix and Camp Verde, opened in Five years later, in September of 1961, workers completed the road all the way to Flagstaff. It was the first direct road to link the booming Sunbelt of the Salt River Valley to Verde Valley communities and the Colorado Plateau town of Flagstaff. SR 79 passed through Camp Verde, transforming an off- the beaten- path town to the Verde Valley s primary point of entrance. (See figures 13, 14, and 15). Area residents, like the Kovacovichs, now had the ability to travel, and thus trade, to a larger part of the state. Seventeen years later, Interstate 17 reached Flagstaff and changed what had previously been an all- day adventure to Phoenix into an easy drive just over two hours long. 19 The paving, widening, and construction of roads did not simply shorten 25, 2013; George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, Peplow, The Verde Valley Story, 13; Susan Carney, Flagstaff History: Black Canyon Highway Opened, Arizona Daily Sun, September 6, 2011, accessed December 23, 2013, history- black- canyon- highway- officially- opened/article_a0ae3892-2f80-547c- bb e60a823c.html; Pry and Andersen, Arizona Transportation History, 99,

122 Figure 13 This three- map sequence illustrates the development of roads, notably the Interstate system, between Phoenix and the Verde Valley. This map is from Note the lack of any sizable roads through the Tonto National Forest north of Phoenix. The main route, illustrated in red, utilizes routes 89/79 through Prescott, over the Black Hills, and through Jerome. Note that State Route 69 is not considered a main route, and still requires joining 79 through Prescott or taking unpaved roads through the mountain mining town of Cherry. The road names changed considerably during this period of growth. For more information of road history, see Mark Pry and Fred Andersen, Arizona Transportation History. Arizona Department of Transportation, accessed December 23, 2013, arizona's- transportation- history- in- its- entirety-.pdf?sfvrsn=0. Map from: Sinclair Roadmap, map (Chicago, IL: Rand McNally and Co., 1938), from Arizona Roads, Historic Maps, accessed December 21, 2013, /maps/index.html. 114

123 Figure 14 In this map from 1961, highway 69 is now identified as a major route. A new road, called 79, now connects 69 to Camp Verde and thus eliminates the need to pass through Prescott or through Cherry. Also note the growth of the Phoenix metropolitan area. Arizona State Highway Department Map, map (Chicago, IL: Rand McNally and Co., 1961), from Arizona Roads, Historic Maps, accessed December 21, 2013, /index.html. 115

124 Figure 15 This 1971 map illustrates the shift towards the Interstate Highway system. Note the prominence of the new Interstate 17 route. Portions of highways 69 and 79 have converted into a highway that now links central Arizona to the northern reaches of the state. Camp Verde, once relatively unconnected, now serves as the main entry point into the Verde Valley. U.S. Route 89A is now considered a scenic tourist road. Photogrammetry and Mapping Division, Arizona State Highway Department Map (1971), from Arizona Roads, Historic Maps, accessed December 21, 2013, 116

125 transportation times between Phoenix, Flagstaff, and the Verde Valley: the roads changed the landscape of these places by becoming part of and defining the landscape. Scholar John Brinkerhoff Jackson wrote in his influential book A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time that we must reconsider that roads no longer merely lead to places; they are places. 20 In the Phoenix metropolis, soaring overpasses and subterranean underpasses became part of the city experience. In the Verde Valley, with I- 17 as its single major highway, the impact of interstate as place was a bit more subdued. There are no multi- tiered overpasses or monstrous cloverleaf interchanges in the valley, but the elevated embankment of the road set the interstate apart from its environment. Indeed, the Verde River was barely visible over the concrete walls of the new Interstate bridge, and the road s artificially straight path cut through the valley previously defined by more organic and circuitous routes. Local realtors and business began to rate accessibility and desirability of house lots and shops by their proximity to SR 79 or I- 17, using the new roadways as focal points instead of traditional features such as the river or town center. 21 ~Growing Houses: Elements of a Post-agricultural Verde Valley~ In a different essay on the function and aesthetics of roads and highways, Jackson further suggests that roads serve as magnets for new development and promoters of dispersion. Following Jackson s theory, an official Arizona Department 20 John Brinkerhoff Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (London: Yale University Press, 1986), Chuck Barnes Realty, Heaven on Earth, advertisement, Arizona Republic, April 13, 1969, 117

126 of Transportation report notes the role of the early Interstate system in the development of miles of subdivisions and humming commerce found in Prescott Valley and Sedona. Similarly, the completion of SR 79 and the construction of I- 17 primed the Verde Valley for suburban growth that would come to dominate its historic agri- industrial landscape. 22 One year after the 1961 completion of State Route 79, the population of Yavapai County was 31,000; by 1978, seven years after the completion of I- 17, the county had 62,300 residents. In 1990, the population was 107,714 and rose to 167,517 in The influx of new residents into the Verde Valley perpetuated its identity as a contested space. Realizing the growing demand for housing as a business opportunity, outside developers, often from the Phoenix metropolitan area, moved in to remake the valley landscape. Some of the new construction reflected particular nostalgic aspects of the area s agrarian heritage, seen specifically in the building of ranchettes and equine estates. More often, the development obliterated the region s unique history with the construction of place- less strip malls and prefabricated homes. Don Godard remembers the boom that began in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a time when land prices, previously depressed in the post- copper 22 Brinkerhoff Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape, ; Pry and Andersen, Arizona Transportation History, While these population figures represent the entire county, including the fast- growing areas of Prescott and Chino Valley, development in the Verde Valley accounts for a significant portion of the growth. Jeff Schalau, The Natural Resources of Yavapai County, University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, Yavapai County, accessed October 8, 2013, Similarly, the population of the entire state exploded during this time period. In 1950, Arizona s population was 759,587; in 1960, it was 1,302,161. By 1970, the state had 1,770,900 residents, 2,718,215 by 1980, and 3,665,228 in United States Bureau of the Census. Population of States and Counties of the United States: 1790 to Accessed January 14,

127 slump, rapidly increased. The expansion, while reinvigorating the local market, provided more incentive for many farmers to sell their land than to continue in the risky agricultural industry and sell produce to the new residents. Godard sums up a common sentiment of that time by explaining I could grow 10 tons of hay on this [hypothetical] place, but I could sell it and have ten houses built on it and I d make a lot more money on the houses! 24 The post- war housing boom did not simply raise land prices; it also occurred at an opportune time when many older Verde Valley farmers were ready to retire and to pass the farm on to their children. The younger generation grew up in the post- copper depression, and often sought their fortunes elsewhere. Many moved to Phoenix or other growing cities to attend university and enter non- agricultural professions such as accounting or engineering. Selling the farm could provide the necessary funds often lacking in land- rich but cash- poor farm families. The inflated prices commanded by irrigated farmland land also considered to be prime for building could provide a short- term financial infusion for struggling farmers. Yet the high prices did not simply encourage farmers to sell, they also made it more difficult for new farmers to become established. Unable to afford to expand the family farm, or to start out on their own, the cost of land inhibited young people 24 Godard also notes that this is a trend that continues to influence valley landowners. Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; Simmons, Cottonwood, Clarkdale, and Cornville History, 18-19; George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14,

128 from entering agriculture and provided further encouragement for them to consider other fields of work. 25 As more non- agricultural folks moved into the valley, the newcomers increasingly diluted the influence and presence of production farmers. Many new residents had needs and expectations of what the Verde Valley could and should offer them that differed from the needs of established agricultural families. Retirees, in search of an affordable yet comfortable living style, insisted upon access to good health care, a factor that earned the Marcus J. Lawrence Memorial Hospital (now the Verde Valley Medical Center, a satellite of Northern Arizona Healthcare) the nickname the Little Mayo s [sic] of the Verde Valley. In turn, the presence of a well- regarded hospital contributed to a feedback loop that encouraged even more retirees to move to the valley, thus providing further stimulus to the emerging healthcare industry. 26 An article from the early days of the boom in 1953 provides blunt evidence of the changing demographics and sense of place in the valley. Titled Looks Like Sabotage, it records a dispute over the allocation of funds from the Progressive Association, a civic body in the Verde Valley. The article introduces the place by describing the valley as the gateway to Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon, where many a Western movie is filmed, but goes on to say: 25 Both Kovacovichs also recognize the cost of land as a continuing barrier to young people interested in entering agriculture. George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, 2013; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, In 2014, the Verde Valley Medical Center is one of the valley s largest employers. Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, 2013; Peplow, The Verde Valley Story,

129 Just at present, however, valley residents are having an argument unbecoming to wearers of high- heeled boots and broad- brimmed hats.it s whether the Progressive Association, a civic body, should build a rodeo arena or a jalopy track It is expected that the dispute will be settled without the benefit of firearms. In the meantime, the natives up Cottonwood way would do well to get acquainted with their neighbors. It is evident that a bunch of Easterners have moved into their midst or such a dispute never would have arisen [emphasis added]. 27 Though the article identifies the interlopers as Easterners, the conflict was less about East pitted against West than valley resident versus newcomer. Though many newcomers did come from states like Illinois, Minnesota, and Indiana, Easterner was largely a catch- all term applied to outsiders initially attracted to the Verde Valley due to its location, recreational opportunities, climate, and small- town feel. The growing presence of new residents, however, contributed to a rural- to- suburban shift in valley politics, public spending, landscape, as well as the perception of the place. The mounting influence of neonatives threatened to undermine the area s remaining rural soul hanging on after years of economic depression and the collapse of the agri- industrial sense of place. The dispute over whether to build a rodeo arena or a jalopy track is a small but potent example of the region s continuing identity as a contested space. Instead of Anglos battling with Native Americans, or farmers engaging the copper companies, the tension between suburban and rural cultures and identities epitomized this latest contest Looks Like Sabotage, The Phoenix Gazette, found in Yuma Daily Sun, July 1953, The rural- suburban trend echoed across the entire state of Arizona. In 1952, state legislature passed a new law that made livestock owners responsible for their stray cattle. The damage to gardens and lawns was considered to be a bone of contention in the Verde Valley and other places undergoing a shift from an agricultural to residential landscape. Valley Sectors Protected from Stray Livestock, Prescott Evening Courier, June , 1. Simmons, Cottonwood, Clarkdale, and Cornville History, 18-19; Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, 2013; Findlay, Magic Lands,

130 ~Selling the Verde s Agrarian Soul~ In 1968, construction began on the Verde Village, an unincorporated subdivision that eventually eclipsed the neighboring town of Cottonwood in population and, some would say, influence. LaVerne Gastent and Emily Hopper, some of the first residents in Verde Village, recalled in an interview that developers initially planned to surround Cottonwood on all sides, and develop from the river to the base of the Black Hills. The Queen Creek Land and Cattle Company, the outside investors behind the project, subdivided undeveloped land into lots for single- story ranch houses and mobile homes. 29 Early residents of the village had no telephone service and no water but they did have a clubhouse with a swimming pool and community hall. The clubhouse, a repurposed genuine ranch house built by two cowboys in the late 1930s out of locally- made bricks and surrounded with remnants of its agrarian past- including pecan trees and grapevines- is a microcosm of the valley s shift from production agriculture to residential and recreational foci. The reuse of the ranch house paid homage to the historic agricultural soul of the region even as the associated development irreparably transformed the ranch s range into tidy suburban lots. The Verde Village clubhouse did not simply provide a community- gathering place and opportunities for leisure and recreation; it also connected a modern development to a romanticized vision of a pastoral past replete with hardworking cowboys and shady, productive orchards. The repurposed ranch house- turned clubhouse 29 LaVerne Gastent and Emily Hopper were interviewed together in Simmons, Cottonwood, Clarkdale, and Cornville History, 18-19; The 2010 census recorded 11,605 residents in Verde Village and 11,265 in Cottonwood. Arizona Demographics, Verde Village Quick Facts, accessed April 22, 2013, demographics.com/verde- village- demographics. 122

131 validated the Verde Villagers presence by associating them with the time- honored profession of ranching without actually requiring them to participate in an agricultural economy. 30 Operating as a form of imperialist nostalgia, a paradox where the perpetrator celebrates that which they helped to destroy, many other developers capitalized on similar elements of the Verde Valley s agricultural infrastructure to sell lots and houses. 31 (See Figure 16.) Homebuilders considered access to surface water especially desirable as it allowed the opportunity to have shade trees and a lawn, perhaps a few pleasure horses, and a garden. 32 In this vein, one 1969 ad from Chuck Barnes Realty proclaimed the Verde Valley to be Heaven on Earth and easily accessible via new roads. The ad fused together pastoral images, modern conveniences, and good living by emphasizing lots and home sites with river or stream frontage; irrigated, cheap water, good highways, schools, shopping, fishing. Ideal for gardens, horses, cattle or just a wonderful place to live. 80 miles from Phoenix. Mostly freeway. 33 Developers and real- estate agents capitalized on some of the same elements that attracted Anglo farmers to the Verde Valley in the 1860s, namely access to 30 Simmons, Cottonwood, Clarkdale, and Cornville History, Caren Kaplan, Questions of Travel: Postmodern Discourses of Displacement (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), Rancher Andy Groseta is a partner in the Cottonwood branch of Headquarters West, a firm that provides real estate consulting and appraisals of farm and ranchland throughout Arizona. Yvonne Gonzalez, Cottonwood Rancher Inducted in 4- H Hall of Fame, Verde Independent, October 26, 2013; Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, Chuck Barnes Realty, Heaven on Earth, advertisement, Arizona Republic, April 13, 1969, 123

132 Figure 16 Another example of a period ad from the Arizona Republic. Note the ranching imagery used to promote real estate sales in the Verde Valley. The Black Canyon Highway is mentioned as an important conduit between Phoenix and the Verde Valley, and is identified as a factor that will raise land prices and encourage further development in the valley. The four properties listed on the left are indicative of the transition of the valley from an agricultural landscape to one defined by recreational pursuits. Three of the properties listed are farms (respectively 20, 40, and 50 acres) and one also has several hundred acres of deeded grazing land with almost 6,000 acres of leased Forest Service land. The only property that is not explicitly identified as agricultural is located on Clear Creek and is described as a terrific Trailer Park opportunity. Verde Realty, advertisement, Arizona Republic, July 10, 1955,

133 water, proximity to larger towns (first Fort Whipple, then Jerome, and finally Phoenix), and a mild climate with a good growing season. For the homebuilders and the settlers, however, the implications of these assets differed. On one hand, access to surface water meant that the original Anglo settlers could construct irrigation ditches as an investment against drought. For many settlers of the mid- 1900s to the present, however, access to a ditch or stream meant the realization of a pastoral haven that supported various forms of leisure such as fishing, pleasure horses, or gardening. Proximity to a larger town, or a metropolis in the case of Phoenix, supported early producers by providing a market for their farm goods. Later Verde Valley homeowners interpreted access to the big city as an opportunity for urban recreation, access to an airport, and a source of tourists who helped to boost and define the valley economy. Finally, producers once identified the mild climate with a long growing season for crops such as pumpkins and stone fruits. 34 For neonatives, many of whom were retirees, the climate offered relief from hard winters while, for the younger set, the weather enabled outdoor activities year- round. 35 The remarketing of prime irrigated farmland as a pastoral residential Eden strained the capacities of the Verde Valley s old- fashioned agricultural 34 Stone fruits are drupes, or fruits that have a large central seed encased in a shell surrounded by soft fleshy fruit. Common examples are plums, apricots, and peaches. American Heritage College Dictionary, 4 th ed., s.v. Drupe. 35 Many of the interviewees for this thesis project stressed the Verde Valley s proximity to Phoenix as a major asset that enabled valley residents to partake in big city attractions, such as football games and unlimited shopping, without having to live in its bustling heat. Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, 2013; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14,

134 infrastructure that was suddenly required to serve a population very different from the earlier builders. The valley s historic irrigation network accommodated a small community of agriculturalists but was not designed to serve a large group of neonatives with more suburban needs. As developers subdivided irrigated farms, the number of shareholders along the canals increased resulting in changes to the culture surrounding the maintenance of the ditches. 36 Where once farmers paid off the ditch association fees by partaking in communal cleanups and maintenance, many suburban users provided funds instead of labor. Improvements in technology (i.e. using heavy machinery instead of horses and pitchforks) allowed for this reduction in the number of laborers at the social cost of eliminating community participation in the annual agricultural rite. Where once the cyclical ditch maintenance acted as the means for creating and renewing community bonds, it became a smaller aspect of the Verde Valley s sense of place as progressively fewer people participated in the upkeep of the irrigated landscape. 37 Tourism and the Battle for the Soul of the Place In his influential book Devil s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth- Century American West, Hal Rothman argues that the embrace of tourism in many western communities triggers a contest for the soul of place. In the Verde Valley, tourism 36 Typically one acre of irrigated land is equated to one share of the irrigation water. As the acre is subdivided, so too is the water allotment. Thus those with less than an acre have a percentage of a share. While this dilutes the power of each individual, the larger number of shareholders results in more complicated negotiations among ditch users. Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, 2013; Andrew Groseta, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cottonwood, Arizona, November 25, 2013; Fiege also discussed the social importance of irrigation ditch maintenance. Fiege, Irrigated Eden,

135 offered an elusive vision of a strong, diverse economy for which valley residents yearned, yet, as Rothman suggests, the industry also imposed new senses of place that challenged existing identities. Just as the influx of new residents transformed the demographics and landscape, the establishment of the tourism industry further contributed to the de- centering of agriculture as the driving force of economic and landscape change in the valley. Tourism was integrally tied to the construction of new and better roads that connected the recreational hinterland to its urban and suburban markets; the industry was both a cause that spurred further development as well as an effect that resulted from improvements to infrastructure and amenities. Tourists journeyed to the valley and the fabled Red Rock region near Sedona to experience a different environment and lifestyle, but their presence altered the very landscape that they came to enjoy. 38 (See figures 17 and 18.) The rise of the tourist industry entirely remade the small Oak Creek settlements that farmers once identified as refuges from the Verde Valley s sulfurous smelter smoke. While located outside of the valley proper, these were fundamentally tied to the Verde Valley from both an ecological and economic perspective. A major tributary to the Verde, Oak Creek traces a path through its namesake canyon in Sedona before entering the river southeast of Cottonwood, and serves as a hydrological conduit between the Mogollon Rim and the Verde Valley. Although in the late 1800s and early 1900s the proximity to the Rim enabled Oak Creek orchardists and farmers easier access to Flagstaff to market their produce, they retained important connections to the valley towns, as well as to the booming 38 Rothman, Devil s Bargains,

136 Figure 17 Map of Verde Valley printed in the Arizona Republic in Jerome is portrayed as a ghost town, and Clarkdale is devoid of any notable industry as the cement plant did not open until The map highlights Jerome, and the three national monuments of Tuzigoot, Montezuma Well, and Montezuma Castle, all places that were abandoned and re- imagined as tourist destinations. In this interim era after the copper boom and before the rise of the cement plant, Verde Valley tourism was rudimentary and had not yet created a dynamic and inviting sense of place to sell to visitors. Note that the mining town of Cherry remains prominent on this map. The little community would dwindle to semi- ghost town status as the rough route through the mountains was largely forgotten in favor of the soon- to- be completed Black Canyon Highway. Ed Peplow, The Verde Valley Story, Arizona Republic, July 10, 1955,

137 Figure 18 Compare this map, circa 1965, with the previous image. Note the much more sophisticated imagery that conjures an exciting and varied sense of the Verde Valley. Instead of being dominated by symbols of abandonment (i.e. ghost town Jerome, etc.) the valley is alive with singing cowboys, industry, and recreational opportunities such as Jerome s new mine museum. Interestingly, agriculture appears on this map typified by a modern tractor and several nods to the ranching industry. The Verde Valley of Arizona, , Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce Collection, Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff, accessed March 30, 2014, 129

138 copper town of Jerome. Water diverted from Oak Creek sustained the crops of some of the region s best- remembered farming families, namely the Jordans and the Pendleys, respectively memorialized in the Sedona Heritage Museum and Slide Rock State Park. These families, among others, transformed the Red Rock district into an area widely recognized for its top- quality apples and stone fruits such as peaches and apricots. 39 ~Traffic and the Tarnishing of Oak Creek Canyon~ In the mid- 1930s, improvements on the Oak Creek Canyon road brought the first non- local tourists to the area. The Pendleys, looking for insurance against bad harvests, constructed seven tourist cabins in 1934 to capitalize on a new source of income. A family- run store, located on SR 89A opposite the farm, sold picnic goods and served as the bus stop for local kids and a general store for other canyon residents. Though Oak Creek did experience a small amount of tourist trade, it was not until the post- World War II years that the trickle turned into a flood. When the tourist traffic picked up in the 1950s, the Pendley store transitioned to selling farm fresh produce and apples to the visitors who came to the canyon specifically to purchase fruit and to recreate among the red rocks. 40 Advertising campaigns geared towards visitors hailing from northern climes, such as the pamphlet cover shown in 39 Sedona Westerners, Those Early Days, 61, 72; Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, 2013; History of Sedona, Sedona Heritage Museum, accessed January 2, 2014, David Diamond, " The Pastoral and the Sublime : The Pendley Family Homestead and the Creation of Slide Rock State Park, The Journal of Arizona History 42, No. 2 (summer 2001): The opening of a new terminal at Phoenix s Sky Harbor airport in 1952 also brought more tourists to central Arizona. Arrivals at Sky Harbor increased dramatically during the 1950s, and the airport welcomed nearly one million passengers by Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, 2013; Diamond, " The Pastoral and the Sublime, 140; Pry and Andersen, Arizona Transportation History, 134; Thomas E. Sheridan, Arizona: A History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995),

139 Figure 18, recast the Verde Valley region as a temperate place for leisure and outdoor recreation made easily accessible by the completion of State Route 79 between Phoenix and Camp Verde in As increasing tourist traffic buoyed commercial interest in area, the Pendley family took advantage of rising land prices to sell a portion of the Oak Creek orchard to investors who constructed the Slide Rock Lodge. Tourism, for the Pendleys and their agricultural neighbors, offered itself as a source of economic stability but at the cost of, in the words of one scholar, tarnishing the canyon s allure with automobile fumes, transients, and significant alterations to the landscape. 42 The battle for the soul of Oak Creek s orchards continued to gain momentum as outside investors progressively remade Sedona from a dusty rural town into an unrecognizable tourist hub. (Appendix C provides a series of aerial photos of the Jordan orchard as it transitioned from a working agricultural area to an urban landscape dominated by the tourist infrastructure.) ~Sedona as a Pristine Canvas~ In his book Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona, Adrian Ivakhiv explores the development of the tourist industry in Red Rock Country, and specifically Sedona. Ivakhiv notes that the twentieth century has seen Sedona evolve from an isolated hamlet and cattle ranchers supply stop to a prime location for Hollywood Westerners, a retirees haven and artists colony, and finally 41 The Verde Valley of Arizona, nm193g002s006b012f0198i0004, Flagstaff Chamber of Commerce Collection, Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff. 42 Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, 2013; Diamond, " The Pastoral and the Sublime,

140 a New Age mecca and major tourist attraction. While he overlooks Oak Creek Canyon s rich orchard history, Ivakhiv explains the various reincarnations Sedona underwent to achieve its status as a tourist destination that, with four to five million visitors annually, rivals the Grand Canyon as Arizona s most popular attraction. 43 Beginning in the 1920s and continuing through the 1950s, Sedona s eroding landscape moonlighted as the stereotypical Western backdrop to cowboy films supposedly set in Texas, Tucson, or some nameless western place. 44 Transported to theater screens, and eventually home televisions, across the country, Sedona s iconic landscape became, ironically, that of the generic West. Ivakhiv recounts how, for the larger pictures, movie producers trucked in non- local people and non- native plants, such as the saguaro cactus, to further manufacture a western sense of place that, strangely, did not naturally exist anywhere. 45 By offering Sedona as a blank slate upon which mythic fantasies could take pace, the film industry was the first to commercialize the sense of place of Sedona- Oak Creek area as a commodity that could be bought, manufactured, and sold. 46 Film, however, failed to define the region s economy for long. The movie industry employed relatively few locals, and even those only ephemerally. The next 43 Adrian Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona (Bloomington, IN.: Indiana University Press, 2001), Sedona continued to provide epic backdrops for Western films through the 1970s, but by that time the Western film genre no longer attracted the following it once had. Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground, 156; Joe McNeill, Arizona s Little Hollywood: Sedona and Northern Arizona s Forgotten Film History (Sedona, AZ: Northedge & Sons, 2010). 45 Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground, Lili DeBarbieri, Location Filming in Arizona: The Screen Legacy of the Grand Canyon State (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014),

141 economic reorientation occurred in the late 1950s, and was similarly driven by outside artists. Unlike the filmmakers who typically came, filmed, and left, this new wave composed largely of painters and sculptors often relocated to the area and quickly identified as Sedona locals. Due to their desires to own a year- round home or vacation studio in the Red Rock district, artists became a permanent presence in Sedona s economy and, thus, the community s identity. In 1956, the Jordan family sold off its old fruit packing shed to a community art group led by recent arrivals Max Ernst, a German- born sculptor, and the Egyptian sculptor, Nassan Gobran. Symbolically, the transition of the packing shed to artists studio paralleled a tangible shift in the community. In the 1930s, the Jordan family ran a fruit cooperative out of the building, providing a place for neighbors to gather and collectively market produce during the hard days of the Great Depression. 47 Two decades later, it was a powerful indication of the changing times as neonatives purchased the shed and transformed it into the heart of the new artists colony. By the mid- 1960s, Sedona s identity as an artistic haven was well established and contributing to the conception of the area as a place friendly to alternative lifestyles. The links between the artist community and the emerging New Age, or metaphysical, community tended to be strong. Spurred by the patronage of Mary Lou Keller, the former wife of a Trans World Airlines president who transformed herself into a red rocks real estate agent and yogi, the reimagining of Sedona as a psychic s mecca continued to gain strength during the 1970s. The discovery of mysterious power spots in the second half of the decade set the stage for the 47 Jordan, Following their Westward Star, ix, 109; Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground,

142 vortex industry that overtook the town during the 1980s and 1990s. A place once identified by its quality fruit, then by its western- ness and paintable skies, was now home to a growing alternative community that planted rocks in the shape of medicine wheels instead of picking them from fields. In a twist on Hal Rothman s Devil s Bargains, Ivakhiv notes the rise of neo- Native spirituality in the 1980s as a trend that cultivated the idea of Sedona s pristine native inhabitants along with its magical landscape. This movement, while objectifying and romanticizing the region s people with legitimate Native American descent, encouraged visitors and residents alike to create a new historical narrative, one that excluded Sedona s established agricultural residents, settlement history, and local Native American heritage. 48 Ivakhiv notes that the 1980s were also, however, the beginning of a development boom that took over Sedona and remade the community into a more mainstream Disneyland of wonders catering toward consumption of luxury goods and metaphysical experiences that actively obscured the area s historic and contemporary working landscapes. The Disneyfication of Sedona made it appear that the community had always been wealthy and leisure- oriented by casting out reminders of laborers and hard industry in favor of a more genteel sense of place encapsulated in the construction of high- end resorts during the 1980s and early 1990s. The rising cost of living in the Oak Creek communities pushed service workers out of the high- traffic tourist centers to live in the Verde Valley, and even Flagstaff, and commute to their jobs. The twice- daily rush of service workers 48 Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground, 158, ,

143 noticeably increased traffic along the portion of SR 89A running in front of the Pendley orchard, turning the road into a contested space between residents, slow- moving tourists, and commuting workers. 49 Sedona s evolution into a pleasure- oriented community did not just remove the workers from the residential landscape; it also destroyed the area s historic working landscape of orchards, vegetable patches, and cattle pens. In Claiming Scared Ground, Ivakhiv writes that the Sedona Magazine, first published in 1986, was filled to the brim with perfect pictures of stunning landscapes accompanied by captions claiming the region to be Arizona s most pristine natural playground. That editors advertised Sedona, and especially the reaches of Oak Creek along 89A, as pristine is another iteration of the myth that sought to create a perfect, carefree world regardless of the realities of the place s hardworking agrarian past. Sedona s pristine label came at the cost of investors and boosters willfully ignoring the hybrid, manipulated landscape that they attempted to sell to visitors as untouched. 50 The rocketing land values of the 1980s and 1990s in Sedona- Oak Creek encouraged remaining production farmers and ranchers to sell their land, essentially eliminating working agriculture from Sedona s new sense of place that 49 Some reminders of the area s working past can be found in public history spaces such as Slide Rock State Park and the Sedona Heritage Museum. This topic is further explored in the next chapter. Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground, ; Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, Ivakhiv notes that some critical thinkers call publications like Sedona Magazine eco- porn because they sell natural beauty by the acre while obscuring the real vulnerability of the red rock ecology to development and overuse. Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground, 161,

144 left little room for calloused laborers. 51 Ironically, despite the absence of active cultivation, the post- agricultural landscape was quite far from the pristine label that many boosters applied to the Red Rock district. The entire 89A corridor along Oak Creek remains a hybrid landscape with a mish- mash of historical agricultural remnants lying largely forgotten along popular hiking spots. Blasted sandstone, rusting pipes, and concrete- lined irrigation canals still trace the creek bed, occasionally dissecting the areas of flattened ground that are carved wherever the canyon walls bow. Some of these fields still bear a bower of apple blossoms in the spring, but many are impassably choked with the thorny stems of Himalayan blackberry (Rubus discolor), an invasive introduced to the canyon originally for erosion control and edible fruit. 52 Slide Rock State Park, a public history site further discussed in Chapter Five, makes an attempt to introduce tourists to the canyon s historic agricultural landscape. Yet even at this site, with its small apple orchard and fruit packing shed, the main attraction the natural sandstone water slide far overshadows the interest paid to the site s agricultural narrative. The remnants of Oak Creek s manipulated, post- agricultural landscape continue to be largely ignored by boosters capitalizing on the myth of Sedona as a carefree oasis community whose sense of place is in direct contrast with the agrarian identity once embodied by hardworking residents like the Pendleys and Jordans. These families, and the others that called 51 Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, 2013; Diamond, " The Pastoral and the Sublime, United States Department of the Interior, Plant Assessment Form: Rubus discolor, by Christopher Laws and Dana Backer, United State Geological Survey, accessed January 20, 2014, 136

145 Oak Creek home, worked to remake the wild canyon into a hospitable, productive place. In its tourist- oriented rebranding of the post- World War II era, boosters recast Sedona- Oak Creek as an untouched playground and the history of the region s farmers and ranchers, along with the landscape they molded, no longer dominated the canyon s sense of place. 53 The remaking of the Sedona- Oak Creek region is notable because of the rapid rate and completeness of its transformation from a working landscape to one oriented around recreation and residential needs. Yet Sedona functions as a microcosm of the larger trends experienced in the Verde Valley proper. In each place, the cultural landscape changed to reflect the disparate needs of a growing population of neonatives who had their own set of suburbanized- visions for the landscape. In turn, symbols of past economic orientations and agri- ecological identities, such as Sedona s orchards or the valley s dairies, largely disappeared. 54 The contest for the souls of the Verde Valley and Sedona cast newcomers as the agents of socio- ecological change with the power to script the sense of place and dis- placed agriculturalists from the cultural and physical landscape. The New Faces of Verde Valley Agriculture As the communities along Oak Creek reoriented toward the tourist industry 53 Before WWII, boosters did identify agriculture as an important and unique component of Sedona s identity. A regional guidebook published in 1940 by the Works Progress Administration identified Sedona as a Mormon settlement that has long been a community center for the stock and fruit ranchers and described Oak Creek Canon as an orchard lined stream with plums, apples, grapes, peaches, and pears are grown here for sale in near- by towns." Workers of the Writers Program of the Work Projects Administration of the State of Arizona, Arizona: A Guide (New York: Hastings House, 1940), 330; Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, 2013; Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground, Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3,

146 and the Verde Valley became its poorer labor- hinterland, changes to the region s economy and landscape drastically reduced the importance of production agriculture. Yet surprisingly, despite the onslaught of developers, it continued to retain elements of its agricultural identity. The late twentieth and early twenty- first centuries brought an agricultural resurgence in the form of tourist- oriented venues and small- scale diversified farms. ~Agriculture as Tourism~ Beginning in the late 1930s, the orchardists along Oak Creek were some of the first to transform the fruits of production farming into tourist attractions. 55 Starting with small vacation cabins constructed at the edge of the orchard, and then moving on to a large roadside fruit stand as access to the canyon improved, the Pendley family was at the forefront of bridging the working farm landscape and the recreational one. Despite the success of the Pendley s agri- tourism enterprises through the 1970s and 1980s, however, there is little evidence to suggest that the few remaining farmers in the Verde Valley similarly engaged in agri- tourism during that time. 56 It was not until the late 1990s and early 2000s that a new type of niche- 55 This does not take into account the handful of dude ranch outfits in the Verde Valley region. Some examples include the famous Soda Springs Guest Ranch that opened in 1930, and the Beaver Creek Guest Ranch that opened in These outfits, however, largely lay outside the purview of this thesis focus on farming and production agriculture. They would, however, make excellent material for further study. William Cowan, Images of America: Verde Valley (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2011), The Pendley family eventually succumbed to external suburbanizing pressures and sold their land to the Arizona Parklands Foundation in 1985 for use as a state park. Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, 2013; Peter Friederici, ed., What Has Passed and What Remains: Oral Histories of Northern Arizona s Changing Landscapes (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2010),

147 based agriculture entered the valley and reoriented a large portion of its agricultural economy and identity towards the tourist industry. 57 During that period, area communities, especially Camp Verde and Cottonwood, realized the economic potential of revitalizing a local agricultural identity as a way to strengthen the regional economy. The increasingly ubiquitous local food crusade, ironically a national- scale movement, seeped into the Verde Valley and raised awareness about the marketing potential of the local label. Since its beginnings in the 1970s and 1980s as a backlash against the federal push for cheap industrialized food and numerous food safety scandals, the food movement gained power and support among concerned consumers and those looking for a place- sensitive culinary experience. 58 The publication of several bestselling books at the start of the twenty- first century, including Eric Schlosser s Fast Food Nation in 2001 and Michael Pollan s The Omnivore s Dilemma and Marion Nestle s Food Politics in 2006, inserted the values surrounding local, organic, and humane food into the mainstream national discourse. 59 As organic produce hit the shelves of traditional supermarkets and local 57 Nancy B. Gottschalk, Barriers and Limitations to Expanded Participation in Local Food Systems, Cottonwood, Arizona, (Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University, 2012), 5; Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce, Verde Valley Wine Trail: Wineries, accessed February 24, 2014, 58 For simplicity I use the term food movement. It should be noted, however, that this movement is not coherent and instead composed of multiple sub- movements all focusing on different aspects of the food system. Michael Pollan, The Food Movement, Rising, The New York Review of Books (June 10, 2010), accessed February 24, 2014, movement- rising/?pagination=false. 59 Pollan, The Food Movement, Rising, /jun/10/food- movement- rising/?pagination=false. 139

148 food captured high prices at farmers markets across the country, Verde Valley communities understood the power of using the local label as a marketing tool. By the early 2000s, valley natives and neonatives adapted the area s historic agricultural identity to reflect a growing national interest in gourmet handcrafted food and began the process of reinventing local agriculture as tourism. 60 The Verde Valley s viticulture industry, established in the early 2000s, is emblematic of the attempts to create an agri- tourism industry. The presence of wealthy retirees and a large volume of tourists in the valley provided a local market eager to purchase luxury and place- specific wine manufactured only a short distance from Sedona s resorts. A 2009 Associated Press article appeared in national newspapers proclaiming Arizona wineries rise above the desert climate. The article highlighted several grape- growing areas across the state, including the Verde Valley, and noted that Cottonwood is trying to entice vacationers by packaging and branding wineries as the Verde Valley Wine Trail. The Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce enthusiastically embraced viticulture as a strong agri- tourism industry with the potential to grow and sustain the valley s economy. 61 The Verde Valley Wine Consortium, formed in 2008 under the umbrella of the Verde Valley Regional Economic Organization (VVREO), similarly capitalized on the potential to link the wine industry, tourism, and valley- wide economic 60 Gottschalk, Barriers and Limitations, 5; Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce, Verde Valley Wine Trail: Wineries, accessed February 24, 2014, 61 Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce, Verde Valley Wine Trail, accessed January 3, 2014, Terry Tang, Arizona Wineries Rise Above Desert Climate, The Daily Intelligencer, October 25, 2009,

149 development. The alignment between agriculture and tourism is also evident in the fact that the Pink Jeep Tour company, a staple of Sedona s tourist landscape, offered packages integrating wine tastings among stops at vortex hotspots and red rock vistas. By 2012, ten wineries spread their tight rows across the valley, lending a Mediterranean air to the Verde Valley s jumbled senses of place and illustrating that the landscape of the Verde Valley remained a contested space. 62 ~The Contested Agricultural Renaissance in the Verde Valley~ In the first decades of the twenty- first century, the future of the Verde Valley continued to be, as historian Hal Rothman might say, up for grabs. Some area residents interpreted the rise of viticulture as the cooption of local agriculture by the tourism industry. This led some residents and neonatives to once again recast the Verde Valley as contested space in their struggle to determine the future role of agriculture in a revitalized and sustainable local economy. Thus while the early 2000s ushered in the agri- tourist viticulture industry, it was also a period of grassroots mobilization focused on restoring the valley s traditional role as a diverse food producer for a regional market. 63 One actor in the grassroots movement to reorient local agriculture towards issues of sustainability, health, and economic security was the Verde Valley Agriculture Coalition (VVAgC). Formed in 2008, VVAgC operated under the same organizational umbrella as the Wine Consortium. Yet unlike the Consortium, VVAgC 62 Verde Valley Regional Economic Organization, Verde Valley Wine Consortium, accessed February 24, 2014, Tang, Arizona Wineries, 68; Gottschalk, Barriers and Limitations Rothman, Devil s Bargains, 11; Gottschalk, Barriers and Limitations ; Cody Canning, interview conducted by author, Flagstaff, Arizona, January 4,

150 advocated for small- scale diversified valley growers in an attempt to preserve and resurrect the Verde Valley s rural identity and food- hinterland status. Central to the VVAgC s mission was the creation of an integrated production system to support backyard and small- scale producers with markets and resources. Indeed, the VVAgC model was based on the premise that the majority of Verde Valley agriculture would be at the micro level and include producers cultivating between two and ten acres. The small- scale focus of VVAgC reflected trends in the United States Department of Agriculture s 2007 census that recorded that the majority of farms in Yavapai County averaged between one and nine acres and the majority of farmers in the county did not identify agriculture as their primary source of income. 64 The Verde Valley s agricultural identity continues to be evolving, dynamic, and contested. The viticulture industry, while in some ways reasserting agriculture as an important aspect of the valley s economy, is still largely driven by outside investors catering to visiting tourists. Some small- scale Verde growers feel it draws needed economic resources and attention away from struggling, diversified farms that seek to serve the food needs of local residents rather than the recreational desires of outsiders. In her 2012 thesis on the barriers faced by contemporary Verde Valley farmers and consumers, Cottonwood resident Nancy Gottschalk suggests agriculture and consumption of local foods remains an alternative to mainstream valley culture rather than an identity embraced by the entire community. Yet the 64 Gottschalk, Barriers and Limitations, 72; Verde Valley Agriculture Coalition, e- mail message to author, January 23, 2014; United States Department of Agriculture, 2007 Census of Agriculture, Yavapai County, Arizona, Profile, accessed September 17, 2013, pdf. 142

151 growing presence of small- scale growers from the Verde Valley, and the entrance of supportive grassroots civic organizations, serves as a reminder that agriculture is experiencing a renaissance as a valued, and marketable, aspect of the valley s sense of place. 65 Recognizing the Verde Valley as Contested Space The Verde Valley is a place consistently remade by successive waves of newcomers challenging the social and physical constructions of existing residents. In the twentieth and twenty- first centuries, the valley remained a contested space as its historic agri- industrial identity disintegrated under pressures from suburban neonatives who sought to shape the landscape in their own image. Yet, despite the intrusion of the modern Interstate system, and the arrival of tourism and large- scale residential development that accompanied the roads, elements of the Verde Valley s agrarian past survive in the form of tourist- oriented local agriculture and an increasing number of small- scale diversified farmers. While the valley s agricultural identity evolved to reflect its changing socio- economic identity, recent grass- roots initiatives attest to the possibility of a regional agricultural renaissance. 65 Gottschalk, Barriers and Limitations, 72, 74; Cody Canning, interview conducted by author, Flagstaff, Arizona, January 4,

152 Chapter Five Voices of the Verde Valley: Narrative and Public History (In)Action Ruins provide the incentive for restoration, and for a return to origins... There has to be an interim of death or rejection before there can be renewal and reform. -John Brinkerhoff Jackson 1 Effective history deprives the self of the reassuring stability of life and nature, and it will not permit itself to be transported by a voiceless obstinacy toward a millennial ending. It will uproot its traditional foundations and relentlessly disrupt its pretended continuity. - Michel Foucault 2 The cultural landscape of the Verde Valley is particularly rich, for the preserving qualities of its semi- arid climate and its settlement history endowed the valley with artifacts from millennia of occupation. 3 Clues of the valley s pre- Columbian Native American inhabitants dot hillocks and cliff faces, and irrigation ditches prehistoric and historic crisscross the floodplain. 4 Gnarled apple trees and decrepit windmills mark the site of early Anglo homesteads while crumbling J.B. Jackson, The Necessity for Ruins (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980), 2 Michel Foucault, Nietzsche, Genealogy, History, in The Foucault Reader, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), The term cultural landscape refers to physical changes in environment wrought by the manipulation of the land by humans in accordance to their cultural beliefs, as well as to the ways in which the environment influenced human settlement patterns and cultural changes. Cultural landscapes are discussed further later in this chapter. United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization World Heritage Convention, Cultural Landscape, accessed February 9, 2014, 4 Verde Valley Archaeology Center, Sinagua Circle, accessed February 10, 2014, 144

153 mining equipment sags into the valley s rocky western flank, indictors of a golden industrial age long past. Across the surface of this agri- industrial tapestry, elements of the aging suburban landscape radiate around the edges of historic downtown Camp Verde, Cottonwood, Cornville, and Clarkdale while new residential and commercial development pushes up against the remaining open range and National Forest boundaries. Economic reorientations and land use changes fashioned this hybrid palimpsest of overlapping pasts. Surprisingly, however, this landscape and the components that created it are often undervalued and underutilized as the means to engage visitors and residents in critical place- based learning and engagement. The Verde Valley s agri- ecological landscape is not mysterious because it is unknowable, but rather because there are few opportunities for the public to acquire the skills needed to read the cultural landscape and understand the associated social, economic, and ecological implications. 5 Public history installations, such as museums and specifically living history sites, have the potential to present narratives that transform these unknown landscapes and histories into valued aspects of the valley s heritage. This chapter engages the importance of sharing these narratives of dynamic socio- environmental change, the ways in which stories of this agriculture and environmental change are currently told or hidden, and ways to honor these historical and contemporary narratives in existing and future public history settings. As such, this chapter departs from the historiographical and chronological portraits presented in previous chapters. Instead, it examines the absence of an experiential, agriculturally 5 Cody Canning, interview conducted by author, Flagstaff, Arizona, January 4,

154 themed education site, proposes the modification of an existing location, and explores the potential of constructing a new heritage center located in the town of Camp Verde. I argue that the Verde Valley s current public history sites do not adequately present the region s agricultural and landscape history in a meaningful, engaging manner. This absence devalues the valley s agri- ecological heritage by disconnecting current valley residents from the knowledge and skills of their agrarian predecessors. The conspicuous lack of a public setting devoted to the Verde Valley s agricultural history coupled with the its rapidly changing identity make it a prime spot for reworking existing museums as well as the creation of new living history sites that could serve as the hub for a budding agricultural renaissance. Hands- on and inquiry- based public history settings can create a meaningful and lasting educational experience for participants and visitors. This exposure is crucial for cultivating a respect for and understanding of place, cultural difference, and history by welcoming newcomers while validating the knowledge and perspective of older residents. 6 Existing Public History Opportunities in the Verde Valley The Verde Valley has a remarkable wealth of public history sites, including two state parks, two national monuments, and three community historical society museums. Climb the hill to Jerome, or meander up Oak Creek through Sedona, and 6 Experiential and place- based learning is also integrally tied to cultivating community sustainability, a theme further discussed in Chapter 6. The Association of Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums, Living History, accessed February 17, 2014, Jay Anderson, Time Machines: The World of Living History (Nashville, Tennessee: The American Association for State and Local History, 1984), 11,

155 the number of public history sites almost doubles. During the course of the and academic years, I conducted a series of informal site visits to ten public history sites in the Verde region: the Jerome State Historic Park, the Clarkdale Historical Society and Museum, the Clemenceau Heritage Museum in Cottonwood, the Camp Verde Historical Society Museum, Fort Verde State Park, Dead Horse Ranch State Park, Montezuma Well National Monument, Tuzigoot National Monument, the Sedona Heritage Museum, and Slide Rock State Park in Oak Creek Canyon. After the excitement of these field trips faded, I struggled with how to digest my experiences in a meaningful way that accounted for the various inherent differences between the locations. While I tend to group the sites by their benefactors (i.e. federal, state, or community), there remain significant variances within these categories. Despite the limitations of my chosen organizational strategy, I feel that it is essential to give a brief overview of what narratives are present in current public history sites before launching into a discussion of what is missing and how those absences might be addressed. With such a panoply of sites, however, it would be tangential to my overall purpose to examine each location in detail. Thus the following paragraphs offer a short overview of ten selected public venues grouped by their federal, state, or civic status. There are two national monuments located in the Verde Valley proper: Tuzigoot, on the left bank of the Verde River across from Clarkdale, and the Montezuma Castle and Well unit, near Camp Verde. Both monuments pay tribute to the valley s pre- Anglo inhabitants and focus on interpreting the Verde Valley s long 147

156 Native American heritage. Tuzigoot and the Castle have small indoor exhibit areas that function as archeology museums, but the main foci are the impressive ruins that remain in situ outside. 7 As such, the post agri- ecological history presented in this thesis is largely outside the public history mission of either site. Because of this difference in purpose and period of interest, I do not include either monument in my following discussion of valley museums. 8 Of the five regional state parks, two identify specifically as historic parks. The Jerome State Historic Park overlooks the valley from the mountainside mansion built by James S. Douglas, owner of the United Verde Extension, and focuses on Jerome s socio- economic history with a strong emphasis on mining and geology. Thus, the majority of the park s exhibits focus on the technology, companies, and people that made Jerome s impressive excavations possible. 9 The other regional state historic park explores life in the Verde Valley proper. Located in Camp Verde, the Fort Verde State Historic Park tells the story of the valley from a military perspective during the initial Anglo settlement of the mid- to- late 1800s. Interestingly, Fort Verde is one of the few public history sites in the valley to include 7 Interestingly, Tuzigoot s website includes a discussion on the Park s historic agri- ecological history titled Disturbed Lands. The Park also commissioned a special history study on the Tavasci Marsh. This document includes a detailed and comprehensive examination of the Park s changing agri- industrial landscape. Unfortunately, these narratives are not highlighted in permanent on- site exhibits. National Park Service, Tuzigoot: Disturbed Lands, accessed March 12, 2013, lands.htm; United States Department of the Interior, Tuzigoot National Monument: Tavasci Marsh Special History Study by William Stoutamire, (National Park Service, Intermountain Cultural Resource Management, Santa Fe, 2011), accessed January 7, 2014, tavasci_marsh_final_3_8_11.pdf. 8 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Tuzigoot National Monument, accessed March 12, 2014, United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Montezuma Castle National Monument, accessed March 12, 2014, 9 Site visit, May

157 simulated living history during several annual events featuring period military and domestic reenactments. 10 The other three state parks located within this regional corridor do not identify historical education as a primary purpose and instead focus on outdoor recreation and science- based environmental education. 11 Yet one of these sites, Slide Rock State Park, incorporates some elements of an open- air agricultural museum. While the main attraction at Slide Rock is the sandstone slide where Oak Creek s cool waters etch grooves into the soft substrate and make it a natural play area, the park also incorporates some interpretation of its agricultural past. As the site of the Pendley family s orchard, Slide Rock s exhibits include an outdoor farm implement display, heirloom fruit trees, and several buildings original to the Pendley s operation. The Friends of Slide Rock State Park volunteer organization also maintains a small Pendley Memorial Garden planted with crops once found on Oak Creek farms. In the fall, the park sells apples from its heirloom trees and, due to record harvest in 2013, launched a pick- your- own program for visitors and volunteers. 12 In addition to these federal and state- funded sites, the valley also hosts three museums respectively operated by the local historical societies of Clarkdale, 10 Site visit November 2013; Arizona State Parks, Fort Verde State Historic Park: Events, accessed February 26, 2014, Anderson, Time Machines, Arizona State Parks, Red Rock, Slide Rock, and Dead Horse Ranch, accessed February 26, 2014, 12 Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3,

158 Cottonwood, and Camp Verde. Each of these community museums concentrates on the micro history of its hometown yet all rely on similar methods, chiefly through displayed collections of artifacts, to create a didactic experience. The Clemenceau Heritage and the Camp Verde Historical Society Museum are community public history sites that present analogous narratives of the development of their respective towns and pay particular attention to the early days of Anglo settlement in the valley. The museums of Clemenceau and Camp Verde also have a small space dedicated to ancient Native American artifacts. Both function as repositories for local historic documents, and serve as showcases for collected prehistoric and historic objects. The museum of the Clarkdale Historical Society, due to its very limited quarters tucked into an old United Verde Copper Company (UVCC) building, does not attempt to capture the scattered storylines presented in Clemenceau and Camp Verde. Instead, Clarkdale has a permanent collection featuring items from the town s urban and mining past and rotating exhibits on various aspects of its smelting and social history. 13 A fourth community- run museum, the Sedona Heritage Museum is located in uptown Sedona on the old Jordan orchard, just south of Slide Rock State Park. The Heritage Museum has a small campus of historic buildings that once composed the Jordan homestead. Much of the museum is kept in the Jordan s red rock house, and ranges over most of Sedona s Anglo history. The museum briefly acknowledges the 13 Site visits February 2013 and September Clemenceau Heritage Museum, History, accessed March 15, 2013, Clarkdale Historical Society and Museum, Museum History, accessed March 1, 2014, %20History/index.html; Arizona State Parks, Fort Verde State Historic Park, accessed April 7, 2013, 150

159 agricultural history of the site and displays several antique farm implements in the remaining farm outbuildings but also attempts to cover the history of the town s founding, its film industry, its art community, as well as highlight the region s pioneer story in a very small exhibit space. 14 ~Off-Site Digital and Published Public History~ While this chapter focuses primarily on regional physical sites, the field of public history also encompasses non- site based settings such as websites and popular publications. Many of the Verde Valley s physical public history settings have a corresponding institutional website, and two of these virtual sites include photos and descriptions of the region s farming and ranching past. The Sedona Heritage Museum s website provides an introductory video that highlights the site s farming past, the regional historic ranching culture, and other narratives, such as filmmaking and pioneer stories, shared at the physical location. The Heritage Museum also includes a webpage that features four historic photos of Sedona- Oak Creek area ranches and orchards accompanied by brief background information on each industry. 15 Similarly, Slide Rock State Park s accompanying website also includes information on the Pendley family and the park s remaining orchards. While the history of the park comprises the first two paragraphs on the main webpage, and includes a broad- brushed agricultural history, the supplementary park video located above that text does not allude to any aspect of the regional or 14 Site visits May 2012 and November 2013; Sedona Heritage Museum, History of Sedona, accessed January 2, 2014, 15 Sedona Heritage Museum, History of Sedona and Home, accessed March 27, 2014, 151

160 site specific orchard, farming, or ranching culture. The digital site also lacks photos of the site s pre- park days when the Pendleys operated it as a working orchard, but it does include a Feature Story page that discusses the care needed to maintain the park s heritage apple trees. 16 While Sedona- area orchards and ranching receive some digital attention, the historic farms and agricultural projects located near the valley communities of Clarkdale, Cottonwood, Cornville, and Camp Verde have a more limited online presence. Two of the valley s three community museums, Clemenceau Heritage Museum and Clarkdale Historical Society and Museum, maintain websites but neither provide much detailed historical information, and neither draws attention to regional agriculture. 17 A new website recently launched by the Town of Camp Verde, however, draws attention to the Pecan Lane Rural Historic Landscape, a portion of the Montezuma Castle Highway that joined the National Register of Historic Places in A brief paragraph describes how the Haydon family planted the trees in as a cash crop, but the site explores few other aspects of the area s farming landscape or history. 18 Popular history books, those written for a public rather than academic audience, offer further opportunities to provide information that is unavailable or 16 Arizona State Parks, Slide Rock State Park and Feature Story, accessed March 27, 2014, 17 Clemenceau Heritage Museum, accessed March 15, 2013, Clarkdale Historical Society and Museum, accessed March 1, Visit Camp Verde, Heritage: Pecan Lane Rural Historic Landscape, accessed March 27, 2014, 152

161 underexplored in physical sites. Images of America: Verde Valley (2011) and Images of America: Camp Verde (2010) are two recently published examples of popular history and are sold in museum gift shops and visitor centers scattered throughout the region. Each includes roughly two hundred historic photos and primary source documents from local archives and private collections. Verde Valley includes eight photographs that include an actively farmed landscape, farmers, or crops while Camp Verde includes three photos. Images of ranchers with horses and cattle are more numerous, but photos of Native Americans, pictures of U.S. military installations and leaders, images of valley towns, and shots of local extractive industries vastly outnumber representations of farming and ranching. Neither publication devotes a chapter to regional agriculture despite the books largely thematic organizational structures that highlight important historical eras, identities, and actors. For example, Camp Verde author Steve Ayers divides the book into nine chapters including The Indians, The Fort, The Town, and The Mines yet does not dedicate a chapter to ranchers or farmers. William Cowan, author of Verde Valley, similarly organizes his book into chapters for pre- Anglo Native Americans, Anglo Pioneers, local military, before switching to geographically- determined chapters (e.g. Sedona- Oak Creek, Jerome, Upper Verde, etc.). Like Ayer s, Cowan does not emphasize local agriculture to the same degree as other topics William Cowan, Images of America: Verde Valley (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2011); Steve Ayers, Images of America: Camp Verde, (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010). 153

162 Understanding History as Constructed Narrative As I conducted my public history analysis, it quickly became apparent that no existing location, website, or popular publication engages the Verde Valley s agricultural history as its core focus and primary purpose. While all of the physical sites, except for the Jerome State Historic Park and the Clarkdale Historical Society Museum, mention something about local ranching and to a lesser extent farming, no site identified the region s agricultural history as a central, evolving, and continuous aspect of its heritage. 20 At the conclusion of my analysis, I was left with two nagging questions: why does the Verde Valley lack a strong agriculture public history narrative? How might this story be highlighted? I interpreted the valley s high concentration of public history sites to indicate an interest to certain aspects of its history. Yet farming does not appear to garner enough attention to warrant a unique site or significant exhibit despite the fact that there are several museums in Jerome and Clarkdale dedicated to the region s other historic industry of import: copper. 21 In spite of the growing attention given to reviving production agriculture in the Verde Valley, a trend mentioned in the previous chapter, this interest was not historicized nor reflected in existing public history sites. There are two meta- reasons behind the lack of detailed attention given to the Verde Valley s agricultural history in existing public settings. One reason involves 20 Due to its physical setting in a historic working orchard, Slide Rock State Park may appear to focus on the region s agricultural history. Yet, as I explore later in this chapter, even Slide Rock is not primarily oriented towards this history. 21 In addition to the Jerome Mining Museum, the Jerome State Historic Park, and the Clarkdale Historical Society Museum, the new Copper Art Museum opened in downtown Clarkdale in December Philip Wright, Clarkdale's Copper Art Museum Showcasing Arizona's Greatest Treasure, Verde Independent, December 11,

163 the socio- cultural orientation of museum visitors and curators while the other interconnected explanation relates to the availability of and access to spatial, financial, and professional resources. These two factors shape the content, presentation style, and setting of each site. Thus, before exploring how the valley s agricultural history might be presented, it is first important to understand how socio- cultural and resource- related dynamics operate in the Verde Valley s existing public history landscape. ~Public History as a Social Construction~ The works of scholars John Falk, Lynn Dierking, and historian William Cronon provide insights into the socio- cultural implications of the existing lack of a comprehensive agricultural public history in the Verde Valley. Cronon suggests that history is composed of narratives that order causal relationships to create meaning and make sense of the chaotic and disordered reality. Yet each storyteller approaches the past from a perspective informed by life experience, context, and place, and composes a narrative that reflects these positions. In an essay on the power of narrative to shape the story arc of history, he writes historians do not tell stories by themselves. We write as members of communities, and we cannot help but take those communities into account as we do our work. 22 Education scholars Falk and Dierking transfer Cronon s argument to the museum setting and contend that museums are socio- cultural environments that offer a socially constructed 22 William Cronon, A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative, The Journal of American History 78 (March 1992): 1349,

164 didactic product. As such, museums mirror the chosen metanarrative of a community, one that is typically informed by the dominant social perspective. 23 As a social construction, public history settings present manufactured memories driven by the desire to define a usable past and promote social, political, and economic agendas. 24 In the Verde Valley, the local economic orientation toward the tourism industry, the presence of a large neonative community, and the physical settings of the museums influence the choices of which community narratives are highlighted and which are hidden. 25 Lifelong Verde Valley resident and Clemenceau Museum volunteer Don Godard notes that many people involved in the valley s historical society museums are not directly involved with agriculture, and most arrived in the area at the same time that production farming began to decline. The founding dates of the valley s three community museums support Godard s observation. The Camp Verde Historical Society is the oldest in the Verde Valley and established its community museum in the 1970s, a time defined by a growing service- based economy and residential landscape. 26 The other two community museums, the Clemenceau Heritage Museum and the Clarkdale 23 John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, Learning From Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2000), Paul Shackel, Archaeology and Created Memory: Public History in a National Park (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishing, 2000), viii. 25 Rothman, Devil s Bargains, 11; Sedona Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Bureau, Sedona- Verde Valley Regional Study: Verde Valley Tourism Survey Executive Summary (2008), accessed March 15, 2014, Survey_Executive_Summary.pdf. 26 An earlier iteration of the Camp Verde Historical Society formed in 1954 to help preserve what is now Fort Verde State Park, but the community- run museum did not open until the 1970s. Steve Ayers, Images of America: Camp Verde, (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010),

165 Historical Society and Museum are much younger, and respectively opened in 1991 and 2007, well after tourism and suburbanization overtook farming as the valley s primary economic and social actors. 27 The relatively recent establishment and the location of the community museums, coupled with the limited involvement of neonatives in valley production farming, may be a partial explanation behind the lack of a comprehensive agricultural history. Yet, the same public history sites that gloss over the valley s agri- ecological heritage emphasize its Anglo pioneer past, a time period contemporaneous to the development of the valley s production farming landscape. Similarly, the community museums in Clarkdale and Cottonwood present strong pre- World War II industrial narratives that predate the neonative influx and the establishment of the community museums. The disparity in attention paid to the Verde Valley s industrial history and early Anglo settlers compared to that given to the valley s evolving farming identity reflects popular regional and national narratives ascribed to Arizona and the Southwest. Many scholars and armchair historians use the five C s of Arizona s economy identified as copper, cattle, cotton, citrus, and climate to symbolize Arizona s history of incorporation, extraction, and transformation. The simplified public history script of the five C s is mirrored in the Great Seal of the State of 27 Sedona Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Bureau, Sedona- Verde Valley Regional Study: Verde Valley Tourism Survey Executive Summary (2008), accessed March 15, 2014, Survey_Executive_Summary.pdf; Clemenceau Heritage Museum, History, accessed March 15, 2013, Clarkdale Historical Society and Museum, Museum History, accessed March 1,

166 Arizona used on government stationary, official documents, and drivers licenses, as representations of the region s founding industries. 28 The Verde Valley s community- run history museums echo these familiar and identifiable themes in their exhibits. The Clemenceau and Clarkdale museums, both housed in buildings constructed by the local copper companies, pay particular attention to copper, the most economically important C. 29 The Camp Verde Historical Society Museum, and to some extent Clemenceau, have exhibits dedicated to ranching and its accompanying C, cattle. Production farming is illustrated in the inclusion of cotton and citrus on the state s Great Seal, but neither of these crops grow in the Verde Valley and thus the area lacks a strong connection to the farming identities celebrated in the state s iconography. Without a relatable statewide farming symbol to appropriate and apply to the valley, local museums focus on the aspects of the state s accepted narrative that best relate to their region with the 28 This is an example of what historian Hal Rothman calls the scripting of an area s sense of place to present palatable and relatable narratives. Rothman, Devil s Bargains, 12-13; The seal depicts in a miner, a cow, cotton fields, an irrigated citrus orchard, and large sunrays. While three of the state s C s are agricultural, two of those citrus and cotton are not relevant in the context of the Verde Valley. Arizona Game and Fish Department, The Living State Symbols of Arizona: Curriculum Map, accessed March 28, 2014, Sheridan discussed four of the five c s copper, cattle, cotton, and climate. Thomas E. Sheridan, Arizona: A History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), 3, 130, The early development of Jerome s identity as the Billion Dollar Copper Camp, and in the 1950s as Arizona s newest ghost town, ascribed a manufactured sense of place that affected the entire Verde Valley region. United Verde Copper Company, Arizona Geological Survey, accessed October 2, 2013, keywords/united- verde- copper - company; Old Souls to Attend Ghost Town s Party, Independent Press Telegram (Long Beach, CA), October 11, 1953; Eric L. Clements, After the Boom in Tombstone and Jerome, Arizona: Decline in Western Resource Towns (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2003),

167 result that the copper industry and ranching, but not farming, receive more widespread attention in local public history exhibits. 30 Similarly, many of the Verde Valley s public history sites reflect the regional and national fascination with Anglo pioneer history and the romanticized narrative of cowboys and Indians. 31 The state of Arizona has over a dozen offshoots of Westerners International, a nonprofit social foundation dedicated to popular research and discussion on the early days of the American West, and this interest is reflected in the narratives shared in local exhibits, artwork, and locally published memory books. 32 Additionally, the presence of Fort Verde, described as the state s most intact military installation from Arizona s Indian Wars period, and its development as a state historic park encourages a continued interest in the valley s pioneer history. 33 In contrast to the regionally established Wild West, mining, and pioneer scripts, Verde Valley agriculture only recently oriented toward the tourist industry. Though the orchardists in Oak Creek Canyon recognized the potential of tourism in 30 Clemenceau Heritage Museum, History, accessed March 15, 2014, Clarkdale Historical Society and Museum, Museum History, accessed March 1, Sheridan, Arizona, Memory books refers to self- published pioneer history such as Those Were the Days: A Pioneer History of Sedona and Vicinity, Experience Jerome and the Verde Valley: Legends and Legacies, etc. Welcome, Westerners International, accessed March 16, 2014, international.org/index.html; Sedona Westerners, Those Early Days A Pioneer History of Sedona and Vicinity (Sedona Heritage Publishing, 2012); Aliza Caillou, ed., Experience Jerome and the Verde Valley: Legends and Legacies (Sedona, AZ: Thorne Enterprises, 1990) Steve Ayers, Images of America: Camp Verde, (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2010), 159

168 the 1930s, it was the entrance of the viticulture industry in the early 2000s that created an agri- tourist economy in the valley proper. Subsequently, several valley towns, notably Camp Verde and Cottonwood, reevaluated local production agriculture as a promising means to attract tourism and improve the economy. 34 Because valley agriculture is in the process of reemerging as a valued part of the region s unique (and marketable) identity, it is likely that community museums have not yet identified agricultural history as a viable and interesting topic worthy of detailed public history examination. Additionally, Verde Valley farming and ranching history is less well documented and researched than the existing scripted senses of place embraced by the public history and tourist communities. While the state historic parks in Jerome and Camp Verde act as repositories for their respective mining and soldiering/pioneer histories, two topics that, due to their corporate and military connections, inherently produce reams of formal documentation, no such agriculturally- focused archive exists. 35 ~Physical Space and Limiting Factors in Existing Sites~ It is, however, not simply that the valley s existing scripted senses of place do not include agricultural narratives, but also that its public history sites generally 34 David Diamond, " The Pastoral and the Sublime: The Pendley Family Homestead and the Creation of Slide Rock State Park, The Journal of Arizona History 42, No. 2 (summer 2001), 140; Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce, Verde Valley Wine Trail, accessed January 3, 2014, Terry Tang, Arizona Wineries Rise Above Desert Climate, The Daily Intelligencer, October 25, 2009, 68; Verde Valley Agriculture Coalition, e- mail message to author, January 23, 2014; Nancy B. Gottschalk, Barriers and Limitations to Expanded Participation in Local Food Systems, Cottonwood, Arizona, (Masters thesis, Northern Arizona University, 2012). 35 Arizona State Parks, Fort Verde State Historic Park, accessed March 16, 2014, Arizona State Parks, Jerome State Historic Park, accessed March 16, 2014, 160

169 lack the financial resources and physical settings suited to exploring its complex and large- scale agri- ecological story. The Verde Valley s public history sites also tend to suffer from what I call static space syndrome that is further exacerbated by limited space and funding. Static space syndrome refers to the negative effects associated with stationary museum exhibits that place the visitor as an observer versus as an active participant. The central problem associated with static space relates to visitor engagement and the effectiveness of the learning environment. Whereas dynamic living history simulations create multisensory experiences, static space is the antithesis and usually relies on one sense: sight. 36 While observation- based, object- heavy museums have a long tradition and can be strong didactic spaces, this style of display is also associated with the phenomenon of museum fatigue caused by disinterest and disengagement. Museum fatigue, or the reduction in visitor attentiveness illustrated in the tendency to skim selectively through exhibits, drastically reduces the educational effectiveness of public history sites. 37 This type of detachment is not always caused solely by static space. Indeed, scholar John Falk argues that a sightseer's motivation for visiting a museum, their museum visitor identity, and their engagement with and retention of exhibit material are all 36 Anderson, Time Machines, Museum fatigue is a little- understood phenomenon, and one that scholars have a difficult time describing in concrete terms. A simplified definition, borrowed from the work of Gareth Davey, identifies museum fatigue as the decrease in visitor interest towards exhibits as visits progressed. Davey goes to suggest that research shows additional behavioral changes that characterize fatigued visitors, including the tendency to cruise around galleries with increased selectivity towards exhibits and the habit of skimming exhibits as fatigue increased. Anderson, Time Machines, 31, 19, 43, 47, 59, 79; Gareth Davey, What is Museum Fatigue? Visitor Studies Today 8 (2005):

170 inextricably linked. Falk identifies five different identity categories that characterize museum visitors by shared tendencies. For some of these identity types, static exhibits like those found in existing sites are effective while for others, however, such presentation styles fail to attract and, if the visitor does commit to entering the site, induces museum fatigue. 38 Related to the issue of museum fatigue is the tendency of the Verde Valley community museums to attempt to be all things to all people regardless of differences in visitor motivation and identity. 39 These museums present a one- size- fits- all narrative told in an outdated museum organizational structure focused on collected objects presented in an orderly way to tell a generalized and broad- brushed history geared towards a generic visitor. Falk notes how this museum operation strategy is at odds with the custom- made nature of what he calls the twenty- first century Knowledge Age. 40 While the Verde Valley has a large number of museums clustered in a relatively small area, the majority fail to move beyond the static exhibit and create the whole- body, whole- experience, whole- brain activity that Falk and fellow scholar Lynn Dierking identify as key contributors to learning in museums Falk identifies five categories of museum visitor identities. These are Explorer, Facilitator, Experience Seeker, Professional/Hobbyist, and Recharger. John H. Falk, Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2009), Falk, Identity and the Museum, Falk distinguishes the quest for personalization and quality of the Knowledge Age in contrast to the standardization associated with the twentieth- century Industrial Age. He argues that a typical museum visitor does not exist because each person enters the museum with different motivation and personal context. Falk, Identity and the Museum, 182, Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, Learning From Museums,

171 The prevalence of static sites in the Verde Valley reinforces the existing agricultural absences because it is difficult to imagine an alternative dynamic model. In an interview with Don Godard, he mentioned that he considered donating his antique farm implement collection to the Clemenceau Heritage Museum but had difficulty imagining how the Museum, given its urban setting and indoor exhibit space, would display or use the machinery to the visitors best advantage. Godard also acknowledged that the resource limitations of the current static site made it difficult to envision how the Museum might include a more comprehensive agricultural narrative that moves beyond the existing pioneer- centric stories. 42 The other two community museums in Clarkdale and Camp Verde suffer from similar limitations in their ability to dynamically interpret agricultural history. The Sedona Heritage Museum and Slide Rock State Park, however, do include limited outdoor displays of antique equipment and illustrate the problems of adding agricultural elements without altering the static space model. These sites present collections of immobile and decontextualized implements, yet fail to make critical connections between the machines, the evolving agricultural experiences, and the landscape changes they facilitated. 43 Just as Godard used his personal experience with valley museums to engage the physical and social challenges of sharing an evolving and dynamic agricultural narrative, scholars Falk and Dierking speak to the power of physical context in 42 By resources I do not simply refer to financial assets, but also to space and volunteer ability and interest. Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, Site visits May 2012 and November

172 creating museums that engage learners. They acknowledge all learning is contextual, in terms of the visitor s personal experience, sociocultural setting, and the museum environment itself. 44 The physical context of the Verde Valley s existing community museum spaces, with their static object- based exhibits and limited opportunity for critical visitor engagement, is not conducive to sharing a multifaceted and active agri- ecological history. For this history to be made into a whole- body, whole- brain emotional experience, it must be placed within a context that includes some of the sensory elements to this history the sights, smells, and sounds and allows visitors to engage on a visceral level rather than that of a passive observer. 45 This critique of existing sites is not meant to devalue the support and work of the community members who volunteer their time and dedicate their skills to preserving the valley s history; they do important preservation and education work that might otherwise be left undone. Instead, I offer this analysis in order to understand and overcome the agri- ecological absence in existing Verde Valley public history sites and the problems associated with the current method of static presentation. By acknowledging the powerful presence of the established public narratives and the accepted style of passive exhibits, it is finally possible to consider alternatives that make space for a sensory- rich and whole- brain agri- historical experience. 44 Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, Learning From Museums, Site visit, May 2012, November

173 I also recognize that all of the Verde Valley s public history sites suffer from funding cuts and limited resources that impact their ability to create dynamic exhibits. A 2009 report lists the Arizona State Park system as one of the most threatened public park systems in the United States, due to budget cuts and lack of governmental support. The federal sites face similarly dire conditions, the most recent example of which occurred in fiscal year 2013 when Congress slashed the National Park Service s budget by six percent, adding to an already enormous funding backlog. 46 The valley s community museums, all of which operate as nonprofit organizations, also struggle with intermittent funding and limited access to professional resources. Yet, each federal, state, and community site has a well- developed volunteer base dedicated to maintaining, and even expanding, programing and exhibits. 47 In particular, some members of the Friends of Slide Rock State Park organization volunteer as historical interpreters, donate resources to restore old farm machinery, and spend time creating agri- historical displays relating to the site s orchards. 48 Thus, while the realities of limited budgets must be considered, there remains real potential for developing the presence of agriculture in Verde Valley public history sites to reflect growing regional interest in locally produced foods and a revitalized agricultural identity. 46 National Parks Conservation Association, National Park Service Budget: Reduced Service, Fewer Rangers, accessed March 13, 2014, Arizona State Parks Foundation, Advocacy, accessed March 13, 2014, 47 Kayo Parsons- Korn, President of the nonprofit Friends of the Well, e- mail message to author, October 26, Friends of Slide Rock State Park, Volunteer, accessed March 16, 2014, Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3,

174 Demystifying the Verde Valley: Proposals for Agri-ecology in Public History Despite the significant absences found in existing current public history settings, the presence of so many sites indicates a popular interest in the Verde Valley s regional history. This public support for local historical institutions, when coupled with the potential for a valley agricultural renaissance, creates a ripe environment for reworking sites and creating new ones that speak to the interconnections between agriculture and all phases of the valley s history, from its Native American inhabitants, to the Fort Verde military installation, to the copper era, to tourism, and to suburbanization. Indeed Steve Ayers, the Economic Development Director of the Town of Camp Verde, compiled an informal survey in 2013 of thirteen possible heritage projects that the town could pursue to draw attention to its rich cultural, natural, and agricultural history. Ayers acknowledges Camp Verde s untapped potential for creating a readable cultural landscape that would inform residents and attract tourists. Included on the project list is a proposal for installing signs identifying, at a minimum, the name and construction date of historic irrigation ditches located within the town limits. Ayers also suggests that a future kiosk on Oasis Road, near Highway 260, include a network map of the ditches overlaid over a map of the contemporary landscape. 49 While most of the proposals included in the Heritage Projects Survey have yet to be realized, it remains an indication of the current support and interest in demystifying the Verde Valley s 49 Steve Ayers, Town of Camp Verde Heritage Projects Survey (unpublished report in author s collection, 2013),

175 historic cultural landscape and reasserting agriculture as a source of community identity. 50 ~ Renarrativizing a Living History for Agri-Ecological Inclusion~ In his Heritage Projects Survey, Ayers issues calls for action surrounding the historic elements of Camp Verde s identity in the form of public narration through means such as signage, maps, etc. While Ayers does not explicitly use this language, he is essentially talking about renarrativizing Camp Verde. 51 This is a tool that can be extrapolated to the rest of the Verde Valley to make space for the region s agricultural and landscape- change history within public dialogue and collective identity. Renarrativizing is a practice described by scholars Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson, a feminist- economic- geographer team who go by the shared pen- name J.K. Gibson- Graham. Renarrativizing plays off of the verb narrativize, or the process of communicating via story (narrative) form in order to make sense of experiences or events. Gibson- Graham suggest that it is possible for individuals and communities to reframe and re- narrate themselves towards new identities that better represent emerging ideals, values, and history. By allowing participants to look beyond existing power structures and dynamics, renarrativizing is fundamentally an exercise in empowerment that allows previously marginalized voices to participate and shape sense of place. While Gibson- Graham s work deals 50 In an interview with educator Cody Canning, a Verde Valley native now living in Flagstaff, he remembered that as a child the valley functioned as a mystery landscape that was mostly off- limits for exploration and very rarely explained by those who knew its story. Cody Canning, interview conducted by author, Flagstaff, Arizona, January 4, J. K. Gibson- Graham, Post- Capitalist Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006),

176 primarily with socio- economic themes seemingly disconnected from the topic of public history in the Verde Valley, the power of renarrativizing to affect sense of place and reshape the stories of a place resonates with the absences in current history sites. 52 As mentioned earlier, historian William Cronon notes the influence of the position of the storyteller on what is included in a historical narrative. The concept behind renarrativizing, or re- telling the story to emphasize different story arcs, actors, and conclusions, is a tool for inserting the Verde Valley s agri- ecological history in a public setting. Cronon warns that the danger behind recasting narratives is the potential to lose sight of the real things that compose the past, resulting in a warped ahistorical telling. Yet he also acknowledges what he identifies as the immense power of narrative to create meaning through sanctioning some voices and silencing others, an inevitable process of shaping a sense of place and a sense of history. 53 Renarrativizing can validate the Verde Valley s agri- ecological history through reevaluating the role of agriculture in the valley s cultural landscape and identity. The key to transforming this idea from an abstract process to a concrete product is, however, to create a space for this reshaping to occur and a new style of 52 The authors designed an action research project based in a community in Australia s Latrobe Valley, a highly industrial area with a significant unemployment rate, and invited unemployed miners, underemployed young people, and other marginalized groups to participate. The project worked on refocusing the participants attention from the limited options available within the existing capitalist system towards the unseen, and unimagined, possibilities of an alternative economy. The participants discovered that a more inclusive economy was possible, and in the process realized that they could change the discourse of their communities to reflect themselves as caring, skillful people instead of existing associations with unemployment, depression, and vandalism. Gibson- Graham, Post- Capitalist Politics, , Cronon, A Place for Stories, 1350,

177 history that embraces multiple perspectives and multiple voices. The rest of the chapter explores what such a space might include, and how interactive living history might provide opportunities to create meaning and renarrate. ~Living the Past: Public History in Action~ Living history museums are a unique offshoot of the public history world, and one that challenges the concept of museums as ordered, top- down spaces by inserting dynamic grassroots narratives into historical sites. 54 What sets living history sites apart is that they intertwine the message with the mode, and use the atmosphere of the museum site as a tool to teach history and, simultaneously, as the history lesson itself. Jay Anderson, a folklorist- scholar interested in the lack of academic attention given to these types of sites, defines living history as an attempt by people to simulate life in another time. Anderson notes that motivation for this simulation varies, but identifies the three most common reasons for participating are to test an archeological thesis, to partake in educational recreation, and to interpret the past more effectively. 55 Due to the large spectrum of demands placed on the living history genre, such sites take many forms. They range from locations where scientists study 54 Jay Anderson, "Living History: Simulating Everyday Life in Living Museums," American Quarterly 34, no. 3 (1982): ; In her article Foucault s Museum: Difference, Representation, and Genealogy, Beth Lord acknowledges the Enlightenment history of the museum as an institution, but also challenges the assumption of some scholars that museums are inherently an example of the worst sort of Enlightenment tendencies to totalize, categorize and control the world. Beth Lord, Foucault s Museum: Difference, Representation, and Genealogy, Museum and Society 4, (2006): Richard Handler and William Saxton, "Dyssimulation: Reflexivity, Narrative, and the Quest for Authenticity in Living History, Cultural Anthropology 3, no. 3 (1988): 242; Jay Anderson, "Living History: Simulating Everyday Life in Living Museums," American Quarterly 34, no. 3 (1982): ; Anderson similarly suggests that the medium is the message at living history sites. Anderson, Time Machines,

178 ancient building techniques, to restored villages where interpreters reenact scripted historical scenes, to atmospheric self- sufficient farms where interpreters go about daily routines with period tools and techniques. The Association of Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) notes that living history means different things at different sites, and to different people. ALHFAM recognizes that not all museums can achieve the degree of historical authenticity practiced at well- known sites like Colonial Williamsburg, yet despite the variation among sites, several fundamental threads unite living history museums. 56 One common thread is the idea of dynamically exhibiting artifacts (often replicas) in their cultural context and environment through demonstration and use. Another thread is the transformation of visitor into participant- researcher, as living history museums encourage the public to willingly suspend disbelief and engage in the historical simulation. 57 These threads twist together to create the central unifying tenet of living history: to create meaningful didactic experiences that function as an engaging antidote to what some scholars identify as museum fatigue. Jay Anderson suggests that living history museums function as time machines where visitors embark on a complex, simulated journey that allows them to vicariously time travel and understand the past in a tangible way. As such, living history sites are sensory- rich places that preserve some aspects of everyday life, such as the sound of a horse- 56 The Association of Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums, Living History, accessed February 17, 2014, 57 Anderson, Time Machines, 10, 11, 12,

179 drawn thresher or the feel of handspun flax, which might not otherwise be valued in traditional public history settings. 58 ~The Value of Living Museums in the Public History Landscape~ The rich sensory experiences of living history farm museums allow patrons to personalize their visit by offering a wide variety of unique learning opportunities with various levels of participation. In Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience, education- scholar John Falk notes the importance of providing a diverse museum community in which each site is geared toward specific categories of visitor identities and interest. He posits that museums should work collaboratively to offer different types of experiences geared towards different types of visitors to create a more effective and satisfying learning environments. Additionally, Falk suggests that regional museums should actively drive visitors towards the venues that promise the most satisfactory fit with their learning style and motivation. This communal organization style recognizes that museum visitors, and the museums themselves, possess different characteristics, requirements, and strengths rather than presuming a single museum can meet all of a community s diverse needs. 59 Living history museums can fulfill a niche not met by more static regional historical society museums. In this sense, they add value to the regional public history 58 Gareth Davey, What is Museum Fatigue? Visitor Studies Today 8 (2005): 17-18; Anderson, Time Machines, 10, 11, 12, 17, The five categories Falk identifies are: explorers, facilitators, experience- seekers, professionals/hobbyists, and rechargers. John H. Falk, Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience (Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2009), ,

180 landscape by offering specific historical knowledge and unique interactions typically unavailable in traditional indoor settings. 60 I do not mean to suggest that the implementation of living history strategies will replace or eclipse the Verde Valley s existing public history sites. Rather, living history techniques will complement the valley s established narratives by attracting different types of audiences and creating supplementary experiences that build off of and enrich the regional public history community. 61 Renarrativizing the Verde Valley s agricultural history in a living setting provides an opportunity for the valley s recreational- education sites to reflect the renewed emphasis on the region s agricultural identity. 62 This embrace allows for residents to historicize contemporary farming efforts, such as those embodied in the Verde Valley Agricultural Coalition, as well as introduce visitors to an interesting and underappreciated aspect of the valley s past. 63 The first proposal for realizing a renarrativized living site is the retrofitting of an existing public recreation site to include stronger agri- ecological historical themes. The second and complementary scenario is to create a brand new public history site dedicated to sharing the valley s dynamic agricultural narratives. 60 Katie Boardman, Revisiting Living History: A Business, An Art, A Pleasure, An Education, (ALHFAM Whitepapers, 1997), accessed March 17, 2014, 61 Falk, Identity, Ayers, Town of Camp Verde Heritage, Verde Valley Regional Economic Organization, Affiliated Organizations: Verde Valley Agriculture Coalition, accessed March 17, 2014, 172

181 ~Hubbell Trading Post as a Model for Slide Rock State Park~ The existing public history site with the most potential to be renarrativized is Slide Rock State Park. While the other valley museums in Clarkdale, Cottonwood (Clemenceau), Camp Verde, and Sedona could be modified to include a more comprehensive agricultural overview, the size, physical setting, and built environment of Slide Rock offers unique opportunities to overcome the static space syndrome as well as to create an agri- ecological focus. While the Association for Living History, Farm, and Agricultural Museums (ALHFAM) lists only two institutional member sites in Arizona, neither of which particularly concentrate on farming, the state does have a handful of public history locations that might serve as valuable frameworks for rethinking and renarrativizing Slide Rock State Park. 64 Specifically, the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, located in Northern Arizona near the town of Ganado and operated by the National Park Service, serves 64 The two ALFHAM sites are the Tucson Presidio Trust for Historic Preservation and the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott. Other sites in Arizona that incorporate living history and cultural landscape elements include Pipe Springs National Monument in Fredonia, Sahuaro Ranch Park in Glendale, and Empire Ranch near Sonoita. The only site in Arizona to include living history in its title is the Pioneer Living History Museum, located in North Phoenix. The Pioneer Museum has an open- air site featuring reconstructed, relocated, and replica buildings from Arizona s Territorial Period ( ). Attempting to fulfill as both an educational site and tourist attraction, Museum succumbs to popular if largely a- historical narratives that favor action- packed reenactments involving antique firearms and shoot- outs. For example, in February 2014, the Museum hosted a three- day Rebels and Redcoats Revolutionary War Reenactment, a three- day Civil War reenactment, and an antique firearm Fast Draw event. Pioneer Living History Museum, accessed February 9, 2014, village.aspx#.uve11f2g5g0; Betty Reid, Pioneer Living History Museum Ordered to Close, Arizona Republic, August 14, 2010; Pipe Springs National Monument, accessed February 12, 2014, City of Glendale, Arizona, Sahuaro Rank Park Historic Area, accessed March 3, 2014, Empire Ranch Foundation, accessed March 17, 2014, 173

182 as a model of how Slide Rock might be recreated as an agri- ecologically themed public history setting. 65 As the oldest continuously operated trading post in the American Southwest, Hubbell Trading Post is an example of a public history site incorporating visitor participation, sensory experiences, historical interpretation, and dynamic space. Hubbell succeeds in creating a complex narrative that weaves its ethnic, agricultural, and socio- economic narrative into the Trading Post narrative by drawing attention to the connections between its restored cultural landscape, historic post activities, and the metanarrative of Arizona history. In this sense, Hubbell is less a museum than a living site where visitors can purchase various dry goods from the mercantile in the same fashion customers used when the post first opened in 1878, participate in Sheep to Rug workshops, and immerse themselves in the senses of the restored farmyard and the site s rehabilitated agricultural landscape. In the late 1990s, the National Park Service began to take a deeper interest in Hubbell s larger cultural landscape and environmental context. The Park Service commissioned a report in 1998 detailing the site s management strategy, history, existing conditions, and development alternatives in which the rehabilitation of the Agricultural Landscape and Gardens received attention. While the original trading post building functions as the heart of the site, Hubbell also maintains a flock of Navajo Churro sheep, horses, chickens, working farm fields, and a collection of 65 I first visited Hubbell in Hubbell in 2011 and was pleasantly surprised to find a rich site with living history elements. National Park Service, Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, accessed February 12, 2014, 174

183 antique farm equipment. The National Park Service goes beyond a static interpretation of Hubbell s long history and actively engages discussions about the local evolving cultural farm- scape of the park s 160 acres by various means including ranger- guided walks, landscape and farmyard restoration projects, and workshops to learn historic skills. The post also has an accompanying page on its official website dedicated to Natural History and Agriculture. Hubbell might easily have slipped into the all- too- common rut of preserving the Trading Post structure as a hands- off, object- heavy museum; instead, the post chose to offer the experience of touching and sensing the historic site. 66 Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site offers an example of possible alterations to Slide Rock State Park that would enhance the park s historic agricultural sense of place. The Trading Post s interdisciplinary and interactive approach to interpreting history can be applied to Slide Rock to improve the visibility and interpretation of the agricultural landscape by redirecting visitor attention. For example, the Friends of Slide Rock volunteer organization could further develop its on- site garden into a more historically authentic space complete with docents in 1930s and 1940s era clothing using period- appropriate tools and machines. This would likely attract more visitors to the often- overlooked garden and instigate discussions on changing agricultural practices over time. Following Hubbell s model, Slide Rock could sell period and heirloom- variety garden produce 66 Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, Park Home, Natural History and Agriculture, History and Culture, Plan Your Visit, accessed March 3, 2014,

184 at an on- site farmer s market. 67 The market could be located at the existing gift shop that already sells Slide Rock apples in the fall (called the Slide Rock Market), or one of the existing agricultural buildings (such as the packing shed) could be renovated to re- create the Pendley family s early roadside fruit stand. 68 Following Hubbell s model, Slide Rock could incorporate the interpretation of Oak Creek Canyon s changing cultural landscape more fully into its site mission. The reorientation of Slide Rock from primarily an Oak Creek water play area to a more comprehensively interpreted historical site follows recommended strategies set forth in the 2013 Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan, prepared under the authority of the Arizona State Park Board. The plan identifies the interpretation of natural and cultural areas to enhance visitor awareness and understanding of the areas significance as a tool for protecting Arizona s resources. 69 Slide Rock is uniquely positioned to discuss the profound impacts of agriculture and tourism on the Canyon as the state park itself acts as a microcosm of larger regional trends. The park s interpretive trail system could be expanded to include a cultural landscape trail with informational signs teaching visitors how to read the landscape and look for clues to its past. For example, Slide Rock s existing interpretive panel on the invasive 67 Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, News, accessed March 3, 2014, 68 Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, Resources and Public Programs Section, Arizona State Parks, Arizona 2013 Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (Arizona State Parks Board, Phoenix: 2013), 158, accessed March 4, 2014, 176

185 Himalayan Blackberry currently links the plant to critical ecological changes in the canyon, but could extrapolate the socio- cultural context and significance in an expanded display. 70 Similarly, the park could open a space for visitors to explore the environmental and landscapes effects of the Pendley s irrigation system, orchards, and transformation into a State Park by including interactive repeat- photography exhibits that connect visible alterations to technological advances in farming, environmental health, and tourism. This is only a brief exploration of specific actions that would transform Slide Rock into a more complex site through the incorporation of living history techniques such as the use of period artifacts, active historic agricultural demonstration, and cultural landscape rehabilitation and interpretation. Through a revitalization of its agri- ecological history interpretation, Slide Rock could fill an existing public history void by becoming a place to engage and experience the past. 71 I recognize that this transformation of Slide Rock may not be possible, nor supported, due to its status as Arizona s second busiest park and its established association with non- historic recreation. Lack of funding, zoning restrictions, and limited space will likely reduce the ability of Slide Rock to create the complete sensory experience of Hubbell s restored farm- scape. Yet, in the 2013 Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan prepared under the authority of the Arizona State Parks Board, 68.4% of survey participants agreed or strongly 70 The socio- cultural context of Himalayan Blackberry was briefly discussed in Chapter Four. 71 Site visit October 2013; The Association of Living History, Farm and Agricultural Museums, Living History, accessed February 17, 2014, _id=153&nav_tree=

186 agreed that the one of the benefits of parks, recreation, and open space was regional historical and cultural education. 72 The existing historic buildings, orchards, visible cultural landscape, and documented agricultural history of Slide Rock make it a promising site for further interpretive development. ~Verde Valley Agricultural Heritage Center~ Though renarrativizing Slide Rock State Park to emphasize its agricultural past may appear to be a tangible opportunity given its existing built environment and volunteer base, the site s peripheral location to the Verde Valley proper makes it a less- than- ideal location to focus specifically on valley agriculture. The most effective means for sharing the agri- ecological public history of the Verde Valley in a focused, sensory- based, interactive, and complex way is the restoration of a heritage site located within the confines of the valley proper. An opportunity to create such a site is already taking root in the valley driven by a group of volunteers seeking to restore the historic Hank Wingfield House, an agricultural property in Camp Verde (see Figure 19), and transform it into the future home of the Verde Valley Agricultural Heritage Center (VVAHC). The group, comprised of Jane and Marshall Whitmire, Camp Verde citizens, Steve Ayers, Camp Verde Economic Development Director, and Karl Eberhard, Flagstaff Community Design and Redevelopment Manager, aspires to collaborate with the town of Camp Verde to provide a 72 Resources and Public Programs, Arizona 2013 Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan, 43, 140, accessed March 17, 2014, 178

187 Figure 19 The Hank Wingfield House, located at 806 E. Quarterhorse Lane, in relation to the Town of Camp Verde. Image borrowed from Karl Eberhard, John Henry Hank Wingfield Residence: Cursory Condition Assessment and Preservation Planning Recommendations, (unpublished report in author s collection, September 2013),

188 community space for agricultural education, skill sharing, and honoring the Valley s historic farming and ranching communities. 73 The heart of the VVAHC s vision is the Wingfield property, a six- acre parcel listed on the National Register of Historic Places that has key elements conducive to creating an agri- ecologically focused site. 74 In the process of registering the property in 1999, Michael Anderson, the author of the application, compiled an extensive amount of supporting documentation relating to the site s regional significance, existing assets, history, and relationship to agriculture. Anderson noted that the site is associated with the broad settlement patterns of the Verde Valley during the years 1895 through the 1940s as well as connections with two prominent Anglo families, the Gilmores and Wingfields, who participated extensively in valley ranching and farming. 75 Present on the site is a California Bungalow style house, constructed around 1917 by the Wingfield family, that has unique local adaptations on the classic design including thick adobe walls, locally sourced pine, and Verde River rock adornments. The house is the jewel of the site and, while it needs substantial repair and maintenance, is significant both in its architectural articulation of sense of place as 73 Marshall Whitmire, Jane Whitmire, and Steve Ayers, meeting and site visit to the Hank Wingfield Home with author, November 7, 2013; Mary McCarthy, The Verde Valley Agricultural Heritage Center: Conceptual Plan and Visioning Statement, unpublished report in author s collection, February 2, The property was added to the Registry in Karl Eberhard, John Henry Hank Wingfield Residence: Cursory Condition Assessment and Preservation Planning Recommendations, (unpublished, September 2013, in author s collection), Michael Anderson, Wingfield, Hank and Myrtle, Homestead, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form (Washington, DC: United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 1999). 180

189 well as its historical use as the headquarters of the Wingfield s Crooked H Ranch. 76 The site also has several agricultural outbuildings, and is bordered on one side by the historic Diamond S Ditch. Interestingly, while Anderson associates the property with the period between 1895 and the 1940s, the parcel also reflects the larger demographic and landscape changes experienced by the Verde Valley in the post- World War II years. Subdivided in 1948, the Wingfields sold lots that were then developed into suburban ranchettes throughout the 1950s and 1960s. 77 Due to the Wingfield property s history and documented landscape change, the site is well positioned to explore the process of renarrativizing the Verde Valley s history for an agri- ecological focus and to challenge the static space syndrome found at existing sites. In February 2014, I drafted a conceptual plan for the Verde Valley Agricultural Heritage Center in collaboration with the VVAHC s volunteer group that focused on how the site might be utilized and transformed into a public learning space (see Appendix D). Because the Wingfield property lacks the acreage to recreate any period farm in its entirety, it is impossible to restore the site to the same authenticity practiced at Hubbell Trading Post or nationally recognized sites such as Iowa Living History Farms or Michigan s Greenfield Village. 78 Yet the VVAHC can still incorporate some of the key tenets of these sites and the essence of a living farm by creating a working production garden, restored orchards, beehives, 76 Anderson, Wingfield, Hank and Myrtle, Homestead, 6; Eberhard, John Henry Hank Wingfield Residence, 4; Marshall Whitmire, Jane Whitmire, and Steve Ayers, meeting and site visit to the Hank Wingfield Home with author, November 7, Marshall Whitmire, Jane Whitmire, and Steve Ayers, meeting and site visit to the Hank Wingfield Home with author, November 7, 2013; Anderson, Wingfield, Hank and Myrtle, Homestead, Anderson, Time Machines, 35, 52-56,

190 traditional irrigation system, and programming geared towards a wide range of participants. A traditional farm is inherently an intergenerational space, with each generation fulfilling important tasks in order to make the farm a well- functioning whole. Similarly, VVAHC can provide a space for cross- generational interactions by hosting events, workshops, and volunteer days catering to an intergenerational audience. Community members will be invited to use VVAHC facilities to restore donated historic farming and ranching equipment that will be used on- site, exhibited, and demonstrated during an annual antique show featuring the restored items. In addition to the heritage garden, VVAHC s programs and exhibits will also share historically significant skills such as blacksmithing, spinning, beekeeping, fruit tree grafting, production gardening, and animal husbandry. The site can also partner with area schools and Northern Arizona University s Museum Studies program to host a Create- An- Exhibit program that features rotating indoor/outdoor exhibits researched, designed, and created by regional students who use primary- source material gathered from archives and oral histories to dynamically link multiple generations. 79 In addition to emphasizing the historical elements of the Wingfield site, the center can act as a contemporary advocate and learning space for the changing face of valley agriculture. The Wingfield House, once restored, can provide meeting space for agriculturally focused groups such as the Verde Valley Agricultural Coalition. In this way, the VVAHC will combat the prevalent pubic history narrative that 79 McCarthy, The Verde Valley Agricultural Heritage Center. 182

191 identifies Verde Valley farming with only the earliest settlers by creating a bridge between the valley s agricultural past and most recent renaissance. The connection between the valley s agricultural past and present is one that many of the existing public sites fail to make. By creating a space in which change over time can be experienced in the physical landscape as well as the shared narratives, the complex connections between farmers and the mines, roadways, ecological transformation, and suburban growth may finally be shared in an accessible and community- minded way. Celebrating the Souls of the Place While, as of Spring 2014, the VVAHC remains largely in the visioning stage, its group members made tangible progress towards stabilizing the Wingfield house and forwarding discussions about the Center s mission and implementation. 80 The VVAHC and the Wingfield restoration project, the founding of the Verde Valley Agriculture Coalition, the increased interest of valley communities in emphasizing their cultural landscapes, and the agricultural history initiatives undertaken by the Friends of Slide Rock provide further evidence of the need and local support of an agricultural education center that engages the Verde Valley s rural heritage in a sensory, educational, and relevant way In February 2014 a group of volunteers organized to grade the area around the Wingfield House foundation to discourage further deterioration of the walls and foundation. This was one of the most pressing issues outlined in Eberhard s 2013 site report. Marshall Whitmire, volunteer leader with Verde Valley Agricultural Heritage Center, e- mail message to author, February 24, 2014; Eberhard, John Henry Hank Wingfield Residence, Ayers, Town of Camp Verde Heritage; Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce, Verde Valley Wine Trail, accessed January 3, 2014, 183

192 The Verde Valley, despite the numerous existing sites, lacks a space dedicated towards whole- body, whole- experience, whole- brain historical learning as well as a site that engages the region s agricultural narratives. 82 Current public history venues offer narratives that reflect the scripted senses of place established by the tourist industry, and tend to focus on romanticized versions of the region s pioneer past and glorified histories of its copper boom days. These scripts overlook the evolving nature of the valley s agricultural identity. Additionally, many of the sites, especially the community museums in Clarkdale, Cottonwood, and Camp Verde, lack the physical space and financial resources to engage agricultural narratives in a dynamic and experiential fashion. Of any existing site in the Verde Valley region, Slide Rock State Park has the greatest potential to be renarrativized and transformed into an agri- centric learning space. Yet despite the park s volunteer resources and rich built environment, its location outside the Verde Valley in Oak Creek Canyon limits its potential to reflect the agricultural history of the farmers and ranchers in the valley proper. The most ideal option for engaging these narratives and rectifying the current absences is the creation of a new public history site specifically dedicated to the valley s farming and ranching roots. Though ambitious, such a site may be realized in the creation of the Verde Valley Agricultural Heritage Center. If completed, the VVAHC will be a place to engage the valley community in a hands- on exploration of its agricultural past and allow residents and visitors alike to make crucial connections between farming and all eras of the Verde Valley s history. 82 Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, Learning From Museums,

193 Chapter Six The Verde Valley as Palimpsest: History, Sustainability, and Possibility If we can adequately understand the past, we can use that understanding to influence our decision and to create a better, more sustainable, and desirable future. -Robert Costanza et al. 1 The contemporary landscape of Arizona s Verde Valley acts as a palimpsest, a physical record where the past is somewhat obscured but still visible under layers of accumulated interactions between human and natural systems. Molded by many actors, the valley is a witness to millennia of anthropogenic manipulation and ecological adaptation. Its contemporary landscape is defined by the legacies of past industries, the shadow of current economic pursuits, and the evolution of market orientations that, in turn, inform its sense of place, land use, and identity. In the mid- 1800s, the introduction of livestock and the expansion of cultivated ground drastically accelerated the rate of anthropogenic change in the valley. Entering an environment already significantly modified by Native American tribes including the Sinagua and, later, the Northeastern Yavapai, Anglo settlers brought new plants, animals, and farming practices that transformed the valley s ecology and sense of place. Clashes between Anglo settlers and the valley s original inhabitants resulted in the displacement and disempowerment of the Yavapai- Apache people and remade the cultural landscape. The discovery of precious metals in the Black Hills in the late 1870s heralded the valley s first industrial age, and the 1 Robert Costanza et al., Sustainability or Collapse: What Can We Learn from Integrating the History of Humans and the Rest of Nature? Ambio 36, no. 7 (2007):

194 scattered wildcat digs gave way to the United Verde Copper Company and the United Verde Extension. In the early decades of the twentieth century, these two companies consolidated resources and exerted great economic, social, and environmental influence over the valley. The copper industry transformed the Verde Valley into an agri- industrial hinterland and bound the valley s ecology and its farmers in a devil s bargain relationship to the copper mines and smelters until the mid- 1900s. 2 The devil s bargain relationship between Verde Valley farmers and the regional extractive industry ended with the permanent closure of the Clarkdale smelter in Smelter smoke no longer destroyed crops, but the corresponding loss of a huge sector of the regional population also meant that local markets for fresh farm products evaporated. The loss of the copper industry acted as the death knell that set off an era of dynamic disintegration of the industrial landscape, transforming one of Arizona s most productive mining regions into a ghostly post- industrial place. The economic downturn brought a sense of urgency to the Verde Valley as it struggled to survive without its main markets. Farmers increasingly looked outside of the valley confines to sell their products and, despite the small scale renewal of industrial activity fostered by the entrance of cement production in 2 Early Inhabitants of the Verde Valley, Verde Valley Archeology Center, accessed August 30, 2013, Heather A. Downey, Prehistoric Agricultural Viability of the Sacred Mountain Gridded Agricultural Complex, Verde Valley, Arizona (M.A. Thesis, Northern Arizona University, 2006), 23; Hal K. Rothman, Devil s Bargains: Tourism in the Twentieth- Century American West (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), 11; William Cronon, Nature s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992), 51; Frank J. Tuck, Stories of Arizona Copper Mines: The Big Low- grades and the Bonanzas (Phoenix: Arizona Department of Mineral Resources, 1957),

195 1959, years of economic depression undermined the valley s strong agri- industrial sense of place. 3 As the Verde Valley s agri- industrial identity weakened, the construction of new roads reoriented the valley s economy to the growing Phoenix megalopolis and to non- agricultural markets. By the late 1950s, the Verde Valley and its Oak Creek tributary entered a period defined by rapid transformation of the community and landscape. Farms gave way to housing developments for second- homers, retirees, and, conversely, the service workers who labored to fulfill their needs. The influx of neonatives with few connections to production farming diluted the remaining fragments of the valley s agricultural identity. 4 Paradoxically, while the tourism industry was largely responsible for the disappearance of orchards and fields along Oak Creek and to some extent along the Verde River, it also provided new niche markets for specialty produce. By the 2000s, grassroots organizations such as the Verde Valley Agricultural Coalition formed to resurrect the valley s agricultural community by recasting local food production in terms of self- sufficiency, health, economic stability, and sustainability. While the 3 Interview with Dr. James W. (Jim) Byrkit, NAU.OH , Ecological Oral Histories Collection, 2005, Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; Helen Palmer Peterson, Landscapes of Capital: Culture in an Industrial Western Company Town, Clarkdale, Arizona, (PhD diss., Northern Arizona University, 2008), 2, 11-14; Eric L. Clements, After the Boom in Tombstone and Jerome, Arizona: Decline in Western Resource Towns (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2003), 50; George and Bob Kovacovich, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Camp Verde, Arizona, October 14, Thomas E. Sheridan, Arizona: A History (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), ; John Findlay, Magic Lands: Western Cityscapes and American Culture After 1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 18, 29; Interview with Dr. James W. (Jim) Byrkit, NAU.OH , Ecological Oral Histories Collection, 2005, Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff; Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; Verde Valley Agriculture Coalition, e- mail message to author, January 23,

196 agricultural future of the valley remains contested, increased interest and local participation points to the likelihood of an inclusive agricultural renaissance in the Verde Valley that bridges old time farming and ranching families, the tourism industry, resident consumers, and small scale production farmers. 5 As a palimpsest, evidence of the Verde Valley s historic landscapes and agri- ecological history intertwine with and inform the valley s current terrain and identity. Yet, to many visitors and residents, these clues to the valley s past lie hidden in the contemporary landscape and unexplored in public learning environments. The Verde Valley lacks a public history space dedicated to its dynamic agricultural history, and many of the existing public history installations fail to make strong connections between agriculture and the valley s hinterland status, market orientation, regional industry, landscape change, and the evolving and continued presence of production agriculture. The result is the under appreciation and devaluation of the valley s complex landscapes as well as the inability to understand the budding agricultural resurgence within a historical context. 6 Two possibilities for demystifying the Verde Valley s agri- ecological history are the renarrativization of an existing public site, such as Slide Rock State Park, and the creation of a new public history venue, like the Verde Valley Agricultural 5 Adrian Ivakhiv, Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona (Bloomington, IN.: Indiana University Press, 2001); Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19, 2013; Verde Valley Agriculture Coalition, e- mail message to author, January 23, Marshall Whitmire, Jane Whitmire, and Steve Ayers, meeting and site visit to the Hank Wingfield Home with author, November 7,

197 Heritage Center, dedicated to sharing these narratives. These sites could teach the skills necessary for reading the valley s landscape palimpsest and provide a public space in which to engage the continuously evolving nature of regional agriculture. The realization of either option offers an opportunity to implement living history components and create meaningful sensory learning experiences. 7 ~Connections to Themes of Sustainable Communities~ The agricultural and landscape- change history of Arizona s Verde Valley presented in this thesis may, superficially, appear to have little relevancy to issues related to sustainability. Indeed, the popular notion of what comprises sustainability seems disconnected from my analysis of the valley s public history absences and possibilities. In mainstream American culture, sustainability is often narrowly associated with waste reduction, green technologies such as wind and solar power, and sensible consumption patterns. For some, especially those in academia, sustainability is broadened to include social issues such as environmental justice and human rights. 8 The Sustainable Communities program (SUS) encourages its students to push these expanded boundaries of sustainability even further to encompass themes related to civic engagement, social justice, and transformation. Also included in the 7 Jay Anderson, Time Machines: The World of Living History (Nashville, Tennessee: The American Association for State and Local History, 1984), 59; Cody Canning, interview conducted by author, Flagstaff, Arizona, January 4, 2014; Kathy Pendley Shaw, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Slide Rock State Park, Arizona, October 3, 2013; J. K. Gibson- Graham, Post- Capitalist Politics (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), ; Marshall Whitmire, Jane Whitmire, and Steve Ayers, meeting and site visit to the Hank Wingfield Home with author, November 7, Catherine Hawkins, Sustainability, Human Rights, and Environmental Justice: Critical Connections for Contemporary Social Work, Critical Social Work 11 (2010), accessed March 10, 2014, coates_5_pdf.pdf. 189

198 SUS vision, and a key point of intersection between the program and this thesis, is the emphasis given to the relationship between human and natural systems as well as the interactions and networks that form between communities at different levels from the local, bioregional, to the international. 9 This thesis is fundamentally about social and physical change over time generated by human- environment interactions as well as the evolving ecological and cultural connections between the Verde Valley and local and regional communities. I present an agri- ecological history that borrows some of the theoretical foundations of environmental history in order to understand the changing role of farming in the valley s sense of place. William Cronon, one of the founders of the environmental history discipline, notes that a fundamental premise of his field is the acknowledgment that human acts occur within a network of relationships, processes, and systems that are as ecological as they are cultural. 10 In the context of my work, agriculture provides a point of intersection from which to examine environmental change, the establishment of an anthropogenic cultural landscape, and the nuances of the valley s agri- industrial hinterland status. Focusing on an agricultural- environmental history of the Verde Valley also allowed me to engage another type of socio- cultural inquiry regarding representation in public history settings. The lack of existing comprehensive public settings with strong agricultural history themes led me to question the implications 9 Masters of Arts in Sustainable Communities, Graduate Student Handbook (Academic Year: ), 4, accessed March 10, 2014, /Student- Handbook.pdf. 10 William Cronon, A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative, The Journal of American History 78 (March 1992):

199 and effects of this absence. The power of certain sectors of the community in shaping the shared public narratives results in a disparity of representation that in turn raises questions of historical justice. 11 If, as scholar William Cronon asserts, historians reflect their communities in the stories they tell and the way they tell them, the absence of a strong agri- ecological narrative in the Verde Valley s existing public history world neglects important human and ecological actors of the valley community. It is an exercise in historical justice to expand the public representation of the valley s long agrarian past to include a more comprehensive history that speaks to the continued influence of farmers, ranchers, consumers, and the very landscape itself. 12 Renarrativizing the Verde Valley as a location with an agricultural past, present, and potential future is an act of sustaining an essential sense of place narrative. 13 Sociologist Tony Bennett argues that museums need to be spaces of emulation and diffusion whose primary educational function manifests in the role of museums as spaces of representation. 14 The creation of an agri- ecologically focused public living museum can contextualize recent attempts to revamp the 11 I borrow the term historical justice from the Historical Justice and Memory Research Network, an organization that brings together scholars and activists to encourage interdisciplinary and comparative research on issues relating to memory, memorialization and historicisation, and historical and transitional justice. Applicable to the Verde Valley s lack of public narrative around the struggles faced by farmers, the Network studies how injustice has been remembered and forgotten. About, Historical Justice and Memory Research Network, accessed April 21, 2013, 12 Cronon, A Place for Stories, Gibson- Graham, Post- Capitalist Politics, Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (New York: Routledge, 1995),

200 Verde Valley s production- agriculture identity and share the trials, skills, and successes experienced by earlier generations. A public learning space can also serve to historicize contemporary issues facing the Verde Valley, such as water use and access to healthy food. An example of this already exists in Glendale, Arizona, where an online video series ties the city s historic open- air Sahuaro Ranch Park to contemporary sustainability themes such as irrigation technology, fossil fuel consumption, and food production to illustrate change over time. 15 Similarly, an agricultural living museum in the Verde Valley has the potential to teach people about the past but also to connect them more deeply to, and encourage them to think creatively about, problems of the present. By weaving a web that incorporates environmental changes with the narratives of multiple generations, we can create historically literate communities capable of sustaining their didactic heritage. ~Leaving the Valley~ As I prepare to leave the Verde Valley and drive the steep asphalt ribbon that connects the green valley to the Colorado Plateau, I cast my mind back to my initial visits to this special place. Entering the valley for the first time, I noticed ecological transition zones and the verdant power of the river. I saw mobile home parks and disintegrating industrial structures, irrigation ditches, overgrown fields, and newly pruned orchards. What I failed to perceive were the fundamental interconnections between these landscape elements and the narrative of social, economic, and environmental change hidden within them. 15 City of Glendale, Arizona, Sahuaro Rank Park Historic Area, accessed March 3, 2014, 192

201 ~~~ This thesis began as a quest to understand the disappearance of production agriculture in the Verde Valley, and the landscape changes that accompanied the rise and fall of regional farming. In the course of my research, and after speaking with a number of active farmers, ranchers, and small- scale growers, I realized that agriculture in the Verde Valley is not dead but merely changing. I initially assumed that the entrance of extractive industry, construction of modern roadways, and building of residential units and tourist venues undermined the valley s agricultural identity completely. Instead, I discovered that while the valley is no longer primarily identified as agricultural, or even agri- industrial, these elements contributed to an evolving landscape in which the fingerprint of agriculture is still visible. The Verde Valley s agri- suburban sense of place continues to grow stronger as small- scale producers join together under the banner of organizations such as the Verde Valley Agriculture Coalition to maintain and reassert the valley s agricultural identity. The real disconnect I unearthed over the course of this project is the lack of an accessible public narrative that speaks to the continuous evolution of the Verde Valley s farming and ranching landscape. The valley s existing scripted senses of place highlights mining and soldiering/pioneer narratives while excluding a critical examination of agriculture s role in regional history and identity. This absence can be reinterpreted as an opportunity for a new or renarrativized public history site to have real potential to enact change. By illustrating the changing face of agriculture and its role in the shaping the local economy and identity, such a site can sustain the essential narratives that comprise the valley. 193

202 ~~~ I look back across the valley that captured my imagination and concentration for almost two years. I understand, now, that there is still much work to be done in continuing to challenge and enrich the public narratives that the Verde Valley s communities tell about themselves. Still absent are the acknowledgment and honoring of the valley s Native American residents, as well as detailed explorations into the issues of gender and class. Yet, as I speed along the I- 17 corridor, I now see a dynamic valley landscape marked by a rich interconnected past. That palimpsest will continue to grow increasingly intriguing and complex as we delve more deeply into the stories embodied in the land and the people who call it home. 194

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221 United States." Journal Of Hydrology 320, no. 3/4 (2006): Weisiger, Marsha. Dreaming of Sheep in Navajo Country. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, West, Elliot. The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, Wezel, A., S. Bellon, T. Doré, C. Francis, D. Vallod, and C. David. "Agroecology as a Science, a Movement and a Practice. A Review." Agronomy For Sustainable Development (EDP Sciences) 29, no. 4 (October 2009): Whittlesey, Stephanie M., Richard Ciolek- Torrello, and Jeffrey H. Altschul, eds. Vanishing River: Landscapes and Lives of the Lower Verde Valley The Lower Verde Archaeological Project. Tucson, Arizona: SRI Press, Wright, Phillip. Andy Groseta Takes Reins of AZ Cattle Grower s. Verde Independent, July 21, Accessed October 31, 2013,

222 Unpublished Theses and Dissertations Beard, Christine Dickson. Smoke Men on the Hill: The Environmental Effects of Smelter Pollution in the Verde Valley, Arizona, M.A. Thesis, Northern Arizona University, Downey, Heather A. Prehistoric Agricultural Viability of the Sacred Mountain Gridded Agricultural Complex, Verde Valley, Arizona. M.A. Thesis, Northern Arizona University, Gottschalk, Nancy B. Barriers and Limitations to Expanded Participation in Local Food Systems, Cottonwood, Arizona. M.A. Thesis, Northern Arizona University, Peart, Diann Ellen. The Spatial Distribution and Land Use Association of Ailanthus Altissima in Jerome, Arizona. M.A. Thesis, Arizona State University, Peterson, Helen Palmer. Landscapes of Capital: Culture in an Industrial Western Company Town, Clarkdale, Arizona, PhD diss., Northern Arizona University,

223 Appendix A Cattle Brands of the Verde Valley, Circa 1916 Below are images taken from a 1916 copy of the Coconino Sun newspaper. The Sun posted numerous brands from outfits located around Northern Arizona, including many from Flagstaff, Winslow, and Ash Fork and a few from more remote places such as Seligman, Adamana, and Eager. Notice the transitory nature of the regional cattle industry; many ranchers practiced transhumance and drove their herds from winter ranges, often located in temperate riparian areas such as the Verde Valley, to higher and more isolated summer ranges. Some, such as E.G. Keith from Camp Verde, found that the Middle Verde provided enough fodder to pasture in the valley year- round. The majority of Verde Valley outfits listed in the newspaper were headquartered in Camp Verde, the most agriculturally- centered community in the valley. Three of the outfits, most of them established as companies, were headquartered in Jerome; three had their headquarters in Sedona. 1 Figure 20 Wingfield and Van Deren Cattle Brands 1 Descriptions of cattle brands and range location for ranches located in Verde Valley as published in the Coconino Sun in Note the distinctive ear notches in addition to the brands. Untitled, listing of cattle brands of Northern Arizona, Coconino Sun, August 11, 1916, accessed October 22, 2013, 11/ed- 1/seq- 9/. 215

224 Figure 21 Selected cattle brands of Sedona, Jerome, and Camp Verde. Untitled, listing of cattle brands of Northern Arizona, Coconino Sun, August 11, 1916, accessed October 22, 2013, 11/ed- 1/seq- 9/. 216

225 Appendix B Copper Refining A copper mine, whether open pit or underground, is a vastly complex and energy- intensive place; the process of refining the raw ore into useable copper, typically requiring a percent purity, is similarly demanding. A simplified introduction to the smelting process used in the UVCC and UVX plants begins when raw ore, having been drilled, blasted, and chiseled out of the mountain, is transported via railcar to the waiting Clarkdale and Clemenceau refineries. Large ore is then pulverized into manageable sized chunks, called crushing. At this point crushed ore can go directly to the smelter or, more commonly, if the amount of copper within the ore is low, it enters into the concentration phase. If the ore must be concentrated, it passes through a series of large mills that finely grind it to the consistency of beach sand. The next step is froth- flotation, so named for the manner in which copper particles are floated away from the original ore through the introduction of chemical slurry. The slurry, a mixture of water and reagents such as pine oil, is injected with air and agitated to produce a froth that separates the copper from its host. 1 The end result of this phase is copper concentrate, a dry powder with a copper content of roughly thirty percent, and the unwanted host material, or gangue, which is either cycled back through the floating 1 Reagent can be defined through this entry in the IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology reference book. Reactant: A substance that is consumed in the course of a chemical reaction. It is sometimes known, especially in the older literature, as a reagent, but this term is better used in a more specialized sense as a test substance that is added to a system in order to bring about a reaction or to see whether a reaction occurs (e.g. an analytical reagent). Reactant, IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, accessed September 2, 2013, 217

226 process or disposed of in tailings dumps. Now the copper concentrate is ready for roasting and, finally, smelting. 2 ~Roasting~ During roasting, copper concentrate is placed into a furnace and heated to separate the copper from the remaining impurities, usually iron and sulfur. The composition of the host rock determines the type and quantity of impurities attached to the copper, thus other materials such as arsenic, gold, or silver may also be present in the concentrate. Roasting is performed in a furnace with a current of air fanned through. The presence of oxygen is imperative, as it is during the roasting stage that sulfur is oxidized to become sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) and other impurities are released as volatile oxides. 3 In Jerome, roasting was originally performed in open- pits located near the mountainside smelter. Once oxidation occurs, the concentrate is mixed with coke and silica in a blast furnace where superheated air converts the remaining iron oxide into ferrous silicate, or slag. The slag floats on the surface of the molten copper matte, is drawn off, and disposed of as waste. 4 Interestingly, as the slag piles became permanent fixtures in many western mining towns, efforts to find a use for this waste increased. Slag from the Clarkdale waste pile was, for a 2 This information on copper metallurgy was gathered from Freeport- McMoran Copper and Gold s website; the website has an easy- to- understand schematic that illustrates the stages of the copper refining process. Concentrating and Smelting, Freeport- McMoran Copper and Gold, accessed September 2, 2013, 3 City Collegiate, Metallurgy of Copper, accessed September 3, 2013, 4 Metallurgy of Copper, accessed September 3,

227 Figure 22 "Roasting Copper Ore on a Gigantic Scale at Jerome, Arizona." The burning mountain shown in this photograph is the outdoor "roaster" at Jerome, Arizona, where one of the world's largest copper mines is operated. The ores contain a great excess of sulphur [15-32%] and before they can be economically smelted it is necessary to burn out the greater part of the sulphur. This is called heap roasting, the ore being heaped with cord wood and allowed to burn from five to nine weeks. About 500 tons of ore form a heap, so that the enormous quantity shown in the photograph may be estimated. The ore for roasting is trammed through a tunnel feet in length, which leads from the 500 foot level of the shaft, and when roasted and ready for the smelter it is sent back into the mine and hoisted to the mouth of the shaft, as the country is so rugged that there is no other way of reaching the smelter. When this article was written, the smelter was still located in Jerome. Armour Institute of Technology, Roasting Copper Ore, The Technical World Magazine (March, 1911):

228 short period of time during WWII, used by the Kaiser Shipyard in California as a less- expensive alternative to sandblasting sand used to scour old paint off of warships; while the ground slag did the job well, its tough characteristics wreaked havoc on the grinding and blasting machines. 5 Slag was also used at the Phoenix Cement Plant, located just outside of Clarkdale and initially built to provide material for the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, in order to increase the workability and resiliency of the cement products. 6 ~Bessemerization~ The molten matte copper is now transferred to a Bessemer converter to extract copper metal from the matte. During bessemerization, superheated air is pulsed through openings, called tuyers, which introduce oxygen into the molten matte. Oxidation caused by the influx of air transforms most of the copper sulfide (Cu 2 S) into copper oxide (Cu 2 O), which then engages the remaining Cu 2 S in a chemical reaction to produce molten blister copper. As it cools, remaining sulfur dioxide escapes through the hardening copper, causing a distinct blistered surface to form. At ninety- nine percent pure, the blister copper still contains trace elements of impurities such as iron, silver, gold, zinc, and arsenic. These impurities reduce the electrical conductivity of copper, as well as its mechanical properties, thus blister 5 John Tavasci Sr., interview conducted by author, digital recording, Clarkdale, Arizona, October 7, Don Godard, interview conducted by author, digital recording, Cornville, Arizona, September 19,

229 copper is subjected to a final round of purification in order to achieve the hallowed percent purity mark. 7 ~Electrolytic Refining~ Refining can be achieved through electrolytic refining, during which plates of blister copper are used as anodes and thin sheets of pure copper as cathodes. The anodes and cathodes are suspended in a solution of copper sulfate and sulfuric acid that acts as a conductor for high amperage, low voltage electricity that provides the energy to transform blister copper into refined copper. Pure copper from the anodes is deposited on the cathodes and remaining impurities are left behind as sludge. 8 Once the copper has reached the appropriate concentration levels, it is then ready to be extruded, shaped, and stamped for specific manufacturing uses. 7 Metallurgy of Copper, accessed September 3, Refining, Freeport- McMoran Copper and Gold, accessed September 3, 2013, 221

230 Appendix C Sedona Case Study- The Jordan Orchard The establishment of the Sedona tourist industry spurred profound landscape changes, in the form of development and recreational areas, throughout the region. This series of aerial photos illustrates the dramatic transformation of the area around the Jordan orchard, now the site of the Sedona Heritage Museum. The red circles indicate the location of the Jordan house site. The earliest image, from 1959, shows minor residential development and note the neat orchards near the Jordan home and flanking the east side of State Route 89A. In the next photo, from 1997, all of the orchards and fields are gone. Figure 25, from 2013, shows further development of tourist- oriented shops and boutiques located along the downtown stretch of 89A. Finally, Figure 26 places the development of Uptown Sedona in perspective with the explosion of growth to the west of the original town site. 222

231 Figure 23 Sedona. This photo can be identified using USGS Topo map Sedona Quadrangle Arizona. T=17N; R=5E+6E. Oak Creek and 89A running south and west. Northern Sedona takes up the rest of the frame. Schnebly Hill Road can be seen in the southeast corner of the photo. Andre Faure, Aerial Photographs of Sedona, Arizona, 1959, photograph (Tucson, AZ: Blanton and Cole, 1959), 45724, Andre M. Faure Collection, , Northern Arizona University Special Collections and Archives Department, Flagstaff, accessed March 30, 2014, 223

232 Figure 24 Photo taken in Note paved roads, unfinished cul- de- sac subdivision northeast of Jordan place, and the total lack of any agricultural presence. Image taken from Google Earth and edited by author, accessed November 19, 2013, 224

233 Figure 25 Today the Jordan orchard is considered to be located in Uptown Sedona, an area known for its tourist boutiques and the location of the town s few remaining historic buildings. Image taken from Google Earth and edited by author, accessed November 19, 2013, 225

234 Figure 26 Uptown Sedona as compared the sprawl of the new development located to the west. Image taken from Google Earth and edited by author, accessed November 19, 2013, 226