Casa Grande Valley Histories

Casa Grande Valley Historical Society & Museum

Casa Grande Valley Histories

Sally Zink

Americans greeted 1992, the quincentennial of Columbus' arrival in the New World, with mixed emotions. Some considered the anniversary reason for celebration, while others felt it commemorated a hostile invasion. Traditionally regarded as the discoverer of the Americas, Columbus is now treated with muted acclaim. Recent study and reflection have prompted scholars to overturn the notion that Columbus "discovered" America. It is now acknowledged, as it had been for centuries by native Americans, that American Indians had a flourishing civilization in the New World for generations before Columbus' arrival.

So what should be the focus of this five-hundred-year anniversary? While it inevitably brought with it both good and bad, Columbus' arrival in the Americas signified the beginning of European interaction with the continents, and it has been of far-reaching consequence. His voyage served as the catalyst for a European migration pattern that changed the complexion of the Americas forever.

While the Southwestern United States was not directly affected in 1492 by the arrival of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, in subsequent centuries it has felt their influence. Arriving in mass as a result of Spain's claim on Central America, conquistadors pushed northward into present-day Arizona, colonizing and Christianizing the Indians as they went. They left behind the Hispanic population in Central America, and a legacy of migration.

The pieces in this journal examine the ramifications of various migrations to the Casa Grande Valley since 1492. Henry Dobyns analyzes the state of native peoples and their Sally Zink, who grew up in Casa Grande, recently graduated from Smith College with a degree in history.

MIGRATIONS THROUGH THE DESERT:
A Look at Mexican-American Families in Casa Grande

Sally Zink

T his photo essay is a story of personal migration, a movement initiated by the first Europeans who followed Columbus' lead. The Andrades, the Vasquezes, the Cruzs, the Armentas, and countless other families trekked across the southern Arizona desert to begin a new life in the Casa Grande Valley. Their descendants continue to be active entrepreneurs in Casa Grande.

One such "personal migration" is told in the photos of the Andrade family. Both Ramon Andrade and his eventual wife, Rosalia Guayante, came to the Casa Grande Valley from Mexico with their parents in search of a better life. Francisco Garcia Andrade brought Ramon and his other young children to Casa Grande in 1893, hoping to improve their lot after facing financial ruin in Mexico. Rosalia Guayante came from German-Mexican descent. Her father, a half-German soldier of fortune, deserted his Mexican bride and children, leaving them for another woman. Rosalia's mother gathered their few possessions and her two daughters and headed north to Casa Grande in 1890, hoping to join relatives in the area. This is a unique variation to the traditional migration story: it was very rare that a single woman would venture on the long and dangerous journey across the desert, intending to reestablish her family in a foreign land without a man.

Ramon and Rosalia were married in Casa Grande in 1898. They followed the mining boom of the late nineteenth century to the Turning Point Mine near Jackrabbit. When the mines closed and ranching established its foothold as the economic base of the area, Ramon, along with his brother Bob, launched entrepreneurial careers in the population centers near present-day Casa Grande over the past five hundred years. Through the study of changes to the ancient Indian trails, Dobyns traces the impact of the European inundation into North America on the natives of the area. He also discusses the later Anglo-American migration to the area and its effect on the native population.

James Smithwick continues the theme of change through migrations by focusing on the early town of Casa Grande. He relates Casa Grande's population growth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s to the town's coinciding economic development. Smithwick describes the growth and change in Casa Grande's industries and how that affected the population of the town.

The photo essay gives a glimpse into the lives and livelihoods of some of the Mexican-American families who migrated from Mexico and established themselves in the Casa Grande Valley in the late nineteenth century. Many of the businesses pictured are still remembered by residents, testifying to the strong foundation these Mexican-American families gave Casa Grande.

The Afterword's description of the cross-cultural exchange between the Pima Indians and Spain offers a unique perspective to this quincentennial discussion. Traveling full circle from the invasion and enslavement in 1492, native Americans are now treated with intellectual and diplomatic equality: it was certainly a proud moment when Gila River Indian Community Governor Thomas R. White could stand before the Queen of Spain as ambassador of the native Americans.

Henry F. Dobyns

T his paper localizes. It is written entirely from the perspective of this place called Casa Grande. Because of some of the author's institutional affiliations, and because he has been called upon for advice concerning the Columbian Quincentenary, this paper also takes a Quincentennial perspective. That is, this narrative goes back five hundred years and begins in 1492.

1492

What was here in Casa Grande in 1492? First of all, the trails at that time did not run east and west like trails newcomers followed from the East to the West many years later.1 In 1492, major native trails ran from south to north. The trails were, the author argues, then organized by and responded to the economic stimuli of an urban population of 1,750,000 people in twenty-one cities around the shores of Lakes Texcoco and Chalco in the Valley of Mexico.2

The 1492 travel reality suggests the utility of thinking about historical continuities in terms of Patricia Nelson Limerick's recent volume subtitled "The Unbroken Past of the American West,"3 and my own comment that "contemporary conditions are inextricably linked and defined by previous key events."4 Today we recognize Mexico City as the largest metropolitan area in the hemisphere. In 1492, those cities around the shores of the Valley of Mexico lakes also constituted the largest urban concentration in the hemi- sphere. As the French say, plus la change, plus c'est la meme chose.

What organizing principles determined where those 1492 trails went? The site of today's Casa Grande was close to what I call Mesoamerica's Western Turquoise Trail. Urban Mesoamericans wore turquoise jewelry of many kinds and of great beauty. Turquoise possessed, therefore, great value in the Mesoamerican economic system. Mesoamericans imported turquoise from Los Cerrillos quarry in New Mexico, not only over the Western Trail but also via the Central Trail.5 Mesoamericans possibly, and peoples on the Pacific Coast of modern Mexico almost certainly, imported turquoise from the Gleason deposit in Southeastern Arizona.6 They imported turquoise quarried northwest of Casa Grande in the Cerbat Mountains in present-day Mohave County, and from quarries in California and southern Nevada.7

In addition to turquoise, Mesoamericans imported blue- green hyaline opal,8 misidentified in some historic documents as true emerald. True emeralds are not found in North America. They are now, and were in 1492, quarried in modern Colombia. The south-north alignment of major trading trails is reflected in the fact that Aztecs wore real emeralds. Traders carried those emeralds on foot trails extending all the way from the Colombian Andes to the Valley of Mexico's urban market where demand for such precious stones was huge. In the same way, traders carried blue hyaline opal quarried from the upper Rio Grande Valley and turquoise quarried perhaps at Los Cerrillos, near Gleason, at Cananea, at Chloride, Arizona, in Nevada, and California, to the cities in the Valley of Mexico or elsewhere in Mesoamerica. The main branch of the Western Turquoise Trail apparently followed the upper San Pedro River, taking a pass through the Galiuro Mountains to the headwaters of Arivaipa Creek, and north to the Zuni pueblos. So the main route bypassed the site of Casa Grande, which was then as obscure little place in the delta of the Rio Santa Cruz. A branch route may have passed very near if not over the Casa Grande Site.

That foot trail branched off north of the Imuris Piman trade fair town Haivan Pit on the upper Rio San Pedro to cross the highlands between the Rincon and Whetstone Mountains to the Rio Santa Cruz. Traders then descended that water course to Kuitoak bagum water hole and seasonal settlement south of the Picacho. There they could choose between two trails. One path ran due north to the Gila River at Blackwater with its real Casa Grande or redoubt-storehouse. That was the shortest path between the seasonal pond at Kuitoak bagum and the river. The second path continued north-northwest along the Santa Cruz flood channel past and perhaps through Casa Grande to Kohatk Piman Shodak Shon trading center on the Gila River downstream from Blackwater.

Dr. Henry Dobyns has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Cornell University, and has taught at Cornell, Prescott College, and the Universities of Kentucky, Florida and Wisconsin-Parkside. He is the author or coauthor of 35 books. Dr. Dobyns graduated from Casa Grande Union High School.

1592

Let us jump forward a hundred years in time to 1592. Spaniards had conquered those populous cities on the shores of the Valley of Mexico's lakes, and Old World diseases had killed most of their inhabitants.10 The Spanish conquest imposed European values on the native survivors. To be sure, some European values were the same as native values. People on the market places of those native cities had settled their accounts with gold dust in goose quills.11 Europeans also settled their accounts with gold. The people in the market places of those urban places made change with cacao beans, from which they made and we make chocolate. The Europeans did not even have cacao beans until the conquest; they made small change in copper. In other words, the conquerors imposed so many changes that Mesoamerican demand for precious stones disappeared.

In 1592 considerable cultural continuity characterized the area around Casa Grande. On the middle Rio Gila and on the lower Salt River, there was still a relatively large native population which demanded and consumed large quantities of marine shell, as it had in 1492. Most men who went to the head of the Gulf of California to collect raw shell to be made into jewelry probably went primarily to collect sea salt.12 They scraped up salt from salt pans along the shore, and picked up selected attractive marine shells from the beach.

We cannot be sure about all details of the marine shell business. Some full-time specialists may have traveled after sea shells. There is one area near the coast of Sonora where there are the remains of large-scale processing of shell, particularly clam shells.13 There shell collectors lightened their loads. Natives who had not trained their dogs to carry packs had to carry all the shell they collected. Evidently they did not want to carry a lot of marine shell very far because it is heavy, but they had to pack shell across the sand dunes near the Gulf coast where there is no drinking water. They stopped at Las Trincheras where they reached a fresh water supply. They stopped and cut off clamshell rims they wanted to make into bracelets, discarding the heavy inner portion. Then they carried the much lighter rims north to the Rio Gila.

When we travel today, we typically conceptualize in terms of maps and drawing or printing lines on paper. The Piman-speaking natives of this area had mental maps of their routes between the rivers mentioned and the Gulf coast and the Las Trincheras processing area. Those maps have been expressed in ground paintings even in my life time by religious practitioners following native beliefs systems. Those practitioners memorized chants which embodied the geographical knowledge of the trans-desert trails, and ground paintings that visualized that knowledge.

Piman ground paintings are not linear images. They are not geometric the way Europeans tend to conceptualize many things. Instead, Piman images of the trans-desert trails are tied very closely to the topography. Practitioners making a ground painting employ a sort of shorthand in drawing colored symbols representing mountain ranges. Only one who already knows the lay of this landscape can correctly interpret the symbols and how they guide travelers along the sacred salt-shell trail.

Only one who knows that there are springs where one can always obtain water on the slopes of Tabletop Mountain to the west, only one who knows that the Rio Gila is north of Casa Grande, can "read" that ground painting map of the salt-shell route to the Gulf. Yet, a map it is, although it is sacred and it is not made for dissemination in the Rand McNally mode. The ground painting map is made only when a supplicant comes to the person possessing that highly specialized knowledge to recite the chant and to make the ground painting. Only then is that map ever rendered in visual form so it may be seen. As soon as the chant ends, and the trail information has been communicated, the ground painting is destroyed.

I give this example of Piman mental mapping of a major sea salt-shell collecting trail to illustrate that native Americans and newcomers from the Old World do not differ mentally in their human urge to map their country and to symbolize it. In details, they differ fundamentally.

Some shell traders and collectors probably crossed the desert from Quitovaquita (on the present-day international boundary in Organ Pipe National Monument) to Au:p Oiduk ("Enemy Fields") near present-day Gila Bend, keeping west of Table Top in the Maricopa Mountains. Other salt and shell collectors hurried from the Gulf shore to Quitovac oasis. From there they traveled to springs along the west side of Quijotoa Mountains and north via Kohatk and Vaiva Vo (Cocklebur) to the middle Rio Gila at Shodak Shon, thus trudging a path a bit to the west of Casa Grande. They kept to the east of Table Top Alternatively, shell traders ascended the Rio Concepci- on, then the Rio Altar to the watershed and crossed into the Rio Santa Cruz valley. There they followed the channel downstream to Kuitoak bagum's seasonal pond. From the Picacho they usually cut north to Blackwater Village with its redoubt-storehouse.

Grande High School near-classmates Keith Carleton and Alvin Forbach used to pick up from that ruin, Pimans lived there around 1592 or a little later. Possibly the Salt-Shell Trail touched that outpost, which is or was a short distance west of the paved highway north from Casa Grande station.

Let us advance another hundred years to 1692. Europeans in colonial New Spain then arrived on a nearly stable northern frontier. This was not the frontier of English speakers moving from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast of North America. It was the Spanish-speaking frontier of people riding horseback following ancient native trails south to north. These explorers and colonists began converting native foot trails into colonial horse paths, or pack- carrying paths in terms of trade.

If one believes my calculations, by this time the native population had been reduced by around 97 percent from the number in 1492.14 There were so few native survivors that the nature of the native market necessarily changed markedly. Yet, native trade continued, even though it had to adapt to changing conditions and the approach of the colonial frontier. The colonial Spanish economy emphasized extracting mineral wealth for shipment to Europe. Thus, there was a never-ending colonial demand for native labor to mine and process silver and gold ores. That demand generated an illegal frontier trade in human beings.15 Queen Elizabeth of Spain outlawed slavery in 1502, 16 but her colonial subjects in New Spain managed rather easily to ignore that edict. They raided frontier Native Americans under various pseudonyms without ever using the term esclavitud (slavery). On this colonial frontier, the horse trails followed the surface-flowing streams. As Bernard L. Fontana pointed out, Spanish colonization followed a Spanish cultural pattern of riverine settlement.17 Trails connecting riverine colonial missions, military posts, and ranches naturally paralleled stream water to refresh man and mount.

Some shell traders and collectors probably crossed the desert from Quitovaquita (on the present-day international boundary in Organ Pipe National Monument) to Au.p Oiduk ("Enemy Fields") near present-day Gila Bend, keeping west of Table Top in the Maricopa Mountains. Other salt and shell collectors hurried from the Gulf shore to Quitovac oasis. From there they traveled to springs along the west side of Quijotoa Mountains and north via Kohatk and Vaiva Vo (Cocklebur) to the middle Rio Gila at Shodak Shon, thus trudging a path a bit to the west of Casa Grande. They kept to the east of Table Top Alternatively; shell traders ascended the Rio Concepcion, then the Rio Altar to the watershed and crossed into the Rio Santa Cruz valley. There they followed the channel downstream to Kuitoak bagum's seasonal pond. From the Picacho they usually cut north to Blackwater Village with its redoubt-storehouse.

Thus, three branches of the shell-salt trail passed on either side of Casa Grande-on-the-railroad. Now, on the bank of the Rio Santa Cruz channel, which is approximately two and one-half miles due north of Casa Grande railroad station, there was a Piman-speaking outpost. Judging from the presence of large blue trade beads which my Casa Grande High School near-classmates Keith Carleton and Alvin Forbach used to pick up from that ruin, Pimans lived there around 1592 or a little later. Possibly the Salt-Shell Trail touched that outpost, which is or was a short distance west of the paved highway north from Casa Grande station.

In terms of the Casa Grande area, Spanish colonial horse trails followed native foot trails along the Rio Santa Cruz. When the well-know Jesuit explorer Eusebio Francisco Kino went from his mission north to the Rio Gila, he followed the trail down the Rio Santa Cruz.18 In terms of surviving place names, the colonial horse trail came into the valley approximately at present-day Nogales and Rio Rico. It continued north past colonial San Cayetano, came past Tchu:vak (Tu- bac, "Where the Enemy Rotted").19 It passed Va-k ("Reeds") where Kino founded Mission San Xavier del Bac. Kino rode along the new horse trail past Tchuk Shon (Tucson, "Blackwater Alluvial Spring") to Point-of-Mountain and the native pond there. Kino's mount followed the trail to the native pond immediately south of the Picacho, Kui- toak bagu ("Mesquite Mountain").20 There Kino turned his mount's head north along the ancient foot trail to the river at Blackwater Village. Thus, he rode just a few miles east of present-day Interstate Highway 10. Returning south, Kino followed an alternative trail along what is now called McClellan Wash. He reached a hand-made native water tank in the drainage channel, which collected runoff from the northwest part of the Newman Mountains.21 Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Florence Canal Company contractors using horse-drawn scrapers enlarged that native pond into the present-day Picacho Reservior.

1742

Let us skip a half-century now to 1742, when a Jesuit missionary at Tubutama traveled north to the middle Gila River. Jakob Sedelmayr reported two cultural changes among the northern Piman-speaking people that bear on Casa Grande.22 The missionary's guide between the middle Gila River and the lower Colorado River Valley was a native of the latter oasis. Captured by raiders, he had been sold into colonial slavery. The Pimans who sold the Yuman-speaking captive to Spaniards obtained knives, ribbon, and other European goods in exchange. That transaction shows that Spaniards on this frontier ignored the Spanish monarchs' prohibition on human slavery. Colonial demand for mine laborers and servile servants stimulated border warfare aimed not at territorial conquest but at capturing native children to sell to the colonists.

What did the natives receive in exchange for slaves? By the mid-eighteenth century, frontier natives desired horses above all other colonial commodities. The Piman-speakers surrounding Casa Grande probably had become horse traders as well as slave traders.23 Native riders left no written records of their journeys. Probably they ranged more widely than did literate Europeans, so one may speculate that native horsemen began converting the native foot trails near Casa Grande into horse trails.

Sedelmayr also reported an important innovation at Shodak Shon, ("Flowing Water Alluvial Spring") located at an alluvial spring on the middle Rio Gila downstream from Blackwater. The Kohatk gardeners of Shodak Shon were growing wheat. That cereal grain is significant in the Sono ran Desert in native economies because it is frost resistant and grows during the winter. Wheat growing roughly doubled the grain producing capability of native irrigation gardeners, inasmuch as American maize can be grown only during the frost-free summer. With wheat, Gila and Salt River gardeners could utilize winter runoff that previously ran downstream undiverted to grow twice as much grain, including a surplus for export.

How did wheat seed reach Shodak Shon? We do not have firm evidence to answer that question, but there were two feasible routes. One was the colonial horse trail along the Rio Santa Cruz. The other and perhaps more likely route was from desert flood-irrigated field to field. The Piman Desert People utilized flashflood natural irrigation in what they called ak chin horticulture.24 In mid-eighteenth century the Desert People gardened ak chin fields only short distances apart all the way from the Rio Altar to the middle Rio Gila. The northernmost ak chin fields along this potential route for seed transmission lay at Vaiva Vo ("Cocklebur Pond")25 a few miles south of Casa Grande and near the outpost just north of Casa Grande, if it was occupied at that period. Kohatk tribesmen gardened those fields.

That is one reason why I suspect that wheat seed really spread northward from ak chin field to ak chin field. For Shodak Shon is not a Gila River Pima (Akimuhl O'odham) settlement. Shodak Shon is a Kohatk settlement — the only riverine Kohatk village. The Kohatk gardened mostly ak chin fields south of the river in the desert.26 Kohatk gar-north past colonial San Cayetano, came past Tchu-.vak (Tu- bac, "Where the Enemy Rotted").19 It passed Va-.k ("Reeds") where Kino founded Mission San Xavier del Bac. Kino rode along the new horse trail past Tchuk Shon (Tuc¬son, "Blackwater Alluvial Spring") to Point-of-Mountain and the native pond there. Kino's mount followed the trail to the native pond immediately south of the Picacho, Kui- toak bagu ("Mesquite Mountain").20 There Kino turned his mount's head north along the ancient foot trail to the river at Blackwater Village. Thus, he rode just a few miles east of present-day Interstate Highway 10. Returning south, Kino followed an alternative trail along what is now called Mc- Clellan Wash. He reached a hand-made native water tank in the drainage channel, which collected runoff from the northwest part of the Newman Mountains.21 Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Florence Canal Company contractors using horse-drawn scrapers enlarged that native pond into the present-day Picacho Reservior.

1742

Let us skip a half-century now to 1742, when a Jesuit missionary at Tubutama traveled north to the middle Gila River. Jakob Sedelmayr reported two cultural changes among the northern Piman-speaking people that bear on Casa Grande. The missionary's guide between the middle Gila River and the lower Colorado River Valley was a native of the latter oasis. Captured by raiders, he had been sold into colonial slavery. The Pimans who sold the Yuman-speaking captive to Spaniards obtained knives, ribbon, and other European goods in exchange. That transaction shows that Spaniards on this frontier ignored the Spanish monarchs' prohibition on human slavery. Colonial demand for mine laborers and servile servants stimulated border warfare aimed not at territorial conquest but at capturing native children to sell to the colonists.

Sedelmayr also reported an important innovation at Shodak Shon, ("Flowing Water Alluvial Spring") located at an alluvial spring on the middle Rio Gila downstream from Blackwater. The Kohatk gardeners of Shodak Shon were growing wheat. That cereal grain is significant in the Sono- ran Desert in native economies because it is frost resistant and grows during the winter. Wheat growing roughly doubled the grain producing capability of native irrigation gardeners, inasmuch as American maize can be grown only during the frost-free summer. With wheat, Gila and Salt River gardeners could utilize winter runoff that previously ran downstream undiverted to grow twice as much grain, including a surplus for export.

1792

Let us jump another half-century in time to 1792. By that time, the Royal Presidio de Tubac had been ordered forward to Tucson.27 The Presidio Real de San Agustin de Tucson regularly imported surplus Gila River Pima wheat in order to feed the garrison. That garrison received its pay not entirely in cash but partly in kind. The bulk of the in-kind compensation consisted of wheat from which soldiers' wives made the tortillas that everyone ate daily. Raising surplus wheat under irrigation on the middle Rio Gila, Pimas packed it on horse and mule back to market. Their pack animals plodded along the horse trail a short distance east of Casa Grande to the Kuitoak bagum pond at the Picacho and along the Rio Santa Cruz to the Tucson military post. By 1792, numerous riding mount and pack animal trips along that trail had marked it well and no doubt considerably widened the once narrow native foot trail.

Some riders whose mounts eroded that trail deeper into the alluvial soil were Mestizos from villages throughout northern Sonora in colonial New Spain. They rode that trail and another to be mentioned later, to the Gila River Pimas to attend their annual trade fair. Mestizo villagers traded not only for wheat, but also for chamois skins, cotton blankets and baskets.28 Women made the water-tight baskets for household use and export. Male authors, chauvinist or otherwise, are perforce more conscious these days of the historic role women played. Therefore, this author deliberately emphasizes that Pima women carefully pruned the willow trees growing along the middle Rio Gila oasis river channels and canal banks in order to force them to put out new shoots. Young willow shoots are easily managed and easily bleached in to obtain white elements to produce designs in coiled baskets.

Pima women also cultivated in the irrigated fields domesticated E:huk (Proboscidea parviflora). To cattlemen, that is "Devil's Claw."29 Pima women harvested domesticated seed pods about fourteen to sixteen inches long,30 not the little wild pod that is four or five inches long. The skin of the seed pod furnished Pima women with black elements to sew into their coiled baskets.

Pima men wove blankets (or sheets) for home use and export from cotton grown in separate fields irrigated with Rio Gila water. The cotton was a native long-staple variety, quite possibly even an extra-long staple variety.

Wheat, willow-devil's claw baskets, and cotton blankets were the fundamental commodities Gila River Pimas exported to colonial New Spain. They remained such for more than a century.

The Gila River Pimas also sold slaves at the Tucson military post. In 1792, three hundred years after the Columbian discovery, southern Athapascan-speaking peoples posed a military threat to both Pimas and colonial garrisons in Sonora, Chihuahua, and New Mexico. Following the 1680 Pueblo Revolt along the Rio Grande and among Acomas, Zunis, and Hopis, ancestors of the Apache tribes migrated to the Piman and colonial frontier. By 1792, the Gila River Pima had confederated with the Maricopa being forced to retreat up the Rio Gila by their Quechan and Mojave enemies. So warriors of the Pima-Maricopa Confederation were constantly on campaign and taking children captive. They marched such children to the Tucson military post to dispose of them, still under a local pseudonym (Nixora), never officially called slaves. Confederation war leaders received in exchange distilled liquor, the kind of clothing that colonial Spaniards wore — particularly presidial officers' uniforms — muskets, lead balls, powder, flints, paper, and metal tools. The Confederation acquired few metal tools, but some vital ones.

In addition, the River People imported a wide range of desert products once they prospered by growing wheat for export. Desert People labor-intensified widely scattered natural resources to eke out a living. The list includes syrup and dried seeds of the giant cactus; dried fruits of other cacti; venison and mountain sheep and venison jerky; chiltipines, the extremely piquant wild pepper; processed Agave or mescal; wild gourd seeds; acorns, sleeping mats, ki-.hau or back-pack burden baskets; Agave fiber picket lines; ceramic vessels; buckskins; cords of human hair; mineral pigments (,au-.han); and sea salt.32 No doubt other commodities were never recorded.

Numerous horse trails the Desert People led their pack animals along converged probably to cross the Rio Santa Cruz at or near that little outpost just two and one-half miles north of Casa Grande railroad station. In fact, a major trans- desert trail began in terms of a modern artificial boundary at the gate in the international boundary fence a short distance south of modern San Miguel Village. For decades, that gate was a great bootlegging location. Now it is one of the entry points for illegal drug smugglers trying to cross the Papago or Tohono Au'autam Reservation.

From Pozo Verde ("Green Well") near the later international boundary, that smugglers' horse trail ran north to Fresnal with its trickle of flowing water, then to Kom Vaxia (present-day Comobabi), Noto Vaxia, on to Makomivooka or Caterpiller Pond and Ku Komalik and Tatamumerikut known in English as Jackrabbit Village, or to Kohatk Village and then directly across the Casa Grande area to the middle Rio Gila. Even though the native peoples rode horseback in 1792, the major trade routes still ran south-north three centuries after the Columbian landfall.

1842

Let us skip another half-century to 1842. Sonora was embroiled in one of its seemingly never-ending disputes over the governorship. Local caudillos could not concede that any other man was better qualified to put on the sash of office and sit in the governor's chair. When General Jose de Urrea y Elias Gonzalez became state governor early that year, former governor Manuel Maria Gandara rebelled. Gandara hated Urrea, son of former Tucson post commandant Mariano de Urrea and grandson of pioneer Altar post commandant Bernardo de Urrea. Gandara's faction recruited great numbers of Yaqui and Piman-speaking natives to fight. The Desert People apparently rustled all of the Mexican cattle they could find in northern Sonora.34 In order to avoid military retaliation, they drove many of those cattle over the trails already mentioned to the middle Rio Gila oasis. There cattle could flourish, and the Gila River Pima range cattle industry was founded in 1842 with rustled Mexican cows.

Anglo-American Route Redefinition

The first redefinition of trails to the east-west Anglo- American mode occurred just four years later. Brigadier General Steven Watts Kearny led the minuscule Army of the West down the Gila River in 1846. Kearny's command passed through the Pima-Maricopa Confederation's villages. So it passed thirteen miles north of Casa Grande station en route to California. There, Californianos nearly defeated the Army of the West at the battle of San Pasqual. Reinforced by Commodore Stockton's marines and sailors, Kearny participated in the final conquest of Mexican California.

On Kearny's heels came his subordinate, Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke, commanding a four-wheeled wagon column. Cooke complained that sand in the Santa Cruz river bed, and mesquite trees on the level ground near it, impeded men marching. The wagons were guarded by the in-Utah- famous Mormon Battalion. The published wordage about the Mormon Battalion seems second only to the published wordage about the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The important point about the Battalion and Cooke is really the wagons, because their wheels cut the first wagon ruts from east to west from the Rio Grande to the Pacific coast. The wagon wheel ruts redefined horse trails as wagon routes. Cooke's wagons came across the pass that the Southern Pacific Railroad follows from Benson on the Rio San Pedro to Tucson. Then they followed the Rio Santa Cruz trail to the Picacho, judging from Cooke's report that his command marched through "the pass between two isolated small mountains" without finding a water hole reported to be there. From the Pass, they cut north toward the Rio Gila, marching sixty- two miles from Tucson in fifty-one hours to their final camp before reaching the Rio Gila. Cooke's wagons followed it downstream to Yuma Crossing.

1848. Cooke's wagon ruts defined that portion of the Tucson-Rio Gila trail for only a few months. Late in 1848, Major Lawrence P. Graham commanded a column of wagons protected by two Dragoon troops sent to California after occupation duty in Monterrey, Mexico. Intoxicated most of the trip, Graham ordered his command through Picacho Pass.37 His wagons cut fresh ruts through a pass temporarily muddy from heavy rains.

1849. Graham's scant trail competence had serious consequences the following year. Forty-Niners unknowingly followed the freshest wagon ruts — Graham's — from Tucson to the Gila River. Consequently, most of their riding mounts and harness animals had to make the ninety-mile journey from Charco de los Yumas at Point-of-Mountain to the river with only what water canteens or wagon barrels carried. Few benefited from rain puddles as Graham's livestock luckily had.

Some Forty-Niners accustomed to well-watered terrain nearly came to disaster on the desert trail between Charco de los Yumas and the Rio Gila. John E.Durivage wrote that he considered the crossing an "era" in his life that he would not forget until the day of his death. Each member of his party started with a single two-quart canteen, thinking that much water would last them the trip. Riding animals' hooves raised clouds of dust in the hot June 1 air. Newspaperman Durivage compared the desert by moonlight to the "heath" roamed by the "weird sisters" who tortured Macbeth.

Soon after seven the next morning, Durivage suffered mild heat prostration. His brain "reeled," his limbs "lost all power," his sight dimmed, his ears roared with "the noise of a thousand cataracts." Durivage dropped off his norse and lay in the shade of a mesquite tree. His Mexican companion importuned Durivage to continue, so he did in short bursts to within four miles of the Rio Gila. Then his black servant appeared riding at a gallop bearing two canteens of river water, and looking "like an angel" to the New Orleans writer. "The nectar of the gods was small beer to it!" Durivage rhapsoslized.38 When thirst-crazed riding animals reached the stream, some left their riders hanging on tree branches, others bucked their riders off, and some landed in the water. Probably they stayed where they were in the shallow stream and gulped liquid like their horses and mules.

Not many Forty-Niner companies straggled to the Rio Gila before hospitable Pimas began walking south on the desert trial to succor travelers with water in gourd canteens, roasted pumpkins, green corn ears, watermelons and corn stalks for their livestock.39 The Pimas saved many a traveler. The Forty-Niners' wagon wheels definitively rutted the Southern National Wagon Road between California and the eastern states.

1857. United States citizens in California clamored for speedier mail service between the Pacific coast and the East. In 1857, the Post Office Department responded by contracting for mail to be carried on light wagons between San Antonio, Texas, and San Diego, California. The San Antonio and San Diego Mail Company began establishing relay stations along the route. The company established one such station at Maricopa Wells, alluvial springs fed by the Gila River's underflow. The Pima-Maricopa Confederation's army guarded the mules and horses pastured there. It was, therefore, positioned to respond rapidly to a Quechan-Moja-ve-Yavapai attack on September 1, 1857. The defenders killed nearly 100 Quechan in a battle so decisive that the Quechan never again posed a significant military threat to either the Confederation or the United States' Camp Yuma.

1858. Californians continued to clamor for improved mail service. Congress responded by authorizing the Post Office Department to contract with a new company that would haul mail and passengers in stage coaches pulled by frequently changed teams. Entrepreneurs formed the largest corporation in the United States to that date, the Butterfield Overland Mail Company. To meet the demanding travel schedule set forth in its government contract, the company quickly created relay stations at close intervals along the Southern National Wagon Road. The company built stations and hired men to dig wells to furnish water in the desert. Thus, it created Picacho Pass, Blue Water, and Oneida stations between Point-of-Mountain station and Sacaton station on the Gila River.41 The water those wells supplied travelers defined the route most took for twenty years.

The Butterfield Company consciously changed the natural and the human environment by digging deep wells. On the other hand, state socialism fostered capitalism. Congress had authorized a federal subsidy to the company, allowing it to select 320 acres of public domain land around every station. That policy prompted federal officials in the Bureau of Indian Affairs for once to act to protect native lands from newcomer encroachment.

Bureau officials feared that company crews and stagecoach passengers might alienate the Pima-Maricopa Confederation. The government relied on the Confederation's army to protect all travelers between Tucson and Camp Yuma from hostile Apaches, Yavapais, and Quechan. A penurious government could hardly afford the cost of military action should the Confederation turn hostile and terminate its alliance with the United States. So the Department of the Interior persuaded Congress to authorize on February 28, 1859 a 64,000-acre reservation for the Pimas. When A.B. Gray surveyed its boundaries in 1859, he laid it out to include the maximum possible number of irrigated native fields, irrigation canals, villages, and relay station sites on the Wagon Road. That is why the reservation was only four miles wide north-south, but extended for twenty-five miles east-west along the middle Gila River.

1872. In 1866, the Bureau of Indian Affairs appointed a former Union Army major Indian agent at Sacaton, which became the bureau's headquarters on the Gila River Indian Reservation. Levi Ruggles soon moved upstream to found the town of Florence, whose residents diverted Gila River water with little or no regard for Pima-Maricopa Confederation rights to such water under the territorial code. Captain panion importuned Durivage to continue, so he did in short bursts to within four miles of the Rio Gila. Then his black servant appeared riding at a gallop bearing two canteens of river water, and looking "like an angel" to the New Orleans writer. "The nectar of the gods was small beer to it!" Durivage rhapsoslized. When thirst-crazed riding animals reached the stream, some left their riders hanging on tree branches, others bucked their riders off, and some landed in the water. Probably they stayed where they were in the shallow stream and gulped liquid like their horses and mules.

1879. Another giant capitalistic enterprise soon redefined west-east travel for an industrial era. The Southern Pacific Railroad Company's construction subsidiary began laying tracks east from Yuma in 1878. Early in 1879, company engineers decided to construct one of the longest curved sections of track in the world to avoid Gila River Indian Reservation. The curve begins at Maricopa Station — the new railway station, not old Maricopa Wells on the wagon road — and continues to Casa Grande. That capitalistic decision and chance halted track laying in May of 1879. Company officials blamed the halt on summer heat. Actually, the company encountered difficulty in obtaining delivery of steel rails manufactured in the East. In any event, the end- of-track was at Casa Grande, where the company hauled a railroad car to serve as a temporary station.43

Wagon roads from mines very quickly converged on the new hamlet. Miners had been hauling concentrates and ore to each end-of-track as the company built eastward. Freight wagons defined one major road from the Silver Queen and King mines via Florence to Casa Grande. The short wagon haul to Casa Grande, with lower railroad freight rates from that point to the smelters, stimulated mining of deposits south of the railroad. During the 1880s, the owners of the Vekol, the Jackrabbit, and the Lake Shore prospered. For most of that decade, a labor force numbering in the hundreds exploited lode deposits in the Quijotoa Mountains. Thus, wagon roads radiated out from Casa Grande railroad station like spokes in a wagon wheel.

One spoke connected the station with the Sacaton Indian Agency, a frequent railroad customer. In the first decade of the twentieth century, at least one agent channeled agency freight haulage to Pimas and Maricopas owning wagons and teams.44 By 1912, when Arizona gained statehood, automobile roads paralleled the railroads. Automobiles deepened wagon ruts or created new trails by avoiding them between Casa Grande and Chuichu, Santa Rosa, Covered Wells, Sells, San Miguel, and Mexico. The new state only slowly took responsibility for road improvement and maintenance from local boards of road supervisors.

Most Pimas, Pagagos and a few newcomer farmers hitched horses or mules to their wagons until World War II. During the Depression period, profitable grade ore gave out in nearly all mines in Casa Grande's hinterland. In contrast, improved pumps and petroleum fueled engines and electric motors, plus credit readily available from Valley National Bank allowed cotton growing to boom in the Florence-Casa Grande Valley. As ground-water-irrigated farms expanded, the county constructed a network of graded farm-market roads in the Valley. The mileage of roads and trails connecting Casa Grande to its economic hinterland reached a new peak.

1942. By World War II, the state highway department operated with the motto "Civilization follows the improved highway." By "improved," the department really meant "paved." By that time, residents of Casa Grande were no longer merely passive spectators of trail and road changes. Local politician H. O. "Polly" Pace served on the Arizona State Highway Commission. William Coxon, sometime member of the state legislature, had for several years energetically promoted general highway improvement. Coxon's favorite project was a paved highway from the existing paved road network south to Rocky Point on the Sonoran coast of the Gulf of California. When that highway was constructed, automotive travel to the Gulf became commonplace.

1942 brought temporary railroad resurgence when federal officials ordered persons of Japanese ancestry out of a zone along the Pacific Coast. Thousands of citizens as well as aliens arrived at the Gila River Relocation Center by rail.45 By World War II, additional forms of industrial transportation affected Casa Grande. El Paso Natural Gas Company constructed a large pipeline between Texas and California that crosses the valley near Casa Grande. Pumps propel liquid hydrocarbons through the pipe.

By World War II, residents of Casa Grande had long since become frequent listeners to radio programs. Casa Grande lacked a station, so people usually listened to broadcasts by Phoenix stations KTAR and KOY. Those broadcasts instantaneously linked listeners in Casa Grande to world events. Having heard them over the radio, who could forget the very distinctive voices of United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt characterizing December 7, 1941, as a "day of infamy," or U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill growling his defiance of threatened German invasion of the British Isles?

1968. After World War II, President Dwight Eisenhower persuaded Congress to authorize and finance an interstate highway system. That system again changed the fundamental structure of vehicular travel to and from Casa Grande. Both Interstate Highways 10 and 8 bypass Casa Grande, like many other former highway towns and cities. Officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open I-10 in September of 1968. Since then, transcontinental travelers have not intentionally visited Casa Grande. Automobile travelers must leave the interstate routes to reach the growing city.

Other factors contributed to continued population growth at Casa Grande. The Conoco Corporation located by diamond drilling, a large copper ore body a few miles northwest of Casa Grande. It opened an open-pit mine where hundreds of people worked for a few years. Other enterprises opened a new Lakeshore Mine near the old one in the center of the Papago Indian Reservation south of Casa Grande, although it also operated only a few years.

Rather more important to the long-range growth of Casa Grande, it became a target for retirees. While Casa Grande lacks some big-city amenities such as major airline service, it also lacks many big-city problems. Many retirees prefer Casa Grande's small-city way of life to the more hectic ways of the Salt River Valley megalopolis and Tucson.

1982. Ironically, by 1982 businessmen in Arizona's two major metropolitan areas recognized that Casa Grande had become a desirable secondary commodity redistribution point. Therefore, significant business expansion took place in Casa Grande. This expansion involved primarily warehousing commodities to be redistributed to, and providing services such as printing to concerns in Tucson and the Salt River Valley megalopolis.

1992. By the Quincentennial year, Casa Grande had expanded eastward from its historic location to the western edge of Interstate 10. National consumer-goods-distributing companies established two bargain-rate outlet malls sited to attract travelers on the main automotive vehicle route between the Salt River Valley megalopolis and Tucson.

This brief summary of historical changes in trails by, through, and to and from Casa Grande appears during the year of the Columbian Quincentenary. If any lesson may be drawn from this sketch, perhaps it is that the rate of change in travel routes affecting the Casa Grande site has constantly accelerated for five centuries. Perhaps it will continue to do so.

1 See, for example, W. Turrentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West: A Study of Federal Road Surveys and Construction in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1846- 1869 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952).

2 This is the author's estimate based on Hernan Cortes, Five Letters 1519-1526, translated by J. Bayard Morris (New York: W. W. Norton, 1962), p. 80, 141, 145, 151, 159, 167, 180; Francisco Javier Clavigero, Historia Antigua de Mexico (Mexico, 1844), Vol, 2, p. 272; Anne Chapman, "Port of Trade Enclaves in Aztec and Maya Civilizations." Pp. 114-153 in Trade and Market in the Early Empires: Economies in History and Theory, edited by Karl Polanyi, Conrad M. Arensberg, and Harry W. Pearson (New York: Free Press, 1957), p. 117; Sherburne F. Cook and Lesley Byrd Simpson, The Population of Central Mexico in the Sixteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Ibero-Ameri- cana:31, 1948) pp. 32, 34-37; George Vaillant, Aztecs of Mexico (Garden City: Doubleday, 1950), pp. 122, 135.

3 Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1987).

4 Henry F. Dobyns, "Ethnohistory and Human Resource Development," Ethno- history 25:2 (Spring, 1978) 103-130, p. 114.

1 Weigand, Phil C., Garman Harbottle, and Edward V. Sayre, "Turquoise Sources and Source Analysis: Mesoamerica and the Southwestern U.S.A." Pp. 15-34 in Exchange Systems in Prehistory, edited by T. K. Earle and J. E. Ericson (New York: Academic Press, 1977), pp. 20, 23, 31.

2 David E. Doyel, "Hohokam Exchange and Interaction." Pp. 225-252 in Chaco & Hohokam: Prehistoric Regional Systems in the American Southwest, edited by Patricia L. Crown and W. James Judge. Sante Fe: School of American Research Press, 1991, p. 233; William P. Blake, "New Locality of the Green Turquois known as Chalchuite, and on the Identity of Turquois with the Callais or Callaina of Pliny," American Journal of Science 3rd ser. 25 (1883) 197-200.

3 Anne Sigleo, "Turquoise Mine and Artifact Correlation for Snaketown Site, Arizona," Science 189:4201 (1975) 459-460; Emil W. Haury, The Hohokam, Desert Farmers and Craftsmen (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976), pp. 277-78.

4 A. Helene Warren, "Geological and Mineral Resources of the Cochiti Reservoir Area." Pp. 46-58 in Archeological Investigations in Cochiti Reservoir, New Mexico. Volume 4. Adaptive Change in the Northern Rio Grande Valley, edited by Jan V. Biella and Richard Chapman (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Department of Anthropology, Office of Contract Archeology, 1979), pp. 49, 58.

5 Carl Sauer, The Road to Cibola (Berkeley: University of California Ibero-Ameri cana:3, 1932), p. 36.

6 See Henry F. Dobyns, "An Outline of Andean Epidemic History to 1720," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 37:6 (Nov.-Dec., 1963) 493-515; Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1972), pp. 35-63-

7 Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico 1517-1521, translated by A. P. Maundslay (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956).

8 Ruth M. Underhill, Papago Indian Religion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946), pp. 211-242.

9 Carl Sauer and Donald Brand, Prehistoric Settlements of Sonora, with Special Reference to Cerros de Trincheras (Berkeley: University of California Publica¬tions in Geography, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1931), p. 94.

10 Henry F. Dobyns, "Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate," Current Anthropology 7:4 (October, 1966) 395-426 and "Reply" 440-444.

11 Henry F. Dobyns, Paul H. Ezell, Alden W. Jones and Greta S. Ezell, "Thematic Changes in Yuman Warfare." Pp. 46-71 in Cultural Stability and Cultural Change. Seattle: Proceedings of the 1957 Annual Spring Meeting of the Ameri¬can Ethnological Society, 1957.

12 Hubert Herring, A History of Latin America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), p. 189.

13 Bernard L. Fontana "History of the Papago." Pp. 137-148 in Volume 10, Southwest, edited by Alfonso Ortiz, in Handbook of North American Indians, general editor W. C. Sturtevant (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1983), p. 137.

1 Eusebio Francisco Kino, Kino's Historical Memoir of Pimeria Aha, translated by Herbert Eugene Bolton. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1919; reprinted (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948), Vol. 1, pp. 127-29.

2 Henry F. Dobyns, "Tubac: Where Some Enemies Rotted," Arizona Quarterly 19:3 (Autumn, 1963) 229-232.

3 Ernest J. Burrus, editor, Kino and Manje, Explorers of Sonora and Arizona: Their Vision of the Future (Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute, 1971), p. 347. Capt. Juan Mateo Manje transliterated the Piman place name Cuituabagu; Kino (Memoir, Vol. I, p. 206) translitrated it Cuytoabagum. Their Cuy or Cui is clearly English/Piman kui, "mesquite tree." Toa or tua may be toak, "moun¬tain" as translated in the text. It may also be to'a or to'aw, "to pour," inasmuch as they had no Spanish symbol for the Piman glottal stop. In that case, bagum or bagu might be Piman bagam, "angrily." Then the place name could be "angrily fruiting mesquite tree" (Dean and Lucille Saxton, Compilers, Dictionary: Papago & Pima to English, English to Papago & Pima (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1969), pp. 3, 43.

4 Paul H. Ezell, "Ball Court or Reservoir?" Pp. 59-68 in Southwestern Culture History, edited by Charles H. Lange. (Santa Fe: Ancient City Press for the Archaeological Society of New Mexico, Vol. 10, 1985).

5 Jakob Sedelmayr, Jacobo Sedelmayr, Missionary Frontiersman Explorer in Arizona and Sonora: Four Original Manuscript Narratives 1744-1751, translat¬ed by Peter Masten Dunne (Tucson: Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society, 1955), pp. 23, 25.

6 Paul H. Ezell, The Hispanic Acculturation of the Gila River Pimas. (Menasha: American Anthropological Association, Memoir 90, 1961), p. 29.

7 Gary P. Nabhan, " 'Ak-cin 'arroyo mouth' and the environmental setting of the Papago Indian fields in the Sonoran Desert," Applied Georgraphy 6 (1986) 61- 75.

8 Carl Lumholtz, New Trails in Mexico (New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1912), p. 387.

9 Henry F. Dobyns, "The Kohatk: Oasis and Ak Cin Horticulturalists," Ethnohistory 21:4 (Fall, 1974) 317-327.

10 Henry F. Dobyns, Spanish Colonial Tucson (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976).

11 Diego M. Bringas de Manzaneda y Encinas, Friar Bringas Reports to the Klllf! Methods of Indoctrination on the Frontier of New Spain 1796-97, (ranslulcil and edited by Daniel S. Matson and Bernard L. Fontana (Tucson I Inlvrrslly l Arizona Press, 1977), p. 89; Jose Agustln tic liscudcro, North In Hispanic Acculturation of the Gila River

12 L. S. M. Curtin, By the Prophet of the I'.irth (Nani.ih in Vli 1949), p. 107

13 Gary P. Nabhan, Alfred Whiting, Henry Duliyic, Euler, "Devil's Claw Domestical Ion IvIiIiihi Ii .nnh • nu lu,n... Fields," Journal of Ethnoblology 146; Edwards F. Castetter and Willis rure(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico

5 Weigand, Phil C., Garman Harbottle, and Edward V. Sayre, "Turquoise Sources and Source Analysis: Mesoamerica and the Southwestern U.S.A.'' Pp. 15-34 in Exchange Systems in Prehistory, edited by T. K. Earle and J. E. Ericson (New York: Academic Press, 1977), pp. 20, 23, 31.

6 David E. Doyel, "Hohokam Exchange and Interaction." Pp. 225-252 in Chaco & Hohokam: Prehistoric Regional Systems in the American Southwest, edited by Patricia L. Crown and W. James Judge. Sante Fe: School of American Research Press, 1991, p. 233; William P. Blake, "New Locality of the Green Turquois known as Chalchuite, and on the Identity of Turquois with the Callais or Callaina of Pliny," American Journal of Science 3rd ser. 25 (1883) 197-200.

7 Anne Sigleo, "Turquoise Mine and Artifact Correlation for Snaketown Site, Arizona," Science 189:4201 (1975) 459-460; Emil W. Haury, The Hohokam, Desert Farmers and Craftsmen (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976), pp. 277-78.

8 A. Helene Warren, "Geological and Mineral Resources of the Cochiti Reservoir Area." Pp. 46-58 in Archeological Investigations in Cochiti Reservoir, New Mexico. Volume 4. Adaptive Change in the Northern Rio Grande Valley, edited by Jan V. Biella and Richard Chapman (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Department of Anthropology, Office of Contract Archeology, 1979), pp. 49, 58.

9 Carl Sauer, The Road to Cibola (Berkeley: University of California Ibero-Americana, 1932), p. 36.

10 See Henry F. Dobyns, "An Outline of Andean Epidemic History to 1720," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 37:6 (Nov.-Dec., 1963) 493-515; Alfred W. Crosby, Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1972), pp. 35-63-

11 Bernal Diaz del Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico 1517-1521, translated by A. P. Maundslay (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1956).

12 Ruth M. Underhill, Papago Indian Religion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946), pp. 211-242.

13 Carl Sauer and Donald Brand, Prehistoric Settlements of Sonora, with Special Reference to Cerros de Trincheras (Berkeley: University of California Publications in Geography, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1931), p. 94.

14 Henry F. Dobyns, "Estimating Aboriginal American Population: An Appraisal of Techniques with a New Hemispheric Estimate," Current Anthropology 7:4 (October, 1966) 395-426 and "Reply" 440-444.

15 Henry F. Dobyns, Paul H. Ezell, Alden W. Jones and Greta S. Ezell, "Thematic Changes in Yuman Warfare." Pp. 46-71 in Cultural Stability and Cultural Change. Seattle: Proceedings of the 1957 Annual Spring Meeting of the Aim ii can Ethnological Society, 1957.

16 Hubert Herring, A History of Latin America (New York: Alfred A. Knopl, 1966), p. 189.

17 Bernard L. Fontana "History of the Papago." Pp. 137-148 in Volume It), Southwest, edited by Alfonso Ortiz, in Handbook of North American Indians, general editor W. C. Sturtevant (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. 1983), p. 137.

5 Eusebio Francisco Kino, Kino's Historical Memoir of Pimerla Alta, translated by Herbert Eugene Bolton. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1919; reprinted (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1948), Vol. 1, pp. 127-29.

6 Henry F. Dobyns, "Tubac: Where Some Enemies Rotted," Arizona Quarterly 19:3 (Autumn, 1963) 229-232.

7 Ernest J. Burrus, editor, Kino and Manje, Explorers of Sonora and Arizona: Their Vision of the Future (Rome: Jesuit Historical Institute, 1971), p. 347. Capt. Juan Mateo Manje transliterated the Piman place name Cuituabagu; Kino (.Memoir, Vol. I, p.206) transliterated it Cuytoabagum. Their Cuy or Cui is clearly English/Piman kui, "mesquite tree." Toa or tua may be toak, "mountain" as translated in the text. It may also be to'a or to'aw, "to pour," inasmuch as they had no Spanish symbol for the Piman glottal stop. In that case, bagum or bagu might be Piman bagam, "angrily." Then the place name could be "angrily fruiting mesquite tree" (Dean and Lucille Saxton, Compilers, Dictionary: Papago & Pima to English, English to Papago & Pima (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1969), pp. 3, 43.

8 Paul H. Ezell, "Ball Court or Reservoir?" Pp. 59-68 in Southwestern Culture History, edited by Charles H. Lange. (Santa Fe: Ancient City Press for the Archaeological Society of New Mexico, Vol. 10, 1985).

9 Jakob Sedelmayr, Jacobo Sedelmayr, Missionary Frontiersman Explorer in Arizona and Sonora: Four Original Manuscript Narratives 1744-1751, translated by Peter Masten Dunne (Tucson: Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society, 1955), pp. 23, 25.

10 Paul H. Ezell, The Hispanic Acculturation of the Gila River Pimas. (Menasha: American Anthropological Association, Memoir 90, 1961), p. 29.

11 Gary P. Nabhan, " Ak-cin 'arroyo mouth' and the environmental setting of the Papago Indian fields in the Sonoran Desert," Applied Georgraphy 6 (1986) 61- 75.

12 Carl Lumholtz, New Trails in Mexico (New York: Charles Scribners' Sons, 1912), p. 387. 2 Ml

' I. S. M. Curtin, By the Prophet of the liartli (Edwards F. Castettcr and Willis II (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico

Kissell, Basketry of the Papago and Pima. New York: American Museum of Natural History, Anthropological Papers 17:4, 1916, p. 202.

1 Henry F. Dobyns, Paul H. Ezell, Alden W. Jones, and Greta S. Ezell, "What Were Nixoras?" Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 16:2 (Summer, I960) 230-258.

2 Frank Russell, "The Pima Indians." Pp. 3-389 in Twenty-Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1904-1905 (Washington, DC.: Government Printing Office, 1908), pp. 94-95.

3 Francisco Almada, Diccionario de Historia, Geografia y Biografia Sonorenses (Chihuahua: Talleres Arrendatatrios de Impresora Ruiz Sandoval, 1952), p. 289.

4 In May of 1843, Felipe Flores led a Mexican military task force that pursued only as far as the Cababi Mountains the Tohono Au'autam driving numbers of rustled cattle (El Voto de Sonora, Ures, Junio l.o de 1843, Alcance al Numero 50).

5 William H. Emory, Notes on a Military Reconnaissance from Ft. Leavenworth in Missouri to San Diego in California Including Parts of the Arkansas, Del Norte & Gila Rivers. (Washington: 30th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Executive Document No. 7, 1848), pp. 81-87.

6 Philip St. George Cooke, The Conquest of New Mexico and California in 1846- 1848 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1878), pp. 154-55.

7 Cave J. Couts, Hepah, California! The Journal of Cave Johnson Couts from Monterey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico to Los Angeles, California During the Years 1848-1849, edited by Henry F. Dobyns (Tucson: Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society, 1961), p. 63.

8 Ralph P. Bieber, editor, Southern Trails to California in 1849 (Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1937), pp. 213-217.

9 Henry F. Dobyns, The Pima-Maricopa (New York: Chelsea House, 1989), pp. 14-15.

10 Russell, "The Pima Indians," pp. 46-47. See also Clifton B. Kroeber and Bernard L. Fontana, Massacre on the Gila: An Account of the Last Major Battle Between American Indians, with Reflections on the Origin of War. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986) for a reprinted eyewitness account of the battle in an otherwise overly pretentious volume.

11 Gerald T. Ahnert, Retracing The Butterfield Overland Trail Through Arizona, A Guide to the Route of 1857-1861 (Los Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1973), pp. 50-61, maps this stretch of wagon road, locating the relay stations.

12 J. H. Stout, "No. 58, United States Indian Agency, Gila River Reservation, Arizona Territory, August 31, 1872." Pp. 700-704 in Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, House Exec. Doc., 42nd Congress, 3rd Session. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872, p. 701.

13 David F. Myrick, The Railroads of Arizona. Vol. 1, The Southern Roads. Berkeley: Howell-North Books, 1979, tracklaying began Nov. 18, 1878, east of Yuma, 40 [work suspended at Casa Grande in mid-May, 1879]-

14 Records of Sacaton Agency in the Indian Trust Accounting Division, Suiteland, Maryland.

15 See the previous issue of this Journal.

CASA GRANDE, ARIZONA: FROM MINING TO AGRICULTURE
Population Growth and Economic Expansion 1879 to 1940

James M. Smith wick

asa Grande was in 1879 a small railroad stop of live people, three adobe buildings, and a dusty main street located at the far eastern end of the newly built Southern Pacific Railroad line.¹ As these tracks were pushed farther east, Casa Grande remained to become a prosperous trans¬portation, mining, and agricultural center located in central Arizona. Why did this community grow and flourish when so many other similar railroad towns collapsed into the Arizona desert sands? It appears that as the land-based econ¬omy founded in mining and agriculture prospered, this com¬munity's population expanded to meet new, growing de¬mands and supplies for goods and services.²

Extent of the Land Resource Base

Casa Grande's historical ties to the environment have contributed to its community longevity and expansive eco¬nomic development. Casa Grande is located in central Arizo¬na approximately 48 miles south-southwest of Phoenix, and about 72 miles north-northwest of Tucson.
Situated at an elevation of 1,390 feet above sea level near the center of the Arizona Desert, the land in and around the city is fairly level with a gradual slope from southeast to northwest. This flat alluvial plain, excellent for agriculture, is drained by the Santa Cruz Wash. Beneath this drainage way is an underground layer of porous rock and sand where water is trapped, and into which water wells can be easily sunk.

Casa Grande is surrounded by several small mountain ranges. These ranges include the Sacaton Mountains to the north, the Picacho Mountains to the southeast, the Sawtooth Mountains to the south, and the Table Top Mountains to the west. These mountain ranges form the outer boundaries of the Casa Grande Valley.

However, the geographical extent of the land resource base exploited by the town's rugged pioneers stretched be¬yond the Casa Grande Valley. It included the mineral-lad- ened mountains rising above the Santa Rosa Valley on the southwest, and the fertile lands lying in the Gila River Basin on the northeast. From the seemingly endless lonelines of this desert hinderland and the Casa Grande Valley, railroad¬ers, miners, ranchers and farmers, with and without fam¬ilies, fashioned a livelihood.

Demographic Growth

Historically, the extent to which the land resource base was made available for mining, livestock raising, and farm¬ing influenced Casa Grande's population growth (Table l).³

Table 1

Population Growth in Casa Grande, Arizona

Year

Number of

Inhabitants

Rate of

Change

1880

1890

328

5.60

1900

350

0.06

1910

250

-0.28

1920

948

2.70

1930

1351

0.40

1940

1545

0.12

The general overall population trend was for a gradual increase in size and density, with population peaks and slumps occurring as economic activity and productivity in¬creased or slowed. This observation is supported by the historical record.

h3>Casa Grande: The Historical Evidence

During this city's history from 1879 to 1940, an eco¬nomic triad based on transportation, mining, and agriculture supported and complimented this community's social, rcli gious, educational, and political activities. As investmrnl and profit from a land-based economy founded in mining and agriculture fluctuated over time, this community's pop ulation size adjusted to meet changing economic demands.

Mining and Transportation

The basis for Casa Grande's early growth was the estab¬lishment of a railroad freight and passenger station, com¬bined with the nearby discovery of several high-grade cop¬per, lead, silver, and gold lode deposits.⁴ During the late 1870s and the early 1880s, economic activity in the south¬west desert marketplace centered on the Yuma, Casa Gran¬de, Tucson, and El Paso Southern Pacific Railroad route. Few other stations along the tracks equaled Casa Grande's freight status during these early railroading years.

Casa Grande was perhaps busier than most other com¬munities during those early railroading and mining days. Before the town site of Casa Grande was chosen, the Silver King glory hole was already shipping high-grade silver ore to the West Coast.⁵ With the establishment of Casa Grande in 1879, the town became the Silver King's primary shipping and receiving break-point. The leviathan Silver King, locat¬ed near the Pinal Mountains northeast of Casa Gramie, yie ld ed $6.5 million worth of ore and silver bullion during If. generation of resplendence."

Besides this mining actIvity. construetIon ol tlx in « i .ill extension to Tucson, begun in IHHO, iih .uii iiihm jh <»j»l< and supplies moving through ('.asa Grande I Hiring lIm Him quarter of 1880, four million pounds of height wen iuv< ntoried and hauled from the Casa Grande docks.⁷ Alongside this booming trade business, local construction and building increased, resulting in eighty permanent structures by the beginning of 1881. By 1882, the reported population of Casa Grande was 500, most were Mexicans. The population, however, included Chinese railroad workers, Indians, and American-Europeans.⁸ The old town structures were de¬stroyed by fire in 1883 and 1886, and the town was rebuilt each time.

With Casa Grande permanently established, extensive mineral exploration began in the back country, south and southwest of Casa Grande. Several small, productive mines such as the Vekol, the Jackrabbit, and the Reward shipped ore and bullion and received freight through Casa Grande. As capital expenditures for exploration and excavation in¬creased, profits gradually improved. From 1882 to 1889, nearly $600,000 worth of gold, silver, copper, and lead were removed from mines staked in the Casa Grande Mining District.⁹

Mineral production slumped in the 1890s when the na¬tional market for minerals bottomed out in 1893 and 1894. Production costs became greater than profits, and mining hesitated. The rush to invest in prospecting and ore excava¬tion staggered as miners, investors, and profiteers began emigrating from Casa Grande, moving to more lucrative mineral-producing fields. At the turn of the century, Casa Grande's population leveled off, then eventually dropped.

Many of the earliest working mines were closed or had drastically reduced their output by 1910. The population of Casa Grande fell to 250.¹⁰ Only low-grade mineral-produc¬ing mines such as the Papago Mine continued operating. In 1934, large tracts located on the Papago Reservation were opened by the federal government to mineral exploration. While prospecting continued for the next two decades, capital inputs were greater than generated profits. As the 1940s approached, mining had for many previous years been relegated to third place in the local economic triad.

Ranching and Farming

During the initial decade of Casa Grande's establishment, the agricultural land base was evidently irrelevant. Hay and vegetables were grown for local consumption. In the late 1870s and early 1880s, miners and railroaders were the largest buyers. Small gardens and fields were irrigated from surface water sources and shallow, low-production wells. Grazing cattle on the open range in the lower Santa Cruz Valley and the Papagueria was already well established by this time.

It was with the excavation of the Casa Grande-Florence Irrigation Canal following a prehistoric route, and the con¬struction of the Picacho Reservoir in 1889, that Casa Gran¬de's agriculture lands began gradually to generate profit, population, and rail traffic. Water supplied by the newly constructed canal system increased Casa Grande's arable land base. Along with livestock and vegetables, crops such as alfalfa, wheat, barley, milo, citrus, and cotton became important export commodities. Hay and grain were also significant money crops. As during the mining boom, the railroad linked Casa Grande's producers to consumers. The railroad provided the transportation needed to move perish¬able farm products and livestock to profitable markets quickly.

Casa Grande in the 1890s had a larger irrigated agricul¬tural land base than most other stations along the southern Arizona railway. As an agricultural railhead, Casa Grande served farmers and ranchers in western Pinal County, the upper Santa Cruz Valley north of Picacho Peak, and the middle Gila River Basin. The number of irrigated acres for the same period increased to 28,000 from 14,000.¹¹ In addi¬tion to more water canals, high production wells powered by gasoline engines were drilled to increase water output. Population growth and a rising standard of living prompted accelerated community growth and economic development.

Casa Grande in the 1910s was advertised as the agricul¬tural center of Arizona. Taking advantage of land claims authorized under the Desert Land Act of 1877, many home¬steaders came to the Casa Grande Valley in the first quarter of the new century to patent 640 acres, provided they irrigate the land within three years and pay a nominal fee per acre. Government land with irrigation could be pur¬chased for $5 to $6 an acre, although privately developed parcels with water wells were selling for much higher prices.¹² The average well produced water at sixty feet below the surface. Taking advantage of accessible water and speculative land opportunities, more than 500 people made their homes here.

With so many newcomers, the city's most critical issue in 1912 was the shortage of adequate housing. A grammar school was hastily built in 1913 t accommodate a growing school-age population. Two disastrous fires, one in 1913 and the other in 1914, in downtown Casa (irande did little to deter this community's bulging economy. Ranchers were regularly shipping large herds of cattle and swine to Phoenix and Yuma. The stockpens at Casa Grande were filled. The Pinal County Clerk reported in 1914 that there was $700,000 worth of cattle on the open range.¹³

The first town election was held in 1915, and the follow¬ing year the first municipal bond election was held. The local newspaper, Casa Grande Dispatch, began publishing a weekly journal. A water system was installed and electricity was available in 1917. In 1918, Casa Grande was designated a city. Public lands near this new city were now offered for homesteads to soldiers returning from World War I.

By 1919, however, Casa Grande residents were con¬cerned with "too many strangers in town interested in land and purchasing land." This protest voiced in a town council meeting was heard too late.¹⁴ The city's population nearly tripled by 1920 as immigrants took advantage of the free or inexpensive land, a prospering local agricultural market, and a swollen national economy. Casa Grande's population by 1920 surpassed the population of the Pinal County Seat, Florence. From an historic low of 250 in 1910, the popula¬tion of Casa Grande had risen to 948 by 1920.

Contributing to Casa Grande's new commercial prosperi¬ty during the second decade of the twentieth century was the introduction of high-yield cotton hybrids. Pima cotton, for example, was developed in 1910 by the United States Experimental Station located on the Pima Reservation at Sacaton.¹⁵ This cotton was specifically bred for the arid climate of southern Arizona. Another important cotton vari¬ety first grown in 1912 was American-Egyptian.¹⁶ These new varieties accelerated cotton production, and height¬ened local economic activity.

Within the first quarter of the new century, cotton had become a stable money-making crop. Cotton sold for one dollar per pound in 1919, and in 1920 growers were antici¬pating cotton would sell for $1.25 per pound.¹⁷ Such specu¬lation encouraged growers to invest more land and water into the production of cotton. Regardless of these large investments, cotton prices dropped at the beginning of 1921. However, cotton prices were on the rise again the following year.

More water was now available too. The Ashurst-Hayden Dam across the Gila River was completed in 1921. This dam and further drilling for ground water opened new desert lands to enterprising growers, and only temporarily palliat¬ed a continuing water shortage problem.

In the 1920s Casa Grande resembled a boom town. Bids were taken to pave the Casa Grande to Tucson highway. The first high school opened for classes in 1921. The side¬walks were paved in 1925. A public sewer system was installed in 1928. In 1929, the downtown streets were paved and the airport was dedicated.¹⁸

Economic production was up too. Cotton yields at the end of the Roarin' 20s were at a record high. Yields exceed¬ed 245 pounds per acre as demands and prices spiraled upward. Crops were diversified. A newly opened fig planta¬tion was one speculative opportunity causing land prices to soar.¹⁹ Land that previously sold for $50 an acre was offered in five- and ten-acre plots at $800 to $ 1,250 an acre.²⁰ The Coolidge Dam, San Carlos Project, was under construction and finally completed in 1928. It was thought that with the completion of this dam, the chronic water distribution prob¬lem would finally be resolved. With the agricultural land base steadily expanding, the farm labor population concurrently began to swell. Farmers employed Indian laborers, while racial prejudice excluded most blacks from the job market. Contrasted against this transient population expansion and the enormous material growth, local permanent population growth for this same period was one-sixth of what it had been in the previous decade. Nonetheless, the community's taxable land base increased significantly.

In 1930 disaster struck the country and the inhabitants of Casa Grande. Cotton prices dropped to 4.5 cents per pound, then to 3 cents a pound.²¹ Dust clouds originating in the mid-central U.S. were reportedly seen in Arizona as the vicissitude of the Great Depression took iis economic toll on families and communities. Now ii cost farmers more to sell their cotton than to grow it. Willi no profits or wages in cotton production, many people turned lo subsistence farm¬ing to meet their daily needs.

Not only was farm production stifled, but drought also dealt a blow to the livestock industry, as emaciated cattle and sheep starved on-the-hoof. Beef cows sold for 3 cents per pound.²² The total adverse impact of the Depression years upon population and growth were not clearly docu¬mented until the 1940 United States Census, when popula¬tion growth was reported at a low 12 percent.

New agricultural expansion began in late 1937. Livestock prices began reaching new highs as the federal government took a more active role in agricultural management. Land prices had jumped to $30 per acre in some areas. With government support, arable acreage reached 127,000.²³

However, the visual rewards of economic recovery were slow to be seen. Hastily passing through Casa Grande in about 1940, one traveler caustically reported, "Casa Grande presented a dreary scene of filthy little shacks and tent- houses, and dusty people moving about in clouds of dust haze. Away from the pavement life goes back fifty years."²⁴ Another ten years would pass before the facade of Casa Grande would change.

Demographic Tread and Historic Summation

Typically, when a community increases in population size, it elaborates its socio-economic and political activities to remain unified and integrated. Conversely, as the popula¬tion shrinks to a calculable level so does community com¬plexity. Critically, as a community specializes in one eco¬nomic activity, it reduces or stalls its opportunities for further economic expansion and productivity.²⁵

Casa Grande's residents saw in the establishment and beginnings of this community an immediate and rapid in¬crease in population. This quick growth reflected invest¬ment and profit associated with the mining boom of the 1880s. Railroad construction was another contributing factor.

Complicated by the economic depression of 1893, the years from 1890 to 1900 represented a decade of slowed growth as the early mining boom waned and subsided. By 1910, the population of Casa Grande had decreased to 250, about one-third less than the population count in 1890.

With the mining resource base dwindling and the popu¬lation shrinking, a new more stable economic base was urgently needed for this economically starved community to survive. While mining formed the economic base in the early years, it was finally agriculture as the new economic foundation that gave Casa Grande its staying power.

Agriculture filled the economic vacuum left by the bank¬rupt mining industry. Population figures for Casa Grande nearly tripled from 1910 to 1920 as the agricultural land base was expanded with the introduction of new irrigation systems and plant hybrids. The availability of cheap arable land attracted homesteaders, investors, and speculators. As the population grew, retail stores and other support facili¬ties began to prosper.

Population growth continued until 1930. Growth be¬came sluggish when the Great Depression stymied the econ¬omy. With the beginning of the War years, renewed eco¬nomic productivity diversified, and profits increased as greater demands were placed on Casa Grande's land-based resources. A new economic boom began in 1940.

Casa Grande has historically exhibited an expanding population traditionally accompanied by an elaboration of its economic, political, and social spheres. While many com¬munities suffered the woes of economic specialization and an amalgamated land base, Casa Grande distributed its land base resources among many different kinds of securities ensuring its future.

1 Perry Wildman, Biographical files. Casa Grande Valley Historical Society, Casa Grande, Arizona.

2 Henry Dobyns, Notes and letters located in the archives of the Casa Grande Valley Historical Museum, Casa Grande, Arizona. I I'he earliest population information is from the Pinal Statistics of the 10th United Slates Census.

I II l eniiey, "Casa Grande Mining District," Arizona Bureau of Mines. Pub¬lished by the < .isa Grande l publication Is i;i. 1934 when the I'ieldwork was completed.)
s | II Tenncy, llisiory ol Mining in Arizona (Tucson: Arizona Historical Society, ca. 1928).

6 Tcnncy, History of Mining in Arizona.

7 Dobyns, Notes and letters.

8 Casa Grande Valley Historical Society Notes and letters, Casa Grande Valley Museum, Casa Grande, Arizona.

9 J.B. Tenney, "Casa Grande Mining District."

10 Casa Grande Valley Historical Society Notes and letters.

II Casa Grande Valley Historical Society Notes and letters.

12 K. K. Henness, "A History of Agriculture in Pinal County" (Unpublished manuscript located in the archives of the Casa Grande Valley Historical Muse¬um, Casa Grande, Arizona, 1979).

13 Pinal County Supervisor Report, 1914.

14 "Casa Grande Dispatch Newspaper Indexes, 1918." Complied by Delia Reyn¬olds. Casa Grande Valley Historical Society, Casa Grande, Arizona.

15 Henness, "A History of Agriculture in Pinal County."

16 Henness, "A History of Agriculture in Pinal County."

17 Henness, "A History of Agriculture in Pinal County."

18 "Casa Grande Dispatch Newspaper Indexes, 1929 " Casa Grande Valley His¬torical Museum, Casa Grande, Arizona. Henness, "A History of Agriculture in Pinal County."

20 Mickey Carlton, "Optimists in a Desert Paradise." Monograph No. 3, Casa Grande Valley Historical Society, Casa Grande, Arizona.

21 K. K. Henness, "Agencies Serving Pinal County Farmers: 1928-1952" (Unpub¬lished manuscript in the Archives of the Casa Grande Valley Historical Muse¬um, Casa Grande, Arizona, 1973 )

22 Henness, "Agencies Serving Pinal County Farmers."

23 Henness, "Agencies Serving Pinal County Farmers."

24 G. Stuart, "Arizona 1900 and Bits of the West." Place of publication unknown, 1976.Robert L. Corneiro, "On the Relationship Between Size of Population and Complexity of Social Organization," Southwest Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1967.meat industry. Ramon ran cattle on the Papago land around the mine, and Bob sold the meat at the store in Casa Grande.

Early Casa Grande consisted of many Mexican families who fled Mexico, hoping for economic prosperity in the desert town. First the railroad and mines attracted settlers, then ranching, and eventually cotton farming. Each eco¬nomic rise and fall transformed the community — only those astute enough to lead the changes survived. Many Mexican families established themselves as the economic mainstays of the town with successful businesses: the An- drade's meat shop, the Serrano's store, the Cruz's trading post, the Vasquez's service station and store, and a host of others. Their enterprising and dedicated entrepreneurial style proved successful as Casa Grande grew from a tiny railroad stop to a large, diverse community.

Here is a glimpse of some of these old-time Mexican- American families and their businesses, many of which served as the foundations for Casa Grande's future advancement.

AFTERWORD

Shirley Weik

O ik of l lu- most interesting — and perhaps surprising — things to come out of the quincentennial observances lliis |).ist year has been an expression of renewed interest on the part of Spain in the American Indians of the Southwest.

This interest reflects a new point of view on their part. Far from seeing Native Americans as "heathens," to be pitied and saved — and exploited, they now hope to get to know them as fellow human beings with whom they have a shared history going back for more than 200 years.

This past spring at the instigation of Edwardo Garrigus, the Counsul General of Spain in Los Angeles, an interchange between the University of Madrid and tribal leaders of the Pimas, Hopis, Navajos, and Pueblo Indians in New Mexico was set in motion. On June 2 of this year, representatives of the University met in Sacaton with the governor and lieutenant governor of the Gila River Indian Community.

They brought with them an invitation from Gastavo Villapalos, rector of the University of Madrid, and a propos¬al for an ongoing exchange between the Indian leaders and professors at the university. He proposed establishing an Institute of Indian Studies at the university in which Native American history, religion, and culture could be explored.

In July, Governor Thomas White and leaders of the other tribes receiving this invitation went to Spain, for one week, as guests of the university.

They each had an opportunity to make brief presenta¬tions before the queen. And they were taken on get-ac- quainted field-trips through some of Spain's museums and surrounding countryside.

In September a Museum of the American Indian opened in Madrid.

What happens now, says Governor White, is up to the counsul general. He anticipates that Spanish historians may be making a return visit to this country sometime this com¬ing year.

We have much to learn from one another, he reflects. But perhaps the most important thing to come from such an exchange may be a heightened interest among Indian young people for learning more about their own history and culture.

ASARCO Santa Cruz, Inc. and Freeport Copper Company as the Santa Cruz Joint Venture are proud to sponsor the initial three volumes of

CASA GRANDE VALLEY

The Santa Cruz Joint Venture is conducting a test of the technical and environmental feasibility of in situ copper mining at its copper deposit west of Casa Grande. This test is part of a larger research program for in situ copper mining sponsored by the United States Bureau of Mines.

Weather Report

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Casa Grande, Arizona

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Sun
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Thursday-Monday | 12PM-4PM | Except major holidays
Museum Season: September15-May15
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Please feel free to contact the Administrative Offices at 520-836-2223 or email info@cgvhs.org.

Casa Grande Valley Histories

MIGRATIONS THROUGH THE DESERT: A Look at Mexican-American Families in Casa Grande

CASA GRANDE, ARIZONA: FROM MINING TO AGRICULTURE Population Growth and Economic Expansion 1879 to 1940

Mining and Transportation

Demographic Tread and Historic Summation

AFTERWORD

Weather Report

Casa Grande, Arizona

Museum Hours

MIGRATIONS THROUGH THE DESERT:
A Look at Mexican-American Families in Casa Grande

CASA GRANDE, ARIZONA: FROM MINING TO AGRICULTURE
Population Growth and Economic Expansion 1879 to 1940