Narrative and initial proofing finished at 9 AM Idaho Time.
We have been asked the questions below concerning Verde River Day. We created this blog post to give ourselves some structure and appropriate motivation to properly and thoughtfully answer the questions. Thanks, Dan!
1) When did you get word that you would be the keynote speaker for 30th annual VRD and by whom?
I was first contacted to be keynote speak for the 2018 VRD in the spring of 2018. Max Castillo sent an email with the invitation. I declined but suggested I would consider 2019 depending on our schedule. When we were in The Verde Valley, we often cross paths with Max in Walmart of all places. Max now even jokes, "Well, I'll see you in Walmart when you get back down here." Anyway, during one of our visits together in Walmart this past Arizona Season, I told Max I'd be willing to speak at the 2019 VRD. Max said he would pass it on. By and by, I received a note from George Christianson, DEHO Park Manager, asking if I was serious. I said we'd be happy to speak and he said he'd pass it on. A few more emails were exchanged and the speaking engagement was confirmed on both ends. We are very happy and humbled by the opportunity to speak on the 30th Anniv. of the first VRD held September 30, 1989.
2) Reaction
Since the topic has been under discussion for nearly a year and a half, there really wasn't a reaction. When I was first asked to speak at the 2018 VRD, the reaction was confusion since we have a rather rigid travel schedule. By thinking so far in advance about our 2019 schedule, we were able to make the necessary adjustments to arrive in Arizona a month earlier than normal. In lieu of a "reaction," I would say that I am very happy and humbled to have the opportunity. However, I lie awake each night fretting about what to say, how to say it and how to organize the various parts of my speech. Seriously, I am not kidding. I wake up each night, sometimes in the proverbial cold sweat, fretting about the speech. I am very comfortable speaking in public so that's not an issue. It's just that there are SO MANY bases to cover and SO MANY people to recognize, thank and call attention to and SO MANY "then & now" issues to illustrate. 30 years of Verde River Day is ALL about ALL the people and organizations who have made it happen!
The problem is a classic public speaking problem--how to cover a lot of material without getting too long or wordy or off on sleep-inducing tangents. People go to VRD to have FUN and learn FUN stuff about The Verde River and its natural and cultural resources. They don't go to VRD to hear some old guy rattle on and on about the Old Days. So, I have a real challenge on my hands and it's causing me a lot of hand wringing.
3) Give me your memories on the main players besides yourself that got VRD off and running. I remember Jon Clow, Dick Larson, Rick Champion and Charles Jackson (then chamber ceo). Tell me a little about the role each of those played and yourself in getting the first VRD off the ground?
To fully understand any aspect of any attempt to answer this question you have to go back years prior to VRD and walk through the long, frustrating, tedious process of working to get sand and gravel mining out of The Verde River. I began that process with some tentative baby steps all way back in 1981 and really became super serious about the whole thing in 1983-1984. Yes, it really does go back that far. I ran in my first election in 1986 as an Independent for State Representative solely to call attention to the collateral issue of sand & gravel mining: Stream Access.
The Legislature had a real head of stream to make it 100% illegal to float on the surface of the water that crossed private property. Sen. John Hays was the ring leader of that nefarious legislation and it was at the behest and because of sand and gravel mining. It was one of their many ways of trying to keep the public from seeing what they were doing. If they could keep people from observing their operations, there would be less pressure on them.
But you have to realize, some one doesn't simply spring onto the ballot for an election. There's a huge amount of work that has to be done to get to that point. By 1984, it was clear to me that fighting sand and gravel was my life's main purpose and I would continue until they were out of the river. Running in the 1986 election was simply an outgrowth of that process.
We began taking people on "familiarization trips" on The Verde River in 1982, amped it up in 1983, reached new levels in 1984-1985 and really started 'going for it in 1986 and beyond.
The hardest part of the whole process was getting "the right" people involved. Anybody could look at what was happening and flip out but "the right" people had to be involved to make a change. Those people were community leaders, local, state and federally elected office holders, local, state and federal agency Staff and, of course, the media.
It was a tall order to get all those people to come on the river and it took years to get them out on the water and begin to reach critical mass. The #1 organization that needed to buy in to the deal was the EPA. It took FOREVER to get the EPA involved--years.
Finally, when they did get on the river and start looking into things they were very blunt with me. I will never forget the conversation one day on a gravel bar out on the river. The head guy whose name I can't remember was point blank, "How do we know this just isn't you who cares? How do we know the community cares about this river? Sure, you're all upset about it but what if it's just you and nobody else? You're going to have to show us that other people besides YOU care about this river." This was sometime in 1988 and it just flattened me. I was devastated, shocked and saddened beyond words.
I didn't know what to do. I had no clue. Back then that sounded like the death knell of my efforts.
I was truly stumped. One day I was hanging around with Jim Bishop unloading my tale of woe and Jim said, "Why don't you organize some sort of a festival or something for the river?" Well, I sure hadn't thought of that and it was like a thunderbolt out of the blue.
But then how the heck do you do a festival? Well, I had no clue. And the other key thing was that me, myself and I couldn't organize a festival because the EPA would come right back with the same thing. It had to be something that grew organically out of the community itself and it had to have much OTHER impetus and leadership than from me. Man, that seemed like an impossible challenge but at least I had an idea. Sometimes ideas sell themselves and, luckily, that's what happened with this idea.
I knew I needed some organization to take the lead and thought immediately of The Verde Natural Resource Conservation District. (NRCD). Local legend Charles Van Gorder was still very much alive and well and thoroughly involved in the NRCD then even though I think he was in his 90's. So, I first went to Charles in a private meeting and laid out the whole idea of the NRCD working to get the community involved in some sort of an event to educate people about the river. Charles loved the idea and said he would suggest it to the NRCD Board Chair. After Charles mentioned it to her, I then had a meeting with her and talked up the idea. She asked me to make a presentation for the Board. I did and they voted unanimously to support creation of some type of an event.
Well, with that Board vote as a base, I was able to parlay it to various other venues. Rick Champion got onboard because one of the mines was right in his backyard and because Susan Champion was on a crusade to get them out of the river. Jon Clow was "all in" for the git go. Well, prior to this time we had infected The Verde News Publisher Dick Larson with river fever. He had bought a canoe and a Bronco II to carry it. I gave a sales pitch to Dick about how he ought to take he lead and get something going. Without Dick's enthusiasm, VRD would have never happened. Dick's charisma brought a lot of other people onboard and, POOF, suddenly it was a community thing and not a John Parsons thing. Man, I was so relieved I could hardy stand it.
Meanwhile, of course, I kept the EPA thoroughly informed about how the community had spontaneously come together to create and support an event to celebrate the river. I conveniently left out my sneaky role in instigating the whole thing. Hey, it wasn't MY deal, it was the community's gig! Well, this was Big News to the EPA. Big News and it completely changed their mind set. Suddenly, it wasn't John Parsons as the river's only Friend, there was an event going to happen.
I have only vague memories of how the name was chosen. I remember lots of discussion and some angst about the choice of a name. I did interject during those meetings that the river needed is own "day" I didn't necessarily mean it to be called a "day" but just to have its day to shine. I think it was Dick Larson who piped up, "Well, why don't we call it Verde River Day then?" It was an instant hit with the committee.
Looking back, it seems magical to me that all of this took place over 30 years ago. It's really kind of hard for me to believe that so many people stepped forward to eagerly, willingly and happily to work on a "day" for the river. Practically everybody knows the river now and many people cheerfully call themselves Friends Of The Verde River. But it wasn't like that back in the late 80's. Not even close.
It's just incredible there was a critical mass of movers and shakers who stepped forward and gave their time and energy to "git 'er dun." And that was not lost on the EPA. When the Regional Director heard about it, he finally agreed to come on a canoe trip and see the S&G operations for himself. He quizzed me relentlessly about this so-called "day" that was being organized for the river. I told him all the right stuff and he was visibly moved when he saw the S&G operations. He promised he would get them out.
In a superb stroke of historical irony, The EPA Cease & Desist order than forever banned sand & gravel operations from The Verde River was dated September 30, 1989, the same day as the very first Verde River Day!
4) Recap a little of the river history that was going on in the mid-to-late 80s, the threats of the sand and gravel industry, and all the things going on that prompted this effort to create a Verde River education/appreciation event?
The lengthy narrative in response to question #3 provides most of the context for the answers to question #4. It's important to note that the decade of the 1980's was a pivotal time of change for The Verde River. I moved to Tucson on Valentine's Day 1979. Nobody I knew there then even had a nano-detail about The Verde River....and most folks didn't even know its name or the fact it was in Arizona. The same phenomena greeted me when I moved to Flagstaff in October 1980. I'd ask people about The Verde River and be greeted with "Huh?" for a reply. Ten years later, there was a much wider awareness that the river existed as well as a growing awareness the river faced an uncertain future.
Coming out of the 70's into the decade of the 80's, the fate of The Verde River was in the hands of The Good Ol' Boys, people who had always viewed the river as a resource to use and abuse. Midstream sand & gravel operations were just one of many abuses. The Good Ol/' Boys believed they had every right to suck the river dry because any water left in the channel would be wasted and worse yet, left to go to those undeserving people in Phoenix. The mentality was to "use it or lose it" without ANY regard for the health of the river or the fish, game and riparian resources of the river.
It was so bad that Salt River Project had a full time paid employee 100% dedicated to eradicating those "water wasting" cottonwood trees. This gregarious individual would happily pay a "bounty" to people who took out their cottonwood trees. The bounty would depend on just how much estimated water the offensive trees sucked from the river.
Meanwhile, The sons of The Bubba Boyz who controlled the river's destiny revolted when AZGFD reintroduced otters into The Verde River. These bubbas believed the otters would take "their" fish! They shot as many as they could see and left their carcasses to rot on the river bank.
Back then there were not even any places to actually access the river. Developing formal "river access points" was viewed as some sort of a joke by "foreigners," which was the local bubba boyz name for anyone who didn't live in The Verde Valley.
Dumping of old car bodies into the river was still viewed as viable "erosion control" for so-called "bank stabilization." Cattle roamed at will in the river channel, destroying young riparian seedlings before that could ever get a chance to grow. The Old Timers wholeheartedly believed the cattle kept flood waters from reaching homes and outbuildings. Riparian vegetation was seen as the enemy to be eradicated and kept as close to non-existent as possible.
The river was universally known far and wide as "The Dirty Verde." Those mere words were often spoken with physically visible, tangible disgust, practically spit out of people's mouth like some sort of an epithet. It was so disgusting that many people I encountered actually called the rounded, alluvial basalt river boulders "nigger heads!"
I was aghast, amazed and angered by this attitude and the attendant behaviors. I couldn't even believe it but the evidence was everywhere. It didn't matter who I talked to or where, there was zero respect and even less admiration for the river.
This was the stage I entered on when I founded the Northern Arizona Paddlers Club in Flagstaff in March 1981.
Essentially, I devoted my Life in the 1980's to turning that paradigm around. I received 1.913 voted in the 1986 election and parlayed those votes into lobbying to get a law to protect paddler's rights to cross private property on the surface of flowing water. I attended Gov. Mecham's signing of the bill into law and asked him to appoint me to The Arizona Outdoor Recreation Coordinating Commission. He did so in April 1987. On AORCC I was able to free up about a million dollars to construct formal "river access points" (RAP) from Cottonwood to Beasley Flats below Camp Verde. These RAPs played a key role in turning around public sentiment about the river and its attendant resources.
Often during the campaign to remove sand & gravel from the river, The Old Timers would claim "removing sand & gravel from the river will SHUT DOWN development in the Verde Valley." HAHAHA! I had my life threatened several times during the campaign. The Old Timers clung to their old, outdated ways of life and were loathe to see them go.
The bottom line is that The Verde River was basically outright despised at the beginning of the decade of the 1980's...tolerated only because of the water that could be sucked from its soul. By the end of the 80's, the supertanker of opinion was beginning to turn. The inception of Verde River Day played an enormous role in that sea change. While I had envisioned such an event initially only for helping with the sand & gravel campaign, it turned out that Verde River Day became the flagship of a new era for the river.
5) Best memories of Verde River Days? And the prior keynote speakers such as John McCain and Barry Goldwater that brought statewide prominence to Verde River Day?
Here's a Challenge for Verde News: create a comprehensive list of every Verde River Day keynote speaker! I have forgotten so many of them. Likewise, I honestly can't remember any specific, timeless comments that may have been made. In my mind's eye I can see a cavalcade of prominent, famous people standing up at Verde River Day to speak either of its or their own importance. The speaker I remember most was former Governor Bruce Babbitt. Bruce is a natural born speaker. He recounted in great detail the creation of The Verde River Greenway. He told "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey would have said. Bruce got right down into his thinking, timing and personal actions that were at the very core of how the Greenway came into being. It was (and is) utterly fascinating and remains a story only a handful of people know. I felt so fortunate to be standing there listening as Bruce told that story. It was like hearing some secret aspect of Arizona History finally being explained by the actual perpetrator. I hope someday someone can do an oral history with Bruce on that story. It needs to be told.
My Best memory of Verde River Day was taking Sen. John McCain and his wife, Cindy, on canoe rides. That memory burns bright enough in my mind, it seems like just yesterday. I wish I had paddled John but I chose to paddle Cindy. I assigned my late Dear Friend Vince VanHorn to paddle John. John cared far deeper for The Verde River than people will ever know and it was a great Life Moment to be able to host the couple on canoes that day.
One of the goofier memories I have is of arguably the strangest so-called keynote speaker I can recall at Verde River Day. Dick Larson somehow became connected with this individual and fell under his "spell," so to speak. Dick was filled with such enthusiasm for the guy we all had no choice to nod in agreement when Dick insisted he take the stage. His stage name was "Box Car Willie" and I don't recall he had ANY connection whatsoever with The Verde River, or ANY river, for that matter. All I can remember is that his performance made me cringe and want to disappear behind a nearby tree.
The other finest memory I have is what you might call a "mental collage." or a "mental mosaic." I see so many people working together over so many years. I see so many smiles and kind, positive words. I see hard work, creative efforts, risks taken & rewarded, satisfaction in a job well done, lots of colorful canoes, a cavalcade of characters and so very much more. This amalgam of blurry images always comes to mind whenever the three magical words "Verde River Day" are spoken. Even today merely writing these words brings a mist to my eyes and a glow to my Heart. I've never been involved with anything more inspiring than Verde River Day. I've never worked so closely and successfully over such a long time with as many people continually devoted to a common goal. I am so incredibly proud of the people who have and continue to make Verde River Day a highlight of The Verde Valley annual cultural calendar.
6) As a side note to Verde River Day, can you give a little history and reflection on the positive outcomes for the river that the Flood of 1993 created?
The 1993 Verde River Flood was the biggest in modern history. The impacts of the event were felt far and wide and reverberated for quite some time afterwards. In my own personal case, the flood rendered our home uninhabitable on Cottonwood's Blue Sky Drive. We were forced to move to Rimrock to being life anew. I lost nearly all of my possessions because I had foolishly stored then in containers located in the floodplain..
Because of the severely degraded condition of the river's main channel due to the sand & gravel operations, the flood flow was able to create far more devastating impacts. However, in the long run this thorough scouring of the river channel and its banks set the stage for a spectacular resurgence of the riparian vegetation, especially the cottonwood-willow gallery forest. A spin off benefit of the flood was that it clearly taught people not to build homes or structures in or encroaching on the flood way and flood plain. It brought that painful lesson home to roost in such emphatic fashion that the river thereafter remains forever unthreatened by ill-advised intrusions into the flood plain. The river indelibly etched itself into the local collective consciousness with a resounding, "Hey, LOOK, I'm still here and I'm still in charge in this area!" In some ways that would now be difficult to prove or quantify, I've always felt the 1993 Flood was an underlying impetus to get the Verde Watershed Association off the ground and rolling toward a bright and pivotal future.
It's not impossible for another such epic flood to occur but it is somewhat unlikely due primarily to the management and structural changes that have taken place on the river and in its watershed since 1993. The river was essentially one giant drainage ditch and this condition set the stage and exacerbated the impacts of the 1993 Flood. Today, the naturally restored condition and health of the river's riparian vegetation works to reduce the velocity and ferocity of a flood. The 2019 February Flood impacts would have been much worse without the mitigating factors the healthy riparian brought to the table. Likewise, the distant watershed drainage areas that feed a flood are in much better condition than they were in 1993. Prudent grazing and timber management of those areas plays a huge factor in reducing the instantaneous release of runoff and the affects ripple downstream into the river.
A river doesn't exist in a vacuum. All rivers are lifelong children of their parent watersheds forever joined at the hip to whatever conditions and management actions take place in the distant headwaters.
Now far removed from the 1993 Flood we tend to think that era between 1989 and 1993 marked a historic turning point in the history of human interaction with The Verde River. Hopefully some day soon, a scholar will undertake efforts to document that sweeping assertion and write a book about it.
7) What is your assessment of the health of the Verde River today? Examples of why?
The overall health of the Verde River is excellent and the best it has ever been in modern recorded history. Such a positive assessment takes into account not only what has been done and is being done on behalf of the river but also what will be done in the future to assure continued healthy existence of a fragile desert river.
Any and every special natural resource can only continue to exist and prosper if it has legions of devoted Friends who stand up against threats and work to improve the condition and health of that natural resource. Back in the early 1980's, The Verde River had very few Friends. We've joked in the past that back then "You could count the river's Friends on your fingers and have a lot of fingers left over." Today, the true number of Friends of The Verde River is unknown. The number is too large to know. The river's Friends hail from far and wide, farther and wider than any of us know. The river is building an ever brighter regional and, yes, national reputation as one of the best examples of a free-flowing desert stream that remains in healthy condition.
Paramount examples include active municipal community support for the river such as Clarkdale's "Verde @ Clarkdale" and Camp Verde's extensive planning and development efforts to showcase the river's role in that cultural area. The Nature Conservancy's ongoing efforts to encourage improvements to efficiency of irrigation withdrawals and agricultural water usage is a huge factor in the river's health. The recent spectacular success of Chip Norton's/Hauser Farm's "Drink Beer, Save Water" campaign is a shining example of private sector support for astonishing, tangible gains in river flow. Likewise, projects such as Doug Von Gausig's "Verde River Institute" help preserve information and documentation about the river's evolution from past into future. The full spectrum of Friends of The Verde River now essentially presents a united front against external projects that pose credible threats to the dry season base flow of the river. The river's littoral riparian vegetation is healthier now than any time since the arrival of Anglo-European settlers in the 1860's. Invasive species have reached "pubic enemy" status and the sheer amount of money and physical labor being devoted to their removal is remarkable. The Forest Service's Wild & Scenic River operations have successfully extended such invasive removal efforts far beyond the confine of The Verde Valley. The Verde River watershed is now widely recognized as a unique Southwestern natural asset. Collective management of the watershed by various local, state, tribal and federal entities reached critical mass in recent decades and has demonstrated a wide range of beneficial dividends to the river itself.
The river now has more Friends, more agency support, more public awareness, more recreational usage and more overall respect and affection that it has had at anytime in the history of human interaction with the resource.
Indeed, the positive impacts on behalf of the river are a total that is far greater than the sum of its parts.
8) How does it feel and what does it say about the Verde Valley that Verde River Day is alive and well 30 years later?
Although no one realized it at the time in 1989, Verde River Day was an "instant institution." Even though the original intention was simply to show that the community cared about the river, what really happened was a rendition of the classic business success cliche: "Find a need and fill it."
Verde River Day has thrived for 30 years primarily because people have a need to know more about the river and some folks specific really want to show (or continue to reaffirm) that they care about the river. The event was not a passing fad. Enthusiasm for Verde River Day did not wane. In fact, a credible case could be made that interest solidified and increased through three decades. The collaboration, continuity and collective community efforts necessary to carry Verde River Day forward have been sustained, encouraged and rewarded because of the recurrent annual public support for the event and the underlying purpose. The 30 year legacy of Verde River Day is a rock solid testimony that the people who live in and visit The Verde Valley care about the river and are willing to underscore and demonstrate that care with their attendance at and support for Verde River Day.
It is a singular honor to be have the opportunity to address these and other highlights on the upcoming 30th Anniversary of the first event.
I apologize for any individuals, efforts, projects and events I have left out in the above narrative. It's nearly impossible to cover every detail of the past 30 years in the context of this brief narrative.
Thank You for reading. Sincerely, John Parsons
Arizona Tales...Some Tall...Some True.
Friday, August 2, 2019
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Steve Ayers article 12/13/2011
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| Steve Ayers, Town of Camp Verde Economic Development Director (left) at Parsons Preserve Dedication in April 2019. |
RIMROCK - Claiming that John Parsons has had as much of an influence on the Verde River as any man since Gen. George Crook would be an extremely audacious statement -- were it not true
Showman, rebel, river runner and never-elected-but-hugely-influential politician, Parsons, more than anyone, is responsible for transforming the Verde from a gravel-pitted, land-filled, orphaned waif to the thing of charm and beauty it is today.
Before he arrived in the spring of 1981, it was known as the “Dirty Verde,” a name it wore like a tattered coat on a homeless man. And much like the homeless man, no one knew it existed.
Over a 20-year span he helped fix both problems.
An ardent canoe paddler, Parson came to Flagstaff in 1981 to run a real river -- the mighty Colorado. But he wasn’t long in realizing the mighty river had some mighty egos rafting its current.
So he formed the Northern Arizona Paddlers Club, an inclusive organization for those who simply wished to float rivers and encourage others to do so.
About the same time he also signed up for a college class taught by valley historian and Verde River shill Jim Byrkit.
Under Byrkit’s hypnotic influence, Parsons dumped the Colorado.
“I realized the Colorado River had a million friends and the Verde had none. Zero. I spontaneously got involved with the Verde,” Parsons says.
It was love at first sight. And he started telling anyone who would listen that the Verde was the place to be. It wasn’t long before the river runners showed up in droves.
Although a self-described “yahoo” at the time, with little care for anything but the next adrenaline-pumping rapid, he was observant not only of the debris that choked some reaches of the stream but also of the water’s constant turbidity.
“At high flow, when the snow melts, all rivers are turbid. But when a naturally flowing river reaches base flow it should be crystal clear. The Verde didn’t do that,” he says.
A naturally curious person, he went upstream to investigate. That’s when he discovered the sand and gravel companies, dredging the river, churning the sediments and generally operating as though the river were theirs.
“I asked myself, how could anyone think they can set up an industrial operation in the middle of a free flowing natural stream? It flies in the face of the Clean Water Act. I made it my goal to get them out,” he says.
As a lone yahoo crying out in the wilderness, Parsons spent much of the next few years trying vainly to drum up support and find a better solution.
He went to Albuquerque where he heard the same problem was taking place, only to find the sand and gravel companies had vacated the Rio Grande for better, cheaper-to-process gravels on the alluvial fans to the east.
“The light bulb went off. I’m not the kind of person who would want to ruins someone’s business, in spite of some things that have been said of me,” he says.
Parsons was still lacking a grasp how he was going to get it done when he was chosen to serve on a state grand jury in Phoenix. With hours spent waiting for lawyers, he began reading the Arizona Revised Statutes. By the time jury duty was over he had a handle on how state government operated.
He also discovered an otherwise obscure commission, operating under Arizona State Parks, called the Arizona Outdoor Recreation Coordinating Commission. One of its primary responsibilities was doling out money from the State Lake Improvement Fund.
The SLIF money came from boat registration. The only problem was the commission was using all the money it received, for projects that benefited powerboats.
At no time since its inception had it spent so much as a nickel on paddleboats, even though at the time the owner of a 16-foot canoe paid the same amount as the owner of a 16-foot speedboat.
Parsons’ only problem now was how to get to the money.
Taking some advice from a fellow paddler, he ran for the state Legislature, knowing perfectly well he would fail.
However, with his 1,913 votes in his pocket he went down to the capital, signed up as a lobbyist and successfully ushered a bill protecting the rights of paddlers to cross private lands on the surface of flowing streams.
Then he managed to wheedle his way into the signing of the bill, where he met then-Gov. Evan Mecham.
“I simple asked if he would appoint me to the commission,” Parsons says. “I figured I had nothing to lose.”
Several weeks later, after considerably more wheedling, he was appointed.
Using the power of the office and the funding he shamed the other commissioners into allocating for river access and other programs, he began bringing anyone and everyone to the Verde to see its charms as well as what the sand and gravel operators were up to.
One of the sand and gravel operators, Valley Concrete, had a particular disdain for what Parsons was doing.
Every time he brought a group on a river trip, which was quite often, the company’s operator would make a point of firing up their drag line, dredging up an enormous bucket of material and dumping it squarely in the path of the boaters.
On one occasion, one of the boaters was the head of the Region 9 office of the Environmental Protection Agency.
“With the blood draining from his face, the EPA guy turned to me and said, “I can’t believe what I just saw. It will only be a matter of time before I get the paperwork, John.”
On Sept. 30, 1989, the EPA signed and delivered a Cease and Desist Order to all sand and gravel companies operating in the river. It was also the same day a new celebration was launched at Dead Horse Ranch State Park -- Verde River Days.
A few years later, on a day when Arizona State Parks celebrated the donation of a substantial tract of riverfront property for the Verde River Greenway Project, the donator of that land, the same man whose dragline operator had offended so many, the owner of Valley Concrete, made a speech.
“I damn near cried,” Parsons says. “He wasn’t defiant. He wasn’t mad. He spoke straight from the heart. He said, ‘If I knew then what I know now, I don’t think we would have done the things we did, and it’s our pleasure to give this land to the state so it is preserved in perpetuity.”
As Parsons has always been fond of saying, the river had spoken.
“I always viewed myself as the middleman, helping people get introduced to the river so the river could speak to them and tell its story in its own way, in its own time, straight to their hearts,” he says.
“Once it does then that person has a personal relationship with the river that never goes away. It works. I have seen it happen so many times, and it’s really cool to see.”
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Grand Canyon Centennial #1
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| Photo by Helen Ranney |
This Article by Scott Buffon appeared in the 24FEB19 edition of Flagstaff's "Arizona Daily Sun." Copyright 2019 by "The Arizona Daily Sun"
There aren’t many things in the world that have aged quite as well as the Grand Canyon.
The land and river, within what we now know as the Grand Canyon National Park, have created a unique and intimate relationship with 11 park-recognized Native American tribes in the area. The layered maroon, tan and brown crust translates feet into centuries, and holds stories and knowledge about the Earth’s past for those working to uncover its secrets.
The Colorado River and deep canyon walls have enthralled thrill seekers looking to hike, camp and raft through the bottom of the canyon. The park is also home to various animal species.
The canyon’s grandiose quality has compelled more than 211 million people to travel from around the world to the park since its creation 100 years ago on Feb. 26, 1919. On Tuesday, the Grand Canyon National Park Service will host celebrations for the parks' 100-year anniversary, covering everything people have come to enjoy about the land it protects.
Generations of park rangers, and the canyon’s many supporters, have worked to protect the land from modification.
Stephen Mather, the first National Park Service director who passed away in 1930, worked closely on the Grand Canyon National Park's trails and access points. Later, Mather Point at the Grand Canyon was named after him.
“The parks do not belong to one state or to one section. ... The Yosemite, the Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon are national properties in which every citizen has a vested interest,” Mather said, according to the National Park Service. ”They belong as much to the man of Massachusetts, of Michigan, of Florida, as they do to the people of California, of Wyoming, and of Arizona.”
A small portion of two billion years
Many National Park Service rangers monitor vegetation and land to anticipate and spot the presence of damage, while also being expected to help recreationalists.
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| Ken Phillips Photo by Jake Bacon Arizona Daily Sun |
Ken Phillips, a retired backcountry ranger, chief of emergency services and search and rescue coordinator, spent more than 30 years working in the Grand Canyon.
Phillips consistently worked to save people from the misfortunes of either bad planning and bad luck. Before hiking the canyon, hikers are expected to understand and prepare for the harsh conditions. Phillips said the hot temperatures in the summer and river rapids turned him into a pessimist on the job when searching for lost people.
One instance that Phillips remembers is when a hiker at the bottom of the canyon was struck by lightning. Lightning strikes happen up to 25,000 times per year in the park, according to the National Park Service.
"It is a dangerous place,” Phillips said. “This place has a lot of ways to kill you.”
But despite his pessimism, he still has love for the Canyon. Phillips said he met and married his wife in the Grand Canyon, raised his kids into lovers of it and still is moved when standing at the rim.
“I appreciate looking at it every time I’m here,” Phillips said. “I really don’t like to come to Grand Canyon and not come out to the rim. I kind of feel cheated.”
Steve Hatch, owner of Hatch River Expeditions, is a third-generation river guide. He said his grandfather’s company was the first river guide company in the canyon and the first in the United States.
Hatch said he grew up on the Green River in Utah and started learning to row boats on the river at a young age. When he moved to the Grand Canyon, he began to work as a full-time guide for nearly 28 years.
“It’s difficult to describe how people will see or feel during their trip because it’s a personal experience, but you can see how people change afterward,” Hatch said. “They get the appreciation for the canyon and they want to go home and share their experience.”
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| Helen Ranney with husband, Wayne. |
Helen Ranney, Grand Canyon hiking guide, also worked several other jobs involving the Grand Canyon in some capacity. She said growing up, she did not feel at peace until she moved to the park.
Ranney refers to the steep jagged walls and open space of the place as her church, saying she sometimes travels to it for healing.
“The Canyon is part of who we are,” Ranney said. “Once it gets you, it doesn’t leave you. It’s with you forever.”
The Havasupai Tribe is one of the many tribes that considers the Grand Canyon and its surrounding land sacred, with the Havasupai Reservation located next to the park. Most people live in Supai, which has become widely known for its turquoise waterfall — Havasupai Falls.
Coleen Kaska, councilmember of the Havasupai Tribe, said she and her ancestors have taken on the duty of being guardians of the Grand Canyon. She said before the park was established, they considered their lands to be both within and above the canyon.
The creation of the park, she said, has prevented people within Supai from visiting it and parts of their homeland.
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| Coleen Kaska Photo by Jake Bacon Arizona Daily Sun |
"Our future generations, we need to bring them out here to the Grand Canyon and introduce them to the area, the names, the spiritual sites, the sweat lodges, the dances that were done here on the rim," Kaska said. "There's a lot we need to catch up on; it's been 100 years."
She appreciates the land and beauty of the park, but for her there is more to her experience of looking out beyond the rim.
“When I look out there I can just see my people appreciating me being out there for them, the ones that have gone,” Kaska said. “Those types of feelings I always get when I look at the canyon.”
Now, she says children in Supai do not understand her when she describes the Grand Canyon because they have not experienced it themselves.
“I can see the little ones think, like, 'What is she talking about?' Just like I used to be when I was younger. I see that in their faces," Kaska said.
Source link: https://azdailysun.com/news/grand-canyon-continues-to-inspire-deep-connections-years-later/article_b1eeedcf-b813-5dad-8a7d-1a3b628956b9.html
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Raptor Ranch
A 30-acre property north of Williams, previously known as
Flintstones Bedrock City, was officially purchased Jan. 31 and will
be replaced with Raptor Ranch: Birds of Prey park.
Raptor Ranch co-founder Ron Brown declined to give specific figures, but said the property was purchased for less than Bedrock City's $2 million listing price from 2015.
Brown and Troy Morris, Raptor Ranch's other co-founder, met through falconry about 20 years ago and partnered to make Morris’ dream a reality 10 years ago. Falconry is the sport of hunting wild animals, such as squirrels and rabbits, in their natural habitat using a trained predator bird.
“Our idea was not only to entertain people, but also use the sport of falconry and our knowledge of nature and natural habitats to educate people on our natural world,” Brown said. “Tourists that are coming here [are] looking to explore nature -- they’re not coming here to ride a roller coaster ride.”
Morris said they are planning to open the campground with some bird demonstrations during the summer. However, building the site will take 24 months to complete. Brown said the goal is to have 30 new jobs when construction is finished.
The original Flintstones structures are still intact and on display. Brown said they want to be sensitive and give the public one more opportunity to see Bedrock City.
“Some of those things are going to ultimately remain, like the brontosaurus slide is going to be incorporated around the children’s playground,” Morris said. “There’s a few small pieces that will be encapsulated in time here, but most of it will go away.”Approximately 30 miles south of Raptor Ranch is the Bearizona Wildlife Park, another animal-based attraction. While Raptor Ranch and Bearizona are close in proximity, Morris and Brown are not concerned about visitor competition.
“I think there is plenty of business here, so that doesn’t bother me too much,” Morris said. “There’s plenty of people going through here and much like having three or four restaurants clustered together, it kind of builds promise.”
Raptor Ranch is a predator bird park for visitors to view birds such as falcons, eagles and owls. Instead of showing birds fly from one spot to the next, Brown said Raptor Ranch will focus on demonstrating how predator birds hunt in the wild using artificial lures.
“The birds are trained and handled in such a manner that they
are very safe. They are not wild birds,” Brown said. “These are
birds that have almost all been bred in captivity.”
According to an Arizona Republic article, former owner Linda Speckels and her deceased husband, Francis, originally purchased the property in 1972. It officially closed in January. Bedrock City was a Flintstones-themed amusement park and campground that included a restaurant, gift shop, RV park and statues of cartoon characters.
Although Bedrock City was open for 47 years, it hasn’t been a sought-out location compared to other destinations in the area. Williams marketing representative Heather Hermen said via email that the visitor center had received requests for information and occasional directions, but Bedrock City wasn’t a draw for tourism.
“We would anticipate there will be some increased interest in Raptor Ranch and look forward to it joining the ranks as a location for people to visit in northern Arizona,” Hermen said.
The Raptor Ranch property is located at the intersection of State Route 64 and Highway 180, about 30 miles south of the Grand Canyon.
Raptor Ranch co-founder Ron Brown declined to give specific figures, but said the property was purchased for less than Bedrock City's $2 million listing price from 2015.
Brown and Troy Morris, Raptor Ranch's other co-founder, met through falconry about 20 years ago and partnered to make Morris’ dream a reality 10 years ago. Falconry is the sport of hunting wild animals, such as squirrels and rabbits, in their natural habitat using a trained predator bird.
“Our idea was not only to entertain people, but also use the sport of falconry and our knowledge of nature and natural habitats to educate people on our natural world,” Brown said. “Tourists that are coming here [are] looking to explore nature -- they’re not coming here to ride a roller coaster ride.”
Morris said they are planning to open the campground with some bird demonstrations during the summer. However, building the site will take 24 months to complete. Brown said the goal is to have 30 new jobs when construction is finished.
The original Flintstones structures are still intact and on display. Brown said they want to be sensitive and give the public one more opportunity to see Bedrock City.
“Some of those things are going to ultimately remain, like the brontosaurus slide is going to be incorporated around the children’s playground,” Morris said. “There’s a few small pieces that will be encapsulated in time here, but most of it will go away.”Approximately 30 miles south of Raptor Ranch is the Bearizona Wildlife Park, another animal-based attraction. While Raptor Ranch and Bearizona are close in proximity, Morris and Brown are not concerned about visitor competition.
“I think there is plenty of business here, so that doesn’t bother me too much,” Morris said. “There’s plenty of people going through here and much like having three or four restaurants clustered together, it kind of builds promise.”
Raptor Ranch is a predator bird park for visitors to view birds such as falcons, eagles and owls. Instead of showing birds fly from one spot to the next, Brown said Raptor Ranch will focus on demonstrating how predator birds hunt in the wild using artificial lures.
According to an Arizona Republic article, former owner Linda Speckels and her deceased husband, Francis, originally purchased the property in 1972. It officially closed in January. Bedrock City was a Flintstones-themed amusement park and campground that included a restaurant, gift shop, RV park and statues of cartoon characters.
Although Bedrock City was open for 47 years, it hasn’t been a sought-out location compared to other destinations in the area. Williams marketing representative Heather Hermen said via email that the visitor center had received requests for information and occasional directions, but Bedrock City wasn’t a draw for tourism.
“We would anticipate there will be some increased interest in Raptor Ranch and look forward to it joining the ranks as a location for people to visit in northern Arizona,” Hermen said.
The Raptor Ranch property is located at the intersection of State Route 64 and Highway 180, about 30 miles south of the Grand Canyon.
Sunday, August 5, 2018
What a drag
Coconino County Sheriff’s deputies busted an illegal drag racing group that endangered other vehicles on Lake Mary Road earlier this month.
According to the Sheriff’s Office report, deputies learned through social media that a group called the Flagstaff Auto Club was planning an illegal street racing event – dubbed the “Slow Car Takeover” – March 6. The plan was for participants to meet at the Walmart parking lot located at 2750 S. Woodlands Village Blvd. in Flagstaff at 11 a.m.
Undercover plainclothes officers in an unmarked vehicle arrived at the parking lot ahead of time with a video camera. They spotted more than a dozen cars meeting up. Many spun their tires, creating smoke as they exited the lot and formed a caravan toward Lake Mary Road.
The deputies followed right behind them. More vehicles joined the procession on the way. A few even sped past the undercover vehicle illegally in a no passing zone, unaware that law enforcement officers were inside.
The vehicles stopped once at the boat docks on Lake Mary before continuing to the north end of the Mormon Lake Overlook, where they began pairing up to race at about 12:30 p.m. The deputies pulled onto a county road to get a better view. They filmed as one pair after another lined up at an invisible starting line and waited for one of the young men acting as referees to shine a flashlight at them.
The flashlight was the street racers’ checkered flag. The deputies noticed that as soon as it flicked on and off, the cars bolted forward, one in Lake Mary Road’s single northbound lane and the other in the southbound lane, against the intended flow of traffic.
Deputies filmed more than half a dozen illegal races on Lake Mary Road. At about 12:45 p.m., a red Mazda that was racing a light blue or silver passenger car had to swerve back into southbound lane to avoid a head-on collision with an oncoming vehicle that was not involved in the races. The same thing happened a few minutes later to a white Honda that was racing a gold Datsun.
After two close calls, the deputies decided to put a stop to the drag racing. Within minutes, Sheriff’s Office and Arizona Department of Public Safety vehicles descended on the Flagstaff Auto Club members and started making arrests. Two vehicles managed to flee the area as law enforcement was arriving. A few of the drivers admitted to racing but most denied it. One told the deputies it wasn’t racing, just “spirited driving.”
Cody Ivicek, 22, Manuel Virgil, 30, William Thomasson III, 28, Jason Morris Jr., 21, Lias Hastings, 25, and Curtis Farr, 29, were all arrested and charged with racing on a highway and obstructing a public thoroughfare. All but one were booked into the Coconino County Detention Facility. Farr was cited and released.
Saturday, June 2, 2018
Iconic Arizona bars
Arizona’s 17 Most Iconic Bars:
Character Plus Longevity Equals a Classic
By TOM ZOELLNER | JUNE 2, 2018 |
Copyright 2018 "The Phoenix New Times"
Arizona has thirst written into its history, not just the arid landscape yearning for rain, but from the desire of its citizens: the hard-working and the lazy and the majority in between who want a stiff drink when the sun goes down. Our imbibing is often done in relative darkness — not merely in the gloom of night, but in the enveloping dimness of one of the 1,270 licensed establishments in the state dedicated to the ancient sport of tippling.
Some Arizona bars are consistently more inviting than others, and some do far more than others to channel the essence of the towns where they sit. A really successful gin-joint must do more than sling booze. It must also provide a chamber of companionship, a whiff of romance, a sense of temporary community, a free-fire zone of witticisms, and a spontaneous and slightly boisterous version of town hall democracy where every paying customer is treated like a potential friend and a fellow passenger on the journey of life.
“As soon as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude,” said the British dictionary-maker Samuel Johnson, who would have been right at home on an Arizona barstool. “There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.”
Just as intoxication is the handmaiden of organized civilization, libations were enjoyed in Arizona long before its statehood. Missionaries brought in wine and mezcal under the watch of the Spanish crown, and Anglo miners and cowpunchers packed in distilling equipment for crude whiskey-making before the Civil War.
Our first alcohol regulations were written into territorial law by jurist William Thompson Howell in 1864 — the same year Alexander Lewin started Tucson’s first brewery, though the alkaline groundwater made his pilsner nearly undrinkable. Beer was less common than whiskey in frontier Arizona, wrote food historian Greg McNamee, primarily because a weaker variety of brew called “tiswin” could be made at home on the cheap. Whiskey was a better fit: It never spoiled and it was cheaper to transport in bulk.
Only Arizonans of a distinguished age can now recall the old A-1 brand of beer brewed on Madison Street in Phoenix. Founded by the Fenster brothers after the repeal of Prohibition, the Arizona Brewing Company shipped its distinctive cans to groceries all around the state in the postwar boom years when tract homes bubbled up around the Valley. Its advertising slogan: “Which one? A-1!” The sales team also sent around Western-themed art featuring cowboys and cactus to decorate Arizona’s dingy taverns, and the Suns indefatigable play-by-play man Al McCoy was encouraged to shout “Good! Like A-1 beer!” on a player’s successful basket.
The expansion of national brands in the early 1960s forced the hometown brew into a noteworthy decline in quality and reach. The wrecking crew was led Cindy McCain’s father, Jim, a driven salesman who won the license to distribute Anheuser-Busch’s beer on the condition of exclusivity. By the time future Senator John McCain came on in 1981 as vice president of public relations, A-1 had all but vanished from the taps.
Not everything about bar drinking has been great for Arizona, of course. Hard-drinking mining towns of the 19th century had a reputation for rape, murder, and all other kinds of misery, a violent tradition that lingers today. Aggressive peddling of liquor to the Native Americans has a sordid heritage. Drunk-driving accidents often trace their roots to bar overconsumption, and Arizona’s car-happy culture makes it worse: There were 232 DUI-related fatalities here in 2015, comprising about a third of all deadly accidents.
We will not gloss over the reality: Thousands of Arizona citizens wind up in rehab, jail, or the grave because of the lure of this potentially dangerous friend. The unwritten history of all the human interaction that has taken place inside Arizona’s bars contains capacious volumes of happiness, laughter, and friendship, but also loneliness, rage, and despair.
Our determinative factors amounted to two: character and longevity. Nothing too new, and nothing too contrived.
So what makes a truly classic Arizona bar – one that captures the essence of the Grand Canyon State? Our determinative factors amounted to two: character and longevity. Nothing too new, and nothing too contrived. Just as the best cocktails are limited in their ingredients (the pseudoscience of mixology is a money-sucking myth), we also aimed for simplicity in this concoction.
To qualify as an iconic Arizona bar, the establishment has to have deep roots in the community – a place that’s seemingly been there forever – as well as that intangible feeling that a visitor gets from the bric-a-brac on the shelves, the ambient music on the speakers, the bartender’s personality, and the welcoming air from the crowd of regulars that they’ve just walked (or stumbled) out of a memorable place.
Discerning readers will see this final list tends favor dives and other proletarian joints. This was not by design. We could find very few bars in Arizona catering to an upscale crowd that passed the longevity test.
Perhaps this means that a scruffy taphouse with a dash of local personality may have more economic staying power than even the most well-heeled of spiffy boites, despite the low prices and tendency to attract law enforcement attention.
“Bars have an odd relationship to history,” wrote Ian Frazier. “Generally they spring up for a moment, provide a setting for all that transpires when people drink, close down without warning, and become a copy shop or similar place containing no clue of what used to be there.”
In the Valley alone, recalls historian Jon Talton, the vanished are a like roll call of honor: Velvet Hammer, Mecca, Kren’s, the Pueblo, Ivanhoe, Phone Booth, Smuggler’s Inn, Clown’s Den, Chauncey’s, Mister Fat Fingers, Velvet Hammer, Kemo Sabe, Garnet Lounge, Blue Grotto, Navarre’s, the Islands, Chez Nous. All a part of history’s hangover. Those listed below are the ones that endured.
Perhaps there’s a bigger moral here: The ability to take the punches, stay focused, remember your friends, and keep dragging yourself back to work in the morning is what it takes to win in the long run, like the alcohol-soaked heroes of William Kennedy’s Albany novels.
We’ll talk about this theory over a round. Meantime, here’s mud in your eye, partner.
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| All graphic Art by Kevin Cannon |
Spirit Room
166 Main Street, Jerome
928-634-8809
Local musicians keep it bumping here in one of the state’s most evocative dead mining towns, though you might have to contend for bar space with the crowds of aging motorcyclists who make this a destination on weekends. Who can blame them? The serpentine road up Highway 89A is spectacular, the town of Jerome has hillside-clinging charm, and the cloud-and-shadow views of the Verde Valley are like a painting from the Hudson River School. Though the hall seems big, its gets packed quick into the third set of Janis Joplin covers and the room starts to stink of old sweat and leather. Getting caught up in the fun is all too easy here; if you feel too woozy to make the descent, take a room at the Connor Hotel right upstairs and pass out to the thump of reverberating bass.
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Don’s Cactus Bar
66745 U.S. Route 60, Salome
928-859-3547
The author’s grandparents used to stop at this roadside joint for a cold one in the 1930s when they would go to visit relatives on a watermelon farm on the Colorado River. Salome is still an inviting highway stopover, memorably named for the duplicitous floozy dancer of the New Testament — the town’s motto is “Where She Danced” — and former home of the also-memorably-named gas station owner Dick Wick Hall, who used to brag he was the highest-paid humorist in the country after excerpts of his tall tales from the local newspaper found their way into the Saturday Evening Post. The original building from 1932 burned down not long ago, but has been rebuilt. For what it’s worth, the food here is unexpectedly excellent.
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Red’s Bird Cage
231 South Main Street, Yuma
928-783-1050
Descend a few steps below street level, notice the old shoeshine chair on the patio, and proceed into the cave-like interior of one of the few local treasures of this sweltering capital of agribusiness. See the photo on the wall of a smiling man surrounded with three lovely young women, looking like Big Daddy in a revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. That’s C.C. “Red” Rambo, the founder, who used to own a place over the California line but moved it here in 1974, turning the former home of the Western Union telegraph office into a Gay Nineties-style pub that the Yuma Daily Sun called “barely respectable,” with a touch of irony. There were blossoms of wrought iron, a 1781 stained-glass window from a British pub, red wallpaper befitting a French bordello, a bar made partly of railroad trestles, regular acts featuring B-list performers from Vegas shows, and a bidet in the women’s room. Red’s has a coating of age on it since the glory days, but C.C.’s widow, Rea, keeps the place going for a hardcore bunch of regulars.
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Harold’s Cave Creek Corral
6895 East Cave Creek Road, Cave Creek
480-488-1906
This barn-like hall was originally built in the name of an old Arizona tradition: getting a piece of the massive federal largess that’s flowed in here through the years. The workers who built the Bartlett Dam in the late 1930s needed a nearby place to spend their paychecks and forget their cares. An entrepreneur named Johnny Walker was there to help them with a place he called the Corral Bar. A promoter named Harold Gavagan bought it a few years later, filled it with honky-tonk gimcracks, brought in some country-and-western bands and called it a “wild west” bar, even though very few actual ranchers were among the customers. Sports plays on the TVs and there’s off-track betting. It’s worth seeing how Arizona looks at itself in a mirror and reflects itself back to the rest of the world.
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The Palace
166 Main Street, Prescott
928-541-1996
Anchoring the western end of the state’s most graceful courthouse is a line of bars called Whiskey Row. The monarch of them is The Palace, operating since 1877, making it the strongest contender for the state’s oldest operating saloon, a title that gets fuzzy when periods of closure and reconstruction are taken into account. The gunfighter Doc Holliday claimed to have won $10,000 at the poker tables here. A fire leveled it in 1900, but patrons carried the hand-carved oak bar away from the flames and kept drinking. Rebuilt the next year and renovated again two decades ago, The Palace shows off a handsome tin ceiling and multiple historic photos on the wall. One now-embarrassing feature of the bar’s history: It was a social gathering spot for the “Smoki,” a bunch of white businessmen who dressed up like Hopi Indians as a part of the pageantry surrounding the Frontier Days Rodeo. Belonging to this group was a ticket to local influence that dated to 1921. The ceremonial mimicry, including a phony “snake dance,” died out amid Native American protests two decades ago. Today the hokiest activity at The Palace is a New Year’s Eve “boot drop” featuring a 6-foot-tall cowboy boot lit up with colored lights and lowered from the ladder of a fire engine.
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St. Elmo Bar
36 Brewery Avenue, Bisbee
520-432-5578
Let the tourists have the art galleries and photogenic sidewalks of Tombstone Canyon; you’ll take the distinctly rougher terrain of Brewery Gulch in downtown Bisbee, where St. Elmo Bar has never cared much about what anyone thinks. It was here in 1902, long before you, and many prior generations of brawls, low-rent love affairs, and yelling matches have sparked up under its red neon sign. Its license was only the 20th issued in Arizona, and it covered the three basic vices of liquor, gambling, and prostitution. The last of these was practiced upstairs and today’s bathroom doors are said to have originally swung in the doors of the ladies’ cribs. Though the open-pit copper mines got mothballed in the 1970s and big paychecks are no longer routinely blown through before 2 a.m., the atmosphere still gets coarse and the bad-breath smell gets thicker on weekends. Leaving early isn’t the worst idea.
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Monte Vista Cocktail Lounge
100 North San Francisco Street, Flagstaff
928-779-6971
A cherished bit of folklore about the Hotel Monte Vista holds that scenes from Casablanca were filmed here. It isn’t true. Yet much more has happened in these walls that never got filmed. Dime novelist Zane Grey, author of Call of the Canyon and many other florid oat operas set in Arizona, helped put up the seed money to build it in 1926 — along with the taxpayers of Flagstaff via a municipal bond. The lower-level cocktail lounge almost certainly poured booze on the sly during Prohibition with the winking knowledge of the cops. A pioneering women broadcaster, Mary Costigan, ran a radio show from room 105, and Phoenix television station KTVK used to keep a Northern Arizona bureau here, too. The Monte V is a friendly and unpretentious place with a few video games, a couple of local toughs at the bar, and a few Colorado River runners at the tables. You’ll always have Flagstaff.
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The Buffet
538 East Ninth Street, Tucson
520-623-6811
Tucson’s oldest operating bar got its license in 1934 after the end of Prohibition and has been serving up jumbo beer and hot dogs to an eclectic mix of railroaders, hepcats, U of A students, artist manques, and ne’er-do-wells ever since. The interior is coated with indecipherable graffiti, and the fragrance is best described as the residue of unwritten history. Cocktails are served in pint glasses. Appropriately enough, there are no windows. Everybody squints when somebody opens the front door to bright sunlight. The Buffet is also a short walk from two of the town’s other classic bars populated by Baja Arizona intelligentsia — The Shanty and the Surly Wench — making it a perfect ending-up place before the rideshare arrives.
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La Gitana Cantina
17201 West Fifth Street, Arivaca
520-398-0810
A good tavern will really make you feel like a part of things. They take that mandate quite literally here at La Gitana (“The Gypsy”), where the surface of the mesquite bar is sealed with a lacquer containing the cremated remains of four deceased customers. Such is the loyalty inspired by this converted 1880s dance hall located in a countercultural town just a few miles north of the Mexican border. It’s the only bar in town, so be nice, even if the place has a historic reputation for mayhem, confirmed by a few bullet holes in the wall alongside the portraits of the outsized local characters who held court in this watering hole. The presence of multiple off-duty agents from the U.S. Border Patrol — which maintains a sizable force in the area — keeps things nice and peaceful these days.
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The Snap Lounge
1516 West Camelback Road
602-222-3551
Work with us on this one. The Snap Lounge looks nondescript to the uninitiated eye: a single room with four pool tables and a DJ booth on a blah stretch of Camelback. Why is this an iconic bar? Look to the people for an answer: The clientele is predominately Native American, and this is the last of a great tradition of “Indian bars.” A few used to operate in the downtown neighborhood known as The Deuce; the rest scattered elsewhere in the Valley. Their names are legion, their histories mainly forgotten: Lil’s, The Esquire, Can-Can, Ponderosa. While alcohol and the Native American have had a long and tortured relationship, the regulars at the Snap are a friendly mingling of Apache, Hopi, Navajo, and Tohono O’odham, with linguistic and historic rivalries pushed aside. The drinks here are simple and stiff, the conversation lively. Trivia: This unassuming bar is also the No. 1 consumer of Budweiser in the state, according to the Arizona Liquor Association.
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Dollar Bill Bar
181 Main Street, Oatman
928-768-4408
Remember that crazy night you still talk about, even though the events are a little hazy? This saloon still dines out on the story of March 29, 1939, when the actors Clark Gable and Carole Lombard supposedly spent the first night of their honeymoon in a room upstairs to evade photographers at the courthouse in nearby Kingman. Evidence indicates the couple drove immediately back to Los Angeles after the wedding for an event the next morning, but the hotel still claims that disputed night as well as the actors’ ghosts for good measure (nothing like a purported haunting for marketing purposes). The other gimmicky draw to this bar off the old Route 66 is the cash attached to the walls: about $160,000 in dangling dollar bills. Most patrons can’t resist the urge to staple one there, too, along with a signature and a date. Alas, canoodling couples can no longer do the Gable/Lombard thing in the upstairs rooms: The fire marshal declared them uninhabitable in 2004. Ghosts only, please.
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Saddle & Spur Tavern
1046 G Avenue, Douglas
520-364-4481
The playwright Thornton Wilder needed a little creative rejuvenation and he didn’t feel like spending more time in an artists’ colony. So he hit the road not knowing his destination. On May 30, 1962, his Thunderbird convertible broke down on U.S. 80 just east of Douglas. While he waited for it to get fixed, he checked into the Gadsden Hotel on the main drag of what was then a smelter town for the mighty Phelps Dodge Corporation. He spent his nights drinking in this bar, chatting with locals, and decided that this was just the place, a part of the country that seemed imported from the Book of Genesis and which he described to a friend as “overwhelmingly beautiful.” Wilder set up a typewriter in a rented room, played Mozart string quartets on a portable record player, and began the book titled The Eighth Day that would win him the National Book Award. People in the hotel bar started calling him “doc” and “professor,” and they liked him, even though he was always mysterious about what he did for a living. Today, this bar is decorated with cattle-brand markings, and inspiration and companionship are still easy to find.
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Crystal Palace Saloon
436 East Allen Street, Tombstone
520-457-3611
While it may be true that most of this town is a third-rate theme park for European cowboy fetishists, there are a few things here that don’t suck. One is the Goodenough Mine tour where you can walk through the subterranean chambers where migrants used to hack silver from the walls. The other is the Crystal Palace, which used to be a lace-and-cutlery kind of place serving the bourgeoise class, considered respectable enough for Deputy U.S. Marshal Virgil Earp to keep his offices upstairs, and occasionally descend the stairs to play faro and cards. He got shot in the back just down the street after he and his younger brother Wyatt shot it out with accused stagecoach robbers in a nearby alley, bequeathing a lasting tourist industry to this town. “Mythologized beyond recognition, the sordid little saga of Tombstone unfolded in a haze of black powder, mysterious ‘suicides,’ and alcoholic fumes,” wrote historian Thomas Sheridan. The Crystal Palace has survived all this time and still serves up booze from a towering back bar with mirrors. Owner Kim Herring added a kitchen in 2007. The fare is standard bar food like pizza, burgers, and steaks. The outside got a renovation this year; you can now look at the faux gunfights from an outside deck while sipping an Old Overholt whiskey, which happened to be Doc Holliday’s favorite brand. Gone from the back room, however, are the Texas Hold ’em games. Herring got rid of them because of the legalities. Somewhere, Virgil Earp is frowning.
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Crown King Saloon
7219 Main Street, Crown King
928-632-7053
Here’s another dubious claimant to the oldest operating bar in Arizona, though this one comes with an asterisk. The two-story building with a picket fence balcony was a butcher shop located in the nearby settlement of Oro Belle before it was disassembled and moved to its current location in 1906. Though it lies 27 miles away from the nearest paved road, Crown King was once the center of considerable wealth from the gold mines in the southern Bradshaw Mountains — an impossibly steep railroad used to haul the ore to Prescott. Today, most of the crowd at the bar consists of off-roaders seeking refreshment at the end of their Bradshaw excursions and a smattering of locals from the village, pop. 133.
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Rusty Spur Saloon
7245 East Main Street, Scottsdale
480-425-7787
The history of modern Scottsdale is written in three parts. The founding era began in 1888 when U.S. Army chaplain Winfield Scott purchased some land next to the new Arizona Canal to grow citrus trees, and a little market village sprung up around him. The second era happened after World War II when the first mayor, Malcolm White, began to hype up a mythical cowboy past with the slogan “The West’s Most Western Town,” encouraging a discretionary economy founded on snowbird resorts and cowboy geegaw emporiums. The third era, beginning in the mid-1980s and continuing into today, featured the ridiculous hurl of luxury homes, stucco strip malls, and golf courses far to the north of Pima Road, and the carnivalization of its sedate downtown into a nightclub-choked spectacle of the drunken and the cosmetically enhanced. The Rusty Spur is a holdout from Scottsdale’s Second Empire period of growth, and well worth the trip for the wagon wheel chandelier, the deer heads, the antlers, the peanut shells on the floor, and the barstools shaped like hoochie-girls’ butts. The ersatz Bonanza message is as flat-out phony as a lot of other elements of Scottsdalia, but that’s part of the deal in this town.
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Sultana Bar
301 Historic Route 66, Williams
928-635-2021
Like a true aristocrat in the midst of pretenders, the Sultana is a genuine find among all the faux-Route 66 junkola in Williams. It predates the highway economy and traces its roots to a time when ranching, logging, and the Santa Fe Railroad were the big games in town. The rusted neon sign outside depicts a martini glass and the dubious promise that this gin joint is “world famous.” If it isn’t, it should be, because the Sultana has rough-hewn style that cannot be re-created, down to the wood floors. A few tunnels underneath were supposed to have been used for opium storage in the early part of the century, and then for booze caches during Prohibition. A stuffed cougar frozen in a hunting pose stands watch over the bar. More illicit deeds went down at the Sultana after World War II — a police chief was shot in the alley — and a slight feeling of edginess never went away after that. A connecting passage takes you into a theater next door where the first generation of silent movies used to be screened before World War I. Now, it’s a hall rented out for weddings and other special events. Wander through with a drink in hand, wondering about the people who have passed through, of whom you are now one.
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