"There were but very few houses in Safford then. About the only business house was the Glasby building, which had a saloon and also a store. The cowboys had things about their own way. They would come into the store and take possession. Mr. Glasby would go out and leave it to them. They would shoot up the store, help themselves to what they wanted, pay for everything they had taken, shoot up the town and go on. But I don't want to see any more of it. You haven't the remotest idea what a lot of trouble they made. This was the main route from the north into Mexico and the principal rendezvous for a lot of those rough characters."
In the way of outlawry, the valley had unwelcome notoriety, when from its rougher element was constituted a band which, May 11, 1889, ambushed Paymaster J.W. Wham of the United States army, on the road between Fort Grant and Fort Thomas, and stole about $28,000 in gold and silver, intended for the pay of the troops at the latter post. An escort of eleven colored infantrymen, led by a sergeant, apparently deserted by the Major, fought well, but was driven away after five of the soldiers had been wounded. Thirteen bandits were understood to have been implicated. Eight individuals were arrested. There was trial at Tucson, where Wham and the soldiers were notably poor witnesses and where the defendants were acquitted.
A Gray Highway of Danger
Just as the Mormon settlements on the Little Colorado providentially were given assistance by the building of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad, just so the struggling pioneers on the Gila found benefit in the opening of the silver and copper mines at Globe. Freight teams were in demand for hauling coke and supplies from the railroad at Willcox and Bowie and for hauling back from the mines the copper bullion. Much of this freighting was done with great teams of mules and horses, veritable caravans, owned by firms such as Tully & Ochoa or M.G. Samaniego of Tucson, but enough was left for the two and four-horse teams of the Mormons, who thus were enabled from the hauling of a few tons of coke to provide provisions for their families and implements for the tilling of their fields.
The road from the railroad to Globe ofttimes was a gray highway of danger. After leaving the Gila towns, it led through the length of the Apache Indian reservation. Usually the teams went in sort of military order. The larger "outfits" had strict rules for defense, each driver with his pistol and rifle and each "swamper" similarly armed. Every night the wagons were drawn into a circle, within which the horses were corralled or tied to the wagon poles, where they were fed. Pickets were kept out and care was incessant day and night.
But, sometimes, a freighter, eager to earn extra pay for a quick trip, or wishing to drive ahead of the cloud of dust that enveloped each large convoy, would push along by himself. Possibly the next day, the train would come to the embers of what had been wagons and their contents. Nearby would be the bodies of the tortured and murdered teamsters. So the careful ones united, remaining at the railroad until at least a score of wagons had accumulated, and then made their way northward, relatively safe through united vigilance.
In 1899 the Gila Valley, Globe & Northern railroad was completed from Bowie, through the Gila Valley towns, to Globe, a distance of 124 miles, though the loss to the freighters was more than balanced by the general good to the community of bettered transportation facilities. Right-of-way through the reservation was accorded by the Indians after a diplomatic distribution to them by a railroad agent of $8000, all in silver coin.
Chapter Twenty-three
Civic and Church Features
Troublesome River Conditions