This article by historian Kraig Nelson was selected by judges as the winner of the 2016 Summer Fun Write Stuff Contest, Seeing and Doing Category.
First “Snowbirds” in the Foothills
By Kraig Randal Nelson
We’ve all heard of snowbirds arriving in the Salt River Valley when weather starts getting chilly in other areas. Usually, snowbirds are graciously welcomed because of an influx of capital and increased employment to accommodate them. This is not a new phenomenon; in fact, about 30,000 visitors started arriving in 1890, and by the turn of the century over 100,000 visitors would arrive for the winter months. Many would reside in the Foothills area.
James D. Houck decided he could make a very good living for himself, wife, and six children (eventually seven) by providing a historically charming area, welcoming winter-weather, good natural food, and a place where winter visitors could leave their winter coats, literally. You see, Mr. Houck had his winter visitors sheared! Oh yes, there were a few bleating complaints, but they didn’t mind so much, primarily because they were not human…they were sheep.
Mr. Houck created a very successful sheep-shearing industry in Cave Creek, specifically at Cave Creek Station, the original Anglo settlement in the area (near today’s Rancho Manana Golf Resort). Jeriah and Amanda Wood settled along the stream called Cave Creek in 1877 and stayed until 1881. Andrew Jackson (Jedder) and Jennie Hoskin took over the 160-acre ranch for the next nineteen years when James Houck purchased the property in 1900. The Station had evolved into the community-center after the important Phoenix Mine (just south of the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area) closed for the first time in 1895.
“Black Mountain Sunrise” by Heinz Kagerer
The winter shearing of sheep called the “wool-clip” and the birth of lambs in the warm winter, called “lambing,” was a very successful enterprise and amounted to a million pounds of wool a year, according to the Arizona Republican in 1898. This was a valuable economic asset to the small city of Phoenix. When Houck utilized gas-powered shearing-devises, Cave Creek Station became a tourist attraction for Phoenix residents who lived thirty-five miles away. Houck provided the horse-drawn transportation, a type of stage coach, for eager tourists which entailed an all-day trip from Phoenix, for the round-trip fee of three dollars.
Historian Frances C. Carlson describes the culture, “In the late fall, as sheep began arriving from the mountains, Cave Creek Station became a busy, lively place. Herders packed the little store as they came in to pick up their mail and supplies…in the evenings the crowded corner of the store that served as the saloon was filled with the chatter of strange [international] languages…activity at the station heightened to a fever pitch with the arrival… of thirty to forty shearers, their helpers, the sheep owners, and the wool buyers…a small tent-city rose to provide shelter for the visitors….” A boarding house was built on the property to accommodate fifty people at a time for a meal. Meals were served in two shifts. Land was cleared to grow additional vegetables and a Japanese gardener was hired just for this endeavor. After the shearing season was over the boarding house was used for a variety of community-gatherings including a transformation into a roller-skating rink for the kids in the area; locally, there were several talented musicians, so dancing and gala affairs would continue until sunrise on some nights. According to the Arizona Republican in 1915, Houck was the “Cave Creek Sheep King!” James Denny Houck put Cave Creek on the map.
The prosperous times didn’t last. Drought was an issue that started in the mid-1890s and continued for a decade. Wells went dry and bubbling springs were reduced to a trickle. Because grass didn’t appear as it had in the past, sheep were forced to winter east of the Verde River per Carlson. The era of the open range was over with the establishment of the Tonto National Forest in 1907. Sheep owners made new arrangements to shear sheep closer to the railroads. The day of the isolated shearing camp was over. At the age of seventy-four, James Houck was tired of living according to his second wife Frances Baillie Houck. On May 31, 1921, he swallowed a lethal dose of poison; an important era in the Foothill’s history was over, it was however, an era worth remembering.
Kraig Nelson has been a Desert Foothills/Scottsdale resident since 1977. Active in the community, he is the historian and a board member of the Cave Creek Museum and a docent for the Desert Foothills Land Trust. Kraig, a real estate professional, has been a Peak magazine “Write Stuff Contest” winner the past three years.
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