By Kraig Nelson
Courtesy of the Cave Creek Museum
These highlights are from Kraig’s Cave Creek Commentary (Real Estate & History) 2017 columns. For more hilights see Kraig current column. A new column is published every month.
January 2018. Rancho Manana Golf Resort in Cave Creek was once a dude ranch, starting in 1944 (land purchased in 1943) and closing in 1955. It was called Rancho Manana, hence today’s name. A dude ranch allowed a person to immerse oneself in the “cowboy and cowgirl” way of life for a short time. It was an exhilarating escape for “city-folks.” Two couples were the owners and operators. Ted and China Loring were wealthy people from Chicago who financed the business. Romaine (Romy) and Jean Lowdermilk were the operators. Romy Lowdermilk is acknowledged as the “Father of Dude Ranching in Arizona.” The tall, handsome, and charming Romy, in his western regalia, made all guests feel right at home. Romy started out in 1911, at the age of 21, homesteading a 160-acre cattle ranch in Wickenburg he named the Kay-El-Bar after his mother Katherine. In 1918 his Wickenburg ranch became Arizona’s first dude ranch.
February 2018. On February 14, 1912 everyone was excited in the territory of Arizona. Sometime during the day, Arizona was going to become the forty-eighth State! The news was to be delivered by telegraph. Some people put events on hold, until this day, so the event would happen on Statehood Day. Aaron and Carrie Goldberg’s daughter Hazel, and her future husband Joseph Melczer, held off their wedding ceremony until this day. They were going to become the first married couple in the State of Arizona (and they were)! The Goldberg family was a prosperous and influential family in Phoenix; they owned the Goldberg Clothing Store. They also owned one of the most prestigious homes in Phoenix we know today as the Rosson House at Heritage Square, the wedding’s location. This 1895 Victorian masterpiece had all the latest amenities: hot and cold running water, indoor plumbing, electric lights, and a telephone. The three-year-old ring-bearer was described as very cute because he was dressed as Cupid, with a bow and arrow, a quiver of arrows, silver leaves, and pink flowers. His name was Barry Goldwater.
March 2018. The late historian Frances C. Carlson tells us the first “booming gold camp” in the Desert Foothills occurred in 1874, in what we know today as Scottsdale’s world-famous residential development called Desert Mountain (six championship Jack Nicklaus golf courses). William Rowe moved to the Valley in 1868 and established a ranch near today’s city of Mesa. He loved his cattle and so did the Tonto Apaches; his livelihood was continually plundered. Out of desperation he headed to the Cave Creek area to seek gold when he experienced “beginner’s luck” on a small hill according to Carlson. He named his lucrative gold-claim the Lion Mine and the hill became known as Gold Hill. The hill was soon teaming with hard working miners. In 1877, Mr. Rowe was killed in a gunfight, his son Frank worked his father’s claim until he sold in 1882.
April 2018. Boot Hill” Cemetery. There are at least forty Boot Hill Cemeteries in America. One of the first was in Dodge City, Kansas and maybe the most famous was located in Tombstone, Arizona. The name addresses men (usually) who died quickly and violently who literally died and were buried with their boots on. The historic Cave Creek cemetery was located on the east bank of Cave Creek (the stream) about a half-mile south of today’s Rancho Manana Golf Resort. Over the years vandals desecrated the site; historic headstones were stolen. In June 1964 the last headstone was stolen. A photograph of the headstone addresses a two-year-old boy, David Wesley Vaughn who was born July 28, 1891 and died September 25, 1893. The late historian Frances Carlson states “the little cemetery beside the creek…was forgotten when the town-center shifted eastward.” Actually, the cemetery was not completely forgotten. At a Cave Creek town meeting November 17, 1954, the process of moving the Boot Hill Cemetery started. By 1956 the first inhumation was Elmer Gillespie who was born in 1887. The Boot Hill Cemetery in now in Carefree just south of the intersection of Cave Creek Road and Pima Road.
May 2018. In 1877, two young prospectors, Richard Cramm and Edward L. Doheny discovered a rich lode on a small mountain about five miles northeast of today’s Desert Mountain community. The claim was called the Emerald Lode and the mountain eventually became known as Cramm Mountain. Richard Cramm worked the claim while Ed Doheny left Arizona and decided to search for oil. In 1892, Doheny drilled the first successful oil well in Los Angeles. Next, he drilled the first successful oil well in Mexico (Tampico); by 1916, it was the world’s largest producing oil well. By 1920 Mexico was the largest oil-producer in the world. Doheny created the Pan American Petroleum and Transport Company which he later sold to Standard Oil of Indiana. His net worth was 100 million, 1.44 billion in 2018 dollars. Pulitzer Prize winning author, Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel, Oil, and the 2007 movie, There Will Be Blood, was based on this Cave Creek miner.
June 2018. The Arizona legal community is very proud of two dynamic women. Sandra Day O’Connor was America’s first woman U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice, she served from 1981 to 2006. Justice O’Conner was born in El Paso, Texas but grew up on the Lazy B cattle-ranch near Duncan, AZ., about thirty-nine miles southeast of Safford. In 1961, America’s first woman state Supreme Court Associate Justice was Arizona’s Lorna Lockwood. It doesn’t stop there. America’s first woman state Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was Lorna Lockwood starting in 1965 and re-elected in 1970. Chief Justice Lorna Lockwood died in 1977 and was the “Phoenix Women of the Year” in 1974. Her father, Alfred Lockwood, taught school for three years in Cave Creek starting in 1899. Oh yes, Mr. Lockwood was Arizona’s Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1929, 1935, and 1941. He died in 1951.
July 2018. Most Arizona history-aficionados would say Prescott was the first territorial capital. Arizona became a [Union] territory February 24, 1863. Prescott didn’t exist then. The first territorial capital was Fort Whipple, about fifteen miles north of future Prescott, in Chino Valley. Prescott was established May 30, 1864 and did become the usecond territorial capital. The fort was named for West Point graduate and Civil War Brigadier General, Amiel Weeks Whipple. In 1853, Congress authorized the Army Corps of Topographical Engineers to survey routes for a transcontinental railroad along the 35th parallel; Whipple was in charge. The future Santa Fe Railroad closely followed this route as did Route 66 and Interstate 40 through Arizona. Amiel Whipple never saw his namesake Arizona fort. He was killed by a sniper in the Battle of Chancellorsville and died May 7, 1863. His good friend attended his funeral procession led by a riderless horse; his name was President Abraham Lincoln.
August 2018. Harold’s Cave Creek Corral Bar is Cave Creek’s oldest continually operated business. Johnny Walker (not related to the Scotch) started construction on the Cave Creek Corral bar in 1935 to accommodate construction workers building two dams on the Verde River (the Bartlett, and later the Horseshoe; both finished by 1943). It was Cave Creek’s only surviving bar in the late 1940s. The original 1880s bar came from the Crystal Palace Bar in Tombstone. The second level of the Crystal Palace housed the office of U.S. Deputy Marshall, Virgil Earp. In 1950, Harold and Ruth Gavagan purchased the bar and it became “Harold’s.” Harold, a WWll paratrooper, was a stocky, strong, and pugnacious Irishman. Ruth, a nurse, was quiet and patient and sometimes played piano in the bar. She kept the hot-tempered Harold, and the business, under control. Harold and Ruth owned the venerable bar from 1950 to 1987. Harold died in 1993 and Ruth died in 2007.
September 2018. Cave Creek’s “Guest Ranch” or “Dude Ranch” history started in 1928 and lasted until 1962. There were three Guest Ranches in the area. Positive financial ramifications affected Carefree as well because home sales commenced in 1959. The Dude Ranches introduced guests from the Midwest and Eastern states (primarily) to the beauty and charm of the “Wild West.” Many purchased homes here later; the community just south of Rancho Manana Golf Resort, Andorra Hills, was known as “Little Chicago” for example. Today’s Rancho Manana Golf Resort was a Dude Ranch from 1943 until 1955. The name of that ranch was… you guessed it…Rancho Manana. Two couples developed the ranch. Ted and China Loring were wealthy people from Chicago, and Romaine (Romy) and Jean Lowdermilk were experienced Arizona Dude Ranch operators. This was Romy’s fifth Dude Ranch (and his last); he was known as the ”Father of Dude Ranching in Arizona.” Romy homesteaded his first Dude Ranch in Wickenburg, in 1911, when he was twenty-one. His Wickenburg ranch was known as the Kay El Bar, it’s still operating today.
October 2018. The U. S. Army created the Department of Arizona May 3, 1870 with General George Stoneman Jr. in charge. During an 1870 territory-wide fort inspection, Stoneman camped in future Cave Creek. The year 1870 and this camping event, became Cave Creek’s founding date. Thirteen months later, June 4, 1871, General Stoneman was fired by President Ulysses S. Grant. Why? Paradoxically, Stoneman was fired primarily because he enforced President Grant’s Native American “Peace Policy;” this was a policy of ”moral persuasion and kindness….” The Arizona territorial governor, A. P. K. Safford, and the people of Arizona, were enraged over Stoneman’s soft treatment of the Tonto Apaches and other Native Americans. Governor Safford reported to Congress (in person), “…our citizens have been murdered on the highways and in their fields…murders and robberies are almost a daily occurrence….” Governor Safford was persuasive; General George Crook became the new Arizona Commander, June 4, 1871. Eventually, George Stoneman retired in the San Gabriel Valley, California; he became California’s fifteenth governor from 1883 to 1887.
November 2018. Romaine Lowdermilk (Romy) was the “Father of Dude Ranching in Arizona.” His first Dude Ranch was established in 1918, in Wickenburg. He named it the ”Kay El Bar” after his mother Katherine. In 2018, it is still in operation. His last Dude Ranch was Rancho Manana (1943-1955) in Cave Creek, which he owned with his wife Jean, and a Chicago couple, Ted and China Loring. Romy’s skills and achievements transcended dude ranching. He was a talented and prolific western, short-story writer. Romy was nationally published in Adventure Magazine, Argosy, and Short Stories Magazine. A least one short story was made into a silent film in 1924; the name of the film was Tucker’s Top Hand. Romy was a gifted singer, songwriter, musician, and entertainer. He published over 200 western songs. In 1935, Romy performed for a very popular national radio show called the National Barn Dance on Chicago’s WLS radio. Romy became a director for the National Folksong Association. Finally, Romy managed hotels in Arizona, Las Vegas, and San Francisco. While he managed the Arizona Biltmore which opened February 1929, Romy utilized his skills as a wrangler and musician at the hotel still known as the “Jewel of the Desert.” On June 23, 1970, Romy died, losing his battle with cancer, he was eighty.
December 2018. Anyone who has dined in Cave Creek may have heard of Cartwright’s Modern Cuisine. The street that separates two of Cave Creek’s venerable pubs, Harold’s and the Buffalo Chip, is called Jack Cartwright Pass. The name Cartwright is addressing one of Cave Creek’s most important ranching families, many would say the most important ranching family. The Cartwright Ranch was established at Seven Springs in 1887, although, they started “running cattle” there in 1884. Seven Springs is the headwater for the Cave Creek Stream and is located about nineteen miles past Carefree on Cave Creek Road (changes to Forest Road 24 eventually). The 56,000-acre ranch (some historians say 65,000 acres) with over 5,600 head of cattle was sold in 1980. In the Maryvale area of the Valley, we find the Cartwright Elementary School District. Any correlation? Yes! The Cartwright family first arrived in Phoenix in 1877, eventually homesteading 800 acres from 51st to 59th Avenue near Thomas Road. The family donated two acres and funds for a school house. Today’s Cartwright School District #83, and over 18,000 students, can thank the formidable cattle ranchers for their generosity.
Related Articles and Websites
Kraig’s Cave Creek History Hilights 2017 Article
Cave Creek Museum Website, www.cavecreekmuseum.org Visit Website
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