Arizona on the West Bank of the Colorado River?

  For the most part, the Colorado River forms the western border of Arizona. First it separates Arizona from Nevada and then it separates Arizona from California and, with a few exceptions, the border does not leave the river. One of those exceptions is near the city of Yuma. When the Colorado River flows past Yuma, it briefly flows west for about ten miles before turning south again.  It is in this brief east-west pattern where the border between Arizona and California deviates from the river. There is an old loop of the river on the north side of the present river channel, a short distance northeast of Yuma. I believe the river cut its new channel sometime during World War II, from what I have been told. This old river channel is still very visible on aerial maps and it can be seen from the ground really well to because there is still a line of trees lining the old river channel, with their roots spread wide to suck in the subterranean water. In places, the trees have cut down and part of the old river channel has been plowed up and farmed to take advantage of the high water table that still exists beneath the abandoned river channel. Most of the old river channel is still there, though. In fact, there are  four lakes that exist in the upper part of the old river loop, Haughtelin Lake, Bard Lake and two much smaller lakes that appear to be unnamed. Haughtelin Lake is by far the biggest, it occupies the northwest corner of the loop, the part where the river briefly flowed west and then turned and flowed back south. All of these four lakes are at the upper part of the old river loop.   There is some marshy land between these lakes as well. The line of trees along this old river channel is visible from over a mile away in this desert environment. The subterranean water table beneath the old channel of the Colorado River must be extremely high because it evidently drains a large amount of water into the new channel. The current channel is reduced to almost nothing at Imperial Dam, about 30 miles upstream from Yuma, because two canals, on each side of the river, siphon off 96% of the river's flow, leaving only 4% of the river's flow to continue downstream. After the river passes Imperial Dam and Laguna Dam, just a few miles apart,
 the river is only a few feet wide, with the narrow stream meandering its way in a much wider channel that was formed over the eons. Yet, as the river flows past Yuma, it is wider than it is after it leaves the two dams, but still paltry when compared to the way it used to be. The
Gila River does meet the Colorado River between the dams and Yuma, but the Gila is usually dry.  The Colorado is evidently receiving quite a bit of water from its abandoned channel.
This old river channel is really wide, but then nearly the entire length of the Colorado River was once really wide, before it was siphoned off to nothing to satisfy man's insatiable thirst and need for water.
  I have personally driven across this old river channel. I drove down a well maintained dirt road, on the California side, north of Yuma. I was heading for the line of trees that I mentioned. When I got to the line of trees, I saw an obvious river channel, with deep silt deposits, on the south side of the road, but, on the north side of the road, the old riverbed has been plowed up, so I just saw farmland.
  Usually, when a river, which forms a state or county border, the border stays in the old channel when the river shifts its course. There are a lot of places along the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio  and Red Rivers, for example, where the state border deviates from the current river channel because the channel shifted over time and the border stayed in the
old channel.
Well, when the Colorado River shifted its course just outside Yuma, it evidently set off a boundary dispute between Arizona and California. Sometime in the 1960s, the two states came to an agreement over how to divide the area within the old river loop. As a result, the state border does not follow the old river channel. Instead, it cuts across the loop with a series of straight lines that make several 90 degree turns.
  Maps of this area do not agree, but most maps show that the land within this old river loop is not part of the adjacent Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, while other maps say it is part of the reservation. Most maps show the Indian reservation encircling this loop of three sides.
  There are other places along the Colorado River in which the state border does not follow the river channel, despite what is shown on maps.

 

Nogales

  Downtown Nogales is right next to the international border. It is typical of most downtown areas of border towns. That is, the majority of the signs are in Spanish and most store owners have tables set up on the sidewalk in front of their stores to lure passersby to purchase their products. The downtown businesses in Nogales line Morley Avenue, Grand Avenue and Arroyo Boulevard, right next to the international border. The former train station in Nogales is now the Pimeria Alta Historical Museum. This is a great museum that displays the history of this area that was called "Pimeria Alta" by the Spanish government when this entire area was a colony of Spain. What is now Nogales was the major entry point for explorers, traders and anyone else who ventured into this area. There was literally a plethora of missions and presidios that were established in this area beginning in the 16th century. Nogales and its accompanying county, Santa Cruz, is a vital part of Arizona's history and any history book about Arizona focuses on this area. 
The Pimeria Alta, or "upper land of the Pimas." was named for the Pima Indians and their close relatives, the Sobaipuri and the O'odham, who resided in this area when the Spanish 
explorers arrived.   
  Nogales has about 22,000 people and is one of the busiest border crossing points on the entire United States/Mexico border. In fact, there are four border crossings connecting Nogales, Arizona with Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. The crossing at the end of South Grand Avenue, called the 
Grand Avenue Gate, is the busiest. In very close proximity to this crossing is the Morley Gate, which, I believe, is the only pedestrian only crossing on the entire Mexican border. This pedestrian crossing lies two blocks east of the Grand Avenue Gate between the ends of South Morley Avenue, in the United States and Calle Plutarco Elias Calles in Mexico. Between the Grand Avenue Gate and the Morley Gate is a railroad crossing. A movable gate usually lies across the multiple railroad tracks that cross the border here. On the west side of town, in a very rural area, is the Mariposa Gate, which is mostly used by trucks. There is alot of truck traffic in Nogales. It is a major point for cross-border trucking traffic and trucking companies are located all over town.
  As I said in the last blog post, Nogales is a rather pleasant town and I like it. It is a very hilly town(though not as hilly as its counterpart south of the border) and there are quite a few streets in town that are very steep. the southern part of town definitely has the look and feel of being in Mexico, but that is typical of most border towns in the United States.

On The Border

  On the southern edge of Arizona, nestled among the steep hills, lies a town that is often misunderstood. It is Nogales, population about 22,000.  Most people have the perception that Nogales is a violent town, a dangerous place to visit, but that is not true. The town gets a bad rap because it is on the border with Mexico, and for this reason people also believe that cities such as El Paso and Laredo, Texas are dangerous as well, but they are not. Nogales, along with other towns on the Mexican border, does have some unique issues due to the thriving drug trade, but it is by no means a dangerous place. The Mexican border has always been a dangerous place even before the days of the drug cartels because Mexico has always been a volatile land. Most American border towns have buildings near the border with bullet holes in them, due to bullets flying across the border at various times in the past, particularly the Mexican Revolution a century ago.
  Nogales does have drug smuggling tunnels that have been found underneath the border fence, but I have been to Nogales many times and have spent the night there several times and have never had any problems. No one has ever harassed me or threatened me. In fact, I have met alot of friendly people in Nogales. 
  Nogales is not a desert town, though it is near the desert. It is about 1,500 feet higher than Tucson, an hour to the north. There are no saguaro cactuses growing in the Nogales area, just a few prickly pear and  the occasional cholla. Nogales is located in a deciduous forest with several different types of trees, including the walnut tree, for which the town is named. The Nogales area is still an arid climate, but is is wetter and cooler than the nearby Sonoran Desert. The average low temperature in Nogales in the winter months is slightly below freezing, about 30 degrees, but temperatures have been known to drop into the teens and low twenties. On two occasions, I have spent the night in Nogales in January and, on both occasions, I had to scrape ice off of my windshield. Summers are hot, but not like the nearby desert that routinely sees temperatures surpass 110 degrees. Nogales is usually in the mid to upper 90s. The average yearly rainfall is 18 inches, which is still dry, but not as dry as a  desert.
  Nogales is a very hilly town as well, with some very steep streets, but, as hilly as Nogales is, its counterpart across the border, Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, is even hillier. The border fence in this area is very undulating because it goes up one slope and down another, crossing canyons and ravines. In most places, a person can look up to to see residential areas, businesses and shantytowns in Nogales, Mexico because the hills are higher and steeper south of the border. 
  

A Backwards Lake

   In the southern part of Yellowstone National Park, adjacent to the southwest part of the "Figure Eight" road in the park, sits a tiny little lake called Isa Lake. It is really more of a pond than a lake. The water surface fluctuates very little and is usually covered with yellow pond lilies. Isa Lake sits directly on top of the Continental Divide at the summit of Craig Pass, which is 8,262 feet above sea level. What makes this otherwise insignificant little pond famous is this: Since it sits directly on top of the Continental Divide, the waters of the lake drain to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This is not the only body of water that does this, but it is the only body of water, in the world, that drains to two different oceans backwards. You see, the small stream that flows west out of the lake winds up draining to the Atlantic Ocean, to the east, while the stream that flows out the east side of the lake drains west to the Pacific Ocean. That small stream that flows west out of Isa Lake connects to the Firehole River, which flows into the Madison River, which flows into the Missouri River, which flows into the Mississippi River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, which is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean.  The tiny stream that flows east out of Isa Lake connects to DeLacy Creek, which flows into Shoshone Lake, which drains into the Lewis River and the Lewis River then passes through Lewis Lake on its way to the Snake River. The Snake River flows into the Columbia River and the Columbia River flows directly into the Pacific Ocean between Oregon and Washington.
 Isa Lake was discovered in 1891, nineteen years after Yellowstone National Park was created, by Henry Chittenden when he was surveying a route for a road to connect the Old Faithful Geyser to the West Thumb area and its accompanying geyser basin. 

A Wonderland of Waterfalls, Geysers and Hot Springs

  As the above title suggests, Yellowstone National Park is a veritable wonderland, a truly unique landscape. Even back in the pioneer days, when there was no such thing as a national park, fur trappers, mountain men, miners and other people who were passing through this area saw its potential. They thought it should be preserved for future generations to enjoy. 
  Probably the most photographed places in Yellowstone are Old Faithful Geyser, the Upper and Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, Grand Prismatic Spring and Morning Glory Pool.  
Morning Glory Pool is stunning in the color variation, with water colors fading from clear to yellow to orange to green to light blue to royal blue to deep blue. It almost looks like something a child with a vivid imagination would draw in his or her coloring book. The majority of the attractions in the park are on the north and west sides, but that's not to say the rest of the park does not have things to see. I think my favorite spot is Dragon's Mouth Spring., a hot spring that emanates from an opening in the side of a small bluff. When the water comes out of the opening, it really does sound like a dragon exhaling! 
   The inner workings of the park's most famous feature, Old Faithful Geyser, were altered about a decade ago by an earthquake, so it no longer erupts every 56 minutes, now it is every 91 minutes. The entrance road to the Old Faithful area was rebuilt a few years ago and there is now an overpass, with exit and entrance ramps, where it meets the main "Figure 8" road of the park. I realize that this area is extremely congested, but an overpass looks completely out of place in a national park. Personally, I would rather see traffic lights there than an overpass. Traffic lights are not as intrusive to the landscape as an overpass with its accompanying ramps are and the current setup means that a bigger area had to be paved. 
  Just to the north of Old Faithful Geyser, there is a footbridge over the Firehole River and then the trail leads to Geyser Hill, which literally abounds with geysers! In the areas were geysers proliferate, there are boardwalks leading around the geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, 
or boiling mudpots. 
  The Firehole River is aptly named. Since it flows through, and past, numerous geyser basins, full of geothermal activity, it contains very warm water. The water temperatures in the river have been measured as high as 86 degrees and this is in a land that mostly has coldwater streams. The Firehole River is 21 miles long. It joins the Gibbon River several miles north of Old Faithful. This confluence creates the Madison River. The Madison River, in turn, merges with the 
Jefferson River near the town of Three Forks, Montana to create the Missouri River, at least in name. The Missouri Rivers actually begins in the Centennial Mountains, on the Montana/Idaho 
border at Brower's Spring. It is initially known as Hellroaring Creek, then Red Rock River, then Beaverhead River, then Jefferson River, before taking the name "Missouri" at Three Forks. 

My Other Travel Blog

  I recently stopped a series I was doing on this blog about the uppermost part of the Texas Panhandle because I wanted to write about Yellowstone National Park, which I had never done. I will continue that series soon, but, in the meantime, I will continue my series about the upper Texas Panhandle on my other travel blog, called "In My Travels,"which is available at
www.radzvacations.blogspot.com. In that series, I am currently writing about the Oklahoma Panhandle, which is adjacent to the Texas Panhandle, so I will "move across the border" very soon in that blog. Just wanted to let my readers know about that and also to let them know about my other travel blog.

Fort Yellowstone

  When Yellowstone National Park was created, on March 1, 1872, it was the first national park in the world. National parks were a new concept and when mountain men and fur trappers first started telling stories about this incredible place of boiling mud pits, geysers and hot springs, no one believed them because it sounded too incredible to be true. The first known person to start talking about Yellowstone's geothermal features was John Colter in 1860. A few people, after hearing his stories about smoke spewing out of the ground began calling the place
 "Colter's Hell," in jest.
  The man that really led the effort to have Yellowstone set aside as the world's first national park was Ferdinand Hayden. He had several unsuccessful attempts before finally succeeding in 1872, when President Ulysses Grant signed the bill creating Yellowstone National P:ark after it was approved by Congress. 
  When Yellowstone National Park was created, the National Park Service did not exist yet, it would be another 19 years before the Park Service was created. Shortly after the park was created, Nathaniel Langford was appointed as Park Superintendent, but he had little money with which to operate and very limited legal authority to deal with poachers, miners, squatters, etc. Yellowstone was basically a park in name only because people were still claiming plots of land to homestead, still cutting timber, still prospecting for gold or other minerals, still grazing cattle within park boundaries and railroad magnates wanted to build railroad lines through the park. The latter situation is most likely what led to administration of the park being turned over to the United States Cavalry in 1886. The Cavalry built Fort Yellowstone in the northern part of the park, in Wyoming, but about 2 miles from the Montana border.  The fort was built adjacent to Mammoth Hot Springs, which is a huge set of hot springs, which are fed by the Norris Geyser Basin through a subterranean fault. These hot springs flow over travertine terraces and into the Boiling River, which, in turn, flows into the Yellowstone River. The buildings of Fort Yellowstone were constructed out of locally quarried sandstone. Almost immediately after the U.S. Cavalry assumed control of the fledgling national park, the 
commanding officers set up backcountry foot and horse patrols, wildlife management and protection and began to vigorously protect the national features of the park that had so inspired visitors to the area. 
In 1891, the National Park Service(NPS), was created by the federal government and they still regard backcountry foot and horse patrols, wildlife protection and management and resource protection, duties that were established by the U.S. Cavalry in 1886, as their primary responsibilities. The Mammoth Hot Springs area, which encompasses Fort Yellowstone, is still the administrative headquarters for Yellowstone National Park. 

An Introduction To Wyoming

  Well, I had said in the previous edition of this blog that I was going to change themes and not write about the upper portion of the Texas Panhandle anymore. Well, that is true, but my teaser was that I was going to start writing about Idaho again, even though I never mentioned 
the state's name. I will get to Idaho eventually(I could write about that state forever), but, in the meantime, it has occurred to me that I have never written about Wyoming. I lived in that state for about one month, in 1988, working at Yellowstone National Park. After one month living in the park, I got a job just outside the northeast entrance of the park in Cooke City, Montana, where I spent the rest of that summer and part of fall, until I headed home to Texas in mid-October, just barely beating a snowstorm out of the area. I still have vivid and fond memories of the area and have visited several times since then. I guess the logical place to start in my writings about Wyoming is the most visited part of that state, Yellowstone National Park.
  When I worked at Yellowstone,  I worked at Lake Lodge, which is very near the north shore of Yellowstone Lake. In my writings about Yellowstone, I will fuse together things I saw when I lived in the area in 1988 with things I have seen on subsequent trips to the nation's oldest national park.
  Yellowstone National Park covers 2, 219,791 acres, or 3,468 square miles. This area makes it slightly larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. 96% of the park is in Wyoming, in the northwest corner of that state, 3% is in Montana and 1% is in Idaho. Until approximately  15 years ago, Yellowstone had a unique distinction. It was not part of any county. It was, in a sense, its own county, or county equivalent, except that it had no county seat. I guess you could say the county seat was the Mammoth Hot Springs area in the northern part of the park, because that is where the administrative offices are and where the federal court is that deals with issues that occur within the park's boundaries.  
A legal issue issue was raised in 2005 that involved a man shooting an elk outside the park, in Montana, and dragging the elk inside the park. He wound up pleading guilty, but the park's special status was revoked shortly thereafter. All the county boundaries that had once run through the park were restored. Now, the park, once again, covers portions of Park and
Teton Counties, in Wyoming; Park and Gallatin Counties, in Montana and Fremont County, in Idaho.  When I started to see the county boundaries going through the park appearing on maps, I assumed it was a mistake, but it wasn't. Prior to the dissolution of the park's special status, each state was treating its portion of the park as a "county equivalent,"
 sort of a Yellowstone National Park County. The Census also treated each state's portion of the county as a "county equivalent," but that is no longer the case. If Yellowstone was a
"county equivalent," it was the only county-type unit in the United States that crossed state borders, covering parts of three states.
  The dissolution of the park's special status shortly after the legal issue came up about convening a jury from residents of the Montana portion of the park and holding the actual trial in Wyoming, at Mammoth Hot Springs, is very interesting to me and I don't know if it is coincidental or a direct result of the legal issue.  Even though the county boundaries through the park have been restored, there is still  a looming legal issue because Yellowstone is still its own federal district and this federal district still crosses state borders. If a crime were to be committed in the Idaho portion of the park, the Constitution of the United States requires that a jury be empaneled from Idaho residents that live within the district and that the trial be held in Idaho and, as I said earlier, no one lives in the Idaho portion of the park. It is basically the perfect crime waiting to be committed because, if a jury cannot be empaneled from the Idaho portion of the park, the charges would have to be dismissed, even if the crime is murder. So far, any crimes committed in the Idaho section of the park, or the Montana section, have been minor, such as poaching.  The solution to this jurisdictional nightmare is to make the Idaho portion of the park part of the Idaho Federal Judicial District and the Montana portion part of the Montana District. Yellowstone Judicial District was created when the park was created, in 1872, and Wyoming, Montana and Idaho were not even states yet, but territories. This situation has never been rectified. Even though the county boundaries through the park have been restored, the federal court district boundaries remain the same. The Wyoming portion is technically part of the Wyoming District, but it is the Yellowstone Division.

The "Feel Good" Story of the Year

    In March of 2012, the boys basketball team from Texline High School, in the far northwest corner of the Texas Panhandle, made a very impressive run to the state semi-finals, which were played in Austin at the Frank Erwin Center at the University of Texas. They lost the semi-final game, in overtime, to Roxton, a team from northeast Texas, in Lamar County. Roxton is a team that was completely destroying every team they met in the playoffs. Roxton was an extremely talented team that played like a well-oiled machine. Yet, the Texline Tornadoes, from an obscure town in the northwest corner of the Panhandle, took Roxton to overtime and almost won the game.
  Texline High School has only 36 students and only 14 of them are boys. 11 of the 14 boys were on the basketball team and this unlikely team came close to winning the state championship.
   At the "Final Four" in Austin, a lot of people were asking "Where's Texline?" The Texline Tornadoes became the "media darlings" of the state Final Four when it was learned how far they had to travel to get to Austin and the fact that 11 of the 14 boys in the school were on the basketball team. Texline had to travel 627 miles to get to Austin! That is the farthest anyone has ever traveled to get to the state Final Four in Texas high school basketball history.
  Towns in the upper Panhandle waved the Texline bus through their town as the bus made its long trip to Austin. Many farmers and ranchers in the area, in both Texas and New Mexico, held fund raising activities to raise money to send the Texline Tornadoes and many of their fans to Austin.
  This is what high school sports is all about, the only thing missing is the fact that Texline did not bring home a state championship. Stories like this are what I like to see. This is truly a "feel good " story and one that needs to be told.
   Begging my readers' indulgence, in the next edition of this blog, I am going to write about a different part of the country and abandon my project about the upper part of the Texas Panhandle. My mind wanders a little too much for my own good and I think it is probably best for me to keep "jumping around' and write about what is most interesting to me at that time. I want to write more about this state that I often daydream about, but have only been there a few times. I hope to visit this particular state some more in the future, but for now, I want to write about this state some more because it is at the forefront of my thoughts now.

Texline

   Near the northwest corner of the Texas Panhandle lies the tiny town of Texline, population slightly more than 500. It lies just 8 1/2 miles from Clayton, New Mexico and Clayton is where residents of Texline do most of their shopping and where they have most of their social activities, since there is also a movie theater and several restaurants, in Clayton.
  Most of the streets in Texline are dirt and many of them are rather rough. Texline is the oldest town in Dallam County. It was founded in 1888 when the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad set up  divisional offices and shops slightly more than half a mile inside the Texas Panhandle. This was less than one year after the rail line first entered Texas. The town that soon developed around the railroad shops took the name "Texline" due to its location close to the New Mexico border. At the time, New Mexico was still a territory. Three years later, in 1891, Dallam County was created by the Texas Legislature and, since Texline was the only town in the county, it was named county seat, a position it held for twelve years, until 1903, when the county government moved to the new, and bustling, town of Dalhart on the county's southern border. Due to the fact that Texline is the oldest town in the county, it can claim several "firsts." The first county courthouse, first school, first marriage license issued in Dallam County and the first public road, which led from Texline to the Northern Division Headquarters of the famous, but now defunct, XIT Ranch. I will have more about the XIT Ranch in another edition of this blog. Its history is integral to the history of Dallam County and this part of Texas in general.
  Texline today is basically a railroad town and a farming town, though the Fort Worth and Denver Railway liquidated in 1982 and the line is now owned by Burlington Northern. Texline sits at a lofty elevation of 4,673 feet above sea level, which, I believe, makes it the second highest town in Texas, behind Fort Davis, which is 5,050 feet above sea level. The grain elevator is one of the biggest employers in town, along with the school district and the town government.
  There is a claim that the Texline area is the only part of Texas where you can actually see the Rocky Mountains from Texas soil, but that is not all together true because the "official" end of the Rocky Mountains is just north of downtown El Paso, in far west Texas, at the foot of the Franklin  Mountains. There is a commemorative plaque in El Paso saying so. I guess it depends on what your definition of the Rocky Mountains is. At any rate, the mountains of northern
New Mexico can be seen from the Texline area, though they are more than 100 miles away, and that is something many people do not realize.
  Texline is located at the junction of U.S. Highway 87 and Farm Road 296 (a secondary state highway that is unique to Texas), and these are the only paved streets in town. Highway 87 parallels the railroad and it is a very busy highway and it follows one of the busiest rail lines in the country. Highway 87 runs at an angle, northwest to southeast, through part of New Mexico, across Dallam County and part of neighboring Hartley County. It is a four-lane, divided highway for most of that distance, but it is not a freeway. It does not have exits, instead it has
"grade crossings," or direct crossings, with connecting roads. In Texline, however, it is not divided, it is a four lane street that widens into a divided highway on each end of town.
  Texline was recently the subject a news story that made its way around Texas, and parts of New Mexico and Oklahoma, recently. It was the "feel good" story of the year. I will discuss that in the next edition of this blog.

The Northernmost Part of Texas

   I initially had only one travel blog, called "In My Travels," that was set up for me by my sister at the time when I didn't know how to create a blog. I wrote in that blog alot,  but I had so much stuff I wanted to write about that I created this blog, on my own. The first topic I wrote about in this blog was Union County, New Mexico, in the northeast corner of that wonderful and beautiful state. Union County borders Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado and is only 72 miles from the Kansas border. I said that I believe Union County is my absolute favorite county in the United States. I have written quite a bit about Union County and will write more about it in the future. 
  Meanwhile, in my other travel blog, I am resuming my writing about the Oklahoma Panhandle, that narrow, 34 mile wide strip of the state that sits above the top of the Texas Panhandle. All the while, I have basically neglected writing about the Texas Panhandle, which, along with Far Western Texas, is my favorite part of the Lone Star State.
   I will start with the northwestern part of the Texas Panhandle, to be exact, Dallam County.
Dallam County was created in 1876 and was named for James Dallam, a lawyer and newspaper publisher. It covers 1,505 square miles, which makes it one of the larger counties in a state that has 254 counties, the most, by far, of any state in the nation. One thing that is noticeable about the Texas Panhandle, when looking at a map, is the fact, most of the counties are the exact same size, give or take a few surveying errors. They were laid out to be 30 miles long and 30 miles wide with the county seat at, or near, the center, if possible. The county size is uniform except for the four counties in the northwest part of the Panhandle. These are Dallam, Hartley, Oldham and 
Deaf Smith Counties and these counties are almost double the size of all the other Panhandle counties, roughly 1,500 square miles compared to roughly 900 square miles.
  Dallam County is the coldest place in Texas, on average. The average date for the first freeze in Dalhart, the county seat, in Autumn, is October 16 and the average date for the last freeze in Spring is April 23, which are rather anomalous statistics for Texas, yet the Panhandle has been known to get snowstorms as early as the first week of October and as late as early May. The Texas Panhandle is also known for crippling blizzards and Dallam County has had blizzards where the snowdrifts have been as high as 30 feet! The average first freeze date for Dallam County's second largest town, Texline, is October 12 while the average last freeze date is April 27. A few years ago, I spent the night in Dalhart in the first week of September and the temperature got down to 28 degrees that night!
  Dallam County is next door to Union County, New Mexico, where I started this blog. The first Dallam County town I will write about is Texline, which is located just 8 1/2 miles from Clayton, New Mexico, the county seat of Union County.

The Town Too Tough To Die--Finale

  Today, Tombstone is a tiny town of 1,400 people that lives off of its Wild West fame. Daily re-enactments of the Gunfight at the OK Corral take place. Stagecoach rides are offered along Allen Street, which is in the historic heart of downtown. The Old Cochise County Courthouse is now a fascinating museum that is devoted to interpreting the history of this legendary town. The old courthouse is a state park and has been since 1959. It is Arizona's smallest state park, but one of the most heavily visited. It sat vacant for nearly three decades after the county government moved to Bisbee in 1929.
  A 3 block stretch of East Allen Street is now closed to vehicles and has been turned into a pedestrian-only street. The only vehicles allowed are emergency vehicles and delivery trucks that supply the stores in the area. Of course, the stagecoaches are also allowed. This stretch of the street was closed approximately five years ago after being discussed for several years before that, but the closure was postponed because the post office was located in that area. After the post office was moved to another part of town, the street was closed. At first, dirt was dumped on top of the asphalt to give the street more of a frontier look, but, every time it rained, the dirt turned into a sea of mud and flowed downhill, creating a horrible mess. Today, the street is still paved which does not add to the Wild West ambience at all, but the business owners do not want the pavement ripped up because they think it will make their businesses too dusty, and yet they want the street to look more authentic. Hmmmm. I think the pavement should be torn up, but I guess I really don't have a say in the matter.
One block away, there is a short stretch of East Toughnut Street that is closed to traffic. I noticed this on my visit to Tombstone last month. I am not sure what the reason for this closure is, but it does not seem to correspond to a partial closure of that street a few years ago. That closure was due to the fact that a mining tunnel underneath Tombstone has caused a portion of the street to collapse. Therein lies one of Tombstone's biggest problems today. It is severely undercut by mining tunnels that could cave in at any time because the miners a century ago cut their subterranean tunnels too close to the surface of the ground in their quest to extract as much silver 
and other minerals as possible.
  The Tombstone of today is a busy town, but nearly all of the employment is of the minimum wage variety. What surprises most people is the fact that the Tombstone school district is one of the poorest school districts in Arizona. After decades of holding high school and middle school classes in dilapidated facilities, they finally built a new middle school/high school combination on the edge of town, near the water treatment plant. However, they cannot afford to build outdoor sports facilities until the old high school and middle school are sold. They are currently playing baseball on the football field, on the edge of the historic district, even though the bathrooms were condemned by the city a few years ago and spectators have to use port-a-potties. They are playing baseball and football amongst abandoned buildings. The old high school is abandoned except for the gym, which is still used for basketball practice on an alternating basis between the boys and girls teams, and as dressing rooms for football games. The tennis courts at the old school are in such bad shape that they are almost unusable. Opposing teams have complained about Tombstone's sports facilities, but the athletic league knows the school district is doing everything they can to alleviate that situation.
  Tombstone  is a town that survives because of its legendary past. It is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Arizona, but there alot of problems that threaten this little town and many of the problems are the direct result of the town's legendary past.

The Town Too Tough To Die--The Legend

  The years that made Tombstone a legend lasted less a decade. The town of Tombstone was founded in 1879 and the 1880s were its glory years. The single most important event in the town's history, the Gunfight at the OK Corral, occurred on March 15, 1881, just two years after Tombstone's beginning. Of the decade of the 1880s, the most well known events happened from 1880 to 1882, just a three year span! There are other events during that decade that made Tombstone a legend, but this three year time span are the most well-known, the most important. These are the things that are keeping Tombstone alive to this day. The Wild West Days are what draw tourists to this otherwise obscure town in the high desert of southeastern Arizona. 
  Tombstone had its beginning in March of 1879 and by the time the 1880 Census was enumerated, the population had risen to about 3,500. One year later, it was up to about 11,000. In 1882 and 1883, the population was at its peak of around 14,000 people. Tombstone exploded from a barren patch of desert to a town of 14,000 people in about four years! 
  In 1881, the booming town of Tombstone became the county seat of the newly created 
Cochise County, just two years after the town was born.
Tombstone's meteoric rise to prominence was followed by a precipitous fall in the latter half of the 1880s, when the mines began to shut down, one by one.   In the 1890 Census, the population had dropped all the way to 1,800 and, by 1900, it had dropped to 650. When Tombstone lost the county seat in 1929 to the newly booming town of Bisbee, the population had fallen to about 200. After the county government left Tombstone and relocated to Bisbee, the Old Cochise County Courthouse, once humming with activity, fell into disuse and remained vacant until 1955, when restoration efforts were begun to restore the historic structure. The last county office moved out in 1931 and that was the beginning of a 24 year period that the building stood vacant. There was an attempt to convert the old courthouse to a hotel in the 1940s, but the plans fell through. The old courthouse was built in 1882 in the shape of a cross and it was constructed in the Victorian style. After restoration efforts were completed in the late 1950s, the Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park was created in 1959 and now the old courthouse is a repository of all things historical relating to Tombstone's fabulous and gaudy history. It is one of the best historical museums I have ever been too and one of Arizona's most visited state parks. The courtroom was restored to its 1882 appearance. Even the gallows behind the courthouse has been preserved. 
  Today, Tombstone is a town that survives because of its history, its Wild West history. That is really the only thing that is keeping the town alive today. After Tombstone lost the county seat in 1929, it was thought that it would become a ghost town because, since the mines had all played out and the county government relocated to Bisbee, people thought that this once famous town had no reason to exist anymore. But then, in the late 1950s, it tourism potential was realized and now over a million people per year visit Tombstone. When the tourist industry began in earnest  in Tombstone, the town's now famous slogan "The Town Too Tough To Die" was coined.

The Town Too Tough To Die

  Well, I guess I will take a little break from blogging about travels on Indian Reservations. I was getting a little burned out on it. I will return to it another time.
  Right now, I want to write about one of Arizona's most well known tourist attractions. The town of Tombstone is one of the most famous towns of Wild West lore in the world, if not the most famous.
  Everyone knows about the Earp Brothers;  Wyatt, Virgil, Warren and Morgan and Doc Holliday, who followed Wyatt Earp around everywhere he went. The Clanton and McLawry Brothers, who fought the Earps and Doc Holliday in the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral, are also well known  names that are associated with the legend and lore of Tombstone. Today, Tombstone's economic mainstay is tourism and its rich Wild West history. It is one of the most famous towns in the world.
  In the late 1870s, Ed Schieffelin, who once worked as an Army Scout,  was prospecting in the area that later became western Cochise County. He spent quite a bit of time in this area, even though the Chiricahua Apaches  had posed a big danger to anyone who dared venture into this area. After taking a short break from his prospecting work, he spent some time at Fort Huachuca to rest.  He told several friends what he had been doing and one of the friends, after hearing about Schieffelin's plans, said to him "Better take your coffin with you, you will find your tombstone there and nothing else." One of the soldiers said "The only rock you will find will be your
tombstone!"   Schieffelin ignored everbody's warning and headed back out into the high desert of southeastern Arizona Territory to continue looking for mineral riches. His first discovery came in the late summer of 1877 and he quickly filed a claim on his discovery and named the mine the Lucky Cuss. Shortly thereafter, a hastily built canvas and matchstick town called Watervale developed near the Lucky Cuss Mine, but it was really more of a mining camp than a town and was in a poor location . Almost immediately, plans were made to build a permanent town on a flat area nearby called Goose Flats. After a townsite company was formed, lots were sold for $5 each and they were immediately snatched up by people who wanted to partake in the mining wealth.While the permanent town was taking shape, two more silver veins were discovered and the subsequent mines that evolved were named the Tombstone and the Tough Nut. The first mine's name was a direct reference to what the two friends at Fort Huachuca had told Ed Schieffelin two years earlier and the second mine's name was in reference to the fact that someone had told  Schieffelin "You are a tough nut to crack!" The permanent town of Tombstone was born in March of 1879 and this is the town that is now famous the world over.

Ganado

  Ganado is a town on the Navajo Indian Reservation that has about 1,500 people. It is one of the most historic towns on the reservation. It got started in 1871 as a trading post that was established by Charles Crary. Within a year, a competing trading post opened for business and the tiny settlement took the name Pueblo Colorado, after Pueblo Colorado Wash, which is a dry river
 that runs just outside of town. Not surprisingly, mail hardly ever got to this town because it was constantly being sent to Pueblo, Colorado.
This situation existed for five years until the name was changed to Ganado, in honor of Ganado Mucho, the western leader of the Navajo Tribe and one of the signers of the Navajo Peace Treaty of 1868. "Ganado Mucho" is Spanish for "Many Cattle." His Navajo name was Totsohonii Hastiin, which means "Man of the Big Water Clan." This name change alleviated the mail delivery problem to the tiny community. The name change was brought about by Lorenzo Hubbell, who purchased Charles Crary's trading post in 1876 and this enterprise soon became the focal point of the fledgling community. Today it is still in operation and is part of 
Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service.
The park includes the still active trading post and Lorenzo Hubbell's home, which is open for guided tours. Hubbell opened quite a few trading posts, many of them on the Navajo Reservation, and became an important political figure in Arizona history. He ran for United States Senate in 1914, but lost. 
  In 1880, when an act of Congress enlarged the Navajo Indian Reservation, Hubbell successfully lobbied to have his land around the Ganado Trading Post excluded from the reservation, based on his previous status as a settler on the land. To this day, the 160 acres of land that make up the Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site, is a small "island" of land that is not part of the
reservation, but I am sure this "island" was larger at one time, back in Lorenzo Hubbell's day.
He wound up receiving official title to the land.