By FENTON TAYLORPhotos by the AuthorMap by Norton Allen

S THE Gila River crosses theNew Mexico border into Ari-zona, it is already turning

northward to circle around the Pelon-cillo Mountains, a barrier of uptossedpeaks, buttes, and hills.

Entering the gorge it dug betweenthe Peloncillo and the Gila Ranges,the river turns southwest to roar be-tween steep basalt walls until it flowsinto the peaceful Gila Valley, whosefertile lands its harnessed waters havemade productive farms.

This area of mountains and hillsheld within the bow of the river oc-cupies a special place in my heart, forhere one spring afternoon a few yearsago, I picked up a piece of "petrifiedwax." Delving into the secret of thisstrange rock eventually turned me intoan avid rockhound.

I had driven the family out that wayto see if many poppies were blooming,but the flowers were as scarce as therains had been that season. We wereroaming the hills, the children eagerlyhunting rocks, for they were enthusi-astic rockhounds long before their Dad.

Suddenly I spied beneath a smallmesquite an odd white stone halfburied in the soil. Never before hadI noticed anything like this. Draggingit from its resting place, I held in myhand a fan-shaped rock nearly the sizeof my palm. The smooth swirls andconvolutions of translucent substanceforming the stone were of a highlywaxy luster. I was astonished at itsluminescent beauty.

"This looks like paraffin wax," Ithought and tried cutting it with myknife to no avail. I took my piece of"petrified wax," home for closer study.

Thus was a new rockhound born!Later, after I had studied about the

quartz family minerals and had ascer-tained the true identity of my unusualpiece of chalcedony, I discovered thatit fluoresced a beautiful light greenunder the short wave lamp, making itan even more valuable specimen formy embryo collection.

Many times since then I have gonechalcedony hunting in the "bow area"as I call it. It is a wonderful place forthe rockhound.

One time while on a field trip witha group of mineral club members, Istarted toward a small hill. A com-panion asked which way I was going.After I told him, he assured me, "I've

Gem Stones in the PeloncillosOver a wide area on the slopes of the Peloncillo Range in eastern

Arizona Fenton Taylor has found many varieties of the stones that aresought by collectors. While chalcedony is most prevalent, there aregeodes, obsidian nodules and several members of the agate family.For those who prefer a scenic landscape for their field trip outings, thisis a trip worth while.

This is the piece of "petrified wax"—actually a chalcedony rose—whichlured the author into the hobby of rock collecting. This was found in the

field described in this story.

already been over that hill. You won'tfind anything there."

Having had experience in followingothers before, 1 knew he was mis-taken. No single individual can findeverything. I have retraced my ownsteps and found wonderful specimensthat I missed the first time over. Onup the hill I went to find three smallagates of excellent cutting quality andthey all made fine cabochons.

The bow area with its variety of gemmaterials is easily accessible, for thenewly completed segment of Highway666 from the Gila Valley to the Clif-ton-Morenci district runs almost di-rectly through the center of the collect-ing area. From Safford, the businesscenter of the valley, it is just a shortdrive until a person can start looking

up and down the hills and in the

draws for chalcedony, some of it theprecious fire type, agates of great va-riety, and black obsidian nodules.

The broad new pavement leavesHighway 70 about 10 miles east ofSafford. Leading to the northeast, itis a straight stretch of road for thefirst few miles as it points to the upperend of the Peloncillo Mountains.

Highway 666 now follows the routeof an old toll road built in 1899 byFrancisco Montes and three friends,Victoriano Corrasco, Andres Serna,and Emilo Lopera.

Montes came to Arizona from theRio Grande country in 1873 and set-tled in the small town of San Jose,situated at the head of the Gila Valley.Because it was built near the ruins ofan Indian village, San Jose is some-times called Pueblo Viejo.

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Above—Going east from Safford, Highway 666 follows an old toll roadthrough the Peloncillo Mountains—making an easy access route to the col-lecting field. There is fair hunting on both sides of this highway for many

miles. The Peloncillos are in the background.

Below—Edith and Melvin, the author's children, in an area where theground is strewn with bits of white chalcedony.

Shortly after reaching his new home,Montes helped build the San Josecanal to divert river water to the farms.He and his neighbors began raisingmany crops, and soon they had a sur-plus of hay, grain, corn and pumpkins.

At that time, Clifton was a boom-ing mining town. Top prices were of-fered for garden produce. The farmersof San Jose loaded their wagons andtook their surplus to this top payingmarket.

Then it was a three-day journey toClifton, for the many sharp canyonsof the Peloncillo Mountains made adirect route difficult. The first day'stravel took the wagons to Ash Spring.Over the hills to Sheldon and the GilaRiver was the second day's journey.

On the third day they followed theriver to Guthrie, labored up an arroyofor a few miles, and finally angledover a steep mountain to strike theSan Francisco River at Ward Canyonjust below Clifton.

To save such a round-about triphome, the freighters discovered theycould cross the river at Guthrie andclimb the steep slope past GuthriePeak. It was a tough pull, but whenthey reached the summit, they haddown-hill grade the rest of the wayhome, saving both time and miles.

As Montes was making this trip,he conceived the idea of a toll road.With his three friends, axes, shovels,and pickaxes, they carved a roadthrough the mountains that was

scarcely more than a trail around thehillsides and up the grade towardThumb Butte, a tiny knoll that is aprominent landmark close to the sum-mit of the climb.

Using scrap lumber and tin, theybuilt a toll station on a hill that gavethem a good view of the road in bothdirections. Mexican folks gave it thename of La Grita.

Toll charges were 50 cents for eachteam and 10 cents for each horse witha rider. At the end of the first dayof operation, the new station keeperand the receipts disappeared, undoubt-edly heading for the Mexican border.After this incident, Montes operatedthe station himself.

Not long after the road was opened,the price for teams was lowered to 30cents. Operations went along smoothly.Finally, after a series of trades, Monteslost his original partners and gained anew one, Jose Gonzales.

One of the tasks of the stationkeeper was to watch the road for tolldodgers. Montes used a telescope tolook for approaching riders or teams.If he saw a rider begin to circle thetoll station, he would mount his horse,head off the rider, and collect the fee.

After about three or four yearsMontes sold his share of the road toLuther Green who opened stage serv-ice over the route. Green soon soldout to Morg Merrill and Ben Clark.

The toll road was in use until 1919when the new Safford-Clifton highwaywas completed by means of convictlabor under the direction of LamarCobb, the state engineer. Built chieflyas a scenic road, the new highwayconsisted mostly of narrow dugwaywinding through the canyons andaround the northern slopes of thePeloncillos. Many people labeled thisroad "Cobb's Folly" for it sacrificedconvenience for beauty.

Collecting along Highway 66 canbegin at almost any place a personwishes to stop. Good agate and chal-cedony specimens are scattered far andwide along its length up to the moun-tains.

All this material is float, of course,having been washed in and depositedby the Gila River as it carved canyonsand countless gullies. Hiking off theroad a few hundred yards in a bigsemi-circle will usually net the bestresults. I've never made such a circleand returned to the car empty handed.

Early morning or late afternoon isthe best time to hunt agates and chal-cedony, for the slanting rays of thesun are caught up in a distinctive glowby these quartz stones to make themstand out in sharp contrast to theirneighbors.

20 DESERT MAGAZINE

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General view of the large chalcedony deposit. The best huntingis just below the ledge in the right center of the picture.

About eight miles from the junction,the old highway comes up abruptlyagainst the new right-of-way fence.It is beyond travel now, but it windsamong a cluster of low lying hills tothe west that have yielded some of thefinest green moss agates of the area.Although they are not so spectacularas the ones from Montana, their pat-terns are such that they will makechoice cabochons.

A wash cuts around the north sideof this hill cluster. Its banks offer goodhunting. The rocky stream beds sel-dom have anything to offer. At oneplace the course divides to make anisland of a few acres of land coveredwith creosote brush and prickly pear.This island has yielded some very finebrown and red moss agates accentedwith inclusions of pale blue agate.

Anywhere along the road, especially

in the hills to the west which slopetoward the Gila River, the rockhoundwill find interesting collecting. I heardthe report that one collector found asection of petrified palm root here.

In this section of the bow area mem-bers of the Gila Valley Mineral Soci-ety once conducted a night field trip,a most unique and successful hunt forfluorescent chalcedony.

Scattered over these hills are small

D E C E M B E R , 1 9 5 3

obsidian nodules known as Apachetears. Appearing dead black, most ofthese pieces are translucent to trans-parent, and when cut and polished ex-hibit a lustrous dark beauty thatcatches the light in a deep, ripe-olivesheen.

Four miles beyond this area, as thehighway winds in ascent up the moun-tain slope, a pipe and wire gate admitsa seldom traveled road through thefence to the north. This is the en-trance to the big. chalcedony field.

For a mile and six-tenths the roadwinds over the hills, through a washfinally to top a sloping hill immediatelybeneath a basalt ledge. Here is chal-cedony galore — chalcedony of allshapes, sizes, color; huge white chunks,waxy delicate pieces, thumb sized car-nelian nodules, and red fragments.

Tiny chalcedony roses are widelyscattered. Finding matching pairs ofthese roses for earrings is a painstak-ing task but most rewarding for thewoman who wishes to add some uniquepieces to her jewelry box.

Prize of the field is the occasionalpiece of fire chalcedony which carefulstudy and cutting will turn into a cabo-chon nearly rivaling the opal for colorplay. One stone that 1 cut from thismaterial shows red, lavender, gold,bronze, and satin green color as it isturned in the light.

On these expeditions my childrennever fail to rout out a horned toad.On our last trip they found one thatwas exactly the same shade of reddishbrown as the rocks among which itlived.

A person can easily spend a full dayin this one location, but back on thehighway toward Thumb Butte it crossesto the right side, rounding a hill spottedwith cedars. This is nodule and geodecountry, not large specimens but con-taining interesting crystals and exhibit-ing, in some cases, a pale apricot fluor-escence.

Just beyond this point the roadreaches the summit. Here, to the leftagain, is another chalcedony deposit,not so good as the first one, but offer-ing fine material to the diligentsearcher.

Then the paved way dips down thegrade up which Francisco Montes andhis comrades labored their wagons. Insweeping curves it drops to the newbridge spanning the Gila River andjoins State Highway 75. In the dis-tance a white smoke plume marks thetall smelter chimney of Morenci.

Yes, the bow area is dear to myheart. It has a variety of gem stonesand beautiful scenery. I've never spenta day there that I have not gone homewith my heart as full as my knapsack.

Marjorie Frank used her Life-on-the-Desert prize check from DesertMagazine to send a Happy Easter—"complete with chocolate bunnies"—to her Navajo friends of the ta chii niiclan. Miss Frank's winning story,which appears in this issue, tells of aChristmas vacation spent with the In-dian family in their hogan in SteamboatCanyon, Arizona.

It was in 1945, on a visit with herparents from Buffalo, New York, thatMarjorie first came to know the West.She was fascinated with the countryand, after graduation from a Californiacollege, returned to the Navajo reser-vation as a teacher.

She came to know her Navajo pupilsand to love them. "They came fromall parts of the reservation to acceptthe privilege of attending school," sheremembers. She chaperoned some ofthe youngsters home at vacation time,met their families and knew the warmhospitality of their simple hogans.

In 1950, Miss Frank left the Indian

Service to accept a position with theAlbuquerque city school system.

• • •Gaston Burridge, author of "Last

of the Mountain Men," the story ofBen Lilly which appears in this issue,was born February 24, 1906, in south-ern Michigan, in the little Indian townof Tecumseh on the banks of the Rai-sin River.

Burridge early learned to love theoutdoors, and he spent many boyhoodhours roaming the woods, canoeingdown the Raisin, exploring the wilder-ness areas near his home.

He came to Southern California in1927 and went into business with hisfather. In 1951, the business was sold,and Burridge returned to his hobby,painting and writing, for a living. Helives in Downey, California.

• • •Robert N. Carlile, who recounted

his homesteading troubles with thegovernment in his Life on the Desertstory (October, 1953), reports he hasreceived some compensation for theloss of his Mojave Desert tract. "Inearly September," he writes, "I re-ceived a check compensating me forreturning all rights to the homesteadto the United States government. Theamount of the check just covered mycash investment."

The desert in Winter...Whipped white clouds marching across a vivid blue sky, color

and form bold and true in the clear air, desert flora lush after a rainor stark against a blanket of snow—in winter the desert landscape isperfect for the photographer. Any amateur who is familiar with hiscamera and knows the elementary rules of good composition can geta good picture—and possibly win a prize in Desert Magazine's Picture-of-the-Month contest.

Entries for the December contest must be in the Desert Magazineoffice. Palm Desert, California, by December 20, and the winningprints will appear in the February issue. Pictures which arrive toolate for one contest are held over for the next month. First prize is $10;second prize $5.00. For non-winning pictures accepted for publication$3.00 each will be paid.

HERE ARE THE RULES1—Prints for monthly contests must be black and white. 5x7 or larger, printed

on glossy paper.2—Each photograph submitted should be fully labeled as to subject, time and

place. Also technical data: camera, shutter speed, hour oi day, etc.3—PRINTS WILL BE RETURNED WHEN RETURN POSTAGE IS ENCLOSED.4—All entries must be in the Desert Magazine ofiice by the 20th oi the contest

month.5—Contests are open to both amateur and professional photographers. Desert

Magazine requires first publication rights only of prize winning pictures.6—Time and place of photograph are immaterial, except that it must be from the

desert Southwest.7—Judges will be selected from Desert's editorial staff, and awards will be made

immediately after the close of the contest each month.

Address All Entries to Photo Editor

Veunt 7H*$*fiH* PALM DESERT. CALIFORNIA

22 DESERT MAGAZINE