Arizona Legends and Lore

by Dorothy Daniels Anderson

  Water continued to be a problem. At one point Henry was transporting water from the Hassayampa on mule and selling it for ten cents a gallon. In time the surface gold was all mined out and Wickenburg did not have the mining skill or financial resources to search for underground gold and mine it.

  Having no training in mineralogy, Henry had no way of realizing the extent of his claim. Wickenburg eventually sold the mine to a Mr. Phelps, a rich man from New York, for $85,000. Phelps then funded underground exploration and the building of a processing mill.

  Although Henry had finally found his bonanza mine, his sense of business timing and his lack of mining knowledge worked against him. He was to have no financial part in the income of over $2.5 million in gold that the Vulture Mining Company produced during the years of 1866 to 1872. The mine had in fact more gold ore than that, but a goodly amount was high-graded or stolen by the miners during those early months of production. When the rich ore was fairly mined out, the mining then continued on a low-grade ore which had initially been passed over. Various estimates of the entire financial gain made at the Vulture Mine range from $7 to $12 million. Translated into contemporary financial terms, that return would have been worth over a billion dollars.

  Wickenburg used some of the money acquired in the sale of the Vulture to buy himself a farm near the mine where he was to live for the rest of his life. He also tried to invest his money in such schemes as Jack Swilling’s irrigation project for the Salt River Valley. Most of his investments proved unprofitable. Over the years, the size of his capital continued to diminish. Henry remained on his farm where he also ran a general store. In 1873, he was elected to serve as a member of the House of Representatives for the territorial legislature.

  He died at the age of 86 in 1905. The official cause of death was declared suicide, although many felt that Henry gave no indication of a desire to do away with his life. No suicide note was found. People who knew him recalled no indications of depression. These people believe he was murdered. They believed that someone came to the store and overpowered the old man in order to rob him. No evidence was ever found to substantiate a verdict of murder.

  A mining town named after Henry Wickenburg developed in the area near the Hassayampa River. Some 53 miles from Phoenix, the town, which had come close to becoming a ghost town after the Vulture Mine stopped producing gold, continues to flourish to this day, resurrected in part by the discovery of gold mines in the Bradshaw Mountains. The town lives with the same kind of conscious deliberation and determination that prompted its namesake to go on when others had long since given up.

  What causes a man to search for gold, and to go on year after gruelling year looking for treasure when the odds are stacked against a win and the bottom-line is often failure?

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Allen, J. S., “Henry Wickenburg and the Vulture Mine,” Federal Writers’ Project, Prescott, Arizona, State Capital Library.

  Arizona Gazette, “Henry Wickenburg,” May 15, 1905, page 1, column 3. The Arizona Republic, “Death of a Pioneer,” May 15, 1905.

  Farish, Thomas, History of Arizona , Arizona State Historian, Volume II, page 211.

  Goff, John S., Arizona Biographical Dictionary, Black Mountain Press, Cave Creek, Arizona, 1983.

  McClintock, James H., Arizona, the Youngest State , Volume II, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago, 1916, pages 404–405.

  Miller, Joseph, Editor, Arizona Cavalcade, the Turbulent Times , Hastings House, Publishers, New York, 1952.

  Pare, Madeline Ferrin, in collaboration with Bert M. Fireman, Arizona Pageant, A Short History of the 48 th State, Arizona Historical Foundation, Tempe, Arizona, 1967.

  Saturday Review, “Wickenburg History,” June 18, 1904, page 1, column 1, Phoenix, Arizona.

  Wagoner, Jay J., Arizona’s Heritage, Peregrine Smith, Inc., Santa Barbara and Salt Lake City, 1977.

  Williams, Governor Jack, From the Ground Up. Stories of Arizona’s Mines and Early Mineral Discoveries , Phelps-Dodge Corporation, 1981.

  Cyrus Gribble and the Vulture Mine

  Gold makes some men rich. Gold makes some men fools.

  Cyrus Gribble, the superintendent of the Vulture Mine, thought that he was smarter and more clever than any other man. In fact, Cyrus Gribble was absolutely certain that there was not a bandit alive who could possibly outsmart him, particularly that supposedly clever but dastardly bandit named Francisco Vega.

  Francisco Vega had acquired his reputation after a series of murders and robberies of some miners who were working Henry Wickenburg’s gold concentrate in the early days of the Vulture. If the Indians didn’t get the miners, it was Francisco Vega and his gang who did. Also, this deadly bandit was held responsible for the murders of the Barney Martin family. This pioneer family had sold their holdings in the Hassayampa area and were en route with the cash from the sale to settle in Phoenix. The family was last seen when they stopped at Seymore where Harry Cowell was keeping a station way-house. The Martins were expected in Phoenix and when they did not show up, a search party eventually found their burned remains near Castle Creek Mountain. The large amount of money which they had been carrying was gone.

  Now, in those days, around the year of 1888, there were no railroads in Arizona. The only way to transport gold bullion from the Vulture Mine to a bank was to haul it the 60 miles to Phoenix. Phoenix was the closest place with a bank that had a large, solid safe.

  For some years, the superintendent of the mine, a man named Elmore, feared this bandit, Francisco Vega, and was certain that Vega wanted nothing more than to rob the gold taken from the mine. To assure that the notorious robber would not be successful in holding up the Vulture’s gold, Elmore had devised a complicated scheme to get the processed ore to Phoenix.

  First, he told only a very few trusted people exactly when the gold was going to be sent from the mine. Then he would send several types of teams, each at varied times and on slightly different routes. No one except Elmore knew if the gold was traveling on a slow-moving freight wagon, several fast teams of horses, or with a couple of single riders on horseback. Sometimes the gold was with none of these, having yet to leave the mine. Elmore would never accurately divulge when the gold had arrived safely in Phoenix until a much later date. Consequently, no one ever knew for certain who had the gold until it had long been deposited in the Phoenix bank. This method of Superintendent Elmore’s was very successful and for years Francisco Vega had never been able to steal any of the Vulture’s gold.

  But then Cyrus Gribble became superintendent of the Vulture Mine. Gribble made fun of Elmore’s fear of the notorious bandit. He told anyone who would listen that he had his own method for transporting the gold. Sneaking around, having six different ways of getting the gold to Phoenix was not for him. From now on, he would announce to everyone exactly when the gold was going to be shipped. He had a plan. He would ship the gold to Phoenix in a way that would absolutely guarantee its safety.

  On the morning after a bullion clean-up, Cyrus Gribble would take the gold the 60 miles to Phoenix in broad daylight, using a pair of fast-footed black mares. These horses were the fastest anyone had seen in a long while. He would take along as the driver, Johnny Johnson, one of the best. Gribble would personally sit next to the driver holding a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun loaded with the heaviest buckshot. In addition to that, he also employed an outrider, Charles Doolittle, who was heavily-armed and was a crack shot, to ride about 100 yards ahead of the buggy to scout for trouble. Cyrus Gribble liked to brag that he could get the gold to Phoenix in spite of the robber Vega, in spite of the Devil and in spite of anyone else who would dare to try to rob the Vulture gold.

  Months went by and Cyrus Gribble continued to use his method of transporting the gold to Phoenix. Many folks tried to tell him that he was foolish to persist with this plan, but Cyrus Gribble merely laughed at them. “Haven’t months gone by without so much as the least little incident? Isn’t that proof enough that my plan is an absolute s
uccess?” People just shook their heads in disagreement.

  The Vulture Mine in early 1900s (Courtesy Arizona Historical Society, Tucson)

  Then one day, March 19, 1888, everything changed. The day for transporting $3,000 of bullion started off just like any other day. The ride was uneventful until the outrider and the buggy had traveled about 20 miles of the 60-mile journey. At that point there was a deep but wide arroyo made from some desert flash flooding. Within the arroyo, growing in a depression, was a clump of greasewood shrubs. Someone had added more greasewood branches to the original clump to make a thick screen for two men to hide behind.

  The outrider passed safely by the two hidden bandits, without noticing them. As he took his horse out of the arroyo and onto the desert, he was quickly shot by a man lying hidden in a dug-out rifle pit. By the time Gribble and Johnson heard the shot and realized what was happening, they had already passed the greasewood shrubs. With their backs to the bandits, they neither saw the robbers get up to shoot them nor were they in a position to easily return fire. Fatally wounded, Gribble tried to raise his shotgun to shoot and only succeeded in killing one of the black mares pulling the buggy.

  The first person to come along after the robbery and murders wasted no time. Riding at a gallop all the way to the sheriff’s office in Phoenix, he gave the alarm. A posse was immediately organized which included such notables as the district attorney, Frank Cox, Jim Murphy, Frank Prothero, Tom Davenport, Jack Halbert and Bud Gray.

  In spite of being many hours behind the assassins, the posse, with a speed only the most daredevil of horsemen could handle, traveled from Phoenix to the scene of the murders and then took up trailing the robbers. As far as could be ascertained there had been five in the gang. After grabbing the heavy brick of gold bullion, the bandits rode west toward the Hassayampa River. At the river the gang split up in order to confuse their pursuers. Two turned north following the river bed. The other three crossed the river and continued in a westerly direction attempting perhaps to make it to the Colorado River.

  During the third night on the trail, the posse believed that they had caught up with the bandits and had surrounded them. Concerned that they did not have enough men to successfully take on a shoot-out, they sent one of the posse, Tom Davenport, back to the Vulture Mine for reinforcements.

  By the time extra help had arrived, the fugitives had buried the heavy load and had managed to escape by slipping out of the area. They had been unable to divide the bar of gold because it had been alloyed with a metal which could not be broken with an axe.

  Once again the posse set out on the trail, at times getting so close to the fleeing robbers that shots were exchanged. It now became every man for himself, and the robbers, each going his individual way, were able to give the posse the slip. One of them, a man by the name of Inocente Martinez, was able to return to his home in Phoenix by a roundabout trail. A young Mexican boy who accompanied him managed to disappear. The other, a Francisco Valenzuela, managed to get across the border to Mexico where he escaped extradition back to the United States. Frustrated with the lack of success, the posse returned to Phoenix.

  Although there was no concrete proof of Inocente’s involvement in the robbery, his home was watched. Eventually he returned to the place where the posse had originally surrounded three members of the gang. There he was caught as he tried to dig up the massive gold bar. Inocente decided to fight it out with the posse and was killed in the ensuing battle. The gold was then returned to the owners of the Vulture Mine.

  But the famous Francisco Vega, the notorious leader of the gang, and his companion had simply disappeared. Six months later, in the town of Fairbank, some 10 miles from Tombstone, not far from the Mexican border, the sheriff arrested two men. One of the men was a short, handsome Mexican with black hair and white skin. The other was a tall black man. The tall black man was observed to be wearing the gold Elgin watch that Johnny Johnson had worn on the day of the murders and the Vulture robbery. Both men were indicted for murder by the grand jury of Maricopa County.

  The court trial was a furiously-fought legal battle. The prosecution produced witnesses who swore that the two men were seen around the Vulture camp a day or two prior to the murders. Another witness gave evidence that he had loaned the Elgin to Johnson that day to allow him to clock the speed of the two mares. He claimed he knew it was his Elgin because he had broken the watch when he had been thrown from a bucking horse in Texas and had had it repaired there. He pointed to marks on the watch to back up his identification.

  The defense brought in a ranch owner from Florence who swore that at the time of the robbery the two men were on the ranch in his employ. The prosecution’s case was destroyed when the defendants were able to produce two Phoenix jewelers who swore that the watch could not have sustained that kind of damage. In order to repair such damage a special tool would have had to be used and no such tool was available outside the factory of manufacture and a few major cities in the United States. The jury acquitted both men who were then set free. Neither man ever admitted to being the notorious Francisco Vega.

  As for Cyrus Gribble’s method of transporting gold to Phoenix, no one was ever so foolish as to use it again.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Arizona Weekly Citizen, March 24, 1888, page 2, column 4, an account of the murder. Phoenix Daily Herald, July 2, 1888, page 2, column 4, reward for apprehending the murderer. Goodman, Burt, “Bandits on the Hassayampa.” Scottsdale Progress, December 16, 1988, page 3.

  Miller, Joseph, Editor, Arizona Cavalcade, the Turbulent Times, Hastings House, Publishers, New York, 1962, pages 78–87.

  A Man Named Poston

  In traveling around the state of Arizona, have you often observed the word “Poston” on buildings and streets? Do you know about the town called Poston? If you are shaking your head in puzzlement over your lack of familiarity with the name, you are not alone. Yet, history and the very existence of Arizona owe a debt of gratitude to a man named Poston.

  After the 1500s, when the Spanish explorers had abandoned their expeditions in search of the seven cities of Cibola, the fabled cities of gold and treasure, Arizona became a forgotten place. Periodically a flag, Spanish, Mexican or New Mexican, would be posted on its soil to reflect the current political situation. Before the United States acquired Arizona, no more than a dozen American mountain men and miners attempted to penetrate one of the few places in the continent of North America that could boast of seven life-zone levels. Until this country claimed the vast reaches of Arizona desert, mountain and canyon, the land had been left unexplored, unconsidered and unwanted.

  On December 31, 1853, just one day after the signing of the Gadsden treaty, which purchased the southern section of Arizona from Mexico, an exploring party sailed from San Francisco. This group was headed by a man, a dreamer of utopias, who was destined to carve a territory and a state out of this uncompromising wilderness, give it a name and force it to be recognized by an unwilling and uninterested Congress.

  His name was Charles Debrille Poston. Born in Hardin County, Kentucky, on April 20, 1825, orphaned when he was just 12 years old, Charles Poston studied the law, married, fathered a child and settled down to the life of a practicing attorney much like his contemporary, Abraham Lincoln. But he was a dreamer and a romantic with no outlet for his visions until the gold discoveries in California inflamed the imaginations of thousands of people. Like so many others, Charles Poston became hopelessly afflicted with the yellow mineral fever.

  Leaving his wife and daughter in the hands of relatives, he set off for California, hoping to carve out a prosperous life for his family and himself. Thus began an odyssey that would bring him equal portions of fame, wealth, recognition, loneliness and poverty.

  Taking on the position of chief clerk in the San Francisco custom house, Charles Poston soon found himself in the employ of an agent for the family of General Augustino de Iturbide, who had inherited a large grant of land in what they believed was the new territory a
nd wanted it located and explored for its resources.

  Poston helped organize an expedition of 30 men, including several mining engineers, among whom was Christian Herman Ehrenberg. The party sailed to Sonora, Mexico. The journey did not live up to the high expectations of the leaders of the group. Their ship was blown off course. When they finally were able to get back on route, moving toward their destination, their hopes for a successful sea journey were further complicated. Caught in unexpected heavy seas, the ship was dashed against the rocks. The men were barely able to reach land safely before the ship sank. Once in Mexico, conditions did not improve. They were greeted with hostility by the Mexicans, still angry over losing so much of their land in the war with the United States. Eventually, after some days of tense negotiation, Poston and the rest of the party were given free access to travel to the new territory.

  Their explorations revealed the many possibilities of this land. Old Mexican silver mines were found. Specimens of gold, silver and copper were collected. Decaying missionary churches were located. Although everyone searched diligently for the boundaries to the Iturbide land grant, they were never found and subsequently could not be established. But, by the end of the trip, Poston and Ehrenberg were convinced that this new land had enormous potential.

  Still in his twenties, Poston already showed his ability to visualize the creation of new settlements, as well as his skill in cultivating friendships that would help him in the promotion of this territory.