Globe-Miami’s Place in History

By Jim Turner, Arizona Historian

Whatever happened to Globe? From prehistoric times to the 1960s, the mining towns of Globe, Miami, and Superior played an important part in Arizona’s history. In the months to come we will tap the history books, as well as diaries, memoirs, and even legends, to unearth these buried treasures from an area that used to be much more well known.

Getting down to basics, Arizona history is about water, minerals, and Apaches. In prehistoric times the most important of that trio was water. Anthropologists, like realtors, believe that there are three important items that make for a perfect home: location, location, location. Since much of Arizona is semi-desert, water supply is a key item in settlement patterns. The largest native populations in the state lived near water and it is no accident that the Hohokam and later the Salado cultures thrived in the Globe-Miami area. It would be hundreds of years before Europeans started to search the Southwest for something more valuable to them than water.

The California Gold Rush of 1849 had more impact on mass migration, the world economy, and society than any other single event before or since the discovery at Sutter’s Mill. Not only did it foster the first big joint-stock corporations and fund the Industrial Revolution, it also shifted the minds and souls of the common man from a rural-agrarian homespun religious base to a get-rich quick materialistic focus.

When the gold “panned out” in California, a large backwash of prospectors headed east to strike it rich in Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona. Gila County’s silver and copper deposits figured largely in the state’s mining history.

But metallic riches brought Anglos into an area already populated and as renowned historian Robert Utley said, there was bound to be a “conflict of cultures.” The struggles of the people we know as Apache make Arizona’s history different than any other state; the Globe-Miami area was right in the middle of the earliest action just after the Civil War. A few years later ranchers prospered in relative safety after General Crook enlisted Apache scouts to track down the resisters and put them on reservations.

Globe is so much a part of the legendary Wild West that Ed Schieffelin – whose fame began when he found his Tombstone silver mine – and even Billy the Kid walked its dirt streets in the 1870s. There were the usual robbers, posses, and lynchings, but also things the movies usually ignore, such as Chinese, Cornish, and Welsh immigrants. But by the turn of the century the frontier era was just about over and people began to arrive for still other reasons.

Copper was king and cattle ran a not-so-close second. But once the railroads and automobiles arrived another of Arizona’s “Five C’s” – Climate – drew people to Globe and Miami. The Fred Harvey Company offered “Indian Detours” along the Apache Trail, the fresh air attracted Healthseekers, and the lake created by the Theodore Roosevelt Dam brought fisherman, boaters, and campers.

In the weeks that come, this column will feature stories about the importance of the Globe-Miami area to Arizona history from the earliest residents, through statehood, to “the future of our history.” We’ll talk about the famous personalities that made the area unique, from Indian scouts Al Sieber and Corydon Cooley to the salt of the earth ranchers and lawmen that left their legacy in memoirs and letters to their loved ones Back East. Whether you’re a pioneer descendent or relative newcomer, we think you’ll find these stories educating and entertaining.