There are storied moments in history which shine light on those who made history and those who remember it long past the actual event. The Dream Team of 1951 made up of  mostly Mexican kids from Bullion Plaza led by Vandals Coach Ernie Kivisto created many magic moments during that season which still resonates nearly 60 years later with the re-telling.

Playwright and journalist, James E. Garcia of the New Carpa Theater was introduced to the story by Robert Revelas ( who graduated in 1951 from Miami) nearly two years ago.

“He was familiar with my work and invited me to Miami to look around. We knew there was a story here.” The two ended up at the Miami Sports Hall of Fame- housed in the Miami Library.  In a sea of awards and accolades which have been heaped on Miami coaches and players over the last fifty years, it was the ’51 Season of the Mighty Vandals which stood out in Garcia’s mind. “This is the story I wanted to tell,” he says. “It is about perseverance… and going against the odds to achieve.”

The story takes place in 1951, just three years before the Supreme Court ruled on school segregation, and here in Globe-Miami, Bullion Plaza Elementary was the school for mostly Mexican American and Apache kids. They came from “less than privileged” backgrounds and were used to playing with hand me down uniforms and shoes.

It wasn’t until Coach Kivisto fought to get the team new uniforms and new shoes that many of the kids put on “new” for the first time in their life. As one player recounts, playing sports was “…a good way to keep our minds off how poor we were.” No doubt the kids from Miami were athletic.

There had been Vandal success stories before Kivisto arrived in ’48, but it was Kivisto’s new style of basketball involving “The Fast Break,” and his ability to pull his players together into one smooth scoring machine which helped push the Dream Team to break all State Records that year. Even their own.

James Garcia and his New Carpa players put on a shortened version for a group of Globe-Miami school kids at the Hersberger Theater.

On their way to the class B State Championship that year they inspired accolades from the community, sports writers and even big city sportswriters who scrambled to come up with new superlatives to describe the players and their amazing performances on the courts.

This was a team which consistently beat others by 40-50 points and averaged nearly 85 points per game. And at a time when coaches could be fired for loosing too many games, Coach Kivisto and his boys were instead criticized by some for winning too much and scoring too many baskets against the other team. In fact, in a pre-game lead up to the Clifton game, the team received “ two anonymous letters threatening violence if Acevedo and Truijillo shot over 15 pts in the game.” A Sheriff’s detail followed the team that night to the game and the Mighty Vandals won over their #2 rival Clifton: 122 – 58.

It wasn’t all about basketball though with Coach Kivisto. He coached them off the court as well and required all of his players to wear a suit and tie on game day. If they couldn’t afford those things he paid for them out of his own pocket. He fought for new uniforms – silky rayon, not cotton, and the team was the first in the League to play in white high-top tennis shoes. Kivisto wanted them looking like the all-star team he knew them to be.

Years later Kivisto said of the 1951 team, “ The 1951 Miami High School team was without a doubt the best high school team I have ever seen or coached, even today. They would fast break any team I have ever seen, coached or will ever coach. I shall always be thankful for that great opportunity to coach such a dedicated group of fine boys…I was fortunate to be at Miami when I was blessed with the finest, dedicated talent any coach could ever ask for.”

The ’51 Season has been recorded in numerous articles and in 2008 Sony Pena, compiled and authored a book which pulled together all the press clippings of that amazing season entitled: “The Might Miami Vandals.” It is available through the Miami Public Library and the Hispanic Institute of Social Issues.

But it is James Garcia and his New Carpa Theater Co. which is bringing the story to life on the stage. The New Carpa Theater which was formed by Garcia, focuses on Latino and multicultural theater works. Last September, he produced a one-hour play for the lunch theatre at the Hersberger Theater Center in Phoenix. Using just  7 actors, the play deftly conveys the story of this remarkable team and their coach.

Kivisto was a coach who taught them “the importance of teamwork in competitive sports and that sports belonged to everyone.” The message was clear. Basketball was a way of leveling the playing field for kids who came from a less-privileged life with working class parents. Kivisto was a coach who cared about those things that matter most in life: Heart and Hustle. And he found both in the kids from Miami.

This is a story worth the re-telling again and again and James Garcia and his New Carpa players are doing just that. Garcia hopes to premier the full length version of the play this Fall Miami if he can find the right venue to handle a crowd…because anyone knows that when you bring The Mighty Vandals to town, you’ve got to be prepared for a packed house!

Local Author,  Sonny Pena published “The Mighty Miami Vandals” which compiles all of the newspaper clippings of the Kivisto years and that amazing ’51 season. You can see an excellent book review at The Book Bank - Blog.

Christine Marin has also published an excellent account of those years with Kivisto entitled, “Courting Success and Realizing the American Dream: Arizona’s Mighty Miami High School Championship Basketball Team, 1951.
It is available on-line as a PDF at gmteconnect.com/Mighty Vandals.

Side Bar:

Kivisto introduced his players to a new style of play called the “Fast Break” – something the Phoenix Suns today are known for today – but back then Kivisto was the first high school basketball coach in the state of Arizona to initiate the fast break and the “weave”, or “figure 8” on the court. Combined with his kids athletic ability and determination, the 1951 Vandals broke all kinds of national records that year including:

Had 3 time outs to opponents 125 in 27 games
Scored 970 points in 10 home games for an average of 97 per game
Average of 84.7 in 27 games to break former average of 70.1-set by Miami in 1948
In 27 games outscored the opponents by an average of 40 points per game.

“Former East Aurora coach Ernie Kivisto — to his dying day — insisted the shot came after time expired. It remains vivid in East-West lore, however. West went on to place third in the state.”  Quoted in Tulsa Daily Herald in 2007 .

Arizona Highways will be doing a feature piece in their August issue on historic schools throughout the state . Photographer, Richard Mack was in town yesterday to photograph Bullion Plaza in Miami which now serves as a cultural center and museum.  The school was “…opened in 1923 as a segregated school for Mexican and Indian children in the area. It became a place of pride and through the efforts of many,evolved from a close-minded,segregated school system, to one of equality and opportunity.  (See our piece on the Mighty Vandals of 1951) .

The school was abandoned in 1994 and later purchased by the town of Miami for $75,685 in 1997. Then mayor, Joe Sanchez, appointed a committee to determine the future use of the building and in July of that year, it was decided to establish a Cultural center and Museum.

In April 2009, the museum was awarded a $2000 grant, thanks to the efforts of Tom Foster and Cynthia Bach who submitted the grant application to the program known as “Wings Like Eagles.” This allowed the museum to enhance many of the mining, and ranching displays and begin to develop more areas within the facility for public displays etc.

The Fall of 2009 saw the “…completion of a five-year effort by the Museum to remove and replace the deteriorated roof of the main Bullion Plaza School

building. Thanks to Congressman Ed Pastor, the Museum received two Housing and Urban development grants in 2004 and 2005 totaling $146,716 which, combined with hundreds of hours of volunteer labor enabled the museum to replace/repair the roof.

The Museum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and hosts First Fridays, a program of speakers who give talks on the people and culture of this region.

“To the living Apache of Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma- 
In sorrow at what they lost, and awe at what they saved.” 

So begins the account by David Roberts of the Apaches of the Southwestern Deserts. It is one of the best accounts of the resiliency and strategic brilliance of the Apache leaders including: Cochise, Geronimo, Victorio, Mangus and others. Roberts does not mince words in describing the atrocities that occurred during this dark period. His accounts are well researched and written in a style which puts you on the same playing field as the Apaches. Faced with a much larger, well equipped enemy, the leaders did what others have done before. They defined guerrilla warfare. And in doing so, they succeeded against great odds. Shepherding their bands of women,children and elderly from harm and fighting major skirmishes with only a few warriors. In the end, the encroachment of whites into the territory was overwhelming. But one cannot help but feel as Roberts does…and be in awe of the Apache and what they preserved.

“Roberts has achieved near perfect focus upon a people and their times…A brilliant,poignant history.” Jeff Long,Chicago Tribune

Once they moved like the wind from Amazon.com.   You can also check out more books like this at The PickleBarrelTradingPost .

The Pickle Barrel Trading Post  and The Book Bank represent a wide variety of southwestern authors and subjects.

There is not enough darkness in the world to put out the light of even one small candle. ~ Robert Alden

The fight for equality began in North Carolina, in 1961, at a Woolworth. That day, four young black men demanded to be served lunch at a whites-only counter. The battle for civil rights also began in Montgomery, when a young woman refused to move to the back of the bus. It also started with the resulting bus boycott, led by a young man named Martin, who later marched into our nation’s capital and told the American people about his ‘Dream’.

Woolworths-UK-Wikipedia

The fight began again, eighteen days after that march on D.C., when four young girls were killed in a bomb explosion at a popular, black church. Its beginnings were also in 1962, when a young man named James Meredith enrolled in the University of Mississippi, causing riots so fierce, President Kennedy had to send 5,000 troops, all because one black man wanted to pursue an education. In May of 1963, guns, dogs and fire hoses were turned on protesters in Birmingham. This act was televised around the world, and not only was this day the beginning of the fight for civil rights; it was also a shameful and embarrassing moment for America, throughout the world.
In 1948, President Truman passed an Executive Order. “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.” This was the first day of the movement toward equality, and a response to the horrendous way the men who had served and died for their country were being treated by the very government they fought to protect. The military, this honorable institution, these Defenders of the Constitution had to be told that they were going to be held accountable for ignoring an Amendment that had been added to that same Constitution 80 years prior, the Amendment of justice for all.
I will forever be baffled at the ability for some to be able to ignore that, which they fight so hard to preserve, their own country’s Constitution.
Again…
The fight for equality began, but did not end, because of the Emancipation Proclamation. The Civil War, of which 200,000 black men fought and thousands died for their own freedom, was also the beginning of the movement.
The fight for equality began in the churches, the small towns and the larger cities. It began with that farmer, who refused to buy human beings, in the ship captains who refused to transport people like cattle and even in the landowners who paid fairly, treated humanely and never let the workers believe they couldn’t leave if they so choose. These people were instrumental in the cause itself, as was the Underground Railroad, the writings of the abolitionist and the work of communities like the Quakers, who chose to live the teachings of the Bible, rather than re-interpret it to fit their needs.
Where the fight also began, was in the fields and the farmhouses of America. It began in men and women who worked from first light until moonlight. It began in mothers who watched their children be shouted at by white women, men who watched their wives be whipped or worse, and wives who watched their husbands lower their heads, lower their voices and become submissive to a human being half their worth. The fight began in those first words of their prayers, the first jingle of their laughter and the first note of their songs.
These songs were called Spiritual Songs and Freedom Songs. They sang not only to praise God or remember their old lives, they sang about a new life, a new day in which they would be free. But they sang about something else as well. Their songs were messages, codes their fellow slaves. Songs informed about the Underground Railroad, nearby runaways, how to navigate by stars and one song even provided an ‘oral’ map of how to get to Canada. Songs told them what time of the year to run, as some rivers were only crossable in winter, when they had frozen over. These songs worked their way from plantation to plantation. They existed as both a means of survival and defiance.
That was when the movement began. When these men and women went against an unjust law, the only way they knew how. They put their lives on the line not because they thought things could change for them, in their circumstance, but because they knew that there had to be a better way for their children, and their children’s children. Every single person who fought, every marcher who walked and every speaker who shouted and stood for a moral cause, they are when the movement began.  Every worker who declined to ride a bus to work, every student who refused to move from a counter and ever man, woman and child who faced the clubs, the dogs and the hate just to cast a vote, eat a sandwich or walk to a classroom, these are all parts of the same movement.
Again…
For a man to wake up in the morning, put on his best clothes and step out his door knowing that today, his color may cost him his life, was a new beginning for the march toward moral justice. Every mother who sent her child into a world of people, who would hurt him at the drop of a hat, that moment, and each moment like it, was her first day of the march. The movement may have started so long ago, but the choice to either sit aside or to join in step, with conviction, toward a moral society, that is when the cause for good starts again and again.
Those four men who sat at that counter at Woolworth demanded to be seen as human beings. They sat, as small flames of resistance, in an America shadowed by the ignorance and hatred of racism. They only had the history of their ancestors behind them, the struggles and the fears of generations to comfort them. They had joined the march, little steps along a long road, but they were willing to take those steps. Today, inequality still exists in America, for minorities, homosexuals and women, but the march for justice continues to move forward. We can watch, and hope things change, or we can join in, and the moment you stand and say ‘ENOUGH’, that is the day the fight begins again.
The next day at that Woolworth, 25 students sat with them, soon it grew to 60. Within a few days, over 300 people in 70 establishments across the South were sitting in for their rights as citizens. Thousands performed sit-ins all across America. Libraries, swimming pools, movie theatres and parks saw a wave of defiance begin to turn the tide throughout this great land.
The most amazing part of the story is what Franklin McCain, one of the original four, tells happened that day. He says that as they sat there, having been refused service, an older white woman stood up and walked toward them. He wasn’t sure what was going to happen or what type of hate might spew forth.
I’m sure, by this time, they had learned that racism knows no age, sex or religious boundary. The man who goes to church on Sunday could just as well have been at a Klan meeting the night before. Racism was rampant and a source of pride, displayed in windows and on water fountains and shouted from the pulpit. But within so much fear and hate, what could sometimes seem like an overwhelming oppressive cloak of darkness, there are sometimes little flickers of light that shine through.
Mr. McCain, at that lunch counter, says that little old lady walked up to him, placed her hand on his shoulder, smiled and said, “Boys, I am so proud of you. I only regret that you didn’t do this ten years ago.”
And yet again…
And that moment was when the Civil Rights movement began again, for those boys, that woman, that town and this country. The movement begins again and again, every time we teach our children that race is not a factor, other religions are not to be feared and diversity should be celebrated. The movement begins again every time a woman demands equal pay, guilt is not assumed based on the color of the person or the clothes they wear and the right to marry who you love is celebrated, not voted against because of someone else’s definition of right or wrong.
This fight will never end. There will always be those who want to oppress others, because of their feelings of inadequacy or lack of self-worth, misinterpretation of their ‘values’ or just blatant ignorance.  Those in the minority will always face a battle of acceptance, and equality, will often be an uphill climb.
Of course, the wave of hate and fear toward diversity will dig in its heels. It may be hinted at in church, in the lunchroom or by the talking heads on television, and sometimes it will have the strength to even pull itself up to its knees. But in the end, those four boys, that elderly lady, those four little girls, the woman on the bus, the man who died outside that motel room and those who sang in the fields those many years ago, they are the army of lights moving us forward against the darkness.
Six months later, those original four men were served lunch at that same counter. The powers of the human spirit, to stand up for what is right, will always overcome ignorance and hate, every time. And I like to embrace the fact that eventually, flames become bonfires.
~ FIN ~

A reprint from an article submitted to GMT Fall ’07. It reflects the memories of growing up in Miami, and a close encounter with a famous “destination” known simply as “The Keystone.”

At a time when there were few jobs in town, especially for a 15 year old boy, Ryan-Evans Drug Store was hiring a stock boy that year. I had been told in no uncertain terms by my parents that they would not provide me with money, nor would they allow my grandmother to do so, and so I jumped at the opportunity to apply. Much to my surprise, I was selected for the job which paid 50 cents an hour and thus began my working career. I worked every night after school until 9 O’clock, all day Saturdays and 3 hours on Sundays.After several months on the job, Alan Robertson, store manager, decided I had enough intellectual ability to work both the floor and the fountain and he promoted me. Of course, this reduced the number of hours he had to pay the higher paid help.

The #5 store of Ryan Evans sat at the corner of Live Oak and Adonis avenue in Miami, and contained a Soda Fountain which was popular with folks. This, and the fact that Joe Ryan had negotiated an agreement with the Miami Copper Company to fill their employee’s prescriptions at cost plus 10% encouraged a constant stream of customers into the store. With the Miami Post office located right next door, many people would stop in for a cup of coffee or a coke after picking up their mail.

At the time, there was a group of regulars: leading businessmen, who would stop in every morning at 9am like clock work. They included Mork Schwartz of Schwartz Lumber Company, Cecil Trussell and Charlie Clark, Valley National Bankers, Maurice Case and Freda Miles of Miles Mortuary and very often Mr. Robertson, my boss, would join this little group.

Working the counter, and listening in to their conversation,  I learned more about the comings and goings in town, than through all the radios and newspapers. And on a regular basis one of the men would lean over and ask Freda Miller what Joe was recommending. Conversation would stop and all heads would turn for the answer. This little ritual perked my interest and I asked Mr. Robertson who this “Joe” was that everyone seemed to put so much store in what he had to say about the stock market.  Turns out it was Joe Refsnes, a former Valley National Banker, a relative of Sonny Mills and a founding partner of the investment firm of Refsnes, Ely, Beck and company which was one of the most important financial firms in the Southwest.

From that day forward whatever Freda said that Joe said……I did.

And that was not the only thing I learned about life while working the counter at Ryan-Evans. At the time there were two stores in Miami, and it was the #6 store, located on Sullivan Street (several block from my store), next to the Grand Theater, which served a different group of regulars. They were known by all as the “girls from the rooms” and they never set foot in the store before 8pm when respectable folks were safely ensconced into their homes. Store #6, was their favorite, not only because it was convenient to the Theater, but managers, John and Hazel East welcomed the business and enjoyed for many years, an almost exclusive un-spoken contract with the girls whose needs for high-end toiletries provided a good deal of revenue for the store..

But that all changed one year while I was still employed by store #5. It was because Johnny East, an avid bowler, almost always attended the Arizona State Bowling Championship Tournaments, which forced the Corporate Office of Ryan-Evans to send out a replacement pharmacist to cover his absence. One year, the replacement they sent was not only a pharmacist, but also a part-time preacher, and on his second day on the job, three ladies of the night , just after 8 O’Clock, came into the store to buy their wares. The part-time preacher/pharmacist recognized them for what they were immediately and with great disdain, ejected them from the store.

And that is how I came to meet the Ladies of the Night.

They walked over to store #5 where I was working the counter, and while I didn’t peg them as the “girls from the rooms”, I knew they didn’t look like members of Grandmothers Budge Club. That night they spent a nice sum of money in the store and left with a promise to come back. They did every night after that and became regular customers at store #5… much to the consternation of John and Hazel East.

……………………..To be Continued

This Fall we will bring you “the rest of the story” from John Michael and the “girls from the rooms” as well as a feature on The Keystone, one of the most famous bordellos in the State, which was closed down in 1967 when the manager had the audacity to place an ad in the local yellow pages and raised the ire of the good town-folk in the area who demanded the place be closed.

You can see the holiday spirit coming all the way from here to Christmas – Christmas, Arizona, that is. But you can’t go to Christmas any more, nor can you mail your holiday cards from the U.S. Post Office there, because it closed in 1935. For a state with such unusual locations as Big Bug, Bagdad, Gripe, and Snowflake (named after Erastus Snow and William Flake), it should come as no surprise that there once was a town called Christmas, Arizona. It all began when prospectors filed copper mining claims in the southern tip of the Dripping Springs Mountains about six miles northeast of Winkelman between 1878 and 1882.

But the land was inside the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, and it didn’t seem too promising at the time anyway. The mines were considered duds. However, as telephones and electric lights created demands for lower-grade copper wire in great quantities and Globe became a boom town, miners cast a new eye on passed-over claims. At the urging of mining entrepreneurs interested in Gila County claims, the United States Congress reduced the area of the San Carlos reservation in 1902, redrawing the borders to exclude the mineral-rich areas. According to Arizona Daily Star reporter David Wichner, one of these men, George B. Chittenden, set up a relay of horsemen so he would get the first news of the enactment from the nearest telegraph office in Casa Grande. This may be the same George Chittenden listed as owner of a gold quartz mill in Bear Creek, Mariposa County, California, in 1864. In any case, he knew the mining business well enough to understand that filing the first claim on the best prospects made all the difference. Chittenden learned about the newly opened land on Christmas Eve, and filed his claims on

Chittenden at Christmas, Az. Courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society

Christmas Day, which also happened to be his birthday. He became the first postmaster when a post office was established in Christmas on June 17, 1905. For more than twenty years, Christmas was a thriving little mining community on the banks of the Gila River with more than 1,000 residents, a church, a school, a barber shop, and even a hat shop. Every year during the holidays people from all over the country kept the post office busy stamping the official U.S. Post Office cancellation that read “Christmas” on their cards. The mines closed during the Depression when copper prices dropped, but re-opened in the 1940s and continued to open and close with the boom and bust cycle common to western mining. They finally closed for good in 1983, again because of plummeting copper prices. All that remains of the town now are holes dug into the mountainsides, concrete slabs that once supported heavy equipment, and a small graveyard. But you can’t even visit the remains of Christmas these days. Phelps Dodge acquired the property in 1999 and the sign on the locked gate stretched across the narrow dirt road says “No Public Access.” Perhaps as the demand for copper rises again with the huge worldwide demand for computers, Christmas may be reborn in Arizona. In the meantime, there are also towns named Christmas in Florida, Michigan and Mississippi – and of course, North Pole, Alaska.

For more information on Christmas, please check out this 2005 story in the Arizona Republic by writer Barbra Yost. It is an excellent account of the mine,the man and the town called  Christmas.

By Arizona Historian Jim Turner and Pioneer Newsman George H. Smalley

Several years ago I had the good fortune to interview Mrs. Yndia Smalley Moore, born in Tucson in 1902, and former Director of the Arizona Historical Society. She told me many stories about her father, George H. Smalley, who was District Clerk in Globe from 1905 through 1912.

A typical prospector is shown here in "camp." Circa late 1800's about the same time period as George Smalley's article. Photo courtesy of Gila County Historical Museum

Lung problems forced Smalley to move to Arizona in 1896. Like many other authors exiled to the Southwest for their health, Smalley got a job as a reporter. He covered the mining beat for the Phoenix Republican, but wrote stories for St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco newspapers. Mark Twain and Bret Harte made Wild West stories popular, and Smalley kept up the tradition with down-to-earth stories of cowboys, prospectors, and even outlaws he met in his travels across Arizona and Mexico.

Interstate 17 from Phoenix to Flagstaff is full of interesting signs denoting our Old West prospecting past, with colorful names such as Bumblebee, Bloody Basin, and Big Bug Creek. Smalley’s holiday tale takes place in a silver mining camp about 20 miles southwest of Prescott in the Bradshaw Mountains. No need to change a word of it, this is how he wrote it more than a century ago, typed verbatim from yellowed newspaper columns pasted on faded construction paper at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson.

________

Santa Claus Arrived There Two Days Ahead of Time

By George H. Smalley

_________

Big Bug, Arizona, Dec. 23, 1898  –  Santa Claus arranged his dates so as to arrive at Big Bug Creek two days ahead of time. He did this purposely to accommodate the schoolteacher of the camp, Miss Clay Henshaw, a Phoenix young lady. Miss Henshaw had previously won the hearts of all the miners in the camp, and it is not strange that Santa Claus succumbed to her charms and slid down off the Bradshaws a couple of days early.

There was excitement the entire length of the creek as I rode into camp last night. Miners were bringing their families down the trails from their homes perched on the mountainside. The lanterns they carried threw gigantic shadows across the gulch and my horse was in a constant state of terror. It was with difficulty that I ever reached the camp at all. The miners were coming down from their homes to attend the Christmas festivities, and the gulch rang out joyous echoes as the young rushed toward the schoolhouse yelling their ovation to Santa Claus. On the road, a procession of miners dressed in their best togs moved toward the schoolhouse. Everywhere were figures moving in the dark and my bronco tried to recognize each shadow with a toss of his body that would be called bucking in some countries.

“Hurrah for Santa Claus!” yelled the kids, and each one tried to make as much noise as he could so that Santa Claus would have no trouble in locating Big Bug Creek. The little fellows ran up and down the narrow camp street, scaring the horses and making the dogs bark. The kids were determined that he should not escape, and the echoes of the gulches repeated the sounds and sent them over the hills and snow banks as if they, too, were lending their power to attract the white whiskered man and his fleet-footed four-in-hand reindeers.

The snow on the mountains, the whistling of the wind in the pines, and the cold made it seem like Christmas Eve. All that was needed was the presence of Santa Claus. As I rode into camp, the kids thought I was he. I am not surprised that my horse was mistaken for a reindeer, for he pranced excitedly as the band of boys approached.  At the one restaurant in the camp I was informed that I could not get supper because the cook and waiter were making preparations to attend the “doings” at the schoolhouse. I tried to bribe the cook, but she was true to her Santa Claus. The corral man kindly directed me to a store where I might get a lunch of sardines and crackers. The storekeeper’s wife made a pot of tea to go with the meal and take away the chill.

As I sat down to eat there was a renewal of the ovation to Santa Claus outside, and presently Deputy Sheriff Johns rode into camp. His great mustache was white with frost, and snow clung to his spurs and boots. I asked the deputy sheriff where he was going to sleep and he said he knew where there was a stack of hay. There was not an empty bed in the camp, so I made up my mind to follow Deputy Sheriff Johns to the haystack.

The big schoolhouse was filled with miners and their families, and the wooden benches were crowded soon after the doors of the house were thrown open to the visitors. The little ones who were to take part in the entertainment were seated on the front benches. Sometimes the room broke out in loud whispers as some little fellow discovered a drum hidden in the branches of the big Christmas tree, which took up a large portion of the room. Some precocious youth set the alarm on the wall clock to ring at 8 o’clock, and this started the crowd laughing. A little dog that was resting near the big box stove jumped to his feet and turned to look at the clock, and Santa Claus entered amid the disturbance. The young folk jumped to their feet and greeted him, and old Santa danced down the aisle with the most approved rag-time step.

Before the presents were distributed the school children performed under the direction of Miss Henshaw.  Mrs. Carpenter, who was well known in Phoenix as Miss Maggie Williscroft, assisted the teacher and took part in a pantomime performance, which was interesting. After the tree was unloaded, the house was cleared for dancing. This pleasure was enjoyed by a large number until after midnight. The Christmas festivities in Big Bug will long be remembered.

“You have to ask me questions, or I can’t remember things.” That’s what Yndia Roca Smalley Moore told me after one of our first taping sessions. She was born in Tucson in 1902, but lived in Globe in its heyday, from 1905 until 1912. We began our Thursday afternoon oral history chats when she was 93, and for an Arizona historian like me it was a dream come true, like taking a Sunday drive into the past with your favorite grandmother, listening to Yndia’s eyewitness accounts of Arizona history in the making.

You could tell by the way her eyes twinkled when she talked that her years in Globe were some of the best parts of Yndia’s very full life. Tucson was still a frontier town back then, and it still had much of its Old World Spanish culture. But Globe City, the rough-edged mining camp, was a much more exciting place for a kid to grow up. Yndia had her favorite memories, and was a delightful story teller. You could tell she enjoyed telling the stories as much as we listeners loved hearing them.

When talking about Globe, she usually started off with the story about her father George reading a letter from his father back in Minnesota. In the days before radio and TV, singing around the piano and reading letters at the dinner table were popular forms of entertainment.

A hanging crowd-Globe Az courtesty of Gila Historical Museum

“It says here Aunt Susie died,” George read one evening when Yndia was about four or five years old. “Oh, who shot her?” she asked. It seemed like no one ever died any other way in Globe in those days.

George Smalley’s father was a newspaperman, and he was in the business for many years himself. He met Yndia’s mother, Lydia Roca, when he was an investigating mining reporter for the Phoenix Republican. Lydia came from a prominent Chilean-Mexican merchant family who opened their first store in Tucson in 1864.  The Smalleys were one of thousands of multicultural families that helped settle the West. George came to Phoenix for his health in 1896 and became a reporter, editor, and eventually publisher of the Tucson Post.

After serving as secretary to territorial governor and former Rough Rider Alexander Brodie, Smalley When President Theodore Roosevelt selected Rough Rider Alexander Brodie to be Arizona’s territorial governor, Smalley was appointed clerk of the newly-created Fifth Judicial District.

“Of course, no one ever died a natural death in Globe,” Yndia said. “There was always a shooting. I remember my father coming home and telling about these things, you know.”

She said that most of her best stories begin, “one time when my parents were out of town . . .” One of those trips, Yndia’s nursemaid (Mattie) told her that if she was a good girl, instead of her afternoon nap she would take her to a hanging that took place behind the courthouse, next to St. John’s Episcopal Church.

“Well, I couldn’t wait,” Yndia said. “I was so excited, because Mattie made it sound exciting.  And so she dressed me all up and down we went to the hanging.  And, oh, there was a lot of singing and everything and I thought it was wonderful.”

“It wasn’t depressing; it was sort of fun because all these Negroes were there singing, and shouting hallelujah.  Of course they were mourning, probably, but I thought they were having a great time; at least I was having a good time.  I wasn’t afraid at all,” Yndia said. Yndia said that as a reward for being well-behaved she got to carry home a swatch of the hanging victim’s hair!

Lydia Smalley was devastated when she found out her little girl had witnessed such a gruesome event, and asked Yndia if she was scared. “Why would I be frightened?” Yndia said. “There was that figure dangling at the end of a rope, but I didn’t connect it at all.”

Not long ago, I walked around behind the courthouse. When it comes to historic atmosphere, Globe ranks right up there with Florence, Bisbee, and even Tombstone. I bet no little girl has seen a hanging in Globe for more than a century; I’m sure lucky to have talked to one that did.

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.