Pipe Springs is situate three miles south of Moccasin Springs and eight
miles south of the Utah line. It was settled as early as 1863 by Dr. Jas.
M. Whitmore, who owned the place when he was killed by the Indians
January 8, 1866. President Brigham Young purchased the claims of the
Whitmore estate and in 1870 there established headquarters of a Church
herd, in charge of Anson P. Winsor. Later was organized the Winsor Castle
Stock Growing Company, in which the Church and President Young held
controlling interest. It is notable that one of the directors was
Alexander F. Macdonald, later President of Maricopa Stake. At the spring,
late in 1870, was erected a sizable stone building, usually known as
Winsor Castle, a safe refuge from savages, or others, with portholes in
the walls. In 1879 the company had consolidation with the Canaan
Cooperative Stock Company. The name, Pipe Springs, had its origin,
according to A.W. Ivins, in a halt made there by Jacob Hamblin and
others. William Hamblin claimed he could shoot the bottom out of Dudley
Leavitt's pipe at 25 yards, without breaking the bowl. This he proceeded
to do.
Pipe Springs was a station of the Deseret Telegraph, extended in 1871
from Rockville to Kanab. While the latter points are in Utah, the
wires were strung southward around a mountainous country along the St.
George-Kanab road. This would indicate location of the first telegraph
line within Arizona, as the first in the south, a military line from Fort
Yuma to Maricopa Wells, Phoenix, Prescott and Tucson, was not built till
1873.