One of the most important watering places of northeastern Arizona is
LeRoux Spring, seven miles northwest of Flagstaff on the southwestern
slope of the San Francisco Mountains. This never-failing spring was a
welcome spot to the pioneers who traveled the rocky road along the 35th
parallel of latitude. San Francisco Spring (or Old Town Spring) at the
present Flagstaff, was much less dependable and at the time of the
construction of the Atlantic & Pacific railroad in 1881-2, water often
was hauled to Flagstaff from the larger spring, at times sold for $1 a
barrel.
The importance of this water supply appears to have been appreciated
early by the long-headed directing body of the Mormon Church. Early in
1877, under direction of John W. Young, son and one of the counselors of
Brigham Young, from the Little Colorado settlements of St. Joseph and
Sunset, was sent an expedition, that included Alma Iverson, John L.
Blythe and Jos. W. McMurrin, the last at this writing president of the
California Mission of the Church, then a boy of 18.
According to Ammon M. Tenney, this LeRoux spring was known to the people
of the Little Colorado settlements as San Francisco spring. Mr. McMurrin
personally states his remembrance that the expedition proceeded along the
Beale trail to the spring, near which was built a small log cabin,
designed to give a degree of title to the water and to the locality,
probably also to serve as a shelter for any missionary parties that might
travel the road. There is no information that it was used later for any
purpose.
The men were instructed to build a cabin at Turkey Tanks, on the road to
the Peaks, this cabin to be lined with pine needles and to be used as a
storage icehouse, Counselor Young expressing the opinion that there would
be times in the summer heat of the Little Colorado Valley when ice would
be of the greatest value. The tanks were hardly suitable for this
purpose, however, and the icehouse was not built.
Location of the LeRoux spring by the Iverson-Blythe party in 1877 appears
to have been sufficient to hold the ground till it was needed, in 1881,
by John W. Young, in connection with his railroad work. About sixty
graders and tie cutters were camped, mainly in tents, on LeRoux Prairie
or Flat, below the spring, according to Mrs. W. J. Murphy, now of
Phoenix, a resident of the Prairie for five months of 1881, her husband a
contractor on the new railroad. She remembers no cattle, though deer and
antelope were abundant.