Concho was a Mexican village, at least a dozen years established, when
the first Mormon settlers arrived. The name probably is from the Spanish
word "concha," a shell. The settlement lies sixteen miles west of St.
Johns. There were two sections, the older, in which Spanish was spoken
and in which stock raising was the main occupation, and the Mormon
settlement, a mile up the valley, in which there was effort to exist by
agriculture on what was called a "putty" soil, with lack of sufficient
water supply. The first of the Mormons to come was Bateman H. Wilhelm,
who arrived in March, 1879. Soon thereafter Wm. J. Flake and Jesse J.
Brady purchased the main part of the valley, the former paying for his
half interest eight cows, one mule, a set of harness and a set of
blacksmith tools. Before the end of the year, about thirty Saints were
resident in the locality, some of the later arrivals being David
Pulsipher, a Mormon Battalion member, Geo. H. Killian and Chas. G.
Curtis. A townsite was roughly surveyed by brethren who laid their stakes
by the North Star. September 26, 1880, there was organization of a Church
ward and there was assumed the name of Erastus, in honor of Erastus Snow,
who then was presiding at a Snowflake conference. This name was abandoned
for that of Concho at a Church meeting held in St. Johns December 6,
1895. In later years, the Mormon residents, after building a reservoir
and expending much effort toward irrigation, generally have turned from
agriculture to stock raising.
Hunt is an agricultural settlement seventeen miles down the stream from
St. Johns and one mile below a former Mexican settlement, near San
Antonio, above which at some time subsequent to 1876 there settled an
army officer named Hunt, who left the service at Fort Apache and whose
descendants live in the county. The first Mormon settler was Thomas L.
Greer in 1879, the old Greer ranch still maintained, a mile east of the
present postoffice. Thereafter, the location was known as Greer Valley.
In 1901, D.K. Udall became a resident and in that year his wife,
appointed postmaster, was instrumental in naming the office and locality
after her father, John Hunt, of the Mormon Battalion, who had a farm in
the locality a year or so thereafter, though not actually resident.
The Meadows purchase, eight miles northwest of St. Johns, was occupied
November 28, 1879. Among the settlers was the famous Indian missionary,
Ira Hatch.
Walnut Grove, twenty miles south of St. Johns, was settled early in 1882
by Jas. W. Wilkins and son, who bought Mexican claims. There was trouble
over water priorities on the flow of the Little Colorado and the place
now has small population, much of it Spanish-speaking.