A few Mexicans were in the valley as early as 1871, farming in the
vicinity of Pueblo Viejo, immediately below which later arose the town of
Solomonville. In 1872 was the first Anglo-Saxon settlement, a group of
farmers coming from Gila Bend, upon the Gila River, where they had
attempted farming and had failed because the wandering river had washed
away their dams and headgates. These farmers, financed in Tucson for the
building of the Montezuma canal, settled in the vicinity of Safford,
where about that time, was established a townsite, named in honor of Gov.
A.P.K. Safford who, from Tucson, then was making a tour of that part of
Arizona Territory.
One of the very earliest valley residents was D.W. Wickersham, who wrote
the Author lately, covering his early experiences. To later serve as the
first teacher, he arrived in Safford the summer of 1876, there finding
Joshua E. Bailey and Hiram Kennedy, who had come from Gila Bend. Bailey
he considers the founder of Safford and believes it was he who named the
settlement. Both Bailey and Kennedy came with California troops during
the Civil War. The former died in Michigan and Kennedy was murdered in
Safford in 1877. Others of the early settlers were Wm. A. Gillespie, John
Glasby, John Conley, A.F. Perigo, Edw. E. Tuttle and E.T. Ijams.
In 1876 appeared Isador E. Solomon, who for many years occupied a leading
position. He came primarily to burn charcoal for the rude adobe furnaces
that had been erected by the Lesynzskys to smelt the free ores of the
famous Longfellow mine in Chase Creek Canyon, a few miles above Clifton.
For charcoal Solomon found abundant material in an almost unbroken
mesquite forest that stretched for many miles along the river. Solomon
purchased a road house and small store that had been established near
Pueblo Viejo by one Munson, and the place soon became a trading post for
a large extent of country, its importance increasing with the development
of the great mining region around Globe. I.E. Solomon still is living,
an honored resident of Tucson, his children prominent in the business
affairs of the State. Solomonville was so named, in 1878, by none other
than Bill Kirkland, who raised the American flag in Tucson in 1856 and
who, for a while, carried mail from Fort Thomas to Clifton.
[Illustration: SOUTHEASTERN ARIZONA. The Salt, San Pedro and Gila Valleys
and Routes of travel]
Apostle Erastus Snow appears to have been the first of the Mormon faith
to cross this Gila Valley region. His party arrived on the San Pedro
River, October 6, 1878. The most easterly point reached in the Gila
Valley was at old Camp Goodwin, not far from the present railroad station
of Fort Thomas and at the extreme western or lower end of the present
farmed area. It would require a separate volume to follow Apostle Erastus
Snow on his journeyings through the Southwest, where he appears to have
served as a veritable inspector-general for his Church.
On the 1878 trip, L. John Nuttall of Snow's company, writes of passing
into the Gila Valley through a rocky canyon, "a terrible place, almost
impassable, the dread of all who travel this way." The same road is very
little better to this day.
At one point was passed a ridge known as Postoffice Hill, where was found
the grave of a white man, killed several years before by Apaches. Every
time an Apache passed, he put a rock on the grave mound, at that time
about twenty feet square at the base and four feet high. The travelers
added another rock, on the principle of, "When in Rome, do as the Romans
do."