Just as the Mormon settlements on the Little Colorado providentially were
given assistance by the building of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad,
just so the struggling pioneers on the Gila found benefit in the opening
of the silver and copper mines at Globe. Freight teams were in demand for
hauling coke and supplies from the railroad at Willcox and Bowie and for
hauling back from the mines the copper bullion. Much of this freighting
was done with great teams of mules and horses, veritable caravans, owned
by firms such as Tully & Ochoa or M.G. Samaniego of Tucson, but enough
was left for the two and four-horse teams of the Mormons, who thus were
enabled from the hauling of a few tons of coke to provide provisions for
their families and implements for the tilling of their fields.
The road from the railroad to Globe ofttimes was a gray highway of
danger. After leaving the Gila towns, it led through the length of the
Apache Indian reservation. Usually the teams went in sort of military
order. The larger "outfits" had strict rules for defense, each driver
with his pistol and rifle and each "swamper" similarly armed. Every night
the wagons were drawn into a circle, within which the horses were
corralled or tied to the wagon poles, where they were fed. Pickets were
kept out and care was incessant day and night.
But, sometimes, a freighter, eager to earn extra pay for a quick trip, or
wishing to drive ahead of the cloud of dust that enveloped each large
convoy, would push along by himself. Possibly the next day, the train
would come to the embers of what had been wagons and their contents.
Nearby would be the bodies of the tortured and murdered teamsters. So the
careful ones united, remaining at the railroad until at least a score of
wagons had accumulated, and then made their way northward, relatively
safe through united vigilance.
In 1899 the Gila Valley, Globe & Northern railroad was completed from
Bowie, through the Gila Valley towns, to Globe, a distance of 124 miles,
though the loss to the freighters was more than balanced by the general
good to the community of bettered transportation facilities. Right-of-way
through the reservation was accorded by the Indians after a diplomatic
distribution to them by a railroad agent of $8000, all in silver coin.