THE CHIRICAHUA IS A STUDY IN ROCKS AND HISTORY

FROM OUR ARCHIVES: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MARCH 1943 THE CHIRICAHUA IS A STUDY IN ROCKS AND HISTORY

BY NATT N. DODGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE AVEY IT'S JUST A SHORT HOP from El Paso to Tucson in one of the great, silvery airliners that wing steadily across the Southwest. Hidden in this broad lumbar region of North America, its spine, the Continental Divide, remains unnoticed, even from the air. But just to the west, beyond the Arizona-New Mexico line, the rugged Chiricahua Mountain Range, sprawling toward Mexico, lifts itself suddenly out of the desert.

Like claws sheathed in the green velvet of pine, juniper and manzanita, pinnacles, turrets and spires of dark gray rock reach up toward the startled passengers gazing down upon the bastions of the Range rising sharply beneath them. As the ship sweeps in, crosses the summit and drones westward, an amazing panorama is spread out below for a few exciting minutes: a panorama of deep canyons and sharp ridges lined and studded with a spectacular array of immense perpendicular rock figures, among which the clamor of the plane's motors echoes and reverberates. It is this strange galaxy of nature-carved images covering 17 square miles of canyon, cliff and crest that has been reserved under perpetual protection as Chiricahua National Monument.

As the big transport roars westward, a group of riders on a broad trail winding among the rocks of Rhyolite Canyon below rein in their horses to watch the modern plane flashing overhead, a sight which seems strangely incongruous, as if an intruder from another world. Relaxing beneath the benign influence of the quiet surroundings, the pattern of sun and shadow on the trail where it passes beneath the low-hanging branches of Chiricahua Pine, Emory Oak or Arizona Cypress, and the unhurried gait of their mounts, they have forgotten, for the moment, the war and the myriad of worries and problems of daily life.

Puzzled and astonished by the multiplicity and variety of the rock pillars and spires, they have listened with absorbed interest to their guide's explanation of the forces of nature which have been at work for hundreds of thousands of yearsLongtime Arizona Highways Art Director George Avey created this drawing of the Chiricahua Mountains' hoodoos; he titled it Wonderland of Rocks.

An area near Chiricahua National Monument's Big Balanced Rock offers a view of the Dos Cabezas Mountains in the distance. This photo was made in the 1930s. NPS History Collection, George A. Grant (HPC-000432) preparing the material and sculpturing the amazing figures which surround them and which line the canyon wall as far as they can see. They have noticed strange flowers and have been surprised to learn that, isolated from other ranges as they are by the surrounding plains, the Chiricahua Mountains contain an astonishing number and variety of plants. They have been reminded that here, in these rugged canyons, the famous Chiricahua Apache warriors, Cochise, Geronimo and others, led their tribesmen into Corregidorian retreats so inaccessible and so well defended that it took the power of the United States Army many years to dislodge them.

Today, only the occasional full-throated roar of airplane motors breaks the peace and quiet of a rugged terrain that once resounded to bursts of rifle fire and the sharp commands of cavalry officers. But the violence of Indian warfare was as nothing in comparison with the convulsions of Nature that took place here in ancient Tertiary times. The region then, according to geologists, was relatively level, perhaps sloping slightly to the west. Suddenly all hell broke loose and, accompanied by violent earthquakes, molten lava burst through the crust of the Earth and spread over the plain. From some of the vents, cinders and volcanic ash were blown into the sky to fall as a blanket over the hardened lava crust. Eruption followed eruption, occasionally in close succession, again with centuries intervening. Some of the lava cooled at a rate to cause vertical shrinkage cracks to form in regular patterns throughout the solidifying mass. Many of the rhyolitic lava blankets were relatively thin and small in extent, others widespread and many EDITOR'S NOTE: It's been 74 years since we first published this story, and in that time, some things have changed within the monument. For example, thick-billed parrots, which you'll read about, have disappeared from the Chiricahuas (and the rest of Arizona). The jaguars are gone, too - the recent jaguar sightings have been in the Huachuca and Santa Rita mountains to the west. In addition, the monument now boasts 8 miles of scenic driving and 17 miles of hiking trails. "The Sheep," one of the rock formations mentioned in the story, has fallen down, and the section of the Rhyolite Trail that passes several of the formations is now the Mushroom Rock Trail. Even the scientific understanding of the monument's geology has changed. The biggest change, however, relates to the human history. According to Libby Schaaf, the monument's chief of interpretation, Mr. Dodge tells only one side of the story - that of the settlers - and it's "slanted toward saying that the Apaches were the aggressors or raiders, while not presenting the viewpoint that Apaches had been living in this area for hundreds of years." The settlers, Ms. Schaaf notes, took possession of a place the Apaches considered their homeland. "Today, the National Park Service wishes to present multiple points of view, to show that history may have had many different angles to it," she says. "The complexities of history are often the most intriguing parts." Our thanks to Ms. Schaaf and monument ranger Suzanne Moody for reviewing this story and sharing their modern observations.

Gradually the eruptions became less violent and finally ceased, leaving a great volcanic field made up of layered lavas differing in extent, in thickness and in the composition of the materials of which they were made. But Nature still was not content with the desolation she had created. Gargantuan stresses and strains developed in the Earth's crust, the resulting tortuous movements slowly lifting and tilting great lava-capped blocks to form mountains. In this tremendous terrestrial labor, the Chiricahua Range was born.

The old adage "All that goes up comes down" applies to mountains, too, and no sooner had the range taken shape than the agencies of erosion began their slow but endless process of wearing it away. Rain and snow beat upon the rocks; running water, tooled with particles of stone, chiseled loose by freezing and thawing, scratched and abraded the surface everywhere; soil formed, accumulated in pockets, and plants gained a foothold. Erosion bit deeply along the shrinkage cracks made when the lavas had cooled, and horizontal planes, which once had been the surfaces of successive lava flows, proved especially susceptible to the solvent action of water. As Time spun its century hand again and again around the face of the geologic clock, cracks were widened to fissures, fissures were enlarged to breaches, some of the breaches became gullies, and a few of the gullies grew to be canyons. Along these canyon walls, erosion has continued its attack and is still busily engaged in its ceaseless task of carving what remains of the ancient rhyolite beds into columns, pillars and spires, the rough blocks which the more delicate hands of wind, sun and rain are sculpturing into the weird forms of the immediate future. Some of these forms the imagination of man will christen with popular names, and photographers will submit their images on paper to editors to illustrate the magazine articles of tomorrow. Today and for centuries to come, Chiricahua National Monument will exhibit all stages of erosional activity in the rhyolitic lavas, from the talus remains of a collapsed pinnacle to the sheer cliffs where the fingers of time and frost are plucking at fresh cracks and crevices.

In addition to the spectacular balanced rocks and weatherworn figures, and the scenic attractions of cliff and canyon, erosion has laid bare a variety of records of the turbulent past. Exposed beds of volcanic ash are mute reminders of violent eruptions of long ago, while a trailside ledge of peculiar spherical pellets locally called "petrified grapes" presents testimony feet in thicknesswhose geological evidence has not yet been satisfactorily interpreted. At one point along the Bonita Canyon Highway, red shale deposits mark the spot where upwelling lava once blocked an ancient stream channel, deposits of silt in the resulting impounded waters forming shale beds of today. Later infiltrations deposited gypsum, producing a network of white veins. At other places, erosion has uncovered contact belts between extruded lavas and sedimentary rocks, resulting in metamorphized zones and, in some cases, deposits of metal ores.

When Tertiary disturbances buckled the Earth's crust to form the Chiricahua Mountains, Nature's selection of a location placed this chain at some distance from other ranges a mountain island in a desert sea. During the centuries that have intervened, plants gradually gained a foothold and provided vegetative cover for the slopes. Exposure, slopes, type of soil, elevation, moisture and other conditions combined to provide a great variety of habitats which were occupied, as time passed, by plants whose seeds were brought in by the wind and other agencies, and could survive under the conditions they encountered. Because the range was relatively isolated, certain plants common to similar locations elsewhere apparently never found their way into the Chiricahuas, while others, in passing through thousands of generations, have undergone evolutionary changes making them different from their relatives in other places. The similar gradual establishment of an animal population also has resulted in the presence of certain forms unique to the area. These "different" plants and animals, of which the Chiricahua Red Squirrel is noteworthy, are referred to by scientists as products of isolation. On the other hand, the Chiricahuas are occasionally visited by wanderers among birds and mammals from distant, although similar, mountain ranges to the southward. These zoological vacationists, of which the Thickbilled Parrot, Coppery-tailed Trogon and Mexican Jaguar are the most notable examples, are classed as "invasion" forms.

Although the unusual creatures of any area are given the spotlight of publicity, there are many common varieties of birds and mammals in Chiricahua National Monument which are more or less in evidence. Band-tailed Pigeons nest throughout the area; three varieties of jays are both seen and heard; nuthatches, warblers, towhees, grosbeaks, woodpeckers, flycatchers, tanagers, swallows, swifts and many others areabundant. Such varieties as orioles, the Painted Redstart and the Vermilion Flycatcher make brilliant flashes of color among the greenery of canyon bottoms, while monument birds range in size from the tiny hummingbird and bushtit to the great Golden Eagle.

Constant protection, a privilege accorded all wild creatures in every national park and monument, is showing its influence at Chiricahua, especially among the Arizona White-tailed Deer, which are becoming quite unafraid and are frequently seen by visitors along the highway in Bonita Canyon. Occasionally the tracks of a bear, cougar or wild turkey are found. Smaller ani-mals, especially the rodents, are common. These include squir-rels, chipmunks, wood rats, kangaroo rats, rabbits, skunks, badgers, coyotes and foxes.

Because, then, of its great diversification of habitat from open, sun-drenched slopes and chaparral-covered ridges to tree-choked canyon bottoms with spring-fed pools, and from valley floors at an elevation of 5,300 feet to densely forested mountain peaks 7,300 feet above the sea, Chiricahua National Monument offers an enormous variety of plant and animal life. This assortment is augmented by the rare forms that are present because of the operation of natural factors governing isola-tion and invasion.

Preliminary plant collections for the monument herbarium, made principally during portions of two summers, total 507 different species representing 80 botanical families. Inter-esting examples include conifers with nine species, five of which are pines, and the oaks, with seven different varieties. One botanical authority has stated that Chiricahua National Monument contains a greater range of plant life than any area of equal size in the country. Be that as it may, the pleasant all-year climate, the wealth of plant and animal life, and the weird and spectacular rock formations, all made readily accessible by 7 miles of well-kept mountain road and 14 miles of graded trails, make Chiricahua National Monument a refreshing interlude in the journey of tourists traveling the highways or railways of Southern Arizona.

From a transcontinental airliner, the passenger gets only an intriguing glimpse of a great jumble of picturesque rocks. The motorist who follows Bonita Canyon High-way to Massai Point is impressed with the marked differences in vegetation between hillside, canyon bottom and mountain crest. From Massai Point Overlook, he has a fine view out over the massed spires and pinnacles stippling the divides between the major canyons of the monument. From the vantage point of the Orientation Station, he is inspired by the wide panorama to the east, over the San Simon Valley into New Mexico, and to the west, over the Sulphur Springs Valley guarded by the twin knobs of Dos Cabezas Peak. Northward, the clear-cut profile of Cochise Head dominates the skyline.

But the visitor who takes time to make use of the numerous trails really has an opportunity to see the Wonderland of Rocks. Amid hundreds of thousands of pillars and pinnacles, a dozen or more have been found whose striking resemblance to human features, domestic animals or the works of man have made them nationally famous. The well-planned trails system of the monument leads the visitor, by several loop trips, to all of these features. On the Echo Canyon Trail is "Old Devil-face." Rhyolite Trail passes "Totem Pole" and "The Mushroom." From Sara Deming Trail, it is only a short scramble to the top of a ridge where “The Sheep” surveys his petrified pastureland. But in the Heart of Rocks section, Nature has gone into sculpturing with reckless abandon. Entrance to this rare bit of unbelievable imagery is guarded by “Big Balanced Rock,” a 16-ton behemoth supported by a base only inches in diameter. And among the concourse of hulking pinnacles lining the head of a tiny canyon are found “Pinnacle Balanced Rock,” “Thor’s Hammer,” “Old Maid,” “Duck on a Rock,” “Punch and Judy” and several others. From a high point reached on the Heart of Rocks Loop trail, the most scenic vantage point of the monument except, per-haps, the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain looks down upon the entire rock-rimmed length of spectacular Rhyolite Canyon.

But even the super-interested enthusiast who covers every foot of the trails, and explores much of the rugged country in between, fails to see one of the most interesting features of Chiricahua National Monument. For within the bulky volume of American History is a chapter on the Apache Wars, a stir-ring record of the last stand of the American Indian against the inevi-table domination of the white man.

For centuries, the Chiricahua Mountains and surroundings were the ancestral home of the Chir-icahua (meaning Great Mountain) group of Apaches, a predatory and warlike tribe. Living on wild animals and native plants, these resourceful people moved from place to place according to the requirements of the season and the presence of food. Occasionally they raided the Opatas, Sobai-puris, Pimas, and Papagos, who farmed the alluvial lands bordering streams in the wide desert valleys. With the coming of the Spaniards, who brought European grain and domestic animals, the Apaches found increased incentive to pillage.

Stolen horses greatly enlarged the power and widened the range of Apache activities, and the southeastern corner of what is now Arizona became a Chiricahua stronghold under the vigorous leadership of the bold and wily Mangus Colorados. With the Gadsden Purchase of 1854, and opening of the area to settlement by United States citizens, Apache raiders became an ever-increasing hazard. However, it was not until 1860 that active warfare flared as the results of the unfortunate arrest of Cochise, then chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, at Apache Pass, a station on the Overland Mail Route of the famous Butterfield Stage Line at the north end of the Chiricahua Mountains. A leader of great power and personality, Cochise in his anger became a master tactician and strategist of guerrilla warfare, his ferocious raiders ever on the alert to swoop down from retreats deep in the Chiricahua Mountains upon small bands of travelers, prospectors or others passing through or stopping in the vicinity. Homes of ranchers and settlers were burned, one by one the ranchers killed, their cattle driven off, and their families either murdered or carried away by the Indians.

Although Fort Bowie was established in Apache Pass in 1862, the demands of the Civil War kept the Fort so shorthanded that an organized campaign against Cochise and the Chiricahua Apaches was not possible. By 1870, white settlement and development of the region had been brought to a standstill, Cochise and his warriors from their strongholds in the Chiricahua and Dragoon Mountains practically controlling the region southward into Sonora, Mexico, and east as far as the Mimbres Mountains in what is now New Mexico. However, in 1872, a truce was effected, and for the final two years of his life, Cochise and his loyal followers remained at peace with the white men. Soon after the death of Cochise in 1874, the Chiricahuas were removed from their forested mountains and settled with other Apache tribal groups on the San Carlos Reservation. The home-loving Chiricahuas were not happy, dissensions arose, and bands of the more adventurous left the reserva-tion time and again to attack and plunder the whites under such chieftains as Chato, Pionsenay, Victorio, Nana, Loco and Juh. For 10 years, settlers were constantly in fear of an Apache attack. Troops were sent to defend them, and these renegade bands were gradually reduced in numbers, their chieftains tried and convicted of murder, and their followers brought back to the reservation. Most ferocious and determined of these renegade leaders was Geronimo, who, from his ancestral stronghold in the Chiricahua Mountains, led raiding parties in all directions, even into Mexico. Familiar with every trail and retreat, and able to travel rapidly to distant hiding places, Geronimo kept the Southwest in an uproar until 1886, when he was finally captured. He was imprisoned in Fort Bowie, from which historic post, on September 8, 1886, he and his ragged band were deported across the continent to Florida. This ended the organized uprisings of the Chiricahua Apaches, the long and persistent fight of a freedom-loving people against insurmountable odds. However, some of the Chiricahua eluded the soldiers, escaped into Mexico and attacked a settlement of Mormons there as late as 1900. band, Big-foot Massai, is reported to have escaped from the train and, after innumerable hardships, returned to the land of his birth. Although he remained part of the time with members of his tribe on the San Carlos Reservation, he was unwilling to be confined by man-made boundaries and roamed, alone, the haunts of his ancestors, occasionally making the long trek into Mexico - where, for a time, he lived with the band of Geronimo's followers who had evaded the soldiers. Last evidence of his presence in the Chiricahuas was in 1890, when his moccasin tracks, recognizable because of their large size, were reported seen in Bonita Canyon. The footprints were followed up Rhyolite Canyon, then up a side canyon and over a ridge, the canyon and ridge that now bear the name of Massai Canyon and Massai Point. With fear of Apache raids a thing of the past, prospectors, cattlemen and ranchers established themselves in the Chiricahua region. Some were soldiers who had served in the Apache Wars, liked the country and decided to remain. Two of these, Jhu Stafford and Neil Erickson, took up land in Bonita Canyon, now the entrance to the monument. The original Stafford cabin still stands, and Faraway Ranch, the Erickson homeplace, now operated by Mr. and Mrs. Ed Riggs (nee Lillian Erickson, Neil's daughter), provides meals, lodgings and saddle horses for monument visitors desiring these accommodations. The big ranch house fireplace is built of boulders, on which are names and dates inscribed by [Buffalo Soldiers] during the exciting days of the Apache campaign. With the opening of the country, development of mines and smelters, and construction of roads, knowledge of the amazing features of the Wonderland of Rocks in the Chiricahua Mountains became widespread, attracting visitors from far and near. That the area was worthy of national attention became recognized, and in April 1924, President Calvin Coolidge proclaimed it Chiricahua National Monument, thus assuring its protection from commercial exploitation and vandalism, and indicating such development as would make its features comfortably accessible. Today the monument is administered by the National Park Service of the Department of the Interior and is under the immediate supervision of a resident custodian, Frank Fish, with headquarters in an attractive, stone administration building in Bonita Canyon about 1 mile beyond the monument gate. Here, visitors are furnished information about the roads and trails of the monument, and receive explanations regarding the strange rock figures and other natural phenomena that they see or in which they are especially interested. Exhibits interpreting the major features of the monument are being planned and, as time and funds permit, will be built and installed in display cases that have been prepared for them in the administration building lobby.

Construction of residence and utility buildings for the monument was completed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1940, the vacated camp buildings being remodeled to provide inexpensive but comfortable tourist accommodations. This development, called Faraway Lodge, is being fitted up, as this is written, especially for the benefit of organized groups for weekend use. The National Park Service will continue to furnish free guide and interpretive service, and, if possible, will provide illustrated interpretive campfire talks regarding the various features of the monument on evenings when there are sufficient visitors at the free campground or at Faraway Lodge and Ranch.

With a world at war, the tempo of living, especially in the industrial cities, has increased to fever pitch. War nerves are developed as much, perhaps, by the urgent demands for speed and the irritations of traffic jams, and supply bottlenecks, as by fear of actual attack. But deep in the heart of the Chiricahua Mountains, neither the weird erosional figures, nor the deer, nor the nesting birds know that there is a war.

Summer breezes gently tug at drooping branches and set them swaying. Ed Riggs' well-fed horses surreptitiously snatch tempting bits of herbage from the trailside and feign indignation at slaps urging them to increased motion. Here is a refreshing interlude in a time of trouble, where the harmony of Nature prevails, nerves are quieted, worries are dispelled, minds and bodies gradually relax, and physical reserves begin to restore energy and revive hope and optimism. Only the great gray profile of Cochise Head, in dignified repose on the northern skyline, and the blood-stirring roar of a force of basic trainers riding the beam remind the visitor to Chiricahua National Monument that human beings, still, are unable to live at peace with one another. AH