Years later he recalled how the town appeared. There was a general store, fairly well stocked; connected with it was the eating house for travelers The post office was next door and had living quarters for the postmistress, who afterwards married John T. Dennis, an old pioneer of Phoenix. These with a lumber loading house and five or six homes made up the town The most striking thing in the place was a large stockade just back of the store on a small hill.
It was built of pipe logs ten feet high set up in the ground Historic photo courtesy of Rim Country Museum. The saloon was the place where people could meet when they came to town from the far-flung ranches to lay in supplies. For cowboy and rancher, this was the place to get the news and while away some hours, breaking the barriers of distance and silence that made up so much of life in the wilderness.
This is where the first post office was housed. At that time, Hise sold his first property to attorney John W. There was a saloon downstairs and a dance hall upstairs. He named his enterprise Tammany Hall, after the New York City political headquarters building, where the Democratic Party made significant decisions in controlling local politics. Wentworth would use this as a base for his own political ambitions, as we shall see in later chapters.
The crowd danced until morning, and commenced a tradition of all night dances and midnight suppers. The Piepers took over the saloon and dance hall, adding the livery stable and a mercantile business. The Pieper Saloon building has gone through many changes in its plus years of existence, but still stands on the corner of Main and Bootleg Alley. During prohibition, A. Franklin operated a pool hall in the building and renamed it The Dive.
It was during those years that Bootleg Alley got its name, because of bootleg liquor sold in the back room of The Dive. Rim Country began to open up to the outside world. Until then pioneers struggled to bring their families and earthly goods in wagons, but travel in and out for supplies was limited to burro trains and foot paths.
Population and agricultural growth in the Phoenix area called for the control and salvaging of water that flowed along the Salt and Gila rivers from the central mountains.
The first of many reclamation dams to be built was the Roosevelt Dam dedicated in Building of the dam provided employment for both settlers and Apaches in the area. It also resulted in development of the Apache Trail. The first usable auto road from the Valley to Rim Country. Bush Highway was named after a Valley businessman Harvey Bush who promoted it.
To travel from the Valley to Payson, this rough grade required a minimum of 5 hours, usually more, accompanied by blowouts and other necessary repairs.
It was not until that the first paved road entered the Rim Country, Highway 87, also known as the Beeline Highway. This was the beginning of intensive population growth. Rim Country became a haven for summer and winter visitors seeking its many recreational opportunities. Starting in northern Yavapai County it runs eastward ending near the border with New Mexico. It is the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau and the reason our area is called Rim Country. Yavapia entered from the west.
Apache came into the area from the north and east. By the s White trappers and gold prospectors encroached upon the Rim Country. Automobiles Force Road Improvements After the turn of the century, the coming of automobiles forced the improvement of roads. In the s a second auto road into the area was forged over the Mazatzal Mountains. Previous post: Owens Sawmill Comes to Payson. Next post: The Territorial Years — Part 1. Product Search Search for: Search.
Search for:. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Reject Read More. The trees were milled to provide boards for the houses in Green Valley.
The town had a settlement population of 42 by the end of Early businesses included a 2-story hotel, livery stable, the Payson Brewery Company, general store, restaurant, 16 to 1 Saloon, a ham and bacon store, blacksmith shop, and a mercantile business. Up until the Town of Green Valley relied on horseback mail carriers bringing the mail from the Flagstaff or Globe post offices when the town decided it needed a post office.
The Town contacted U. Payson arranged for Green Valley to receive a post office. However, because there were other Green Valleys in Arizona the new post office was named Payson after the representative who established it and the Town of Green Valley was also renamed Payson.
Before Payson was established as a townsite it was known as Green Valley. In Payson, Arizona began a tradition of annual rodeos that spans the two world wars and into all or part of three different centuries.
It was hidden from the rest of the world below the majestic Mogollon Rim and above the lower Tonto Basin. Most of Arizona including the Tonto Basin was open range. The ranchers in the Rim Country region let their cattle roam free and the cattle mixed with those of other ranchers. At the annual general roundup, the calves of each rancher were branded with their owners' brand.
Payson became the hub for the local ranchers and their cowboys. It became tradition for cowboys to match skills with their rivals in competitions to determine who was the best. This informal competition was not known as a rodeo until much later. Although these competitions took place for years prior, the Competition is the one that launched the Payson Rodeo as an annual event and has been known ever since as the - World's Oldest Continuous Rodeo.
News of the event spread by word of mouth and it quickly grew into a large competition with attendees from all around the region. However even after automobiles were in use the trip to Payson from Phoenix to Flagstaff took a day or more. For those aware of Payson, it was considered the bootleg capital of Arizona and a great rodeo town. With the completion of the Beeline Highway in , the fame of the Payson Rodeo went statewide. The tradition continues in Payson, Arizona every year and the Payson Rodeo remains the world's oldest and longest continuous running rodeo.
Prolific author and television producer, Zane Grey is another prominent figure in the regions history. Zane Grey was a dentist by profession in New York, but was a natural writer and wrote in his spare time. Grey eventually left dentistry and wrote full time. It was not long before Zane Grey's works made him a household name. Grey was an avid hunter and fisherman. Grey primarily wrote Westerns, but he also published eight fishing books and was a regular contributor to outdoor publications.
Grey fell in love with the Mogollon Rim area and built a cabin here in which he would visit in the fall to hunt and write until In he brought a film crew to film a bear hunt unaware that the Arizona hunting season had been changed. He attempted to get a special license but was denied. This disagreement led Grey to vow to never return to Arizona.
The cabin was left abandoned for over 30 years. Eventually, time, the elements, and vandalism, reduced the cabin to a tattered shell. In , the cabin was purchased and restored by Bill Goetti with the intention of turning it into a summer place for his family.
After Mr. Goettl died, his family turned it into a private museum. In June of the Dude Fire burned the cabin to the ground along with 58 other homes, 28, acres of forest and, most tragically, took the lives of six firefighters see page on the Dude Fire. Over the years some attempts were made to acquire the property but in a partnership purchased a large parcel of land, including the site of the cabin, and began to subdivide it. The Zane Grey Cabin Foundation was organized, with Dick Wolfe as president, and this organization led a successful campaign to raise the funds necessary to build a replica cabin on property owned by the Northern Gila County Historical Society, Inc.
The replica is a faithful copy of the original made from local Ponderosa pine trees. The replica was dedicated in
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