From Fort to Veteran’s Affairs: the latest chapter of Whipple

By Al Bates

Whipple Barracks remained headquarters of the Arizona Department during the Geronimo war, but with the removal of Geronimo and his band to Florida the most serious reason for retaining either an Arizona Department or a large garrison and depot at Prescott ceased to exist. In the spring of 1887 General Miles, who is generally credited for introducing the heliograph system to connect the Army outposts of Arizona and New Mexico, had peremptorily moved his headquarters to Los Angeles, but was feted in Tucson and presented a gold encrusted sword as the conqueror of the Apaches. The residents of Prescott were far less enthusiastic. One of Whipple’s drawbacks was the lack of a railroad. Not until January1887 did the Prescott and Arizona Central connect Prescott with the Atlanta and Pacific at Seligman. This "makeshift" railroad was built with lightweight rails discarded by the A&P and operated only two antique locomotives. Nonetheless, the first train arrival rated a 100 gun salute at Whipple Barracks. (At times, the Fort was also known as Whipple Post and Camp Whipple.)

The 1890s were a time of down-sizing for the Army, and Fort Whipple was one of the few Indian-fighting outposts to remain open. During the years from1892 to 1898, the Whipple band, led by Bandmaster Achille LaGuardia, performed at every event of importance to Prescott. The bandmaster’s son, Fiorello, grew up to become the colorful mayor of New York City and is fondly remembered for reading the funny papers to the City’s children over the radio during a newspaper strike.

By 1895 the buildings and utilities of Whipple had deteriorated badly. The army surgeon general stated that "all the buildings at Whipple Barracks are old and dilapidated, overcrowded, drafty and poorly ventilated." The sewer system, was reported as "wretched in the extreme; the pipes are constantly leaking and foul odors are prevalent." Congress refused to appropriate funds for renovation and in the autumn of 1897 the post was scheduled for deactivation. The last troops had departed and the officer who was to "take the final inventory and lock the gate" was on hand April 25, 1898, when congress declared war on Spain. Four days later the closing officer became mustering officer and began enlistment of 200 men for the Spanish?American war.

Governor McCord telegraphed Prescott to have Arizona National Guard commander Alexander Brodie assemble volunteers at Whipple. Brodie was a West Point graduate and former cavalry officer who was superintending a goldmine near Prescott when the governor nominated him to be a major in the volunteer regiment being formed by Colonel Wood and Lt. Colonel Roosevelt. To backtrack just a bit, Mr. Brodie eight years earlier was chief engineer and superintendent of a diversion dam being built on the Hassayampa River below the Walnut Grove Dam. It was his good fortune to be on a business trip to Phoenix on February 22, 1890, when the Walnut Grove Dam overflowed and burst and some 80 lives were lost in a disaster that made headlines across the nation.

One of the Walnut Grove survivors was a young lady named Mary Hanlon, a niece of the water storage company president. Miss Hanlon was celebrated as a heroine of the disaster and, in a ceremony that featured the Fort Whipple band, was presented a five-and-one-half-ounce gold nugget found in the river bed after the flood. Incidentally, Miss Hanlon later became Mrs. Alexander Brodie and her husband went on to become Territorial Governor.

The Prescott area recruits gathered at Whipple from April 29 to May 4, 1898 and formed a squadron??two troops??of the First United States Volunteer cavalry. On May 4 they marched from Whipple to the Prescott courthouse square for ceremonies and thence to the train depot and on to San Antonio, Texas, to join the rest of the Rough Rider Regiment.

The Captain of Troop A was William O. "Buckey" O’Neill, Prescott’s multifaceted mayor who would die on San Juan Hill. Buckey’s previous military experience was as a captain in the Milligan Guards, one of two troops of Arizona Militia. Due largely to his efforts, the unit was incorporated into the National Guard and became known as the Prescott Grays with headquarters at Fort Whipple. There wasn’t much military work, so the grays were primarily a social organization. Buckey’s wife, Pauline, had her own Whipple connections; she was the daughter of a Captain stationed at the Fort and was first introduced to Buckey at a Whipple band concert.

After the Rough Rider departure, the Fort was inactive until 1902 when Civil War hero General Arthur MacArthur (Five?Star General Douglas MacArthur’s father) paid a visit. Prominent citizens escorted the MacArthur party on a tour of 160 acres that the city would give the Army if the post was reopened. It is unclear what became of this property, but it may have been part of the former Whipple Gunnery Range, site today of Prescott’s Pioneer park. In any event, the Army moved in a company of infantry, and the Whipple razing and reconstruction started three years later. Many of the buildings erected between 1905 and 1908 are still in use.

When reconstruction was complete, four companies were assigned to the Fort, bringing with them a post band. Once again the people of Prescott could enjoy free band concerts.

In 1912 Arizona achieved statehood, Fort Whipple was declared obsolete, and all but caretakers and a few hospital personnel were withdrawn. The remaining troops were sent to patrol the Mexican border because of a series of insurrections that at times threatened Southern Arizona communities.

In May 1918 the Army reactivated Whipple, not as a fort but as a general hospital for care of patients with respiratory problems. The June 5, 1918 flag raising ceremony lacked an Army bugler, so Grace Sparks, long-time Yavapai County Chamber of Commerce secretary, performed on the cornet. Soon afterwards the War Department voiced misgivings about Prescott’s moral climate??too much bootleg whiskey and too many immoral women free to ply their trade. Mayor Morris Goldwater did what all 20th Century politicians do; he named a blue-ribbon committee to investigate. The Brisley Drug Co. pled guilty to selling intoxicants consisting of fermented fountain syrup. And that was about it.

Once again, Whipple began to add significantly to the rolls of Prescott citizenry.

One of the first World War I patients at Whipple was Marine Corps veteran John (Jack) Sills. In 1920 Sills, despite opposition by the hospital administration, organized the Whipple Stage (bus) Line. The hospital’s commanding officer invested government funds in a surplus bus and started competitive service. The government service failed after only one trip because the surplus bus could not negotiate Elks Hill. Sills ran his Whipple Stage line for 45 years. E. C. "Doc" Seale came to Whipple in 1921 as executive officer and resigned after two years to manage a Prescott service station. He later owned Yavapai Fuel and Feed, was a three-term mayor, and served as county highway commissioner. Another Whipple physician, Dr. James H. Allen established Prescott practice and helped develop Yavapai County Community Hospital. Probably the best-known success story about former Whipple patients concerns the quintet of Peterson, Brooke, Steiner, Howard and Wist who individually and in partnerships started several local businesses. The best known of these businesses, known as PBSW, at one time was the largest office, school, and athletic supply company in Arizona and remained in business from 1922 to

1963.

That brings us to today when Fort Whipple, now officially the "U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Prescott, Arizona," continues to serve the people of Prescott and the surrounding area although in a way far different from its role in Territorial days.

(Al Bates interest in Fort Whipple began about in 1940 when his father, a World War I veteran, spent six weeks in the Whipple veterans hospital. During that time he and his mother lived at a motor court on Gurley street across from the Armory. Al has fond memories of Saturday matinees at the Elks Theater and hours spent at the old Carnegie Library. That’s when he first came to love Prescott. It took another 50 year before he, and his wife, managed to move here.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po0596pd). Reuse only by permission.

In 1938 Mayor of New York City Fiorello LaGuardia returned to his childhood home of Prescott. During the years from1892 to 1898, the Whipple band, led by his father, Achille LaGuardia, performed at every important event.

By Dorothy Chafin

My family was living on a ranch in the Peach Springs area at the time I was born (Samuel Franklin Crozier and Lotti Grounds Crozier, my father and mother were both natives of Arizona): when I was four they moved to Colorado. My father and my uncle Bill Grounds were partners, they sold the Arizona property and bought Ora Haley’s outfit consisting of a ranch on the Green River (near the Canyon of Lodore in Northwest Colorado), a ranch on the Snake River (also up in that part of Colorado) and a holding pasture in between. The headquarters of these ranches were about 30 miles apart, so the cattle were gathered at the Green River ranch, shoved up to the Snake River ranch to add to the cattle there, and then on to summer range in California Park north of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. So we all rode, even my sister at the age of four, accompanied by a chuck wagon and a wagon for bed rolls, remuda, and other things. We all camped out on the way and established a camp in the park. I do not remember seeing anyone in the area except those who came as our guests.

One summer when my family had gone down to the Green River ranch to help round up the cattle for moving to the summer range, my cousin Sue Grounds and I decided to go for a ride. We stopped to visit with Mrs. George Bassett who was the teacher at the country school which the Grounds children attended. She did inquire as to why I was there; we did not know that the school teacher was the wife of one of the cattle rustlers, so we told her all. When we reached home some time later my Aunt said "you girls have been gone a long time; where did you ride?" We told her that we had stopped to visit with Mrs. Bassett; my Aunt asked what we had told her, and we of course related the conversation, including the fact that the cattle would be in the holding pasture that night. As soon as the men came in that afternoon my Aunt immediately told them what had happened. That night my uncle and my father stationed themselves in the back of the holding pasture, leaving my cousin and my brother near the gate. Soon after dark the Bassett brothers arrived, opened the gate and started to drive some cattle out; one of the boys asked what they were doing and of course they laughed. At that my uncle and my father rode up and the Bassett brothers changed their minds! Uncle Will always packed a gun as he had been appointed Deputy Sheriff in that area.

Made famous by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the Brown’s Hole country was always a dangerous area, even after Queen Anne (Bassett) and Black Sue (Bassett) and other famous outlaws had been forced to leave.

One of the few honest families that lived in the area were friends of ours; an attractive young lady by the name of Mary Ethel helped my mother care for my brothers and sister (and me). On one of the trips to Fresno mother took her with us. My two aunts were still living at home with my grandparents and they entertained her. After that trip she said she would never return to live in that cabin across the river with no conveniences and a dirt floor. She went to Hollywood to become a second for the stage stars who rode horses in the pictures. She was such an excellent horsewoman that she was retained for some time. Her brother joined her about a year later and also rode as a second and later he married the daughter of the man who started Sun Valley, Idaho.

Mary Ethel marred the man who trained the horses for Ben Hur. It must have been in the early sixties that they came to Wickenburg to visit my mother and father. Since it was Thanksgiving the whole family was there, and it was a delight to visit with this attractive and interesting couple. (I had met her husband in Rome at the American Embassy when I was there arranging to come back to America after the Iraqi revolution in the late 1950s; he was in Rome working on Ben Hur and invited me to come out to the set).

Moving to the Snake River ranch after a year in Brown’s Park must have been both a delight and a relief to my mother. Our closest neighbor was ten miles away, but the atmosphere in the area was so different with friendly and honest people.

We had a teacher who lived with us on the ranch during the school term. School was held in the store room and sometimes even in our living room if the weather was particularly bad. When I was in the fifth grade and my brothers were in grammar school my family bought a house in Hayden, Colorado in order that we might attend public school there. Hayden was a delightful small town, but we were always ready to go back to the ranch during the summer to swim, ride and do just what we pleased.

On the Snake River ranch we put up tons of hay in order to feed the cattle through the winter. Since it got to be 49 below (as low as the thermometer registered!) and stayed there day and night, the river froze over and the roads were impossible except by horse-drawn sleighs. Supplies were brought in great quantities in order to get through the winter. Of course we had our own beef, milk and eggs. We had a milk house and an ice house where 3 foot cubes of ice were stored after having been cut from the river; the ice kept until summer so that we had ice cream for the 4th of July. Our storehouse contained 100 pound sacks of flour and sugar, barrels of vinegar and our cellar had potatoes, cabbage, and carrots that we raised in our ample garden. For years we had a Japanese gardener who also cooked at the bunkhouse. Since we kids were not suppose to eat between meals we would sneak over to the bunkhouse and beg bread and butter from the cook until one day we discovered him petting the cat while making bread.

Life was not easy for my parents and other adults; there were few conveniences, no easy access to the things we have today. It was ten miles to the post office and one hundred to a very small town that was the terminating point for the railroad. We had a telephone, but with a party line so everyone could listen in along the way. We had a modern bathroom which didn’t work, so we used outside facilities. We also had a delco system for lights which seldom worked, especially if we had company, so we depended on oil lamps. But for us as children, we thought it was wonderful; the Grounds family with four and my family with four were together all summer for riding, swimming, and teasing. When we were teenagers we were allowed to go to the country dance at the school house in Brown’s Hole. These were few, and only in the summer. Families would come for miles to stay all night, dancing and visiting.

When we moved back to Arizona the Grounds family moved to the Kingman area and my family moved back to Prescott, for which I will be forever grateful. My father worked for my grandmother Crozier, who had purchased a ranch in Walnut Creek, having sold the ranch at Peach Springs. Since two of my sisters were still in school, we had a house in town, visiting the ranch only occasionally.

Ranching in Arizona was easier than in Colorado; no haying, no gardening. At the Peach Springs ranch, however, grandfather raised lots of fruit. Some time after returning to Arizona, Bill Grounds bought the Crozier ranch at Peach Springs and with all of water there he irrigated some native grass in a small area to prove that it could be done.

Ranching until a few years ago was a wonderful way of life; ranchers were self-sufficient, independent, and yet ready to help each other.

(Dorothy Chafin moved to Prescott in 1933 and is active in the local arts and music association in town)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(ra138ph). Reuse only by permission.

Dorothy Chafin grew up in northwestern Colorado on a ranch much like this one. Fun and trouble could be found on the ranch including a close call with cattle rustlers that Dorothy accidentally brought on.

By Anne L. Foster

Today, the sidewalks of Prescott will be crowded with corsage-pinned moms happily surrounded by grateful children and gleeful grandchildren. Mother might receive a special meal, a mailbox full of cards, and maybe even some jewelry. Perhaps it will be a picnic at Lynx Lake or a stroll through the Plaza’s craft show. Whatever it is, it’s sure to be special and to be accompanied by a lot of hugs and kisses. Today, Prescottonians will go all out for their moms.

It didn’t used to be that way. Prescott was slow to adopt the Mother’s Day celebration.

The tradition stems from an old English custom called Mothering Sunday. Originally, the term referred to the practice of the religious faithful returning to the mother church where they had been baptized. The first modern Mother’s Day observances are said to have been in Philadelphia churches on May 10, 1908. By 1913, the idea had caught on in many places and the United States Congress issued a resolution in support of the celebration. Mother’s Day, to be celebrated the second Sunday in May, was first proclaimed a national holiday by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914.

In Prescott, the Journal-Miner newspaper carried a one-sentence announcement of the presidential proclamation but little interest seems to have been aroused. The following few years see no mention at all of the holiday. The newspaper headlines are filled with news of the Lusitania and the Great War in Europe. Perhaps the somber mood and escalating fear of war kept attention elsewhere.

The reality of war changed Prescott’s opinion, however. In 1919, the West Gurley Street Methodist Church held a special Mother’s Day service:

"The time has come when Mother’s Day should mean something more than a beautiful sentiment. Those who have worn the white flower in memory of the mothers, who are no longer with them, should, to-day, think of the mothers all over the world who are wearing the red flower of COURAGE, and have bravely given their sons ‘that democracy may live and not perish from the earth.’"

With the end of the war and the dawn of the Roaring Twenties, Prescottonians celebrated Mother’s Day with more exuberance. The holiday now became the time for children to showcase their love and devotion–not to mention the talents that were the joy of every proud parent! The 1920 observance, held at the Blue Triangle on North Marina (a meeting hall despite the saloon-like name), included "a sextet from St. Joseph’s Academy, the High School Glee club, and other features of merit." The press release also graciously noted that "fathers as well as mothers will be made welcome; refreshments will be served, and a welcome in the spirit of the day is extended to all."

By 1921, a variety of entertainments were offered to suit every taste. The Prescott Luncheon club heard Howard Cornick lead a discussion of the national holiday. At the Congregational Church, Dr. W. H. B. Urch spoke fondly of his memories as a member of the Mother”s Day Society and as pastor to Mrs. Juliette Blakesly, founder of the modern celebration. The Blue Triangle was again host to a children’s program, this time sponsored by the YWCA’s Girl Reserves. The show, "at which an effort will be made to have all mothers present," showcased Frances Hicks and Sallie Hall in readings as well as several vocal, piano and saxophone solos.

The next year, a full-scale mother-daughter banquet was held. The Journal-Miner reported, "Behind the observance of Mother’s Day" by the Girl Reserves, it is felt, is a realization of the growing need of mutual understanding, sympathy and appreciation between mothers and daughters.

Not to be outdone, Prescott poet Frank J. Scully added a son’s perspective with the last stanza of his 1921 poem "To Mother":

"Thread your needle! That would I gladly do,

For are you not the queen of all the land?

And, Mother, while returning it to you,

May I not kiss your royal, wrinkled hand?"

Clearly, it was not a lack of love that sled Prescott’s adoption of the holiday. Once begun, the celebration spread rapidly. So maybe it’s not a long tradition; it is the most heart-felt. And that’s what today’s moms appreciate most.

(Anne Foster is an archival fellow at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. She was formerly the assistant archivist at the Sharlot Hall Museum)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(po155p). Reuse only by permission.

While still living at Orchard Ranch Sharlot Hall’s mother Adeline died in 1912 perhaps shortly after this photo was taken. It was two years after her mother’s death that President Wilson declared a national holiday in honor of all mothers. Yavapai County was slow to accept this new "holiday."

by Rita Wuehrmann

The untimely death of a man, Charles Bradner Rhodimer, in Missouri on a June day in 1911 set off a chain of events that resulted in my family’s involvement with Prescott and Yavapai County.

My great grandfather, a saddle and harness maker, was only 33 when he succumbed to tuberculosis, leaving a cherished young wife to care for their three children.

Did his wife, Sara Louisa Weaver, "Sally," contract the disease from him? It seems likely, because before long, she made the decision to depart her home, and strike out on her own in the drier, more healthful climate of Colorado Springs. The change must have been good for her; she was able to complete her job of raising a daughter and two sons in that mountain town.

What prompted the family’s decision to head even farther west? We are not sure, possibly a continuing quest for a cure to the lung disorder that plagued them. In any event, we know that my mother (Mary Louise Catron) was born in the San Fernando Valley in 1922, the only child of Sally’s daughter. At that time, it would seem that my grandmother Grace and at least one of her brothers suffered from the dreaded tuberculosis, in addition to my great grandmother, who finally was taken by it in 1925 in Van Nuys, California.

How did the family know about Prescott, Arizona, and that its climate that was touted to be beneficial for tuberculosis sufferers? Probably medical advice was what prompted them to depart for Yavapai County, where many others had sought a cure. Evidently here shortly after my mother’s birth, my grandparents Clyde "Roy" Catron and Grace, settled in and became part of the community. They moved often during their Prescott sojourn. We know their first residence here was high on the hill behind the Arizona Pioneers Home. Next, they lived below the Pioneers Home at the foot of the hill just above the creek, then in two different houses, now demolished, where the Park Plaza shopping center stands. Park Avenue was the site of one of their abodes. Evidently, Grandma was close to Kate Cory; we have a letter she received which was addressed to her in care of the well-known artist. Then, they were off to Miller Valley, abiding on Valley Street at different times in two neighboring houses, the last where they remained when my father (Ira Kelley), son of a ranching family from near Yarnell, courted my mother (but that’s another Yavapai County story).

At one point, Grandma was among a small group who came together for the purpose of sewing for needy families. Members originally called themselves the Dorcas Club, but because that name had previously been used by the First Baptist Church, adopted the moniker of Tillicum Club (according to a newspaper clipping, the name is from a word meaning "friend" in the language of Minnesota Indians).

Grandma, a member of the Methodist Church and its missionary society, was an artist; I suspect that there are paintings of hers hanging in local homes. Many were signed with her later initials, GRS, or Grace Rho Smith. She married Eugene Smith after her divorce from Grandpa. She was a contemporary of Sharlot Hall, and attended some of Sharlot’s talks. As a member of the Miller Valley Sewing Club in 1935, Grandma was among the "first group to be entertained in Miss Sharlot Hall’s new quarters in the stone museum recently built near the old governor’s mansion." On that occasion, the ladies sewed and listened to "Miss Hall’s reminiscences of pioneer days," according to a newspaper article.

Grandfather Roy was employed as parts manager at Webb Motors, and in charge of the parts delivery service of the old Floyd Williams Motor Company, among other endeavors.

Mom, Mary Louise Catron (later married to Ira Kelley), attended Lincoln School from kindergarten, later walked just a block to attend classes at Miller Valley School, then was a student at the old junior high school, which stood on the prominence now occupied by the Yavapai County jail edifice on Gurley Street.

As a child, my mother performed piano recitals in Prescott, some of them for the auxiliary of the Woodmen Circle and for the Monday Club. I believe Grandma was a member of the Monday Club. Grandma also played the piano, and they both were guitarists. Accompanying themselves on the guitar, they sang songs passed down by my great grandfather, who learned songs from the plains cowboys and pioneers who traveled through their Missouri town near the beginning of their covered wagon journeys.

During her growing-up years, Mom was one of many youngsters who benefited from the American Red Cross’ "Splash Week," during which they learned to swim at The Gardens, a resort and pool at Granite Dells.

Grandma had two brothers, both of whom were part of the Prescott community — Charles Rhodimer, named for his father, a single man who resided in the Arizona Hotel, now Coyote Joe’s, and Perry Dale Rhodimer, a businessman who we believe started the tire shop near the corner of Montezuma and Goodwin, the spot where a tire store remains to this day. We have been told that Dale served on the Prescott City Council.

Then, there was my other great grandmother, Molly Catron, who lived with my grandparents in Prescott. Her obituary in a 1940 Prescott Courier identified her as a "pioneer" of the area.

In Miller Valley, the nearby Johnny and Clara Williams family produced Margaret Williams, who later became my aunt by virtue of her marriage to Uncle Lewis Kelley. Uncle Lewis’ first wife, Lucille Thomason, from a family farther down in the desert, near Congress, was Mom’s best friend. Another good friend of Mom’s was Laverne Yearry, whose sons remain well-known contributors to this community.

After their marriage, my parents worked their ranch, the AD, at Hell’s Gate between Morristown and what was then known as Lake Carl Pleasant. My older brother was born in the Mercy Hospital on Grove Avenue in 1939, the year before it burned.

There were three Prescott funerals in my family. Molly Catron’s final resting place was long lost to our kin, but a visit to the Mountain View Cemetery office and a perusal of its "book of deaths" was enough to restore her to us (these and other cemetery records for most of Yavapai County can be found at the Sharlot Hall Museum’s Archives). Now we remember her regularly with graveside visits and flowers. While we are hearkening back to our ancestors in the burying ground, we place flowers on the graves of two of Uncle Dale and Caralyn (Hill) Rhodimer’s babies lying there.

A move to the "Valley of the Sun" occurred before my birth and those of my younger siblings, and so we were raised in the desert. After that relocation, my Grandmother always returned to Prescott when difficulties overwhelmed her. I don’t know with whom she stayed, but here is where she found her solace. In later years, it was our pleasure to return to our "old stomping grounds," visit "Verne" and her family and absorb the peace that comes to us in this place.

By the time of America’s bicentennial, 1976, I could no longer bear the city life which had overrun our previously rural setting, and returned to the place where my heart had long resided — Prescott. Thus, this area became my refuge, as it has long been the refuge for my family in their times of troubles.

(Rita Wuehrmann is an active volunteer at Sharlot Hall Museum.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (submitted by author). Reuse only by permission.

In about 1920 Clyde "Roy" Catron worked in the tire shop on Montezuma Street south of Goodwin belonging to his brother-in-law, Dale Rhodimer. The author’s family originally wound up in Prescott probably due to health reasons.