CHIRICAHUA A Pioneer Log Cabin in Bonita Canyon The History of the Stafford Cabin

B. SULPHER SPRING VALLEY AND BONITA CANYON TO 1880

Sulphur Spring Valley is a wide semi-arid region in the southeastern corner of Arizona bordered on the east by the Chiricahua Mountains. It is noted for cattle ranching and farming with irrigation. Chiricahua Indians, an Apache tribe, inhabited the valley and the mountains from the 1700s until 1876 when after years of warfare and four years of uncertain peace, U. S. troops removed those who did not flee to the San Carlos reservation to the north. However, not until 1886 did the troops succeed in subduing this troublesome band, led by Naiche and Geronimo. During their heyday Indians congregated at Bonita Canyon's spring where they found not only sustenance but a pass over the Chiricahua Mountains, a route that also afforded numerous hiding places.²

---

²Robert M. Utley, A Clash of Cultures, Fort Bowie and the Chiricahua Apaches. Washington: National Park Service Division of Publications, 1977, pp 9-20; Martyn D. Tagg, The Camp at Bonita Canon, a Buffalo Soldier Camp in Chiricahua National Monument, Publications in Anthropology No. 42. Tucson: Western Archeological and Conservation Center, 1987, p. 22.

---

The threat of Apache attack kept Spanish explorers and missionaries away from the region, and after the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico in 1853-54 settlers were still somewhat discouraged from entering the valley. Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke and his "Mormon battalion" opened a wagon road via San Bernardino and Tucson some years earlier and the Butterfield Overland Mail operated in the area from 1858 to 1861. During the 1850s relations with the Chiricahua Apaches remained fairly peaceful. A number of government survey parties crossed the valley between 1851 and 1855, including one survey of the Mexican border and another seeking a transcontinental railroad route. Evidence of pioneer cattle ranches were found by members of the former expedition.³

---

³Utley, A Clash of Cultures, pp. 14, 17-20; O. E. Meinzer and F. C. Kelton, Geology and Water Resources of the Sulphur Spring Valley, Arizona. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1913, p. 11.

---

As tensions between Indians and the military and civilians increased, coming to a head at the battle of Apache Pass in 1862, the United States Army established Fort Bowie at the northern end of the Chiricahua Mountains on July 27 of that year. The fort dominated not only the pass but the source of water at Apache Spring, and provided troops to help make the region safe for white settlers, an often difficult and sometimes impossible task.

Colonel Henry Clay Hooker, who had arrived in the Tucson area with his livestock in the summer of 1869, established the first permanent cattle ranch in Sulphur Spring Valley in 1872, the Sierra Bonita Ranch located northwest of today's Willcox. During the late 1870s a small number of settlers entered the valley, including Louis Prue and Brannick Riggs, both of whom founded ranches in the vicinity west and northwest of Bonita Canyon. By 1880 the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad reached the northern part of the valley, where merchants and settlers established the town of Willcox.⁴

---

⁴Louis R. Caywood, The Archaeology of the Sulphur Spring Valley, Arizona, Thesis, University of Arizona, 1933, p. 14-15; Roscoe G. Wilson, Pioneer Cattlemen of Arizona, Phoenix: The Valley National Bank, 1951; Meinzer and Kelton, Geology and Water Resources, pp. 12-14.

---