Connection
February 2012 Vol. 29 No. 2
An open forum publication allowing all voices to be heard since 1983
ARIVACA YESTERDAYS
by Mary Noon Kasulaitis
Arivaca at the time of Statehood in 1912
T
he village of Arivaca was just getting started in 1863 when Arizona became a Territory, both having been promoted by Col. Charles D. Poston. Between 1863 and 1912 the town went along as a stage stop and supply center for the mines in the area. During the little boom of the 1870s when what we know of as Main Street was developed and the Schoolhouse built by Pedro Aguirre. The town Store, owned by Noah W. Bernard, was in what has most recently been the Rocking A Feeds Store on the north side of the street. The Arivaca Ranch, known in those days as Bogan and Bernard, got going good in the 1880s and eventually morphed into the Arivaca Land and Cattle Company(ALCC). It kept Arivaca alive by turning it into a company town. The early part of the 20th century saw homesteading in a big way, because it was not until the Arivaca Land Grant ownership was settled in 1902 that any land was
available for permanent settlement in Arivaca valley. By the time of Statehood, the town of Arivaca was already a good 50 years old and things were happening Arivaca (as a voting precinct) had made the newspaper in 1911 by voting against the State Constitution, which was ratified by the pro votes elsewhere, allowing Arizona to become a state on February 14, 1912. For most people the reason for the negativity was the provision for judicial recall. We may take for granted Arizona’s three distinctive rights: initiative, referendum and recall (of public officials), but at the time, they were considered innovative and rather scary. Many newspaper articles in 1911 discussed this issue. Pictures of Arivaca in 1903 show many adobe buildings, but by 1912 someone had come to town and plastered everything, thus keeping them going for another hundred years (they are still there!) The big news of 1912 was the large store building constructed by the Arivaca Land and Cattle Company on the site of the current Arivaca Mercantile. (That building lasted until
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1956, when it burned down and the current one was erected.) By 1912, the Arivaca Land and Cattle Company’s owners were Noah C. Bernard, John Bogan, George Pusch, John Zellweger and Ramon Ahumada. (Pedro Aguirre and Noah W. Bernard had died in 1907.) Pusch and Zellweger were land developers from Tucson who owned other ranches elsewhere. The ALCC had started acquiring and fencing land around town, sometimes illegally expropriating it for their own use. The government had to step in and stop it, filing a complaint in 1912. This was not the first or last legal action involving the ALCC. When John Bogan filed for a Desert Land homestead entry (320 acres) on cienaga land in 1908, a legal protest proved that the land was indeed a swamp with perennial water. He was forced to file for the usual 160 acres. Arthur Noon also filed on 160 acres of this land. One of the big stories of 1912 was the death of Forbes Talcott, who had fallen off a horse while working cattle and suffered a skull fracture on July
23. With his friend Jack McVey, he had been developing the Jarillas Ranch. At the time, Jack and his wife were honeymooning in New England. McVey and Forbes were wealthy young men who had come West three years before looking for adventure and a cattle ranch. Jack came back and carried on with the ranch, building a big house, developing an orchard, and receiving a National Forest grazing lease. By September, the McVeys were inviting their Tucson friends out here for parties. Jack was one of the first people in town to own an automobile and later an airplane! Water rights were a big thing in 1912, with all the farming going on. Settlers took their turn at using water out of the Creek and some had done so for 30 years, but proving this use and having rights grandfathered in was now really important. Yndalecio Aguirre, Phil Ward, Dr. Ball and the Figueroas, Rita Sanchez Mora as well as the ever present John Bogan were filing legal affidavits for water rights. It was at this time that the Arivaca Land and Cattle Company began Continued on Page 2
CONNECTION P.O. Box 338, Arivaca, AZ 85601 Ph. 520.398.2379 email: SoAZVox@aol.com www.arivaca-newspaper.com
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