Copper Basin News Celebrating More Than 50 Years of News Coverage in the Copper Basin
Vol. 53 No. 13
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Periodicals Postage Paid at Hayden, Arizona 85235
New UW director happy to be here to serve the county
Check Out the Pioneer Days Photo Coverage on Page 5
THE MINING BRIEF By Lana Jones Copper prices fell from their February peaks but remained above $4.00 per pound in March. May copper was trading at $4.36 per pound Tuesday morning. Florence Copper Project Florence Copper Project will hold another open house in Florence on April 4 from 2 to 7 p.m. The open house will take place at Sun City Anthem at Merrill Ranch. The mining process, insitu copper recovery, will be
50 Cents
explained. Information on other major elements of the Project will also be available. The contact for the open house is rsvp@curisresources. com. Grupo Mexico Grupo Mexico announced this month that it expects to get its Cananea copper mine back to full production in April, Reuters reported. The mine has been operating at partial capacity since the end of a three-year strike in 2010. Cananea, located in Sonora,
By Lana Jones Beverly Prueter, the new executive director for United Way of Pinal County, has been working with United Way for 46 years. Up until she moved to Pinal in November she was the president and CEO of United Way of Greater Lima in Ohio. She took that job in 1976. A desire to be closer to her family and the opportunity to keep working with United Way pulled her out west. “I like the area really well and the opportunity to stay in United Way really spoke to me,” she said. “That’s what I’ve been doing all my life. I absolutely love working with people who are trying to help people.” She loves working with people and especially with volunteers. “Volunteers bring a different perspective every year. You’re never bored. There’s always someone bringing something new into the picture. They can bring vitality to an organization really well,” she said. And that’s one of the things she’ll be working on first here in Pinal, building a stronger volunteer base for the fundraising campaign. “We’ve got a great group of volunteers for the board and a great group of volunteers managing the fund but the campaign is lacking,” said Beverly. The campaign starts in the fall and is usually completed by February but it’s still wrapping up this year. Beverly said she’d like to recruit a campaign chair who will recruit volunteers for the campaign. The volunteers will circulate pledge sheets with information about the nonprofits United Way of Pinal County is going to fund and the types of services they’ll provide. “We’re doing a fairly good
is the largest copper mine in Mexico. Other mining news Local writer and retired miner, Onofre Tafoya, was interviewed in a recent series by Arizona Public Media called Copper at the Crossroads. Tafoya, better known as Taffy, spoke of his 25 years at San Manuel Mine and what it meant to him. The interview, and eight other copper mining stories, are available online at http://www.azpm.org/arizona. copper/.
Beverly Prueter job of that in Casa Grande and Apache Junction. We just want to get around in the county itself,” Beverly said. “I think with the volunteer structure, you’ll have more people getting out. What it’s going to mean in the long run, if we raise more money we can help more people and that’s really what United Way is all about.” Part of what makes the campaign difficult is just the size of the county. “It’s hard to reach people with all the communities. We do fund programs in most of the communities. It’s hard for people to get the message,” said Beverly. “Marketing is always a problem.” The economic state of affairs is also a problem. “The economy is very difficult and that’s why it’s important for us to reach out and get around in the different communities. “The challenge for any large county United Way is making their services known to people.” People may not know what services are available because the service agencies aren’t based in their community. For example, Beverly said that the United Way supports See United Way, Page 8
Family to honor slain deputy, Part Two By Becky Drew On May 11, 2011, the Drew family of Kearny will honor their ancestor, Edward Landers Drew. EL was a Deputy Sheriff for Pinal County and stationed at Ray. He was killed in a shoot out at the Saloon of Dick Remington (or Pennington) in Sonoratown. I have included parts of the family story (so as to make sense of where the Drews came from and just how they ended up). This is by no means a complete story as it is much longer. Help us honor EL Drew and those other brave law-men of the area, some who gave their lives and others who dedicated their lives to make it a safe place to live. Harrison, Edward, David, Cora, and Charles According to the Arizona Census of 1880, Harrison was employed as a teamster and Edward, a laborer. (Arizona Territorial Census, Pima County. Later this area became Cochise county. Cochise was created 1 Feb 1881 out of Pima.) Soon afterwards, Edward, 15, was able to secure a contract delivering wood to the Contention smelter. He hired Mexicans to cut the wood from the nearby Chiricahua Mountains. As the nearest source of wood, the Chiricahuas were about 50 miles away. They used 20 mule teams for transportation of the wood.
Cora remembers being poor during this time and for her eighth Christmas receiving a plain, dark blue bottle. To her “it was the most beautiful thing a child could have” and she kept it for many months. Using it for a doll, she was heartbroken the day she accidentally broke it on a rock. It was her only plaything. In the spring of 1881 (Cora Drew Reynolds. Possibly July 1877 according to Arizona: the last Frontier. It is possible that this happened before William died rather than in 1881 as Cora tells it. In 1877 Cora was 5.), Cora continues, a man came to the ranch on foot. He begged for his supper and breakfast and they bedded him down for the night in the stable. His name was Ed Schiefflin, and he left the Drew ranch and went on to discover the fabulous Tombstone lode, around, which grew the fabled mining town, according to Cora. They saw him often afterward both at the ranch and in Tombstone but in time, he forgot those who had befriended him. The Tombstone claim, which was worthless, was discovered in April 1877. Another claim started about the same times was good and mining actually started on it. (It is possible that Cora meant the Commonwealth Mine found by Jimmy Pearce in 1893 and was about 25 mile east of Tombstone. No one knows
how much gold and silver it produced but accounts say at least $9 million in three years.) Harrison Drew, now 23, was able to secure the stage stop between Benson and Contention City in 1881. Contention was the first stage stop out of Tombstone. This was Drew’s Station.(Reference Arizona Place Names: Drew’s Station, Cochise County. “1881 this was a stage station owned by Harrison Drew 15 miles north of Tombstone on road to Benson. It was at this place Doc Holliday killed Budd Philpot.” In a letter from John Herron, archaeologist, San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, a survey in 1881 of the San Juan de las Boquillas y Nogales Land Grant of that year by Solon Allis, describes a “Drew House.” Mr. Herron was able to locate the site, and found a corner of an adobe structure at the edge of the San Pedro River. Mary Drew Aseltine placed a plaque at the site in March 1991. Letter 16 March 1991, reverse letter, John Herron, 12 December 1990.) It was 15 miles north of Tombstone on the road to Benson. They changed the four horses at the Drew’s and Mama Drew gave the passengers breakfast for a dollar apiece. Tombstone ran two stages daily. One was a second-class four-horse stage and the other, a first class sixhorse stage. Bud Philpot was
the driver of the first class stage, and the Drew children always got up and waved good-byes when he left late at night. Sixteen-year-old Edward had bought a large herd of burros and David Stuart and Cora Ann each had their favorite, which they rode constantly. When they heard that they had sold them, David and Cora left home as fast as they could, “which is not very fast on a burro.” They finally overtook and forced them to walk home, but their hearts’ were heavy, knowing that their “own personal” burros had been sold with the herd. Burros were used to carry most of the freight in Arizona then. A pack of about 50 mules used to stop at the house regularly loaded with burlap sacks of oranges that sold for fifty cents. The Drews commonly had all the fresh fruit they wanted. The Sulfur Springs Valley is known for its citrus orchards. Later in the 1880s the family became more financially independent and put any extra money into expanding the cattle herd. Cora forgot where they got their grain for the horses but remembered that the hay was wild grama [sic] grass, which was good feed and was plentiful. Gramma grass, called mesquite or buffalo grass, is an important member of a class of low growing grasses that are abundant in the Southwest. Cora’s memoirs, quoted
Cora Drew Reynolds, c. 1900 from “My Life in the Early West,” include those of several historical outlaws [explanatory notes and proper names added for clarity]: I don’t think that there has ever been a town anywhere that grew as fast as Tombstone. Most of the men that the movies and books have immortalized were intimate friends of my childhood. I knew “Curly Bill” [Brocius] well: he was tall, blond and heavy set and wore his hair like a girl in long curls and ringlets. The Earps, Harry Head, Doc Halliday [sic], Jim Crane,
Frank and Ed [Mc]Lowery, and Billie and Ike Clanton were frequent visitors to our ranch. They gave my mother their word and they kept it that she need never worry about our cattle being rustled. Desperados frequently came to our place; one day we heard the familiar sound of gunplay across the river and shortly thereafter four or five wild-eyed men arrived and demanded a horse of Mama saying, ‘Any horse will do as we shall soon get a good one.’ Of course Mama had to let them See Drew, Page 4