Remembering a wrong turn in the Bradshaws

By Cowboy Jim Nichols

Editor’s note: Jim Nichols is a long-time rider with the Desert Caballeros Ride. Although he lives and works in California, his heart is often in Wickenburg, and he writes colorfully of local lore.

Have you ever been lost? No, I mean really lost, not driving around the block three times looking for an address.

In the early 1960s, my father cut a deal with the Castle Hot Springs Resort near Wickenburg to summer their dude string of horses at our ranch outside of Prescott.

For a few extra bucks in his pocket, Dad ran a summer camp for boys. It was an opportunity for city kids to taste the cowboy life. Each was assigned a horse, and yep, it was a horse from Castle Hot Springs.

We didn’t truck or trailer the remuda in; we drove the herd from the Springs all the way to our ranch.

My job one year was to haul supplies to the halfway stop where the wranglers spent the night and rested the animals. They were totally dependent on the provisions I was to deliver.

I was given directions to the camp site by the jigger boss on the back of a paper sack.

They looked simple enough to follow.

At the appointed time, I loaded the ranch truck with food, water, hay, sodas, flashlights, bedrolls, toilet paper and everything else one would need for a comfortable overnight respite.

Alone, I started off in high spirits.

I traveled Highway 89 south through Dewey, Humbolt, and Mayer. Shortly out of Mayer, I angled into the mountains on a dirt road in a southwest direction. Looking back, the directions on the sack were unintelligible.

“Go approximately three miles to a fork in the road. Take the left fork. Go five more miles to a large oak tree next to a gate. Don’t go through the gate, but angle right down the fence line road to a large rock which looks like a buffalo etc. etc.”

Long story even longer, I drove all afternoon turning right and left through forested mountains, canyons, past small lakes, over streams, through valleys and hamlets and never found them! I saw deer, wild turkeys, a snake, two coyotes and a bearded man in a jeep.

I went through settlements and ghost towns with names such as Cleator, Crown King, Goodwin, Palace Station and Senator. I even traversed an area called Horse Thief Basin, according to the sign. I drove into the night totally losing my sense of direction, north from south. As the moon rose and drifted across the night sky, my palms got wet watching the gas gauge sink.

Eventually I hit Senator Highway and found my way back to the ranch, coasting in totally out of gas. I was exhausted, disgusted, angry, but relieved I had made it back alive from what seemed like the back side of Mars.

With the help of a rancher neighbor I ventured forth at the crack of dawn back into the mighty Bradshaws. I found my party. They were tired, hungry, extremely angry and downright rude to me. They had slept on the ground without food, water, bedrolls and feed for the horses.

I gave it as good as I got it.

“Do you boys know how many damn oak trees, buffalo-looking rocks and forks in dirt roads are in these mountains? I’m lucky to still be sucking air,” I told them defensivly.

What I did not know at the time was I had driven through one of the most historically significant areas in Arizona.

Gold was discovered where I had been in 1837. In 1863 miners poured into the area in ever increasing numbers. In 1870 a large strike was made, near Crown King, and the Tiger Mine was born. Mining camps sprung up everywhere, along the route (routes) I had traveled that lonesome night. The Bradshaws hummed with the sound of stamp mills, picks on rocks, saloon laughter and occassionally gun shots. And yes, there were war cries and flying arrows in places I had been.

Eventually the mines played out and the mountains became silent once again. Now, however, they are experiencing a repopulation. Crown King, Palace Station and other tiny settlements are visited regularly by weekenders, snowbirds, Forest Service employees and retirees. I am none of those and don’t plan to wander that forest covered wilderness again without a map, compass (maybe two compasses), GPS and a satellite phone with extra batteries.

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