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A Place in the Land

the Settlement of
Pine, Arizona: 1878-1900

by

Michael F. Anderson

THIRD PRINTING, MAY 2001

This copy of "A Place in the Land - The Settlement of Pine, Arizona: 1878-1900" was revised and printed expressly for sale by the Pine-Strawberry Archeological & Historical Society for reproduction and sale by the society. It is otherwise protected from unauthorized use by copyright of 1991, 1992 and 1994.

- Strawberry, Arizona, May 1996

Map Showing Route from Utah to Arizona

Map Showing Features of North Central Arizona

Map of Pine - 1900

Note: Bracketed numbers, i.e. [21],  refer to corresponding citations listed at the end of this paper.

Preface

This is a story of the early years of Pine, Arizona. More than that, it is set within geographical, topographical, social, and religious contexts in order to answer questions such as, why did European Americans settle here, why did it take them so long to get here, and why did Pine survive when so many frontier communities failed?

So if it seems that we are spending a whole lot of words before getting to Pine itself, that is the reason.

Major emphasis concerning the town itself is placed on the years 1878 through 1890. The author undertook the research and writing as a seminar paper while a Masters student at Northern Arizona University, thus, it had to end somewhere short of a book. Ending it following the first community crisis seemed as good a place as any.

A note on sources: There are few published accounts on the early years of Pine, so the author had to research county, state, and federal records, newspapers of the time, and local pamphlets, transcripts of oral interviews, and ephemera found in special collections libraries to piece together this history.

Please read the notes at the end, as much information is discussed there along with the identification of sources.

1840-1879

1847- Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints immigrate to Utah's Salt Lake Basin; Mormon expansion in the Southwest begins.

1863- Creation of Arizona Territory; Pine area is a part of Yavapai County with the county seat at Prescott.

1866- Paul and Bill Gregg arrive in the Pine vicinity; earliest known white settlers in the area.

1867-1876 U.S. Army wages war on the Tonto Apaches; 60 engagements in or near Tonto Basin, many within 20 miles of Pine.

1868- General Thomas Devin and 21st Infantry construct wagon road from Camp Verde to head of Fossil Creek.

1873- Captain J.J. Coppinger and 23rd Infantry work to complete the wagon road as far as Fort Apache; what becomes known as the General Crook Trail.

1874- Tonto Apaches largely subdued, allowing white immigrationt toTonto Basin.

1875- Prospectors ranging north from Globe begin to examine Tonto Basin mineral wealth.

1876- Mormon scouting expedition to the Tonto Basin: John Bushman, Pleasant Bradford, William C. Allen, Peter Hansen.

1877- Mormon scouting expedition purchases property at site of Mazatzal City: John Willis, Thomas Clark, Alfred J. Randall, Woodward Freeman, Revilo Fuller, Wyllys Fuller.

1878- Mazatzal City founded near today's Doll Baby Ranch: families of John Willis, Woodward Freeman, Rial Allen, Alfred J. Randall, Revilo Fuller, Cecil Allen, Marion Allen.

1879- Settlers in Pine-Strawberry areas include "Old Man" Bunch Family, "Cowboy" John Hicks and John Duncan, Henry Siddles, Price W. Nelson Family, John Pleasant Hough Family.

1879- Alfred J. Randall and Rial Allen purchase land in Pine Valley. Settlers from Mazatzal City begin to move to Pine area.

1880-1900

1880- Census records families of Rial Allen, John Allen, C. Fuller, Revilo Fuller, John Hough, W. N. Price at Pine Creek; total population: 38.

1880- Formation of the Tonto Basin Branch of the Little Colorado Stake. Rial Allen, presiding elder; day school established; date the author gives as the founding of the "town" of Pine.

1880- Population is supplemented by families of Alfred J. Randall, 1881 Wyllys Fuller, Neil Fuller, Alma Moroni Hunt, William Hunt, Ellen Celeste Woodward Fuller, Lee Heward, John Lazear, William Stark.

1880- Thirteen families file for water rights to Pine Creek.

1881- Formation of the Tonto Basin Ward at Pine, Rial Allen, first bishop; Allen family builds a town fort.

1882- First Tonto Basin Ward report indicates ten Mormon families with 78 church members at Pine. Non-Mormon residents raise Pine population to 83-100 in this year; residents build one of the first public schools in the Basin.

1882- Founding of Payson, Arizona; Battle of Big Dry Wash north east of Pine.

1883-1890 Pine is likely the most populated town in Tonto Basin during  these years.

1883- Pine Mormon population: 96.

1884- Pine post office established, Mary D. Fuller, postmaster.

1885- Pine Mormon population: 156.

1887- Pine Mormon population: 172; Ward is separated from the Little Colorado Stake and attached to the Snowflake Stake.

1889- Last U.S. Army patrol through Pine, 4th Cavalry; Pine-Strawberry area becomes part of Gila County.

1890- 51 elementary school students in Pine.

1890- Mormon church authorities authorize abandonment of Tonto Basin; Families of Rial Allen, Marion Allen, Alexander Allen, Price Nelson, Lee Heward, William Hunt leave Pine, reducing population by 25-35% and threatening community survival.

1893- Dissolved Tonto Basin Ward is reorganized as a branch to the Snowflake Basin.

1894- Only six Mormon families remain in Pine.

1900- Brigham Young, Jr. reorganizes Pine branch as the Pine Ward, attached to the Maricopa Stake; population stabilizes at approximately 100.

* * * *

Before Mormon pioneers reached the Great Salt Basin in 1847, church leader Brigham Young had already envisioned a new Mormon State of Deseret in the American Southwest. Within thirty years of settlement in central Utah, Young fulfilled his vision in a cultural if not political sense. By 1877, the year of his death, nearly 400 Mormon communities radiated from Salt Lake City through southern California, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, western Colorado, Mexico, and Arizona.

Continuing Young’s colonization policy, Mormon pioneers probed beyond the Little Colorado River valley of northern Arizona to settle within the central Tonto Basin. In 1879 and 1880, a handful of these families came by a rather circuitous route to the headwaters of Pine Creek at the foot of the Mogollon Rim to found Pine, Arizona.

This history examines Pine’s earliest years within the context of Mormon expansion, and also considers physical, emotional, and cultural factors that affected early European-American settlement in the Tonto Basin. Despite the supportive nature of most southwestern Mormon communities which favored persistence, many failed when founded in remote and unfavorable physical environments or amidst existing populations none too happy with the religious newcomers.

Mormon settlers at Pine chose a small valley at the northern extreme of the Tonto Basin, an isolated area of some 1800 square miles bordered by rugged mountain ranges on three sides and the Salt River to the south. They were not the first residents of the Basin nor even the first European Americans to inhabit Pine and nearby Strawberry valleys. Isolation from brethren, conflict with subdued but still threatening Tonto Apaches, and interaction with non-Mormon neighbors posed challenges during the early years. These challenges led to community crisis, depopulation, and questions of town survival by the 1890s.

* * * *

Mormon settlement in the American Southwest derived from religious intolerance, initiated in the East soon after Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1830. Faced with ridicule and violence, Smith led the congregation west from his home state of New York through Ohio, and by the 1840s to Nauvoo, Illinois, along the Mississippi River. Here, continuing violence culminating in Smith’s murder drove most of his followers farther west in 1846 to found an independent state beyond the boundaries of the United States.

These emigrants settled in the Salt Lake Basin in 1847 under the leadership of Smith’s successor, Brigham Young. By that year, Young and other church leaders firmly believed that further settlement within existing communities would inevitably lead to conflict. From 1847 through the late nineteenth century, expansion strategy stressed colonization of vacant regions and the establishment of small mostly self-sufficient towns linked through internal trade.[1]

Brigham Young and lesser church officials vigorously pursued this settlement strategy, sending cadres of pioneers into sparsely populated basins, valleys, and plateaus. Aside from the desire to create an autonomous state, the need to disperse an increasing number of European converts who had been purposely directed to Salt Lake City hastened the creation of outlying settlements.

Polygamy, an essential tenet of the faith until 1890, created another reason for colonization of remote places, as church elders sought safe haven from federal marshals and others who typically abhorred the practice. Rapid expansion and the widespread misconception that all Mormons were polygamists created tension with other European Americans, especially in territorial Arizona. Trouble was usually avoided, however, since Arizonans had more bitter foes like Apaches, Yavapais, and other tribes, and Mormon colonists generally kept to themselves.[2]

Perceptions of church strategists who safely inhabited the rapidly developing Salt Lake Basin no doubt differed from colonists charged with implementing the wasteland settlement strategy in Arizona. At the onset of colonization to the Little Colorado in 1873, Apostle George Cannon explained settlement philosophy to those about to leave hard-won homes and families behind:

This none too encouraging admonition rang in the ears of the four groups of fifty called to settle four communities along the Little Colorado in 1875. The call promised exile from developed towns in pleasant southern Utah valleys in exchange for high desert terrain prone to high winds and periodic floods.

These settlers founded Brigham City, Sunset, Obed, and Joseph City in 1876; after a decade of disease, disappointment, and death, only the latter community survived. The journals of these pioneers reflect the real experience of common men, women, and children fulfilling the larger church vision.[4]

Despite hardships and early failures, the Little Colorado settlements served for a few years as important way stations to the more promising valleys of the upper Little Colorado River and to points farther south along the Salt River and into Mexico. As columns streamed south, church authorities began to consider settlement prospects within the Tonto Basin—an area topographically defined by the Mogollon Rim on the north, Salt River on the south, Mazatzal Mountains on the west, and Sierra Ancha Mountains on the east. No European-American settlements existed here in 1876.

In fact, a line drawn between established communities in Arizona in that year would connect Joseph City, Globe, Fort McDowell, and Camp Verde. The 11,000 square miles in between consisted of rugged yet rich terrain, suitable for farming, ranching, and mining. By 1876, only a few scattered prospectors and cattlemen had entered the area, thus, it offered a perfect opportunity for Mormon colonizers.[5]

European Americans avoided the area prior to the 1870s for several reasons, one of which was the absence of nearby national roads which would naturally encourage adjacent settlement. After the United States wrested the American Southwest from Mexico in 1848, topographical engineers quickly surveyed wagon and railroad routes to the Pacific coast. Topography dictated that national east-west roads would avoid the rugged central Arizona mountains and follow routes tracing the thirty-fifth parallel to the north, through today’s Flagstaff, and the thirty-second parallel south of the Gila River.

Prospectors rushing to California gold fields favored the route along the Gila. In 1858, the Butterfield Southern Overland Mail Company established stage service along the well-trodden road, and by the 1870s, the Southern Pacific Railroad was in place along much the same route.

At about the same time, Lieutenant Edward F. Beale (Ret.) surveyed the Beale Wagon Road along the northern route, the same path later chosen by the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad in the first years of the 1880s. National travellers thus bypassed the inconspicuous Tonto Basin for the mineral, pastoral, and agricultural opportunities in California. The few who chose to stop and develop Arizona’s resources—for the most part, after the 1870s—did so along the national roads which provided transportation, communication, and economic opportunity.[6]

Internal development in Arizona increased after the creation of Arizona Territory in 1863, but again, settlers neglected the Tonto Basin as circumstances called for expansion in the western third of the territory. Discovery of gold near today’s Wickenburg, Prescott, and within the intervening Bradshaw Mountains ensured increased population in those areas.

The first territorial officials established the capital at Prescott and wagon roads soon connected the capital with the tiny agricultural community called Phoenix and old Tucson to the south. Similar development to the north connected Prescott with the Beale Wagon Road and later railroad at Ash Fork. Lateral expansion did occur as far east as Camp Verde by the middle 1860s, but rugged terrain east of the Verde River again dissuaded settlers from entering the Basin.

As eastern emigrants poured west following the American Civil War, and Arizona farmers, ranchers, and prospectors penetrated unsettled regions of their territory, another obstacle far more formidable than terrain confronted would-be settlers to the Tonto Basin. The area formed the very heart of what early Spanish explorers termed Apacheria, the land of the Western Apaches. By the middle nineteenth century, European-American settlement pressure had compressed bands previously scattered over a much larger area into the central Arizona Mountains, creating a "last stand" setting for what whites loosely termed the Tonto Apaches. These American Indians, nomadic residents since the late sixteenth century, would resist encroachment for a decade following the Civil War and threaten tentative settlements well into the 1880s.[7]

Wars fought between the U.S. Cavalry and the Tonto Apaches have received far less publicity than Indian wars fought in other regions of the United States, but they were no less ferocious and deadly (for the Tontos) than more "popular" wars fought on the Great Plains. In the five years immediately following the Civil War, the U.S. Army’s Department of Arizona established Fort Lincoln (soon renamed Camp Verde), and Forts McDowell, Reno, Grant, Thomas, and Apache to encircle the Basin and campaign against the Tontos.

In the spring of 1867, the army declared all Indians who were not scouting for the troops or cloistered on the Colorado River Reservation to be "hostile," and began its campaign of capture or extermination.[8]

Between the years 1867 and 1876, sixty battles were fought within or near the Tonto Basin, resulting in the deaths of a handful of troopers, a few isolated settlers, and several hundred Apaches. Twenty-two of these conflicts occurred in 1873 and 1874 alone during the period of General George Crook’s relentless campaigns, and many were fought within twenty miles of Pine and Strawberry valleys. White settlement began to coalesce in the Basin by the middle 1870s after Crook succeeded in chasing straggling bands onto the reservations, but wary settlers knew better than to believe the Indian threat at an end. Another eight battles would yet be fought, and the fear of reservation renegades would remain as late as 1889.[9]

The army’s pursuit of Tonto Apaches in the years 1867 through 1876 not only afforded tentative settlement, but supplied the means by which the first settlers could drive wagons and cattle into the region. The army created through use or deliberate construction nearly all Basin roads during these years. As early as April 1868, Brevet Brig. Gen. Thomas E. Devin and a detachment of the Twenty-first Infantry constructed a wagon road from Clear Creek at Camp Verde to a point near the head of Fossil Creek.[10] In the summer and autumn of 1873, elements of the Twenty-third Infantry under Captain J.J. Coppinger followed Devin’s road and beyond to construct the "Apache Road" to Fort Apache, renamed the General Crook Trail within a few years.[11]

By 1879, a scouting path which later became the Camp Verde to Payson mail trail was in place. This trail ran south from approximately Milepost 18 on the Crook Trail, forded Fossil Creek below Nash Point, and continued through Strawberry and Pine valleys south to Round Valley (Payson area) and the mouth of Rye Creek (Gisela area).[12] As late as 1880, the army still maintained this route as a rough wagon road from Strawberry Valley to Round Valley, although scouting expeditions of the 1870s alternately used a route that ran down the Verde River, thence up the East Verde River and down Wild Rye Creek to Tonto Creek.

The army also constructed a wagon road from Fort McDowell to Fort Reno between 1867 and 1870 that ran partially along today’s Beeline Highway north to Sunflower, then crossed the Mazatzal range south of Mount Ord. This road, which connected with the military route between Globe and Pine, would give settlers access to the Basin from the south.[13]

With most Apaches corralled on the reservations, the army in aggressive pursuit of renegades, and wagon roads established by the middle 1870s, whites cautiously began to penetrate the Tonto Basin. Non-Mormon miners, cattlemen, and subsistence farmers preceded the first Mormon settlements, however. Prospectors arrived by 1875, wandering north from the developed mines surrounding Globe to develop claims in the vicinity of today’s Payson. William Burch arrived in 1876 and with his partner, William McDonald, located many claims along Rye Creek and the East Verde River by the late 1870s.

Before 1879, Burch and McDonald also developed a ranch in this area, which became an oft-mentioned reference point for cavalry detachments and later prospectors—a testament to its lonely existence. Footloose contemporaries of Burch and McDonald included prospectors Peter Banta, James Samuels, Samuel Hill, David Gowan (who later located and homesteaded Tonto Natural Bridge), and Lafayette Philander Nash who became one of the first settlers in Strawberry Valley.

These men and others came together in the vicinity of Burch’s ranch and founded the town of Marysville in 1880. This was a short-lived boom town, defunct by 1883 but populated by 100 miners in 1882. Although Tonto Basin minerals never led to wealth, prospectors led sufficient cattlemen and other settlers into the central Basin area to establish the town of Payson by 1882.[14]

While Burch, McDonald, and their contemporaries led the way to settlement, others came to establish subsistence farms and run a few cattle in Pine and Strawberry valleys, fifteen miles north of the future Payson townsite. No significant mineral deposits within or near the two narrow valleys explains why prospectors paid scant attention to the area, but an abundance of ponderosa pine, rich soil, and ample water invited homes and agricultural development.

The earliest reported settlers were brothers Paul and Bill Gregg, who arrived in the vicinity of Pine perhaps as early as 1866. The brothers cleared land, planted an orchard, built a log cabin, and supplemented their living with hunting and trapping. Nothing more is known of the Greggs, but we can assume they led a lively life dodging Apaches at this early date, which preceded subsequent known settlement by more than a decade.[15]

By the late 1870s, partial Indian pacification and frequent army patrols in the northern Basin encouraged further settlement in Pine and Strawberry valleys. Enigmatic early settlers by 1878 included "Old Man" Bunch and family, who built a cabin along Pine Creek; "Cowboy" John Hicks and partner John Duncan, who ran cattle in Strawberry Valley; and Henry Siddles, who operated a blacksmith shop in Pine Valley. John Lowthian also arrived in Strawberry by this date and with his brother Isaac raised hogs for the military stationed at Camp Verde.

The Price W. Nelson Family, the sole Mormon family known to live in the area at this early date, moved from Rye Creek to Pine in 1878 and established a sawmill and gristmill. Others no doubt came and left in the 1870s. When John and Amanda Hough arrived in the summer of 1878, only the Nelsons and Bunches still lived at Pine, attesting to the transient nature of early settlement here.[16]

Within this context of diminishing Indian threats and incipient white immigration, Mormon authorities glimpsed the opportunity to establish a community within the Tonto Basin. In July 1876, church leaders at Joseph City sent prominent residents John Bushman, Pleasant Bradford, William C. Allen, and Peter Hansen to assess settlement possibilities. This first expedition turned in a negative report, but the following year Apostle Erastus Snow called Utah residents John Willis, Thomas Clark, Alfred J. Randall, Woodward Freeman, Revilo Fuller, and Wyllys Fuller to make another reconnaissance. These men left St. George, Utah, in September 1877, crossed the Colorado River at Pierces Ferry west of Grand Canyon, and arrived by a circuitous route (probably by military roads) at the site of today’s Gisela. They continued up Rye Creek to the confluence of Pine Creek and the East Verde River where they found prospector James Samuels squatting on a promising piece of arable land. They purchased his claim for $75.00, divided the property, and returned to Utah in early 1878 for families and possessions.

John Willis returned to the East Verde site with a herd of cattle in March 1878, followed closely by the Woodward Freeman and Rial Allen families. The Alfred J. Randall, Revilo Fuller, Cecil Allen, and Marion Allen families joined the others by the end of 1878. This tiny community, situated near the confluence of Pine Creek and the East Verde River, became Mazatzal City—the first Mormon community, and likely the first community of any type, in the Tonto Basin. Although sources conflict on the settlement duration of Mazatzal City, the community had constructed an irrigation ditch from the East Verde by May 1880, indicating at least an attempt at permanence.[17]

An early military road connected the general area of Mazatzal City to the Pine Valley settlement, and the former community’s residents soon began to migrate to "Pine Creek," the original name of our town. In 1879, Alfred Randall and Rial Allen purchased squatters rights along Pine Creek from Henry Siddles and "Old Man" Bunch. Exactly which families moved to Pine in what years between 1879 and 1881 is a bit hazy, but the national census taker on 7 June 1880 recorded only the families of Rial Allen (with a brother, John), C. (Celeste?) Fuller, Revilo Fuller, John Hough, and W.N. (Price?) Nelson, with a total population of just 38.

It appears that Rial Allen’s other family members—Cecil, Alexander, and Francis Marion—soon joined the Pine community, perhaps as early as 1879 but more likely after the 1880 census taker left the area. Other Mormon families joined these residents in 1880 and 1881, including those of Alfred Randall and Wyllys and Neil Fuller; Alma Moroni Hunt and William Hunt in the spring of 1881; and Lee Heward, John Lazear, and William Stark in the autumn of 1881.[18]

By the end of 1880, sufficient Mormon families lived in Pine to justify organization of the Tonto Branch of the Little Colorado Stake and the establishment of a day school. Rial Allen was sustained as the presiding elder of the branch on 27 February 1881. On June 12th of that year, Lot Smith, William C. Allen, John Bushman, and other officials of the Little Colorado Stake at Joseph City arrived in Pine to organize the Tonto Basin Ward with Rial Allen as bishop. On the same date, Revilo Fuller was sustained as presiding elder at the East Verde Branch (Mazatzal City), which confirms this community’s existence and perhaps Fuller’s temporary return to that community in mid-1881. All reliable sources agree, however, that Mazatzal City was abandoned in favor of Pine by 1882 due to hardships in the gloomy location and repeated Indian scares.[19]

Between the early summer of 1880 and the end of 1881, thirteen families in Pine Valley filed for water rights, built a diversion dam across Pine Creek (up the valley a bit), funneled the waters into a ditch along a north-south main street (today’s Highway 87), and divided home sites among heads of households. The earliest organizational activity of 1880, including that of the church branch and day school, marks the beginning of the Town of Pine.

The first ward report of 27 May 1882 indicated ten Mormon families with 78 church members living in residence. At least one family, the Houghs, and perhaps another, the Coopers, were not members of the church, therefore, the population by 1882 ranged from 83 to approximately 100, making it the second largest Tonto Basin settlement in that year. With Marysville’s abandonment in 1883, and the slow growth of Payson after its founding in 1882, Pine laid claim to being the largest Basin town between 1883 and 1890.[20]

In the decade following its founding, Pine’s economy developed around the primary industry of cattle ranching. A number of families participated in this commercial activity, among them the Fullers, Randalls (who still raise cattle in the area), Lazears, Hunts, and Allens. Families ran cattle under their own brands throughout northern Gila County and atop the Mogollon Rim in Coconino County, but cooperatively did semiannual roundups, brandings, and drives to market. In the earliest years, cattle were driven 75-100 miles to the railroad towns of Holbrook, Winslow, and Flagstaff.

Drives north, whether through Strawberry Valley or farther east along portions of the old Navajo Trail, had to surmount the imposing Mogollon Rim. A later spur line of the Santa Fe Railroad from Ash Fork to Cottonwood in the Verde Valley made these drives somewhat shorter but hardly easier. Rial Allen’s dairy atop Milk Ranch Point, which provided milk, butter, and cheese to the town as well as Atlantic & Pacific railroad workers during the early 1880s, was an offshoot of the cattle industry that brought cash to the town.[21]

Because topography and distance isolated Pine from the Mormon network of supportive communities, the townspeople developed a largely self-sufficient internal economy. Springs feeding Pine Creek supplied adequate water for farms as well as power for a gristmill, sorghum mill, and lumber mill.

Farms produced potatoes, beans, corn, sorghum, fruit (especially apples), and a variety of animal products. Ellen Fuller opened a small general store in the early years that provided the means to exchange these goods. The store carried flour, sugar, corn meal, oat meal; bacon, hams, and candy; chalk, coal oil, and kerosene; calico, muslin, shoes, overalls, thread, candles, and other manufactured goods.[22]

Several residents, including Alfred Randall, Rial Allen, Revilo Fuller, and Wyllys Fuller, operated freighting businesses that imported staples and manufactured goods from Flagstaff in the summers and Globe in the colder months. Living within the world’s largest ponderosa pine forest, residents found it easy to acquire wood for all manner of constructions, and cooperatively used the lumber mill (there were several at varied locations) to cut logs for cabins and outbuildings.

Several blacksmith shops supplied tools and horseshoes. Susan Allen, wife of Bishop Rial Allen, established the ward’s relief society in 1881 to assist in the distribution of goods during hard times. With cattle and the sale of some farm products injecting cash into the local economy, ample natural resources, and efficient means to distribute goods, early Pine residents faced no sustained economic difficulties.[23]

With a healthy economy established within the first few years of settlement, Pine developed into a thriving community during the 1880s. In 1882, residents built what was probably the first public school in the Tonto Basin: a 22' x 24' log building in the center of town (roughly at the site of today’s post office) that doubled as a chapel. A Sunday school with twelve teachers and 46 pupils operated by the same year.

Mary D. Fuller served as postmistress of the first Pine post office, established in her home in 1884. The Pine post office was along the Camp Verde-Payson mail route. Mounted postal carriers followed the old military trail along the Crook Trail from Camp Verde, crossed Fossil Creek Valley into Strawberry Valley, surmounted Strawberry Hollow (the hump southeast of today’s Strawberry), exchanged mail in Pine, then continued to Payson where they picked up mail from Globe and returned to Camp Verde by the same route.[24]

Plain hard work dominated the waking hours of the earliest residents, but social events, especially dances with plenty of fiddle music, brought occasional relief and attracted families from miles around including Payson. Pine’s population fluctuated year to year, but Mormon church records indicate a steady increase to 96 in 1883, 117 in early 1885, 156 in June 1885, and 25 families with 172 individuals by 1886-87.25 Public school records attest to 51 elementary-level pupils in 1890, suggesting a diminished but still healthy number of residents in that year. As previously noted earlier, Pine boasted the largest population in the Tonto Basin during these years. It also served as a religious and social center for families within a radius of 75 miles.[26]

A writer described Pine in 1887 as busily engaged in agriculture and cattle ranching, and "beautifully selected,... one of the prettiest villages in the Southwest."[27] Although this description accurately reflected Pine’s economy, resource base, population, and apparent prosperity in the 1880s, it concealed difficulties facing nearly all fledgling western communities of the nineteenth century, especially those situated in isolated regions. In combination, the emotional, physical, and societal challenges facing Pine residents in these same years could just as easily have destroyed the settlement as witnessed its survival and subsequent growth.

The foremost difficulty confronting all Tonto Basin residents was the continuous threat of renegade Indian attacks from nearby Fort Apache and San Carlos reservations. Reports of real and imagined outbreaks in the late 1870s and early 1880s led in large part to the abandonment of Mazatzal City by 1882, and the same threats prompted Rial Allen to build a fort in Pine in 1881 near the site of today’s clinic north of Hardscrabble Road.

The outbreak of July 1882, which resulted in the locally-famous Battle of Big Dry Wash, unfolded within 15 miles of Pine, witnessed a column of troopers trotting through town in pursuit, and might well have involved Pine residents if the Indians had chosen to continue west along today’s Highline Trail rather than climb as they did the Mogollon Rim along the old Navajo Trail.[28]

Pine residents had no reason to believe that the threat ended with the battle atop the rim, and in fact, other reservation outbreaks occurred over the following eight years in central Arizona. As late as 1888, a detachment of the Tenth Cavalry (the "Buffalo Soldiers") out of Camp Verde scouted the Basin’s Pleasant Valley in pursuit of reported marauding Indians, and a troop of the Fourth Cavalry on a "practice march" passed through Pine in September 1889.[29] Edith Peach Slaughter, born in Strawberry in 1885, recalled that she was afraid of the Indian threat in her youth, and that although her family never fought them, in her words, "they were always running from them."[30] Troop movements, at practice or in pursuit, probably stirred feelings of dread in Pine’s adults as well as its children, especially among freighters and cattlemen who travelled the forests, range, and unprotected wagon roads.

If threats of Indian attacks proved insufficient to instill a chronic unease in Pine residents, the Pleasant Valley War—begun in the 1870s as a family feud and continuing into the 1880s with wider repercussions—might have finished the job. All Basin residents suffered from this feud in one way or another, and Pine residents had reason to suspect that strong anti-Mormon elements in Apache County atop the rim might be involved.

One notorious participant, Andy Blevins, found particular delight in terrorizing isolated Mormon homesteaders both within the Basin and atop the rim. He evicted one family at gunpoint and threatened to "blow to hell the guts" of others. Apparently Pleasant Valley War violence never touched Pine directly, but anyone venturing along the back roads and into the grazing lands of the northern Basin at this time could be mistaken for a participant.[31]

Psychological scares from renegade Indians and lawless whites formed only one persistent threat to Pine’s residents during the 1880s. Disease and distance from medical help formed another, and often meant death in remote communities like Pine that had no doctor and lacked all but home remedies well into the twentieth century. Malaria, typhoid, influenza, and diphtheria caused regular epidemics within frontier communities. Typhoid in particular afflicted Pine residents who—like most Mormon communities in Arizona—drew their drinking water from a ditch that incidentally flowed near corrals and outhouses.[32]

Isolation and poor roads compounded the threat of disease. Routes leading out of Pine until the early twentieth century consisted of wagon ruts leading 80 miles south to Globe and 75 miles north to Flagstaff, and the mail trail covering 35 difficult miles to Camp Verde. In winters with heavy snows, no one (except on horseback) could escape to medical help until the following spring. Although there is no record of a devastating epidemic in Pine’s history, disease did claim lives, and the threat—like Indian scares and white lawlessness—constantly confronted the isolated community.[33]

By 1890, these pioneer hardships in combination with social dissent threatened to break up the ten-year-old community. Descendants of original Mormon settlers have identified the unrest as "disputes and discontents... [inevitable] as among all mortals striving to be saints,"[34] and as a "spirit of unrest [that] seemed to come over some of the leaders of the ward."[35] A part of the religious problem may have emanated from the breakup of the Little Colorado Stake in 1887 as well as the church’s decision to outlaw polygamy in 1890. It was not at all unusual among nineteenth century Mormon communities for families to pick up and leave—there were always calls to found other towns—and this may have a been factor in some residents’ actions.

Whatever the nature of social and religious discontent in 1890, Bishop Rial Allen went so far as to request permission from church President Woodruff to abandon the entire town. Woodruff not only approved of the move, but also advised all saints within the Tonto Basin to vacate "so as not to leave any exposed."[36] The only precedent for such wholesale abandonment among typically persistent Mormon colonizers was the removal of settlers near Kanab, Utah, during the Navajo wars of the 1860s. Woodruff’s call for all Basin residents to leave indicates his concern for the safety of isolated pockets of faithful, and clearly suggests that widespread physical and emotional hardships posed a more difficult challenge than internal dissent.

Woodruff’s authorization in October 1890 led to the immediate departure of Bishop Rial Allen, Marion Allen, Alexander Allen, Price Nelson, Lee Heward, and William Hunt along with their families—an evacuation that reduced town population by 25-35 percent. Since all those leaving were from among the earliest settlers and all were prominent citizens and businessmen, the economic and social effects must have been profound.

The departures led to the ward’s dissolution, and disorganization persisted until 1893 when the Snowflake Stake reorganized Pine’s saints as a smaller branch. In 1894, only a half dozen Mormon families remained in Pine, and the crisis may well have continued until 1900 when one of the church’s general authorities, Brigham Young, Jr., visited the community and reorganized it as the Pine Ward within the Maricopa Stake. By 1900, the population stabilized at approximately 100 and was no longer threatened by the tumult originating a decade earlier.[37]

Pine residents regained their equilibrium by 1900 and secured their town’s survival, but the physical, emotional, and social disruptions as well as failure of other communities in central Arizona faced with similar problems during these years raises the question of just why they persevered. In an economic context, Pine survived because it only partially depended on its primary industry of cattle ranching and its much smaller secondary industry of commercial agriculture. Cattle supplied cash, but during periods of economic downturn (most noticeable in the 1920s and 1930s when grazing permits were severely diminished) residents could fall back on self-sufficiency and sale of its farm surplus.

Ample water, fertile soil, unlimited timber, and favorable if not perfect climate made this possible. In this way, Pine avoided the fate of towns founded on the income of one industry such as the mining town of Marysville which vanished suddenly along with the ore in 1883. These economic factors made a difference, since other Basin settlements like Mazatzal City, Gisela, and Rye—located in poorer physical environments (mostly desert)—expired or failed to flourish.

In a sociological context, Pine survived both because of and despite its role within the Mormon strategy of southwestern settlement. The church deliberately called settlers to the sparsely populated and rugged Tonto Basin because it fit the wasteland settlement strategy of church authorities. This plan led Pine’s founders into an area promising Indian attacks, lawlessness, and isolation, factors shown to have had a cumulative negative impact culminating in the crisis of 1890.

On the other hand, Mormon colonization methods of self-sufficiency, close cooperation, and strong theocratic control over secular as well as religious activities gave the community moral and physical strength. This dichotomous Mormon settlement pattern was by no means unique to Pine, but occurred throughout the southwest and without exception in northcentral Arizona. It appears to have often led to early town crisis, followed by disintegration or the emergence of a small, closely-knit, enduring community. For example, all four settlements along the lower Little Colorado River suffered similar crises. Three disbanded within a decade of founding, while only Joseph City endured (and still endures).[38]

Like Joseph City, Pine overcame its early crisis and remained a cohesive Mormon community of no more than 200 souls for many years. A major paved highway completed in the late 1950s led to subdevelopments, however, igniting a population explosion of retirees and summer residents from the Salt River Valley. Increased population has brought more and different problems, similar to those of rapid urbanization found elsewhere in the American West. Pine Ward today numbers about 325 members but total population exceeds several thousand, placing severe demands on resources, especially water, that were once plentiful, and shifting unofficial town management away from sole consensual directions of the church.

Despite shifting demographics and late twentieth-century problems, many Pine residents retain a strong sense of community first instilled by Mormon pioneers who, in the spirit of George Cannon, dared to find and develop an oasis in the wilderness. It remains to be seen whether this sense translates to common sense, and residents can survive new challenges into the twenty-first century.

Map Showing Route from Utah to Arizona

Map Showing features of North Central Arizona

Map of Pine - 1900

[1] Charles S. Peterson, Take up Your Mission: Mormon Colonization Along the Little Colorado River (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1973), 7f. It is one of the grand ironies of Mormon history that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the Mexican-American War in 1848 ceded to the United States the exact territory in which Young hoped to establish his autonomous state.

[2] (Prescott) Arizona Miner, 4 February, 7 April, 12 May 1976; 24 January, 19 September, 31 October 1979; 25 June, 1 October 1880. These editions of the territorial capital’s newspaper provide a small sampling of both favorable and damning accounts on Mormon settlement in northern Arizona at about the time Pine was being settled.

[3] Journal of Discourses (Liverpool, 1854-1886), 16: 143f, quoted in Peterson, Take Up Your Mission, 9.

[4] Peterson, Take Up Your Mission, 1-21 passim. Peterson summarizes settlement strategy and hardships faced in settling northern Arizona. For other accounts see James A. Little, ed., Jacob Hamblin, A Narrative of His Personal Experience as a Frontiersman, Missionary to the Indians and Explorer (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor’s Office, 1881), 95ff, and Roberta Flake, "To the Last Frontier: Autobiography of Lucy Hannah White Flake," manuscript, 1923, Tanner Collection, Special Collections, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff. Flake’s account especially is a vivid account of settlement difficulties.

[5] Will C. Barnes, Arizona Place Names, with an introduction by Bernard L. Fontana (1935; repr., Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988), 181, 227, 327, 468; Ira A. Murphy, Rim Country History, with a foreword by Barry M. Goldwater (Payson, AZ: Northern Gila County Historical Society, 1984), 7, 70.

[6] William Turrentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West: A Study of Federal Road Surveys and Construction in the Trans-Mississippi West, with a foreword by William H. Goetzmann (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1964), 248; Don Dedera, A Little War of Our Own: The Pleasant Valley Feud Revisited, with a forward by C.L. Sonnichsen (Flagstaff: Northland Press, 1988), 28f; Arizona Good Roads Association, Illustrated Road Maps and Tour Book (Prescott, 1913), 8f.

[7] Barnes, Arizona Place Names, 24, 447.

[8] "Post Returns: Camp Lincoln - Camp Verde National Archives Microfilm, Remarks Section," bound typescripts, File MFV-2 Post Returns, Fort Verde State Historic Park (FVSHP), Camp Verde Arizona. For Brig. Gen. Gregg’s declaration of hostilities, see the entry for 23 April 1867.

[9] "Post Returns: Camp Lincoln." For brief description of actions or scouting trips near Strawberry and Pine, see entries for 17 October 1869, 24 November 1869, 4 January 1871, 7 January 1871, 9 January 1871, 8-18 June 1871, May 1874, multiple entries for June -July 1874, September 1876, October 1876, April 1882, August 1888, and September 1889. Other scouting expeditions no doubt came through or near Pine and Strawberry valleys since the post returns often neglect the country traversed by the troopers.

For a list of engagement in Arizona, including the Tonto Basin, see "Chronological List of Battles, Actions, Etc. in which troops of the Regular Army Have Participated, and Troops Engaged," typescript, File MH-13 Battles in Arizona 1865-91, FVSHP.

For a general description of the Indian situation in the Tonto Basin, see Martin F. Schmitt, ed., General George Crook: His Autobiography, with a foreword by Joseph C. Porter (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960), 173-186; and John G. Bourke, On the Border With Crook (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891; repr., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971); and Robert M. Utley, Frontier Regulars: The United States Army and the Indian, 1866-1891 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973), 192-198.

[10] Thomas Edwin Farish, History of Arizona, Vol. V (Phoenix: 1918), 271-278, copy of portions of this book are in File MH-27 Devin’s Route, FVSHP; "Post Returns: Camp Lincoln," April 1868 entry.

[11] "Post Returns: Fort Lincoln," August and October 1873 entries. Today, Highway 260 from Camp Verde to Highway 87 closely follows this military road, and many locals still call it the Crook Trail.

[12] Capt. William Wallace, Sixth Cavalry, to Post Adjutant, Fort Verde, letter, 28 June 1879, File MFV-16 Scouts 1866-91, FVSHP. This letter is transmitted from Strawberry Valley upon Wallace’s return to Camp Verde; John M. Carroll, ed., The Papers of the Order of Indian Wars (Fort Collins, CO: The Old Army Press, 1975), 250. The chapter in this book that relates Lieut. George H. Morgan’s Battle of Big Dry Wash movements is in the history files at Fort Verde State Historic Park. Lieut. Morgan on his way to the battle used the route through Strawberry and described it as an existing trail.

[13] Capt. William Wallace to Post Adjutant, Fort Verde, report of scout, 2 June 1879, File MFV-16, FVSHP; "Post Returns: Camp Lincoln," November 1879, April 1880, July 1880, and October 1880 entries. See also E.A. Eckhoff and P. Riecher, comps., Official Map of the Territory of Arizona, 1880, Sharlot Hall Museum, Prescott. This map depicts many routes and crude wagon roads in the Basin in 1880, and most follow the early military routes.

Portions of the road to Camp Reno can still be followed, especially a segment from Sunflower to the east over the hills beneath Mount Ord and into the Tonto Basin near Punkin Center.

[14] Murphy, Rim Country History, 93-94, 152-153; Ira A. Murphy, "Brief History of Payson, Arizona," undated manuscript, author’s possession, 14ff; "Post Returns: Camp Lincoln," April 1880 entry; Book of Deeds: Book 14, Yavapai County Recorders Office, Prescott, 92, 168; Book One: Promiscuous Records, Yavapai County Recorder’s Office, Prescott, 425, 426, 431; Book of Deeds: Book 13, Yavapai County Recorder’s Office, Prescott, 115, 119; Barnes, Arizona Place Names, 267, 321.

[15] "A History of the Tonto Basin," typed manuscript, [circa 1910], File CM MSM-17, Arizona Collection, Hayden Library, Arizona State University, Tempe. Other writers have mentioned the Greggs, but the information seems to originate with this document. It is a poorly written scrap of history which contains errors on other matters and seems highly suspect to me. It is possible that the Greggs lived at Pine as described, but unlikely they were here in 1866.

[16] Robert F. Anderson and Beverly M. Anderson, "A Brief History of Pine and Strawberry, Arizona," manuscript, 1984, Isabel Hunt Memorial Library, Pine, Arizona. Dr. & Mrs. Anderson (no relation to the author) support or establish the presence of these early settlers, but their conclusion on William Burch’s ranch in Pine may be based on a misreading of Rim Country History, p. 114f. Burch’s ranch was southwest of Payson, not in Pine, and the Gibson’s move to Gisela which the Andersons mention would have been a simple trek of a few miles down Rye Creek. Written transcripts of local oral history record that later Mormon settlers Rial Allen and Alfred Fuller purchased Pine Creek land from Burch, but the purchase may have been made from Bunch, who disappears from the area at this time.

See Myrtle A. Wingfield, "A Brief History of My Parents’ Life as Pioneers of the West," manuscript, 1940, File PB-2 Wingfield Family, FVSHP, or a full and interesting account of the Hough’s trip from Oak Creek to Pine. Myrtle describes the route south from Prescott through Phoenix, thence west along the Fort Reno Road, thence north through the Basin to Pine. This path differs significantly from descriptions found in local oral history transcripts.

Note that Lieut. Morgan on his way to the Battle of Big Dry Wash mentions Hicks in Strawberry Valley in 1882 and describes him as a fine man whom he tried to hire as a scout; In "Edith Peach Slaughter," interview by Kristina Minister, 2 February 1982, typescript, File MS CO OH SLA, EDI, Arizona Collection, Hayden Library, ASU, Miss Peach emphasizes the transience in the area, especially among itinerant prospectors.

[17] Book of Deeds: Book 13, 115; Ralph E. Fuller, "History of the Pine Ward" in "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Pine Ward, 1880-1980," unpublished pamphlet, 1980, author’s possession. Mr. Fuller is a descendent of one of the original Pine pioneers.

See also Murphy, Rim Country History, 82; Jerrel G. Johnson, The Arizona Scotsman (Tempe, AZ: Beaumaris Books, 1970), 88; "Dedication Program: Pine Ward, Camp Verde Arizona Stake," pamphlet, 1981, author’s possession; James H. McClintock, Mormon Settlement in Arizona, with a foreword by Charles S. Peterson (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1985), 174; and Barnes, Arizona Place Names, 269.

[18] Murphy, Rim Country History, 135, 167. Other sources, including Fuller’s "History of Pine Ward" and the Andersons’ "Brief History" have 1879 and 1880 as arrival years for the Nelson Family. Fuller, in "History of Pine Ward," states that the Randall and Fuller families moved to Pine in October 1881. This is confirmed by Walter J. Randall, son of Alfred Randall, who is quoted in Kay Swisher, "The Story of Pine, Arizona," school paper, 1967, Isabel Hunt Library, Pine. Other sources, including the Andersons’ paper, place this move in early 1882 following an Indian uprising.

Isabelle Fuller Brown, interview by Julie Campbell, 1979, typescript, File CO OH BRO, ISO, Arizona Collection, Hayden Library, ASU. Fuller Brown states that Revilo Fuller "settled" Pine land and did not "buy" any.

USDI, Census Division, Tenth Census, 1880, Yavapai County, Arizona Territory, handwritten enumeration on microfiche in the Arizona State Archives, Phoenix, Arizona. The 1880 census identifies the inhabitants of "Pine Creek" on 7 June 1880.

Howard E. Daniels in "Mormon Colonization in Northern Arizona" (Masters Thesis, University of Arizona, 1960), 97, notes that Rial Allen led a group from Mazatzal City to Pine in 1879, and that many Mormons abandoning the Little Colorado settlements about that time also came to Pine.

[19] George S. Tanner, "Minutes of the Little Colorado Stake," typescript of the original minutes, Arizona Collection, Hayden Library, ASU, 11, 140, 143, 146. The minutes indicate that no reports were received from the Pine Ward before the 27 May 1882 quarterly stake meeting and that the East Verde Branch at Mazatzal City never made a report, which implies it did not last long beyond its organization.

Barnes, Arizona Place Names, 269, substantiates Mazatzal City’s abandonment in favor of Pine about 1882.

[20] Fuller, "History of Pine Ward"; Swisher, in "The Story of Pine," notes the family names of those filing for water rights in 1881. Swisher’s interview in the same paper with Ina Polter Hunt, a pioneer descendant, reveals that the first Mormon settlers almost immediately selected home sites, but the lack of official surveying of the area delayed the families’ receipt of deeds until 1909.

Murphy, in Rim Country History, 8, 131f, states that the Hewards moved to Pine in 1887 and lived elsewhere in the vicinity between 1879 and 1887, and also notes the population of Marysville at more than 100 by 1882. See also Bess Ericksend, ed., Snowflake Stake Centennial, 1887-1987: A Story of Faith (Snowflake Stake Presidency, [1987]), 202; Joseph Fish, "History of the Eastern Stake of Zion and of the establishment of the Snowflake Area, 1879-1893," eds. Melvin S. and Silas L. Fish, typescript, 1936, Arizona Collection, Hayden Library, ASU, 8.

Murphy, in Rim Country History, gives the Payson population in 1882 as 40, and in 1922 as only 200, indicating slow growth.

[21] Murphy, Rim Country History, 13, 82f; Barnes, Arizona Place Names, 276.

It should be noted at this point that the author reviewed the General Index to Deeds, No. 1, 1864-1890 and the Index to Homesteads for these same years at the Yavapai County Recorder’s Office in Prescott, and found no land transactions recorded in Pine and Strawberry valleys, although mining transactions in the surrounding area are recorded for Lafayette Nash, his wife Mary, and John Hicks in the Strawberry area, and Burch and McDonald in the Payson area, in the years 1879-1883. Federal laws allowed (actually, tolerated) citizens to "squat" on a piece of land, or to buy squatters rights, or file mining claims and patent those claims at any time, but they could not file for homesteads until a region had been surveyed. The author did not check to see when the Pine area was surveyed, but Swisher’s paper and a few words from local residents indicates that the area was unsurveyed until after the turn of the century.

[22] Fuller, "History of Pine Ward"; Murphy, in Rim Country History, 106f, talks of Ellen Fuller’s store and goods sold. He also mentions that Fuller traded with Indians from the nearby reservation.

[23] Fuller, "History of Pine Ward." In Julie Campbell’s interview of Isabel Fuller Brown, Fuller Brown relates that her grandfather, Revilo Fuller, made twice a year wagon trips for the family’s staples, taking about two weeks for the round trip. Swisher, in "The Story of Pine," quotes Walter J. Randall, early pioneer descendent, as saying that Pine farmers sold their produce in Globe, and that farming was a secondary industry as well as a subsistence activity.

[24] Murphy, Rim Country History, 30, 31, 34; Fuller, "History of Pine Ward"; Swisher, "The Story of Pine"; "Dedication Program: Pine Ward"; Joan Lasys, "Pine Postal Recall," in Arizona High Country Magazine (Special Pine/Strawberry Edition, 1985): 5ff.

[25] "Minutes of the Little Colorado Stake," 240.

[26] Accounts of social activities, and all night dances in particular, are related in the above-noted interviews with Edith Peach and Isabel Fuller Brown, as well as Mary Comfort’s Prescott Courier article of 31 May 1965 based on an interview with Bob Peach, an early pioneer descendent. Today’s descendants confirm that dances were a regular occurrence, and that the school houses in Pine and Strawberry were turned into temporary dance halls for these affairs.

Joseph H. Richards, in a letter to Mormon President Taylor, 6 September 1886, in Joseph H. Richards’ diary, Tanner Collection, indicated that Tonto Basin needed more settlers in late 1886, but he was probably referring to other settlements needed in the Basin. Pine was as large as Richards’ own Joseph City in that year.

[27] Ben H. Tinker, Northern Arizona and Flagstaff in 1887: The People and Resources (George H. Tinker, A Land of Sunshine: Flagstaff and Its Surroundings, Flagstaff: Arizona Champion Print, 1887; repr., Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1969), 33.

[28] Carroll, The Papers of the Order of Indian Wars, 250-54. Murphy, Rim Country History, 7, 82. Many Mormon communities built forts for social as well as defensive reasons during the first months of settlement, but Allen’s fort (which was torn down in the 1980s) was built several years after settlement and only in response to Indian threats. It was also used on several occasions as a cautionary measure in the 1880s, although there are no reported attacks on Pine or its residents.

[29] "Post Returns, Remarks Section," File MFV-2, FVSHP.

[30] Minister, "Edith Peach Slaughter," 7.

[31] Dedera, A Little War, 81-82.

[32] Mark P. Leone, Roots of Modern Mormonism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 48; Peterson, Take Up Your Mission, 207, 256; Fuller, "History of Pine Ward."

[33] Murphy, in Rim Country History, 48, notes that the Gila County budget for the Pine Creek Road (to Payson) in 1890 was just $35.00, and that this was typical of expenditures in that year for other county roads. Most dirt wagon roads received their maintenance from users, and were impassable in winter or following heavy rains.

Pine built its first medical clinic in 1980. Although it has had a practicing medical doctor in the past, it has not had one in awhile and residents still have to travel 15 miles to Payson to find one.

[34] Fuller, "History of Pine Ward."

[35] Swisher, "The Story of Pine."

[36] Joseph Fish, "History of the Eastern Stake of Zion," 41, 83.

[37] Fuller, "History of Pine Ward"; Murphy, Rim Country History, 83; Anderson, "A Brief History"; McClintock, Mormon Settlement, 176; Swisher, "The Story of Pine"; Ericksend, Snowflake Stake Centennial, 202; USDI, Census Division, Twelfth Census, 1900, Gila County, Arizona, handwritten enumeration on microfiche in the Arizona State Archives, Phoenix. The census does not separate Pine residents from those in Strawberry or surrounding areas, but familiarity with pioneer names leads the author to estimate a population of 100 in 1900.

[38] Michael F. Anderson, "Joseph City, Arizona: Survival of a Mormon Settlement in the Little Colorado River Valley, 1876-1884," 1989, Special Collections, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff.