On the evening of April 27, 1887, southern Arizona’s only passenger train, the Sunset Express, was making its run toward Tucson. The train was a few minutes behind schedule, so the engineer gave her a little more steam to make up time. About 20 miles east of Tucson, the yellow streak from the headlight picked up a figure standing on the track waving a red lantern. About that same time, the big drive wheels ran over a torpedo. The bomb-like blast served as a warning of trouble on the line. He slammed on the brakes and stopped just before crashing into some upraised railroad ties jammed between the tracks.
Out of the darkness, rifle shots cracked and several holes suddenly appeared in the engine’s boiler. Two masked men appeared beside the locomotive and ordered the engineer, Colonel Bill Harper, to step down off the train. They took him back to the express car and told him to have the Wells Fargo express messenger open the safe then unlock the door and get out.
Today’s question: If Arizona and New Mexico were both settled by the Spanish, why does New Mexico seem to have a much stronger Hispanic heritage than we do?
That’s a good one. For help on this I turned to good old Marshall Trimble, author, singer, teacher, Arizona state historian and all-around swell guy.
The answer in a nutshell is because the early Spanish settlers and explorers weren’t completely stupid.
It starts in 1540 with Coronado, who wandered around the Southwest and up into Kansas for a couple of years looking for the fabled cities of gold, which, of course, he did not find. So he went home, where, according to legend, he found out his wife had been fooling around with another guy while he was out traipsing around, and eventually he died.
Then nothing much happened for 40 years or so because the Spanish had plenty to do in Mexico and, since there weren’t any cities of gold here, they decided to stay home. They had to wait to forget, as Trimble put it.
So 40 years later a new generation of the Spanish got the exploring bug and headed north looking for treasure and settlement opportunities and even the Northwest Passage. The thought was it was someplace in northern New Mexico or southern Colorado. Those wacky Spaniards.
Most folks will tell you camels are not found in Arizona’s high country. Truth is, those adaptable beasts can thrive in just about any kind of terrain. The U.S. Army introduced camels to the Southwest back in the 1850s, using them as beasts of burden while surveying a road across northern Arizona. But, the Civil War interrupted the great camel experiment, and most of the homely critters were sold at auction. A few were turned loose to run wild—and therein lies the basis for the legend of Red Ghost.
The story begins back in 1883 at a lonely ranch near Eagle Creek in southeastern Arizona. The Apache wars were drawing to a close. However, a few renegade bands were on the prowl, keeping isolated ranches in a constant state of siege. Early one morning, two men rode out to check on the livestock leaving their wives at the ranch with the children. About midmorning, one of the women went down to the spring to fetch a bucket of water while the other remained in the house with the children.
The gold and silver rushes, more than anything else, provided the inspiration for people to give up relative comforts in the East and come west. Opportunity to get rich quick is a uniquely American article of faith and was virtually born in the West. With a single lucky break, one could instantly make more money than he could lend, spend in a lifetime. So, it was “off to Californey, Coloradie, or Arizonie with my wash pan on my knee,” looking for, as Bret Harte said, “a fresh deal all around.” Most were either trying to get something or get away from something. It was called the “greatest mass migration of greenhorns since the children of Israel set out in search of Canaan.”
