Page 34 - the NOISE February 2014

CoNTiNUeD FRoM 21
Carol Mackler’s Everlasting Cowboy at the Corner Gallery.
International Airport in an exhibition titled “Birds, Blooms and Bugs.” Flagstaff photographers Tom Brownold and John “Verm” Sherman; and ceramic artist Steven Schaeffer, are showcased in Terminal 3 and Terminal 2. The exhibit will be up through May 4 and consists of traditional paintings, prints and sculptures, and more experimental pieces in glass, fiber, ceramics and metals. For more information visit skyharbor.com/museum
ARTS BRieFS: SeDoNA
The Sedona Arts Center continues its winter members’ co-op show through February 7. From February 7–March 4, the Cen- ter’s theme is “Romancing the Arts,” featuring the imaginative visions of artists James Latham (fine crafts), Janet Noll Nau- mer (photography), Janet Collins (photography/colored pencil), Beth Jaynes (mixed media) and Shirley Clausen (pen and ink/ fiber). A First Friday opening reception will be held February 7, 5-8PM. The Sedona Arts Center Gallery is open 10AM-5PM daily.
Sedona fine art photographer Georgia Michalicek was chosen by the Arizona Artists Guild to show two works in their Fourth Annual Juried Statewide Exhibition of Fine Art in Gallery Glendale at Westgate, 6751 N. Sunset Blvd. in Glendale for the month of February. A reception and awards ceremony will be held from 6–9PM on Friday, January 31. Named one of the Best Artists of Sedona 2012, Ms. Michalicek is currently represented by Flagstaff’s Z House Gallery. Ms. Michalicek was juried into the Sedona Area Guild of Artists (SAGA) as a Charter Member in 2012. She is also a member of the Sedona Visual Artists’ Coali- tion, the Sedona Arts Center, and the Sedona Photography Club. To see the artist’s work visit RawElementsPhotography.com
On Sunday, February 2, Chamber Music Sedona presents the Danish String Quartet, a performance originating from New York City’s Lincoln Center. The Quartet’s program includes Ten Preludes (1952) by Hans Abrahamsen; Quartet in A Minor, Op. 13 by Felix Mendelssohn, and Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132 by Ludwig van Beethoven. 2:30PM, Sunday February 2 at St. John Vianney Church, 180 St. John Vianney Lane in Sedona. Tickets are $40 re- served; $20 general admission. Visit ChamberMusicSedona.org or call 928-204-2415 for details.
ARTS BRieFS: CLARKDALe
For February’s Art in Public Place exhibit, The Clarkdale Me- morial Library showcases the work of the Verde Valley Weav- ers & Spinners Guild in celebration of their 40th Anniversary. Through February 28, the library will display a variety of craft art including fabric, basket and tapestry weaving, yarn spinning, knitting, crochet, needle and hand felting. Open during regular library hours: 8AM-5:30PM Monday-Thursday, and 8AM-12PM Friday. For more information or to participate in Art in Public Places at Clark Memorial Library, visit 39 N. Ninth Street, Clark- dale or clarkdale.az.gov.
Gwen Taylor, Luke Metz and Carole Mackler are joining forc- es to present an art experience at the Corner Gallery in Clark- dale. On display are Ms. Taylor’s large-scale nature paintings; and ceramists Mr. Metz and Ms. Mackler’s raku and traditionally fired pieces. February 16-March 28 at The Corner Gallery, 921 Main St. in Clarkdale. Wednesday–Saturday from 11AM-5PM or by ap- pointment. The gallery will hold an opening event Friday, Feb- ruary 21 from 4-7PM. For information call 928-239-4776.
s
The road ends at a shelf above the confluence of Syca- more Creek and the Rio Verde. The trail is easily found, and to the right you will immediately see a cave in the cliff wall with constructed adobe and rock walls. It is just one of the many remnants of human activity in the area. A human skeleton was found there a long time ago.
History and legend tells us that Apache Indians occupy- ing the area located a quartz vein rich with gold, and that it was discovered in 1767 by a band of Spanish soldiers who were on their way from Sonora, Mexico to the Zuni Villages in modern-day New Mexico. The Spanish seized it, and the amazingly rich vein was worked extensively by a group of at least six heavily armed men. Eventually the Apaches ambushed them in a narrows of the canyon, and all but two were killed. They had been harassing the min- ers with noises and by rolling boulders down upon them from above in the nearby cliffs, but they would not leave the area willingly.
The two survivors hid until the Apaches left the area. They buried the dead, cached the gold in the mineshaft, and sealed it up with rocks. On their way toward Mexico, they reached Tubac where they drew up maps from mem- ory. They were unable to ever return to the cache site.
Legend has it that a large boulder, near a spring, covers the spot. At the foot of a high cliff ledge, an Indian face is said to be visible in the cliffs above, signaling the location of the mine directly below. An arrastre was built to crush the ore and a smelter was built to refine and separate the precious metal. Several buildings are in ruins in the area, but are not easily located. Local cowboys occasionally stumble upon the ruins, but have little interest in them.
There are also several rock piles, which are gravesites, and a wall near the mine entrance. Constructed of adobe and rock, the wall serves to protect the operation from flooding by a small side-wash. But it is now mostly cov- ered up by rockfall from the cliff face above it. Within the mine there are numerous traces of groundwater burrows into the red wall limestone, and caves and natural tunnels pockmark the surrounding cliff walls. There is activity of volcanism: basalt lava flows ringing the cliffs, quartz veins,
and curious crystals.
One account reveals that after a while of tunneling, the
ore is close to 50% free gold and was brought directly to the smelter without needing to be crushed first. Today the mine is partially concealed and one entrance has an iron door that is unmistakable. Since the area was designated as a wilderness area in 1979, the area can no longer be worked and no new claims can be made.
Back in the year 1853, a prospector by the name of Clifford Haines chanced upon an abandoned Spanish village ruins in the rugged wilderness southeast of what is now Kingman. He was fleeing from Havasupai warriors who had killed his three other prospecting partners. There were ruins of buildings, an arrastre, a smelter, broken pieces of carretas (two-wheeled carts), broken mining tools and some gold bearing ore scattered around. By his observations it was obviously a mining operation. On a later occasion, Clifford met an elderly Mexican whose grandfather had been one of the Opatas employed at the Sycamore Canyon mine. At Haines’ direction, a treasure map was drawn in 1874 for John Thomas Squires who, after hearing an account of the lost treasure, was interested in looking for it.
As a known fact, J.T. Squires actually found the mine and removed a substantial quantity of gold and ore from it, which he shipped to Santa Fe. After working the mine for an entire summer, raiding Hualapai and Apache Indians ambushed Squires and his party; nearly all of them were killed. Squires was able to escape alive only to be killed shortly thereafter in a saloon fight in Taos. It is rumored that millions of dollars worth of gold were stored in the mine tunnel. But nobody would go with Haines when he first located it, especially after Squires was attacked, for fear of the threat of Indian attacks. Some of the other survivors of the Squires party tried unsuc- cessfully to relocate the mine in the 1880s.
The Apache Indians there had, by the 1880s, covered it over and destroyed all traces of the mine to discourage and avert all others who might come treading on their sacred lands, where the water always flows. But people have been looking for it ever since then. It has been covered over pretty well ... or has it?
What Squires had initially discovered was a small cave or drift in the canyon wall near the structures. Contained within an alcove in the tunnel were mining tools, rusted Spanish ori- gin weapons and armor, and many aged sacks of highgrade ore and nuggets. He shipped the ore to Santa Fe to be smelt- ed and purified. A common legend states that 200-pound gold bars were stacked against one wall of the cave and care- fully walled over and concealed.
The Apaches withdrew from the area around 1886, at which time the survivors of the Haines party looked extensively for the mine with no success, because it had been concealed so well.
In 1896 William O. “Bearhunter” Howard was said to have accidentally stumbled upon the ruins of the Sycamore Can- yon mine, combing the area while employed as a hunter for wild game meat to feed the construction crew then working
TRAVELFeATure
ycamore Canyon, which lies within the wilderness
boundaries of Yavapai and Coconino Counties, is a haunted refuge of treasure holding a vast array of legends and stories — some true. There are several reliable ever- flowing springs, and 18 twisted rocky miles or more of up- stream watershed areas that can flood with little warning. Trail #144, the Parson’s Trail is a footpath leading into the rugged oasis. Off 89A, on the road leading to Tuzigoot National Monument between Old Town Cottowood and Clarkdale, you’ll go north across the Verde River, left on FR 131. And the trail head is 11 miles from there. “Tuzigoot” means “crooked waters.” Nearby is the unique oxbow marsh of Peck’s Lake, and the Verde River courses by, near Dead Horse State Park.
| Have art? arts@thenoise.us
34 • FEBRUARY 2014 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us