The Plank Road

Once upon a time, intrepid travelers drove their early automobiles on planks hand laid across a shifting sea of sand dunes between Yuma, Arizona, and the alluring ocean breezes of San Diego beyond.  

The precarious stretch became known simply as The Plank Road. Although in service for only 11 years, The Plank Road continues to live large in the annals of Southwest transportation and local lore.

How did such an audacious route happen?  Who was behind the scheme? What was the motivation?

What was it like to travel The Plank Road?  What replaced The Plank Road?  What happened to remnants of the old Plank Road? This article attempts to answer those questions.

America's so-called "Little Sahara" is the nation's largest contiguous area of sand dunes.  The dunes formed thousands of years ago from wind-blown remnants of an ancient lake formed by the meandering Colorado River. The searing summer sands rebuffed human encroachment. The loose, deep sand made early travel next to impossible.  Lack of water compounded perils of the shifting sand dunes.  Early travelers simply avoided the 45-mile-long dune field by detouring into Mexico or around the north tip. Throughout decades of early settlement, pioneers considered the dunes an impenetrable obstacle.  So what happened to cause The Plank Road to be pushed across the dune field?

In a nutshell, the sand dunes were conquered largely because of a single-minded, natural-born salesman---Ed Fletcher.  Fletcher came to San Diego in 1888 at the age of 15 with $6.10 in his pocket.  He quickly parlayed pocket change into lifelong economic and political success.  Fletcher was like a pied piper for "all things San Diego" and had an uncanny knack for raising lots of money for his many pet projects and causes.  Fletcher leveraged the antagonism between San Diego and its rich northern neighbor, Los Angeles, to fan the flames of fervor for a road that would bring cash-laden tourists directly to San Diego first instead of that big city up yonder.

Of course, most folks thought Fletcher had gone daft when he suggested a road across the sand dunes.  One of his scornful critics in Los Angeles challenged Fletcher to a 1912 race coinciding with the Cactus Derby.   Fletcher recruited two reporters and obtained a six-cylinder, 30-horsepower, air-cooled Franklin touring car.  He lined up a teamster with six mules to drag him across the dunes.  As luck would have it, heavy rains fell when the race got underway and Fletcher was able to motor across the dunes without assistance.  He beat his rival to Phoenix by over 19 hours!

This victory emboldened Fletcher and he used both his showmanship and salesmanship to add momentum to the growing support for a road across the dunes.

In the meantime, Fletcher gained a bulldog ally in  Edwin Boyd, an Imperial County Supervisor who lived in Holtville. Boyd (right with wife in 1950) was the originator of the idea to lay planks down across the sand to make a road.  Once Fletcher saw the genius in Boyd's ideas, he was off to the fundraising races.  In hardly any time, Fletcher raised enough money to have a boatload of Oregon lumber shipped south and carried to the edge of the dunes.  By that time, a relatively narrow width of the dunes had been identified.  The dunes there were much lower in height than elsewhere in the sprawling sea of sand.  Likewise, the route even had a little "valley" that was flat with far fewer dunes.  Boyd bullied, cajoled and sweet talked his friends and associates into "volunteering" to help build the first Plank Road in 1915.  He also was able to use some scant funding to hire laborers.  The Oregon planks were carefully attached to each other and strung across the dune field like some sort of boardwalk for cars.  The first Plank Road opened to much fanfare.  Sadly, the poorly-designed, flimsy and precarious first draft Plank Road was doomed to failure by both the relentless winds and the toll wrought by heavy traffic.  It lasted only a few months.

Undaunted, Fletcher somehow convinced the newly-formed California Highway Commission to fund a much better Plank Road. Thousands of railroad-tie-style treated timbers poured into a hastily erected fabrication facility at the whistle stop Ogilby on the Southern Pacific railroad east of the dunes.  Large sections of Plank Road weighing 1,500 pounds each were built at the Ogilby facility.  Up to four such sections could be hauled to the dunes by plodding horses and mules.  The sections were so heavy and cumbersome that additional apparatus had to be erected just to offload and position the sections on the roadway.

In the USGS topo map clip above, Ogilby is in the red circle.  The red line marks the approx. location of the Plank Road. Although it  was slow going by wagon between Ogilby and the road construction area, the distance was short.  Animals could be fed and watered back at Ogilby.  (NOTE: Yuma is at lower right on this map.)

As you can easily see from this photo, the timbered sections used in the Plank Road were very stout and well-constructed.  They were clearly engineered to take a beating from heavy traffic volume and truck weight and they actually performed very well...except when the wind went on a tear.

The newly-minted Plank Road was put into service in 1916. Whenever the timbered sections stayed together anchored in one place they performed well.  The trouble was that the wind often eroded sand from under the sections or drifted big piles of sand atop the sections.  In theory, the sections could be unbolted and dragged to new locations.  In practice that idea was only marginally successful.  Sand dunes often towered to elevations of 250 feet (or more) in the dune field.  Plank Road promoters and builders were lucky to find a "seam" through the dunes that helped their road survive more than it failed...and perhaps slightly longer than it would have otherwise.

From the few reports written by or recorded from travelers of the Plank Road it was a bone shaker.  One woman said it was far better than a visit to the chiropractor.  Vehicles crept across the Plank Road, often as slow as 2-3 miles per hour.  The one-lane reality of the Plank Road created bottlenecks that often caused tempers to boil over more than radiators. One report indicates fist fights were a common cause of delay on the Plank Road.  Once a line of 20 cars was held up by a lone driver who refused to back up to a turnout.  Frustrated motorists simply picked up his car and placed it on the sand beside the road.  After their 20 cars passed, they courteously placed his car back on the planks.

Over the past 100 years, the Plank Road has grown in the retellings of travel across there dunes until it has assumed a larger-than-life role in the imaginations of modern travelers.  In truth the Plank Road was perhaps 6-8 miles at its longest.  The "open valley" indicated on the map above was flat and stable enough to be oiled instead of planked.

Many newspaper "road reports" from the early 1920's indicated the Plank Road was in good shape but travel between Holtville and the Plank Road was "rather difficult."

As traffic volume inevitably grew by leaps and bounds due to insatiable demand for automobiles, the arcane behaviors and "rules of travel" required to safety navigate the Plank Road became untenable.  Something clearly had to be done.

As the Plank Road aged so, too, did ongoing maintenance tasks become ever more daunting.  Ferocious storms rolling in off the Pacific often brought gale force winds and heavy rains which wrecked havoc with the Plank Road.  The California Highway Commission wisely decided to create a "real road" in the mid-1920's. 

Road construction technology had improved by leaps and bounds from the mid-teens to the mid-20's.  Far more custom machinery and efficient engineering could be brought to bear on once vexing road route and construction issues.

Prior to beginning the mid-20's construction of what would become US Highway 80, engineers conducted a long study of the sand dune behavior.  Their data showed that a road elevated much higher than the old Plank Road would be far less susceptible to both wind erosion and sand deposition.  They were quite correct.  In its early years, US 80 was not closed by either of the bug-a-boos that doomed the old Plank Road.

For many years, the old Plank Road ran more or less alongside of US 80, a visible reminder of the hardships and perils of early travel across the sand dunes.

Famed Southwest Photographer Burton Frasher loved to create images of sand dunes.  His dune portraits from Death Valley remain some of the best in that genre.  Frasher occasionally stopped to capture the dunes draped across the old Plank Road, giving us modern highway heritage fans an endearing image of a fading chapter of transportation history.

Eventually the remnants of the old Plank Road succumbed to the ravages of wind, water, sun and firewood-hungry dune-runners.

We are fortunate that various organizations and inspired citizens

stepped forward to join forces and preserve pieces of the Plank Road.

The old photo at left in this pair was the one that prompted our study of the Plank Road.  "Bloo" from the Antique Automobile Association of American (AACA) Forum identified the car for us.  He said:

"That's a Studebaker. It is possibly a 1913, not an SA-25 like mine (those still had acetylene lights), but possibly a "35" or a "6". I can't see the steering wheel. In 1913, it was still on the right. I think I see a spare tire on the right side of the car, which argues for right hand drive. There was no door on the drive side, so it wasn't blocking anything. I believe 1914 had left hand drive for the US market.

Here's a 1913 "35" and then "Bloo" provided the photo at right.

In closing this discussion of the Plank Road we would like to add our Thanks and a Commendation for "work well done" to all members of the AACA Forum who keep alive the memories and details of early automobiles.  The men and women of that esteemed Association are a true credit to the Spirit of our Nation's Transportation Legacy!

For discussion and a partial list of our sources see:
https://azitwas.blogspot.com/2019/01/plank-road-sources.html

    THANK YOU FOR READING!
John Parsons, Rimrock, Arizona

Steamship Newbern 1871

 On October 14, 2021, we decided to see what was happening 150 years ago in the Prescott newspaper, "The Weekly Arizona Miner." The are many interesting things in that old newspaper.  We focused on a small Page 2 "Notice" regarding  steamship passage from San Francisco to the Mouth of The Colorado River.  That was a distance of 2,100 miles which cost a First Class passenger about $2,000 in today's inflated dollars.  Narratives and some links are under each screen clip.  Our primary source is cited at the end of this post.

The main keywords in this tiny little Notice are "Steamship Newbern."  It took quite a bit of digging but we eventually found quite a bit of information about the ship and its role in the early commerce of Arizona.

Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/87077069/ss-newbern-1817/

This is "probably" an illustration of the Steamship Montana judging from the location of the smoke stack.  In those days, ocean going, coal-fired steamships were propeller-driven.  Here is one narrative excerpt from "Steamships of The Colorado River":  "The greatest growth of the Colorado Steam Navigation Company came in 1871 when they purchased an ocean-going steamer, the Newbern, and opened a direct steamer route from San Francisco to connect with the riverboats at Port Isabel. The Newbem, built in Brooklyn in 1852, was a 943-ton, 375-horsepower, propeller-driven vessel, 198 feet long with a 29-foot beam. Under Captain A. N. McDonough she began regular monthly trips to the river on 2 July 1871. She made the 2,100-mile voyage in just twelve days, nearly cutting in half the usual sailing time and greatly expediting passenger and freight service. Passenger fare from San Francisco to Yuma was $90 for first cabin and $40 for steerage. In the boom years of the 1870s the Colorado steamers were carrying more than a hundred passengers a month, and the accommodations were good enough so that a few adventuresome souls even took the trip purely for pleasure."

(Source cited at end of post.)

Note the size and location of the smoke stack on the Newbern compared to the previous illustration.  This photo came from an article about wreck diving and some details differ from the above narrative:

"The Newbern was constructed by the firm C & R Poillon in Brooklyn. N.Y. in 1862. The government bought her during the Civil War and christened her the United States, but later changed her name to the Newberne. She was 198 feet long, had a 29 foot beam, measured 943 tons gross and was coal powered by a 250 horsepower steam engine. After her service during the Civil War, she sailed to the West Coast via Cape Horn in 1867 and was sold to Hartehan & Wilson. The new owners changed her name by dropping last "E" and gave command of the ship to Capt. Eugene Freeman. In 1869, Capt. Metzger sailed the Newbern from San Francisco to Mexican ports in the Sea of Cortez. In 1871, the Newbern was sold to Capt. George A. Johnson of the Colorado Steam Navigation Co. who continued to turn high profits from the trade with Arizona and Nevada, now accessible via Port Isabel at the foot of the Colorado River."

Source: http://www.cawreckdivers.org/Wrecks/Newbern.htm

This is an illustration of the man whose name is listed in the 1871 Notice, J. Polhamus, Jr.  He is arguably the most famous individual associated the steamboat commerce on The Colorado River. (Source cited at end of post.)

We found two additional ads for passage on The Newbern.  The ad below lists the fares.

Inflation calculators differ slightly in computing the 1871 value of $90 with 2021 dollars.  A rough consensus of such onlline calcuators pegs the value at about $2000, plus or minus.

Here's a good map of all the various landing sites on The Colorado River.

Getting freight and passengers from the Newbern onto The Colorado River was quite the logistical feat in those days.  Ocean going vessels could not steam into the Delta.  They disembarked freight and passengers onto sloops in deeper water.  The sloops then sailed far enough into the delta to offload goods and people to paddle-wheeled steamboats.

The railroad put the Newburg out of business in 1877.  There was no longer a need to sail freight and people around the tip of the Baja Peninsula and then up the full length of the Gulf of California.  The Newbern was sold and had a checkered subsequent life afterwards.  Here is is shown capsized in San Francisco in 1880.  You can get a good idea of the Newbern's scale and layout from this photo.  To read about the Newbern's ultimate demise see:  

https://www.maritimeheritage.org/passengers/SS-Newbern-October-1893.html

Our primary source material for this post was drawn from Richard E. Lingenfelter's excellent 195 page 1978 book "Steamboats on the Colorado River." Used copies of this book range in price from $35 to well over $200.  However, it can be downloaded free via the link below.  Unfortunately, the link is very long but it DOES work.  The files is housed at a rather unlikely location--the Arizona Navigable Stream Adjudication Commission.  The book is a genuine "must read" for anyone interested in the Steamboat Era of the Gulf of California and The Colorado River.  Most of the information used in this post came from Pages 53-62.

http://www.ansac.az.gov/UserFiles/PDF/08182014/X028_FMIBurtellLingenfelterSteamboats/FMI%20Lingenfelter%20Steamboats/Steamboats%20on%20the%20Colorado%20River%201852-1916.pdf

Thanks for reading, John Parsons, Rimrock, AZ

Libby Army Air Field - Fort Huachuca

Sgt. George D. Libby

Libby Army Air Field (AAF) at Fort Huachuca near Sierra Vista, Arizona, was constructed in the early-1950's and named to Honor the Heroism, Gallantry, Courage and Sacrifice of Sgt. George Dalton Libby who was killed in combat July 20, 1950, while acting as a human shield to save his comrades-in-arms.

You can read about Sgt. Libby's heroism here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_D._Libby

Throughout all of its early history dating back to 1877, Fort Huachuca was a "soldier's fort" and had no role or association with aviation.  After the end of World War Two, Fort Huachuca was deactivated and then administered by the State of Arizona and some private development interests.

When the Korean War erupted, Fort Huachuca once again became a military installation.  Some of the first US Army units assigned to Fort Huachuca were engineers.  They were to be trained as "aviation engineers" with an early project to build an air field on the base.  Construction of that air field began in mid-1951, right about the time that Sgt. George D. Libby was posthumously award the Medal of Honor for his heroic gallantry.  There's no doubt that the "aviation engineer" trainees took special pride in "one of their own".  At the December 3, 1952 dedication of the air field, post commanding officer Col. David M. Dunne said, "It is a tribute to the engineer units that completed this project to be privileged by naming the field in honor of another engineer."

May 24, 2021, photo of plaque courtesy Joe Payne, Sierra Vista, Arizona.

Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78236963/dedication-of-libby-aaf-december-1952/

Fort Huachuca has a long, distinguished and very well documented history of its own dating back to 1877.  Fort Huachuca does not appear to have been used as an Army Air Force training facility during World War II.

A 1948 USGS topo map updated in 1953 shows a small field labeled "Fort Huachuca Airport" located at what's now the Mountain View Golf course in Sierra Vista, Arizona.

Above is a clip from the USGS 1:24,000 topo map.  Source:
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/viewer/#14/31.5487/-110.3323

We were able to derive a longitude & latitude from the USGS topo map. (See red push pin.)
Note the area between the tips of the red arrows.  You can see faint outlines of a runway.

Between Spring 1951 and late fall 1952, the first Libby Army Air Field was constructed at its present location northwest of Sierra Vista.  The first media usage of the name "Libby Army Air Field" that we can find dates to 1955.  Thereafter, the name became common in various media reports.

Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78222202/1955-use-of-name-libby-army-airfield/

Fifty years ago, a ceremony was staged to dedicate an enlarged and enhanced Libby Army Air Field.
Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78192083/1971-libby-dedication/

Efforts to further enlarge Libby Army Air Field began in the early 1980's. Ground breaking for the improvements was held on September 30, 1981.
Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78221814/ground-breaking-for-new-runway-1983/

A substantial gala dedication was staged to celebrate the major expansion of Libby Army Air Field.
Source: https://www.newspapers.com/clip/78221968/runway-dedication-promo-1985/

Both photos are screen clips from a video edition of "The Fort Report": https://vimeo.com/416412699

One of the key features of the innovative partnerships prevailing at Libby Army Air Field is a USDA Forest Service tanker base.  The 12,000 foot main runway allows the DC-10 Very Large Air Tankers to use Libby AAF as a base for annual wild land fire fighting efforts.  Permanent retardant refilling apparatus allow a wide variety of aerial fire fighting resources to utilize Libby AAF.

Photos are screen clips sources from this video: https://vimeo.com/416412699

The Forest Service tanker base is located next to the main 12,000 runway.

Source: https://aeronav.faa.gov/d-tpp/2105/05081AD.PDF

The US Army's innovative partnerships at Libby AAF have enabled the Forest Service and wild land fire fighting contractors to organize and implement much more aggressive initial attack for early season wildfire in the Sonoran Desert of Southern Arizona.

Race for First Photos.

EXTRA! EXTRA! EXTRA! shouted the newsboys for The Los Angeles "Evening Express" in the dawn hours of June 24th, 1926.  People grabbed The Extras out of their hands as fast as they could keep 'em comin'! The EXTRA was a result of Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson being found alive in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico early June 23rd.  When the Press Corps learned she was lying in a Calumet & Arizona Hospital bed in Douglas, Arizona, a media feeding frenzy broke loose.

The newspaper was boastfully proud of printing the first photos and even wrote a sidebar story about "a tale of newspapermen and their work in the raw." Here is the complete text of the story as transcribed from screen clips using OCR technology.

Express Wins Airplane Race for Aimee Photos

"Details of one of the most thrilling cases in which high-powered automobiles of the sheriff's office, as well as two airplanes, took part In an effort to obtain pictures and a complete story of Aimee Semple McPherson for the public of Los Angeles, were laid bare when the Evening Express scored the "scoop" of the year over all other Southern California papers and issued an extra containing the first photographs of the evangelist to be shown since her rescue.

READY FOR BATTLE

The story, which reads like a novel and is replete with thrills, is a tale of newspapermen and their work in the raw. One reporter traveling in an automobile close to 80 miles an hour, armed to the teeth, races another carload of photograph "hijackers" to a stranded plane in the Santa Suzanna pass while two others drop 2000 feet in another plane and narrowly escape serious injury. But the Evening Express is still the first and only paper to show the actual photographs of the famous evangelist lying on a bed of pain in a hospital 700 miles away.

Less than an hour yesterday morning after word was flashed here that Mrs. McPherson had been found, Harry E Meason, Express reporter, and Albert Schmidt, staff photographer, took off in a biplane and headed for Arizona, traveling at a speed of 100 miles an hour. While passing a range of mountains at an altitude of 4000 feet the plane engine developed trouble and began to "buck." A landing was made in the town of Imperial and the two men, together with their pilot, again took to the air.

NEARLY CRASH

The trio had climbed to an altitude of 2000 feet when the engine stopped dead. Barely grazing a telephone pole and several trees in their wild flight to earth, the three men escaped serious injury or death when the pilot, owing to his exceptional skill, managed to make a landing in a field below without turning his plane over.

There's no doubt that T. Claude Ryan flew to the rescue of the "Evening Express."  Ryan was something of a Southern California icon back in 1926.  He had established an exceptional reputation as a daring pilot.  But what's more is that he was an astute businessman and early aeronautical engineer.  He instinctively knew how to design a sweet aircraft that could fly and fly FAST!  So, the LA "Evening Express" called The Best Guy they could find and Claude fly to the rescue.  This is his Ryan M-1, an early monoplane powereed by a Wright Whirlwind radial engine that really cold do 185 mph!  The plane had only been flown for the first time a mere four months before The Great Photo Race to Douglas.  For Claude to fly this mission in the dark of night is a testimony to his skills as a pioneer pilot.  See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_M-1

Word was then flashed to the Express office of the accident and the fact that the plane could not again take the air. From there another message was relayed to Claude Ryan, San Diego aviator, noted for his skill and daring in the air, and 10 minutes later he started out in his own monoplane for Douglas where, the Evening Express told him, were waiting pictures for the famous preacher. Flying at the fullest speed his wasplike machine was capable of, which is 185 miles an hour, Ryan reached his destination, and, despite the fact that the night was pitch dark, immediately took off.

THREATENED WITH DEATH

On his last stop for gas and oil Ryan was handed a telegram informing him that a car containing seven men had been sent out to the place where he was expected to land. Their object, he was informed, was to rob him of his pictures, even if they had to "knock him cold." The message ended with a warning to him to "come down" somewhere in the Santa Suzanna pass and he would be met by representatives of the Evening Express and several deputy sheriffs.

T. Claude Ryan

Then began a race from the Sheriff's office in the fastest available car Piloted by Jack Lane, the fastest driver connected with Sheriff Traeger's office, the machine contained Elmer Terrill, an Express reporter, and Deputy Sheriffs Charles Ellison and Charles Patton, both noted for their ability to either fight or shoot. Careening from side to side the big car's speedometer reached the 80-miles-an-hour point.

Terrill and his deputies met the plane and escorted Ryan to Los Angeles and the Express office. Despite assurances Ryan refused to part with his package of precious photographs until he came face to face with the city editor. Then, his eyes streaming water, caused by a leak in his goggles, the tired aviator completed his 24-hour job with a simple:
"Here's your pictures!"

When we saw the car used in the race did 80 MPH on East LA desert roads we knew it had to be a Studebaker Sheriff Big Six.    There was no other cop car that could do that in 1926.  We did a big article on The Sheriff and you can find it here:
https://azitwas.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-sheriff-arizona-big-six.html

POLICEMAN HERO

Even the police department, in its effort to give a hand to one of the biggest enterprises ever undertaken and won by a newspaper, assisted the Evening Express, when Officer Kimberly of University division willingly undertook the hard job of keeping in telephonic communications with the hurtling planes as they made their various stops for water, fuel and oil. It was largely through Kimberley's efforts that the Express was first notified that one of its airplanes had made a forced landing and was out of commission.

And that is the story of how the Evening Express was able to present to the Los Angeles reading public the first photographs of Aimee Semple McPherson to be taken following her thrilling rescue. And that, doubtless, is how the newspaper will always beat the field and be the first to give its readers what they want ahead of any paper in Southern California.

The Sheriff: Arizona & The Big Six

Once upon a time in The Rip Roarin' 20's, a dozen Arizona Sheriffs drove the same car--a Big Six Studebaker Duplex Phaeton.  When officials of the Studebaker Company heard about the Arizona popularity of their Big Six they sent a hired gun writer out to wrangle up some pot boilin' stories of Law & Order Southwest Style.  Studebaker was so impressed, they official renamed their car "The Sheriff" and began a vigorous promotion campaign in the Saturday Evening Post, Boys Life and other publications of the era.

Photo source: http://prescottazhistory.blogspot.com/p/crime.html

Grover F. Sexton never met an exaggeration, a hyperbole or a flaming metaphor he didn't like or couldn't find a way to use.  To say Sexton was a professional purveyor of purple prose is an understatement.  Sexton tacked the word "Major" onto his name but nobody ever really know "major" of what. "Sexton's origins are murky, but before he became a Studebaker employee he had experience working on early aviation experimentation, followed by military police duty in Europe during WWI. After the war he also spent time as newspaper reporter."

As chance would have it, Sexton rolled into Prescott, Arizona, just in time to get Deputized by new Sheriff Two Guns Weil.  "Deputy Sheriff Sexton was provided a badge and a Winchester Rifle and was assigned the Studebaker Big Six model patrol vehicle. This Big Six Vehicle had no emergency lights or an apparent siren, but it did have Sheriff's Office graphics and a vehicle badge on the front bumper."

Quotes use in the above narrative were obtained from: http://bit.ly/2UKp0zw

After hob-nobbing with Two Guns, Sexton would parlay this newfound Deputy status as an entree into the offices of 11 other Arizona Sheriffs.  Sexton always obtained the bare bones of a dramatic law enforcement escapade upon which he could drape his overabundance of shameless exaggeration and downright fictitious embellishments.

Above graphic courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Studebaker officials apparently lived by the rule "Don't let the facts stand in the way of a good stories" and they lapped up Sexton's prose like purring kittens.  The Studebaker marketing machine leaped into action and printed a classic of the 1920's automotive advertising genre.  "The Arizona Sheriff" distributed en masse to dealers all across America and became an instant hit.

Above graphic courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Benton Clark's superb illustrations, as well as genuine photos of the actually elected Sheriffs themselves fanned the flames of consumer desire.  How could consumers resist the image of an "Old Time .45 Six-Gun and a Modern Big Six Motor Can."  The campaign was pure marketing magic!

Above graphic courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Fortunately for Studebaker, their Big Six was a mighty machine that could back up the hype and walk the talk.  In fact, modern automotive analysts have called The Sheriff Big Six America's first "muscle car."  That's quite a tall order to fill but the Big Six lived up to its legend.  We obtained this photo of a Big Six in the Studebaker Museum at this link: https://forums.aaca.org/topic/90054-studebaker-whiskey-six/

A Duplex Phaeton was essentially a hard top with roll up side curtains. This Studebaker "...was seemingly made for the desert: Wide-open enough that air could circulate through the car as you drove, yet with a hard cloth top to prevent the top of your head from getting pummeled by the sun’s angry rays. The retractable side curtains, which rolled up like a window shade, didn’t do much for security, but in the colder and rainier days of an Arizona winter, they were sufficient for comfort."

Source of quote: https://www.hemmings.com/blog/article/swift-justice-1926-studebaker-sheriff-duplex-phaeton/

Here is the Wiki for The Big Six: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebaker_Big_Six

Source of engine photo: http://bit.ly/39uzffp

The Studebaker engine really did deserve its moniker of "Big Six.  Check out these monster specifications:

Specifications
Engine Inline six, iron block and head, cast en bloc, valves in side
Bore and stroke 3.875 x 5 inches
Compression ratio 4.5:1
Horsepower 75
Transmission Three-speed manual, single-plate dry clutch
Brakes Mechanical drum
Suspension Semi-elliptic leaf springs (front and rear)
Wheelbase 120 inches
Curb weight 3,475 pounds
(Source of specs: https://www.hemmings.com/blog/article/1926-studebaker-sheriff-duplex-phaeton/)

For a thorough discussion of how the Sheriff might deserve to be called America's first muscle car see:

https://www.hemmings.com/blog/article/swift-justice-1926-studebaker-sheriff-duplex-phaeton/

Above photo courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

"New Yavapai County Sheriff Edwin G. "Two-Gun" Weil, had just won election as the liquor enforcement candidate. It appears that the voters of Yavapai County just then were ready for stricter liquor enforcement than provided by his predecessor. As historical records note, former Sheriff George C. Ruffner would give Prescott citizens advance warning when he was going to a "sweep." This "sweep" would consist of Sheriff Ruffner driving around the square in his wagon several times. Of course no arrests or seizures were made, as all bootleggers, speakeasies, bars or other liquor-consuming citizens in the county seat would stash their stills, pour out their drinks or otherwise close their doors."

Source of above quote: http://bit.ly/2UKp0zw 

Above photo courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

"CAUGHT!

Photograph of the arrest of I.P. McKelvie at his moonshine still in a tiny rock canyon of the Santa Maria Mountains the day after he beat Tex Elliott, bootlegger, on the draw, shooting Elliott dead. Near Sheriff Ed G. Weil (left foreground) the moonshiner's rifle is seen on a rock. "Dad" Denny, deputy sheriff, is seen in the lower right corner, covering the moonshiner with a rifle. This picture was taken by "The Deputy from Yavapai" just as Sheriff Weil and Deputy Denny covered the moonshiner with rifles and he elevated his hands. Fifty gallons of illicit liquor were seized in this arrest. McKelvie was acquitted of the slaying charge, having fired in self-defense."

Above quote courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Cottonwood Main Street undoubtedly didn't look much different in 1925.
Photo Source: https://azmemory.azlibrary.gov/digital/collection/histphotos/id/3303/rec/8

"Within two weeks of his election he blew into the Tia Juana dance hall at Cottonwood near the monster Jerome Copper mines at night, with two deputies and his six shooters. He lined 45 men and 22 women in the place up against the wall, sent his deputies through the place to gather up two truckloads of evidence, drove the whole crowd out into the street, nailed up the dive, and went on back home.

While waiting for his deputies to collect the evidence, Sheriff Weil sat on a pool table, legs dangling over, and two pistols displayed, careless-like. The men with hands up grew restless. So Weil began joking with them and finally told them to go sit down and be good little boys. The whole 45 obeyed as though they were in Sunday school.

Among the 45 men were some bad hombres, a number with several notches in their pistols. But Weil did not even take the trouble to relieve them of their guns, telling them he supposed none of them wanted to commit suicide. The tough, wide open, vicious Cottonwood dives are wide open no more. A little white mule corn liquor is smuggled in there, of course, as everywhere, but just try to buy a drink after the word has come that Ed Weil's big Studebaker car is on that side of the mountains! Try and get it! They know that Studebaker can go anywhere, and does. And that makes this mountain bobcat of a sheriff highly pleased."

Above quote courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

(Editor's Note: The "Verde Copper News" took issue with Sexton's lurid narrative.  ON January 15, 1926, the newspaper made this comment: "There is not and never was any such dance hall operated in Cottonwood as above stated. These statements are all absolute falsehoods and the writer should be taken to task for his slanderous remarks and may yet be.")

The full article containing the above quote can be found at this link.  The article is protected by a strict paywall.  However, you can buy a one day access for 99 cents and it would be well worth the cost to read the full article y history columnist Glenda Farley that appeared February 10, 2020.

https://www.verdenews.com/news/2020/feb/10/verde-heritage-1925-cottonwood-pool-hall-raide/

Source of photo: https://www.dcourier.com/news/2015/mar/29/days-past-deputy-sheriff-grover-sexton-and-the-st/

The reign of Two Guns didn't last long. "Chasing ridge runners, busting up stills and arresting homicide suspects in town and out in the vast rural expanses of Yavapai County became common practice during the Weil Administration, but after two years of stricter enforcement the voters had a change of heart and former Sheriff Ruffner was reelected, serving until his death in 1933."

Source of above quote: http://bit.ly/2UKp0zw

Above photo courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Naturally, The Pima County Sheriff owned A Big Six.  Author Sexton and Yavapai Deputy described the murder of a Mexican sheepherder and invented a 12,000 foot elevation peak for the perp to run up and hide.  Sexton then once again reached into his bottomless bag of purple prose to describe the role of The Big Six in the fugitive's capture:

"Sheriff Bailey got Deputy F.E. Murphy, an old-time sheriff himself, into his Studebaker, and they covered the indescribably rough 28 miles to the foot of the Sierritas in 38 minutes. Along this road can still be seen the abandoned wrecks of half a dozen other makes of cars that have broken down under the strain of the difficult travel and have been left to travelers to pick apart for spare parts. For five days and nights, unceasingly, the sheriff's big Studebaker car circled the mountain ranges, rarely on any road whatever, watching every burro trail. That became tiresome. So Bailey, a "delicate" fellow of some six feet and 200 pounds, who can kink a piece of cattle wire and snap it in two with his bare hands, just started right up the mountain, leaving the car midway up, so if Pablo got below him, Murphy could start the chase at once."

Above quote courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Photo by Susun McCulla

Fortunately for Fans of The Studebaker Sheriff, Walter Bailey somehow arranged to keep his Big Six after he retired from the Pima County Sheriff's Office.  The car was in good shape when it was donated to the Arizona Historical Society.  It was then restored to its original glory and put on display in the organization's Museum on the University of Arizona campus.  In March 2018 the Editor and his wife, Susun, were delighted to find this legendary law enforcement vehicle gleaming on the museum showroom floor.

Above photo courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Of course, the Coconino County Sheriff had to have a Big Six, too! Sexton must have been beside himself with glee as he typed out these words: "As the crow flies, John was 132 miles away. But even John's Studebaker could not sail as the buzzard soars in this largest county in the world, and his speedometer read 198 miles when he pulled out of the virgin forest (where no road has been to this day) onto the brink of the mightiest chasm in the world, the Colorado River Canyon.

Ninety miles had been made through the trackless woods. Ninety miles of primeval plateau hills and ridges, rock-strewn between, the cathedraled trees in places that never before beheld a human being. And through this wilderness, an automobile -- a Studebaker, of course, for to a Studebaker alone The Arizona Sheriff turns to cover these impossible miles!

There were only two places along its winding miles whence the thieves could come out of its vast depths, and here Sheriff John and his deputy sat to watch, like terriers at a rathole. It was January -- cold, windy. The glow of a campfire, far down at the bottom of the canyon, had betrayed the hiding place of the trio, all desperate, heavily armed men.

Above quote courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Perhaps the most famous crime story involving Sheriff Parsons included a dramatic life and death struggle in front of Grand Canyon's El Tovar Hotel.  You can read the full story of a thwarted robbery using the link below.  Simply scroll through the publication until you reach the article entitled: "Trapping the Midwest’s Deadly Bandits" by Mike Ennis.

https://grandcanyonhistory.org/uploads/3/4/4/2/34422134/top_2014_4.pdf


(Editor's Note: It is not known if Editor John Parsons is related to Sheriff John Parsons.  However, Sheriff John Parsons looks enough like the Editor's Grand Dad to be his brother!)

Above graphic courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Sexton "...found that both good roads and bad roads gave the sheriff's Studebaker a severe test. Across the mesa stretched broad smooth high ways devoid of intersections where the throttle was thrown wide open and left open. There were wagon trails up into remote mountain valleys where the car was driven relentlessly in the teeth of ruts, rocks and steep grades. There were stretches of desert where no trace of trail existed but over which criminals must be pursued by a car crashing through brush and cactus stumps in the night."

Source of quote: Studebaker ad in "Boys Life" January 1926, Page 45 http://bit.ly/2SjdWYv

Above graphic courtesy Steven Ayres via: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

"Stories of Arizona sheriffs - their courage, their humor, their keen intelligence-as collected by Major Grover F. Sexton, Deputy Sheriff of Yavapai County, have been published in a booklet entitled "The Arizona Sheriff," incidents picturesque, romantic, thrilling - explain how these soft-spoken, hard-driving men with nimble guns keep the highways and byways of Arizona safe by swift and certain capture of wrongdoers."

Source of quote: Studebaker ad in "Boys Life" January 1926, Page 45 http://bit.ly/2SjdWYv

Source of above graphic: http://bit.ly/2SjdWYv

Well, Buckaroos, Thanks for reading!  We're sorry to say you can't send off for your free copy of "The Arizona Sheriff."  Nope, cowpokes, the going price for a copy of that there 48-page pile of purple prose starts at $100 and runs all the way to $200!  Check it out here: http://bit.ly/2OMPsVj

We wish to give a Special Shout Out & Huge Thanks to Prescott's Steven Ayres for his time and efforts in transcribing text and scanning graphics from an original copy of "The Arizona Sheriff."  Ayres posted his material in 2013 on The Studebaker Drivers Forum.  The Ayres Collection of work can be found here: http://bit.ly/2Sj2En1

Studebaker was no stranger to building super stout vehicles whose reputation made the rounds far and wide across The American West. One of the five Studebaker Brothers actually got his start producing wheelbarrows in California. Many of the famous cover wagons that settled the West were produced by The Studebaker Brothers. There Wiki is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studebakeochise

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On May 22, 2020, we added the Cochise County part of the story.  Here 'tis:

"Catching rum runners along the Mexican border is far from the tame motorboat pursuit on the open sea.

When a sheriff out in Arizona starts after a car laden with contraband whiskey, mescal or tequilla, the two race off across Arizona's multitudinous square miles with no regard for roads, cactus or even mountain ranges.

Take your choice -- an Arizona desert or an Arizona valley -- and racing across it in an automobile, often at night and not infrequently even then with lights out is somewhat (!!!) different from gliding down a boulevard to work.

Sage brush, thick as it may grow, is only three or four feet high, and that doesn't count. Sand, 'dobe mud or rocks underneath give precarious going.

Here is a big patch of soto -- stumps solid as basswood, from two to six feet high and six inches through, bearing on the top of a big ball of spiney, prickly, bayonet-like blades.

There is a weird looking forest, reminding one of Dante's inferno or a witchland, of ocatilla. Fingers an inch thick and seven to ten feet long, tough as leather and literally covered with prickers half an inch long, grope into the air like the tentacles of an octopus.

Now are bunches or hummocks of sacaton grass, or larger hummocks of sacahuiste or beargrass, to run into which is like hitting a potted palm.

Back and forth through this run arroyos -- deep gullies worn by floods. Now a dry-wash, or stone-covered riverbed, gives relief from the thorny vegetation, but makes up with stones and ruts.

All around are mountains, stretching steeply up for 4,000 feet, with sharp-ridged buttes or flat-topped mesas in between. Two decades ago, they said only a burro could cross much of it. Now they say only a Studebaker can traverse it.

Over east of Douglas, up San Bernardino river and the Rio Blanco, or White River, past Apache Mountain and into the Chiracahuas was a favorite route for rum runners from Old Mexico into the States. Opium came with it, and, for several years, much marihuani, the deadly weed smoked with cigaret tobacco.

Here was where Percy Bowden, a deputy sheriff at 18 and known for miles around as the "fightin'est bare-handed sheriff on the border" won his reputation by overtaking 1,300 automobiles laden with whiskey during less than eight years, and bringing them all in.

"Those were the days, when the automobile first came to be used for smuggling," now reminisces Bowden, who is chief of police of Douglas. "Every kind of a car was used, big and little. I remember one great, big Simplex that one fellow used. He had a piece of 90-pound railroad rail bent around and fastened on in front for a bumper.

"That was to knock down fence posts and soto stumps when we got to running them across country.

"Guess I must have knocked down 500 miles of wire fence in those years myself.

"I got kind of discouraged, when they gave me my first car, a small Studebaker. Some of those big cars could have run over me. But, boy! how it could get over that rough ground!

"It stood the gaff so well that within two years almost every successful rum runner had bought a Studebaker; it was the only car that could give us a run. The only reason we caught them was that the 15 to 20 cases of liquor each carried was a weight handicap for them.

"Most of the flats were fenced off for ranches. When the whiskey runners would see us coming, they'd turn out lights and beat it across country, right through the brush. Nothing left for us to do but turn out lights and take after them.

"Light of the stars helped us to steer shy of buttes and some arroyos. We stopped occasionally to listen to where they were plunging on, and then we'd head after them.

"Talk about thrills. If you can beat plunging through the dark and all that prickly brush at 30 miles an hour and then suddenly dropping into an arroyo all covered with stones at the bottom, I'd like to know how. And if you can find another make of car that can stand it, I'd like to see it.

"All you can do is turn and follow the arroyo out till it's shallower, then turn out and start after them again. If you turn on lights, they'll see them and dash off in another direction.

"We always knew they were heading for some road, so we'd head that way too.

"The lighter cars bumped around so much, and the long thorns on the ocatilla and the sand burrs punctured tires so often, they had to give them up.

"The bigger cars could thrash through the brush, but they couldn't stand up under such driving. They'd break down and we'd grab them.

"They always carried guns, but I never had any shootings. "Soon they got to getting the same make of cars we used and then it was any man's race. The federal prohibition law helped, for now we can confiscate a car carrying liquor."

This is the same kind of work that made famous a group of old time peace officers who now are employed in, or make as their headquarters, the salesrooms where are sold the Studebaker, in which they lived while in service. There's Bert Polly, deputy sheriff and constable; Bill Sherill, another deputy; Frank Riggs, most peaceable of men but who knew every bad man in Arizona and old Mexico for years; young Johnson, Frank's nephew; Tom Mooney, former constable and deputy.

Hardly a day passes but Red Gannon, now a lease operator but a while back a deputy sheriff known by his .45 pistol to every outlaw in the county, drops in to chin a moment with his old cronies and sit in a Studebaker again, or Broncho Billy Woods, ranger and government officer for years, or Billy Brakefield, another famous deputy and half a dozen others come in and sit on Johnny Bowden's desk and stop all work of automobile selling as they chat over the old days.

Every one of them had been cowmen. Every one started his sheriff-ing on a cow pony, and every one took part in the maintenance of order during the transition period, when the suregoing, fast motor car replaced the picturesque horse and saddle. The cow pony is to them a romance, as to you and me. But the cars they use are as close to their hearts as their big six shooters, for the car and the six-gun were their very existence.

The Studebaker Sheriff Big Six wasn't just popular in Arizona. This is definitely a Big Six with a 1927 license plate. The archive photo title says, "Three Los Angeles plain-clothed police men crouched behind car aiming their guns, circa 1925." 

Source: https://dl.library.ucla.edu/islandora/object/edu.ucla.library.specialCollections.latimes:561