When Payson was small

In 1967, my mother arranged for me, my friend Billy Warren, and my grandmother to spend much of the summer in Payson. It had not been connected to the outside world by a paved highway for even a decade. The population was around 1,500 and it was clustered around a real tiny town, the enchanting massif of the Mogollon Rim towering to the north above the forest. I was 10.

We lived in a rented house on what's now called Frontier Street, a few blocks west of Arizona 87 (the Beeline Highway). Like almost everything in town, it was built of wood. An early look around was a disappointment to this callow city kid: No trains, no chain restaurants, no easy biking to parks or soda fountains. I don't recall having television, either. Payson revolved around the two-lane highway, with logging trucks rumbling by and everything locally owned. At night, the darkness was primeval under the vault of billions of stars.

The fear of boredom didn't last more than 24 hours at most. The volunteer fire department had a new station a block south, a place to hang around, admire the apparatus, and talk to the firefighters. I got a library card and quickly became a darling of the librarians by being a bibliophile and checking out books every few days.

But the big show was outside.

Both Billy and I were in Scouts — Camp Geronimo was north of Payson — so my grandmother had no concerns about us spending most of the day wandering around the forest. And we did, armed with canteens, pocket knives and compass. She trusted our good sense and caution. In those days, child abductions were rare. Today, Arizona has 909 open cases of missing persons, many children.

Looking back, I suspect we never went more than about three miles in any direction. We never found a rattler, Gila monster or wolf, despite our best efforts. Skunks were another matter — their odor was a big change from Phoenix and it didn't take an adult's warning for us to know we should avoid them at all costs.

A few A-frame and other cabins were west of town near the (usually) small flow of the Verde River, where we fished (catch and release). A movie theater was east of town at the crossroads of Star Valley. The original Zane Grey cabin stood; the 1990 Dude Fire destroyed it (since restored). Speaking of which, Arizona didn't have the massive wildfires of recent decades.

But most of our entertainment was hiking in the Tonto National Forest. This was rugged country. And being surrounded by the largest contiguous tract of ponderosa pines in the world was breathtaking in a different way. Every few minutes brought another spectacular view. The same was true of the comforting and imagination-firing presence of the Rim. The young me knew: Most people have never seen this!

The land also had its distinct weather patterns. At 5,000 feet, Payson was almost always cool. In the afternoons, fluffy white clouds would emerge from over the Rim and rainclouds often followed. At least once, Billy and I sought refuge from lightning storms under the breezeways of the new high school, which was built relatively far from the town center. Then the sun came back out.

The outside world seemed very far away. But the Arizona Republic arrived on the doorstep every morning, bringing news of riots in Cincinnati, Buffalo, Newark, and, especially, Detroit. The "Long Hot Summer" saw 159 riots. The Vietnam War continued. And the Six-Day War in the Middle East especially troubled me. What if it drew in the Soviet Union and the United States and went nuclear? I had a morbid curiosity about the Cold War going hot, but it was how I coped with the terror.

What if a thermonuclear weapon hit Phoenix? We would see the flash and my mother would be dead. Ninety miles away and shielded by the mountains, we would be safe. (Unless the Soviets started firestorms in the forests, but that's another story). Hiking was an antidote. So was sitting with my grandmother, hearing stories of the frontier, and playing board games (this daughter of Presbyterian missionaries also bought a Ouija board to amuse us). And every Friday night, my mother made it up the mountain to spend the weekend.

At some point, Billy went home. But between my grandmother and seal point siamese cat, I never felt lonely. When we finally left for Phoenix, I knew the summer had been a treasure I would carry for a lifetime.

Now Payson is nearly a bedroom community of Phoenix. It has sprawled out massively and boasts a Walmart Superstore. Shadowy land swaps in the National Forest have brought subdivisions ("cabins") to the once-pristine Mogollon Rim country. And climate change threatens the future of the forest.

I know the people who live there full- or part-time must adore Payson. I prefer it the way it was, or how it might have been with growth boundaries. Don't write me with your boosterish outrage. Don't be sore winners. I got the summer of '67.

———————————————————————————
 

My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.

Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[DoggieCombover]

I feel genuinely sorry for children who didn't grow up with these sorts of freedoms and experiences. Likewise, we got to roam freely, with the only "rule" being to come home when the whistle at the volunteer fire department blew at noon and 6 PM. It was pretty much Mayberry.

And we would periodically get "farmed out," in the summer, i.e., sent to relatives' farms to run wild with cousins in rural settings.

Wonder when parents got scared of life and the real world?

[Cal Lash]

Jon. Good piece. You were a fortunate kid.

Currently Ruben in this blog is hiding out in Payson but will meet you at Starbucks. Retired Arizona Columnist and author Don Dedera lives up the road from Ruben.

In 1950 i was at Camp Geronimo for a week. It was a terrible experience. That same year i went with the Boy Scouts to Crown King and got lost for a while.

I guess some of you all got that "Mayberry" experience. I discovered it when i watched American Graffiti.

In 54 i finally couldnt take the home infused religiosity, so i took my Arizona Republic paper route savings and boarded a Greyhound bus near 5th and Jefferson.

I went back and forth for a while. But finally settled on the Great Sonoran Desert. I still enjoy the scenery on a drive from The Superstitions to Payson on occassion. Generally on a Tuesday. That's also the best day to ride a bicycle to Payson and on to Happy Jack.

Here's to the Sajuaro's and 2020

[Dave Parish]

Sweet memory of youth was doing business with the store offering the largest selection of penny candy. Thick and long pretzels came in two's and one also got two scoops of red hots for this cost.

Riding a bicycle to location had parents nod of approval as long as we stopped and looked both ways before crossing the street. Not doing so could have deadly consequences.

[Buckobear]

My Dad and I visited the original Cabin before the roads were paved. I remember the trips to Kohl’s Ranch and Wood’s Canyon Lake. My folks purchased land there ( with Native America ruins }and built a home after my sister and I left the nest and then became pillars of the community; the church overflowed at my Father’s memorial service.
Problem was that there was never ever any follow-on industry or development for the future.
We moved my Mom to more accommodating pastures a few years ago. My sister and I couldn’t drop everything and travel to provide support.
Despite many friends (and indeed, those that established the
wonderful Public Library) it wasn’t enough.
Her memorial (when it happens) and the scattering of her and my Father’s ashes will take place (probably in Granite Dells) when the day comes.
I loved Payson. I can still remember the smell and glow of the sawmill when coming over the hill).
I don’t look forward to my upcoming, last visit.
Like the wonderful city I grew up in, it’s been ruined.

[Joe Schallan]

Cal, the Camp Geronimo you were at was where the Forest Service Campground near Kohl's Ranch is now. I haven't gone into that campground in many years, but in the 1960s there were foundations of some of the Scout camp buildings still extant.

In 1956 the BSA Roosevelt Council (Phoenix) acquired the 5000-acre Spade Ranch nestled in a heavily forested bowl beneath the Mogollon Rim's Milk Ranch Point and Lee Johnson Butte. The confluence of the east and west forks of Webber Creek were on the property. Camp Geronimo was transferred to this site and is there still: A magical place for boys. (And scarily fun, too, with stories told under a dark sky and around dying embers of encounters with the Mogollon Monster, Arizona's own Sasquatch. The cabin east of Payson attacked one night in 1942 by a band of the cryptic primates!! Yikes! Sleep well, boys...)

I was at the "new" Camp Geronimo every summer from 1961 to 1965, and Payson was as Jon describes. (When my family first traveled up the Beeline Highway in 1959, paving work was still in progress though mostly finished.) The town pretty much ended at St. Philip's Drive; the intersection of 87 and 260 was about a mile north of town.

Arizona logged about 1.3 million residents in the 1960 census, but even in 1960 the campground at Kohl's Ranch would fill up on summer weekends. (Less refrigeration and much more swamp cooling in Phoenix in those days... people wanted to get away to the mountains.)

More recently arrived Arizonans may not even realize it, but a heavy Ponderosa pine forest cloaked the area below the Rim as well as on top of it. Much of this was lost in the 28,000-acre Dude Fire (as well as the lives of six firefighters) in June 1990.

Ponderosa pine regenerates very slowly from the edges of burn scars, and with hotter conditions in the 5000-6000 foot zone below the Rim, the Ponderosas may not regenerate at all. The recovery has been to brush, not pines, and scrub-oak-and-locust brush may be the indefinite future of our now not very contiguous Ponderosa pine forest.

In the late 1950s there had been a 5000-acre fire on Roberts Mesa, near Kohl's ranch. The Forest Service thought this burn to be so exceptional that they put up an interpretive sign where one of the back roads intersected the burn scar.

Today a 5000-acre fire barely merits a sentence in the Republic, if any mention at all. In 1990 nature upped fire by an order of magnitude, and I mourned the loss of those 28,000 acres of mature Ponderosa pines between Payson and the Rim. It seemed a catastrophe. In the 2000s nature again upped fire by another order of magnitude, and now the Dude was dwarfed by the half-million-acre-plus Rodeo-Chedeski and Wallow Fires.

What is new are the entire-stand-clearing fires. I could never have imagined that fire would clear the Ponderosa pines off entire mountain ranges, as has been the fate of Sky Islands such as the Catalinas, northern Mazatzals, and Chiricahuas.

We took fire out of the forests where it once occurred on much smaller scales, allowing a deadly buildup of fuels, put fire into the Sonoran Desert where it had never been, and stirred in anthropogenic heat.

As a kid and scout I experienced Arizona's back country in boots-on-the-ground fashion just as Jon did. It was a land filled with wonder and beauty, and, I might add, not overrun with recreationists and their machines, waste, and garbage.

It's gone forever, and it isn't coming back.

[Alana]

Strangers abducting children is STILL exceedingly rare. You mentioned that AZ has 909 open missing persons cases, but how many of those were kids taken from their front yards (or the woods) by strangers? Playing outdoors is actually safer for kids now than it was when you were a child, but parents have been scared by media into believing the world is very dangerous.

[HMLS]

Ok Alana

[Mike Doughty]

Alana,that number jumped out at me too.So I did some research.According to KGUN News there were 138 missing children cases in Az. ,although even one is too many.I have to agree,our 24 hour news cycle makes parents afraid of their shadows.

[Kelley]

The "Dude Ranch Fire" was horrible. The firefighters were issued these new insulated foil bags that they kept folded on their turnouts. If they found themselves in a situation where they couldnt retreat fast enough to out run the approaching blaze, they were to climb into the bags, lay on the ground and allow the fire to pass over them. Unfortunately, the large amount of fuel on the ground created a much hotter, slower moving fire. Conditions inside the bags became horrific, resulting in a number of them climbing out of the bags and running for their lives. Those who ran, perished. Most of those who remained in the foil bags were horribly burned. One of those who perished was the female prison guard in charge of the fire crew. Those that survived asked Rose Mofford for commutation of their sentences. She refused.

[Maryanna Norton]

I have lived coast to coast originally from New Jersey and upstate New York and Payson is my home.I have been to 32 different schools in my childhood, nothing compares to the neighborhoods and the loving support a Payson. I love Payson I truly truly love Payson. Thank you for loving us myself and my four children included. Merry Christmas and Happy New year.!!!!!!!

[Maryanna Norton]

For 17 years WE have called PAYSON home!!!!! Now we are in desperate NEED OF A HOME!!! MY CHILD AND I!!! (Plus an older dog (12yrs old). . Please help us!!!!!

[Mark in Scottsdale]

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-the-west-was-lost?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Made me think about Cal and Jon et al.

[Cal Lash]

Thanks Mark. Yep Powell had keen insight. I have read a number of thoughts about Powell's vision.
At nearly 80 i continue to repeat myself alot but as i have said before, it was all T R.'s fault. He had to get involved in dam building when he should have made all of NM and AZ a National Roadless Wilderness.
And Nevada also.

Oh well? Guess I'll slip my DVD of
"A Voice in the Wilderness" into the player for tonite and see if i can call up the spirit of Edward Abbey to save our ignorant asses.

[Cal Lash]

NOTE THE 2 POSTS UNDER ARIZONA NEWS ON SPRAWL

[Chuck Albertson]

Joe Schallan, as late as 1967 the council was utilizing the "old" Camp Geronimo east of Payson for summer camp - I remember going there with my troop that year. As I recall, it was billed as more of a roots camping experience, without the tent platforms, iron cots, and big camp stoves of the "new" Camp Geronimo. I think we had to dig our own latrine. There was only one building on the site, which functioned as the PX/Post Office/first aid station. It was more laid-back and less crowded than the "new" Geronimo, where we were always outnumbered by Troop 5 from Mesa. They always brought the most people, and had all the swish gear.