Recollections of the Town of Cave Creek in the Year 1932

Recollections of the Town of Cave Creek in the Year 1932

By Ken Jones

Editor’s note: While visiting the Little Red Schoolhouse in Scottsdale Civic Center I chatted with a docent there, Mr. Ken Jones. He was a fount of information and gave me a guided tour of the little museum. Mr. Jones’ monologue was filled with personal anecdotes, for he had been a student there many years ago. We lingered over photographs and Mr. Jones provided insight into the old days of Scottsdale. He moved from Cave Creek to Paradise Valley in the 1930s and recalls the early days and early characters who populated this area. I asked him to write down some of his memories and he graciously agreed, producing the following article.

In addition, he gave me copies of maps of Cave Creek in 1910 identifying the town sections and their owners, such as A. Lindell, E. B. Howard, and the location of the Tent Houses; an another map of the Valley of the Sun from Pinnacle Peak in the north, Camelback Mountain in the south, and McDowell Mountains on the east, done in 1906. I’ll be happy to show these maps to anyone who is interested. Contact me by E-mail: lucasnancy@aol.com.

Now for Mr. Jones’ narrative:

Our family left San Angelo, Texas in 1931, and came to Arizona for my mother’s health. I was 10 years old at the time. We moved to Cave Creek in 1932. We lived in a house on the west slope of Black Mountain. The house was owned by H.H. Shoup, owner of Shoup Lumber Company in Phoenix.

I went to school in a one–room schoolhouse located on the west side of Cave Creek Road about one half–mile south of what is now Carefree Highway. The school had 25 students in grades one through eight taught by Mrs. Stidham. Her duties were teacher, school nurse, truant officer and playground supervisor. Our favorite activity at recess was chasing, and sometimes catching, young cottontail rabbits.

The children were seated in the schoolhouse according to height, with the oldest and tallest in the rear. Mrs. Stidham would instruct the children in the back on a topic, then tell them to turn around and instruct the row of smaller children in that topic, then the next row would instruct the younger, smaller children in the next row until all had received instruction on the topic. The procedure was repeated for each subject.

Two students I remember well, Logan and Laverne Morris. Their parents came to Cave Creek about the year 1910 after Roosevelt Dam was built and their ranch above the dam was flooded. They lived on the west side of the creek about a mile or two north of town.

At home we had a water storage tank on a slope east of the house. We hauled in spring water and purchased milk from John Bailey’s dairy on the east side of the creek. J.D. Houck was the previous owner. Houck moved to Cave Creek about the time of the Pleasant Valley War. The following excerpt is taken from Don Dedera’s book, A Little War of Our Own.

"James D. Houck had things his way most of his life. The admitted slayer of Billy Graham and shadowy lawman prevailed also in death. With great vision, Houck left the high country to exploit lucrative winter sheep pasturage north of Phoenix. (Irreparable damage from livestock overgrazing continues to plague modern developers and municipalities.) Houck is credited with killing yet another man (Houck pleaded self–defense) in the Phoenix stockyards. He built a prosperous roadhouse, shearing station, and stage line at Cave Creek, only to experience business decline and family disappointment in has last years. The press, which in his prime Houck had artfully manipulated, took notice of his final flourish as recorded in the Arizona Republic of March 31, 1921: ‘James D. Houck, aged Arizona pioneer, prominent sheep man, committed suicide yesterday at his home in Cave Creek by taking strychnine. He gave as his motive that he was tired of living. According to members of his family, Mr. Houck came into the house after feeding the chickens about 10 o’clock yesterday morning and stated he had just taken strychnine. He lay down upon a bed and requested that his shoes by removed as he did not care to die with them on.’"

We raised a flock of ducks that had never seen water until we transported them to a pond in the creek, where they gorged themselves on minnows.

On Black Mountain there was a herd of domestic goats that had gone wild. They always stayed just below the top of the mountain. They appeared as white specks and usually we could count about 10.

The post master was Sidney Kartus. He and his wife lived in an adobe house located north of the present location of Carefree Airport. The Bernal family laid the adobe bricks. The same family laid the adobe bricks for the house my wife and I live in now [located in Paradise Valley].

Near the intersection of Scottsdale Road and Carefree Highway there is a small granite mountain. The Rockefeller Resort was built on the east side of this mountain 20 or more years ago. My parents wanted to build a house at the base of this mountain, but it was on state owned land.

In those days the lessee could request a public auction and had the right to obtain title to the land by matching the highest bid. My parents then leased the entire 640 acres of Section 35. When they requested a public auction, the state decided to double the minimum acceptable bid. If I remember correctly, the minimum bid was increased from 25 cents per acre to 50 cents per acre. My parents were so aggravated by this sudden increase that they cancelled the lease and bought property near Scottsdale and built an adobe house where my wife and I now live. My mother said at the time, "Who in his right mind would pay 50 cents per acre for desert land located 30 miles from Phoenix?"