HOME | BOOSTER | CEMETERIES | EDUCATION | GHOST TOWNS | HEADSTONE
MINOTTO | PICTURES | ROADS | JACK SWILLING | TEN DAY TRAMPS
American Pioneer & Cemetery Research Project
Internet Presentation
Version 030812-BC
HUMBUG, Arizona - 2012
Story and photos by
Bruce Colbert
|
Humbug, AZ Photo Neal Du Shane |
Editor’s note: This
was the 7th Annual Humbug Potluck and Open House hosted by Dave
Burns and Theresa Thayer, Humbug’s caretakers and preservationists. Humbug is
located along Humbug Creek in the foothills of the southern portion of the
Bradshaw Mountains north of Lake Pleasant. Dave opens the gate to Humbug for
visitors each year on the first full (two-day) weekend in March.
On the road to Humbug,
the dust kicked up by a caravan of Jeeps, 4x4s and nimble ATVs could blind a
camel. But you don’t care when you pass by ancient saguaros close enough to
reach out and touch; turn a corner and gasp at the breathtaking view of miles
of unspoiled mountains and magnificent desert; and white-knuckle your way over
old mule trails with sheer rock walls on one side, and seemingly bottomless
drop-offs on the other. This is the West dreams are made of, movies filmed
about, and legends born from.
|
Sarah
Munsell tries identifying unmarked graves for the
first time |
When little Sarah Munsell showed up at Humbug ghost town’s potluck and open
house Saturday morning, March 3, she wracked up some
unique “firsts” in her young life.
“I’ve never been to a ghost town like
this,” said the petite 8-year-old. She also did not believe a person could
identify graves the same way you search for water.
“I didn’t believe him,” she said
referring to Neal Du Shane, founder of the Arizona Pioneer Cemetery and Research
Project and grave researcher extraordinaire. “I thought he was moving (the
rods) with his hands. It was cool. The whole place is cool.”
Kathy Kent agreed with Sarah. She
heard about the open house “from my boyfriend” and joined him on the back of a
quad for a cross-country ride to check it out.
“I love the remoteness of the place,”
Kent said. She also tried her hand at identifying unmarked graves and joined
Sarah as a believer. “And the caretaker seems to meld right in like he’s part
of the scenery. I couldn’t imagine anyone but him taking care of this place.”
That caretaker is Dave Burns. Burns’
history is interwoven with Humbug’s history. “I was backpacking down the creek in
1981 when I first met Newt White,” Burns said. “I didn’t know anything about
Humbug; didn’t even know it was here.”
|
Dave Burns points out historic landmarks at Humbug |
When he met Newt along Humbug Creek,
Burns was a 15-year-old adventurous teen. He and the grizzled old miner struck
up a friendship. Newt was already a living legend among miners, ranchers and
cowboys in Yavapai and Maricopa counties.
“Newt knew every rock and bush out in
the desert,” Burns said with a chuckle remembering his departed friend and
desert mentor. “He’d tell me where to find something with directions like, ‘Go
this far, turn at that rock, and look behind a certain bush.’ And it would be
right there. It was amazing.”
In 1922, at the ripe old age of about
14, Edward Newton “Newt” White and his father arrived at the northern end of
the Sonora Desert. They stayed at Rock Springs (adjacent to Black Canyon City)
for a spell, and then found their way out to the Champie Guest Ranch. Newt took
a job as a go-fer at the popular dude ranch, but his father got restless and
moved on.
At Champie Ranch, Newt learned to
cowboy. While out herding cattle by himself one day, Newt’s horse spooked and
took off at a run throwing Newt in the process. His left leg caught in a
stirrup and the horse dragged him full gallop through thick patches of cholla and prickly pear cacti. By the time other
ranch-hands found him and got him to a Phoenix hospital, it was too late and
doctors had to amputate his left leg. Someone carved him a few wooden
prosthetics. Over time, Newt apparently left wood legs scattered at various
places in and around the Bradshaw Mountains: Cathy Cordes, manager of Cordes
General Store near Mayer, has one; and Burns said he has another one.
“When I met Newt, he was the caretaker
here,” Burns said. The energetic teen started helping Newt at Humbug, and after
Newt died in 1997, Burns became the town’s full-time caretaker. “Newt had
worked for Frank Hyde at Humbug.” Hyde died in 1973.
Frank de Lacey Hyde, a New York
stockbroker, came out West on a trip and fell heads-over-heels in love with
Humbug. He bought every mining claim in the district he could get his hands on,
and in 1932 he built his wife, Elizabeth, and their infant daughter, Carolyn, a
large adobe “mansion” that commanded a view of Humbug and its namesake creek.
Hyde’s “Big House” stands today, although it is showing its age, and the desert
has reclaimed the lush and intricate terraced gardens planted and tended by
Elizabeth.
“I love the old adobe, and I loved
seeing the old Kelvinator refrigerator sitting there,” Kathy Kent said of the
former Hyde home. “It’s such a juxtaposition to the
rest of the house.”
|
Humbug’s Miner's Quarters and Residence.
Photo Neal Du Shane |
Frank Hyde’s (Main) House. Photo
Neal Du Shane |
After Du Shane finished his
finding-unmarked-graves lesson and cemetery history talk, visitors explored the
ruins, walked where miners walked and snapped photographs galore. Two touring groups
formed up: one rode out to visit the site of the former town of Columbia and
its four-stamp mill; and the other group rode up the side of a low mountain to
see the Pero Bonito Mine.
|
Bruce Colbert (Author) & Kathy Kent
at El Perro Bonito Mine above Humbug |
One of the interesting things about
visiting historical places is that their names can sometimes be as intriguing
as the place itself.
Take Pero
Bonito, for example. Some historical journals refer to the mine as the El Pero Bonito, others the Pero
Bonita, and some uncouth historian spelled it as one word: Perobonito.
In Spanish, pero bonito translates as “but nice,”
which doesn’t make a lot of sense for a name of a mine. However, if it was
actually called El Perro Bonito (two “r’s”,) that would make it “the
pretty dog.” It’s still an unusual name, but it makes more sense for the name
of a mine or if you owned a pretty dog that hung around the mine. The State of
Arizona Department of Mines lists it as Pero Bonito.
So, the mine’s original name may have been different from what we know it as
today.
|
Driveway out of Humbug Creek entering Humbug |
Then there is “Humbug.” In the
mid-1800s, rumors flew amongst miners about an unnamed creek teeming with gold
ready for the taking. After slogging up and down the creek without much luck,
the miners scoffed at the humbug rumors of gold in the creek. In old English
vernacular, “humbug” meant false talk or a deception - a sham. Miners being
miners, they called the seemingly barren creek the Damn Humbug Creek. The early
cartographers opted for something more politically correct, and simply
shortened it to Humbug Creek.
Although the creek may not have been the
rumored bonanza, gold flowed from the mines. Enough that Humbug had its own
stamp mill and red light district.
Neal Du Shane met Dave Burns while
researching the history and locations of the Humbug and Columbia towns and
their cemeteries.
“We got to talking and I asked Dave
about any cemeteries at Humbug,” Du Shane said. “He was reluctant to say at
first, but eventually he showed me where Newt is buried.” Still skeptical about
grave dowsing, Burns decided to test Du Shane.
“He said to show him where Newt is,”
Du Shane said. “I dowsed the grave but didn’t get any reaction from the rods.
But when I did the headstone the rods crossed.” Crossed rods indicate a male
grave and opened rods indicate a female, Du Shane explained.
|
Newt White’s grave at the Humbug Cemetery. Photo Neal Du Shane |
“Dave said, ‘You’re right. Newt was
cremated and the urn is buried under the headstone.’” Another believer was
born. Eventually, Burns told Du Shane about a potluck he held at Humbug the
previous year, and from that talk came the current
annual Humbug open house and potluck.
There’s something magical here that
sets people’s imaginations loose.
“I like holding the open house because
it gives people a chance to see Humbug’s history,” Du Shane said. “It is
authentic history. Dave likes to say he keeps Humbug maintained, not preserved.
It is totally undisturbed.”
Kathy Kent could not agree more. She
summed up the weekend about the way most people probably felt after leaving.
“I loved riding out there through the
saguaro forests. They’re so majestic, so old and spectacular,” she enthused.
“It’s like going through a time warp. The further back we went, the further
back in time we went. I just found it fascinating.
“It was so stimulating to see their
culture, to see how the miners lived in the middle of nowhere. Where did they
get their water, their food? How long did it take to get from Phoenix to Humbug
on foot or horseback? I just feel very privileged to be a part of it. That to
me is a wonder in itself.”
As a town, Humbug is dead for sure.
But it still is full of life for visitors. The saguaros, sagebrush and
cottonwoods are still here. The miners, soiled doves and moonshiners are gone,
but the streets and trails still carry people to the mines, dead-end test holes
and abandoned home sites.
Adobe walls still stand weathering
year after year the same thunderstorms, wind and heat that wracked the little
town back in its hey-day. The sound of picks and shovels and the rolling
thunder of dynamite blasts are gone, but the birds still chirp, and when it
flows, that damn Humbug creek still gurgles, and gentle breezes still follow
its course through the little valley.
For more information about Humbug,
Arizona and other ghost towns and cemeteries, visit www.apcrp.org
|
Once glowed brightly at Humbug |
Adobe await a new meaning to life |
|
Resting after years of hard production |
Ready for a new day |
|
Truck, tack building in center and stables on right |
Dust to Dust – Adobe melt in progress |
American
Pioneer & Cemetery
Research Project
Internet Presentation
Version 030812-BC
Webmaster: Neal Du Shane
Copyright
© 2012 Neal Du Shane
All rights reserved. Information contained within this website
may be used
for personal family history purposes, but not for
financial profit or gain.
All contents of this website are willed to the
AmericanPioneer & Cemetery Research Project (APCRP).
HOME | BOOSTER | CEMETERIES | EDUCATION | GHOST TOWNS | HEADSTONE
MINOTTO | PICTURES | ROADS | JACK SWILLING | TEN DAY TRAMPS