Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 45

ALL EDITIONS (Section 5X Page 5 Sunday, September 14, 1952 The Arizona Republic, PhoeniS, Arizona. Pioneer Labels Home Best Place On Earth' Asa F. (Ace) Harris has called Kingman home for 82 of his S3 years, and still thinks it's the best place on earth. Of course Mr. and Mrs.

Harris are pretty steadfast in their ways. It'll be 60 years next Feb. 19 that they have been married, and living on the same piece of Kingman soiL Harris came to Kingman from Oregon, where he was born, when he was a year old. That was 1870, and there was no Kingman, of course just Fort Beale about xk miles west of the present town. Kingman, he recalls, was createdby the railroad, which came through in 1383.

i -J. -x'--' V. i. I -rH--- f-J: H-Ho, Sw- -it XV, iff-' afraid of the soldiers, but they sure were afraid of the cowboys and miners." Sometimes the Indians didn't fare too well'. Like the time Capt.

W. W. Hardy, one of the first settlers in the' country whose brother operated the ferry at Hardyville, let them take his wagonload of supplies. Captain Hardy had a contract to haul government freight from Wilmington, to Fort Whipple about 1884. On this occasion the In- dians were chasing him so he cut loose the team and left the wagon.

But before he left "it, he mixed poison in a sack of sugar. The Indians liked sugar. "Thirty-eight of them died," Harris declared. KINGMAN1 WAS A little slow building in the early days because lumber was hard to get. "They had a little sawmill up in the canyon on the Hual-pais, but the lumber was not very good," Harris said.

"You can say one thing for Kingman, though," he said. "It has never went back a peg." "Rncinpcc ATnn Anrl Jay Gates head of the huge TviTKrnnn'c APP Asa F. (Ace) Harris, right, pioneer officer of iviiibuiaii a att Mohave County, has claimed Kingman as his home for 82 of his S3 years. Harris, pictured at their home with Mrs. Harris, and their daughter, Mrs.

Eva Cummings, still is active in community affairs and is considered an authority on community history, most of which he knows firsthand. In his early days here, there was no Kingman just old Fort Beale. Central Commercial which his father founded, listens to the colorful accounts of Charlie Grube, early-day freighter for his father when lumbering wagons were the principal means of transportation between Mohave County's rich mining camps. Grube is one of few living muleskinners who piloted the big freight wagons. Town's General Store Plays Important Role "THERE WAS six or eight houses here before the railroad came," Harris said.

"But the railroad people said they would build a depot If the- people of Mohave County would move the county seat here." Up to that time the county seat was at Mineral Park, about 20 milesnorth of Kingman. The town site was acquired by a man named Kingman, an engineer for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. He laid out the town with the aid of F. Thompson, then a bookkeeper at Mineral Park. Enough of a community had developed in 1885 so'the Kingman residents outvoted the residents of Mineral Park to get the county seat.

"BUT THEY didn't succeed in moving it until 1887," Harris recalled. "Then they took a wagon and team and went over and got it." It consisted of the bars for the jail and the county records. I "Back in those days this was a mining country, and the ore was rich," Harris declared. He cited as an instance the American Flag mine in the Hual-pais, operated by the Four Cousin Jacks, Willie Richards, father of Dr. W.

J. Richards. The ore was packed out of the hills on burros, hauled by wagon either to Eldorado, or Hardyville on the Colorado River, loaded on steamers, and shipped all the way to Swansea, Wales, for refining. "THEY SELDOM got back from San Francisco with any of the money," Harris smiled. But his father was a cattleman, and Harris followed in his footsteps.

"There were few cattle In the country when we came. Just a few, down on the Colorado River," Harris said. "It was a wonderful country, though. Plenty of water everywhere." He'' recalled the first big herd, about 1,000 head, was brought in from Texas around 1870 by Bud Grounds, father of William Grounds. Harris served 12 years as a deputy sheriff beginning in 1906.

"Instead of having automobiles to chase fellows down, we had horses, and good ones. When we had to, we could ride them 100 miles in a day." But Harris was reluctant to talk about what he had to do as a deputy sheriff. And he allowed that the settlers really didn't have much trouble with the Indians in the Kingman area. "OH, THEY WOULD lift your hair if they got a chance, but about all they ever did was to run off the horses of emigrants passing through the country. They weren't much -r i 5 Officer Sets Record In County Bill Mahoney still is used as a standard to measure the honesty, integrity, and fearlessness of law enforcement officers in Mohave County, and Mohave has had some pretty outstanding sheriffs, including Capt.

W. H. Hardy, founder of Hardy-ville on the Colorado River. In Phoenix, however, Bill is William P. Mahoney, until early this year a member of the state social security board for 12 years, and land agent for the Santa Fe railroad a respectable citizen, but one seldom noticed.

Born in County Mayo, Ireland, Bill Mahoney came to the United States In 1900, lost no time getting naturalized, and was working as a miner at White Hills by 1902. He was a good miner even if his Irish accent was a little hard for the Cousin Jacks and other miners to understand. He worked at Chloride end Oatman. Then Bill was elected to the second legislature from Mohave in 1914, to the state senate in 1916, and then sheriff four times starting iij 1918. On one occasion Bill tracked down the killer of several Los Angeles policemen in a railroad section house west of Kingman.

He had seen the man take refuge, and had no choice but to walk up to the building in plain view of the killer. As he approached, calling for the killer to surrender, two shots were heard. But Bill kept walking, and when he entered he found the man dead, a bullet in his brain. On another occasion, Bill captured five Chinese tong members wanted in connection with a tong war, and the opposing Hop Sing Tong made him a life member. But in Mohave Bill Mahoney still is best remembered by the fact that he enforced the laws as they were written, which meant no gambling, and no prostitution.

And he made the laws stick. rnrnprcfmm towering, cone-shaped landmark near Oatman once was the Isomers ipnc cornerstone marking the boundary of three nations Mexico, Spain, and France. As a result it still is known as Boundary Cone. The cone is located on the 35th Parallel, a few miles east of the Colorado River. store finances most of the activities of Mohave County, a factor -that makes the general community store a specialized business.

The store was founded in the early 1900s as the Lovin and Withers Store by Henry Lovin and John Withers, was acquired about 1915 by Tarr, McComb and Ware, and was purchased by Gates in 1923. IT WAS operated by him until his death early this year when Jason Gates, his son. took over the presidency of the company. Other officers are Paul Morton, vice president; W. L.

Robinson, secretary; and Charles Seeley, treasurer. Jay Gates arrived in Kingman in 1911 enroute from Elkins, west to aan rrancisco xo attend the World's Fair. He never went any further. He went to work for the Tarr and McComb store in Chloride, then came back to Kingman in 1915. At one time the company operated branch stores in Goldroad and Oatman as well as the branch that still operates in Seligman.

Until 1920 merchandise was hauled to the branch stores by eight string teams with heavy wagons, and corrals were located behind the store. It took three days to make the round trip to Oatman. The first night the teamsters camped at Little Meadows, near the foot of the Oatman grade. The next day they went over the hill, unloaded, and came back to Little Meadows, where corrals and other facilities were maintained, to spend the night, then came on back to Kingman the third day. The same trip can be made now in little over an hour.

LIKE MANY OF Arizona's early-day stores, the Central Commercial plays an important role in the development of the area from Seligman to the Colorado River, and from the Grand Canyon'area to the north to the Bill Williams River to the south.1 During the' depression when the old Arizona Central Bank failed, the Central Commercial Company carried the full brunt of financing the people of the area, and at one time held more than $50,000 worth of state 'and county warrants, which it refused to discount one cent. It carried this burden several years until the Valley TJational Bank stepped in to fill the breach and establish one of its branches in Kingman. T.areroct 'husirK'Scr in TCinpman Is the Central Commercial a monument to one of the community's builders Jay Gates. Probably no store in Arizona carries as large a stock of as many different items as this general store. And few stores serve a larger area in square miles.

The $300,000 inventory of the Central Commercial includes every item needed in a ranching, mining, and resort area, except automobiles and heavy mining equipment. AND BECAUSE the Central Commercial business is about 75 per cent credit, the DESERT DRUG Precription Druggists Harry W. QuaTntance, Mgr. Downtown KINGMAN Coming or Going to Mohave's "Great" Lakes Should Stop and See Arizona's Most 3eautiful Liquor Store We Lead Others Follow SENZ LIQUOR- STORE Phonf Blu 422, Kingman Jo Fishing Hunting Licenses and Information 'WiliiiiiliiiMUiiiilJilliSi'iliiS I BRAHDIfi' IRON I 'M Motor Hotel of Distinction" I York Air Refrigeration Ph. 432 O.

Treece, Mgr. 1 At Top 'O Hill on East Hwy. 66 KINGMAN, ARIZ. Kingman's Newest JADE RESTAURANT 4The Pride of Hwy. 66" Finest Food Air CoofeJ Cocktail Lounge Coffee Shop Dining Room Banquet Room For fhe Finest of Food and for the Finesf of LOCKWOOD CAFE On Hwy; 66 in KINGMAN IN KINGMAN telxl Be Happy GoTishin' on the Blue Wafers of Mohave County Lakes OLD TRAILS GARAGE Highway 66 in Downtown KINGMAN 1 Trinlp Smn Topock is iiipic ojjaii itj, more which is becoming known for the most important crossing of the Colorado River in all than length.

The small Arizona community, its good fishing, is in the background. Three bridges cross Kingman Load Ranks Fifth, Says Airline Kingman is one of the busiest terminals on Bonanza Airlines system. The Mohave County seat ranks fifth in the amount of air" business it generates for the airline among cities served, and these include Phoenix, Los Angeles, Yuma, Las Vegas, Reno, El Cen-tro and many others much larger. "Kingman is in the high bracket so far as loads go," said David Martin, Phoenix traffic manager for the airline. "A high percentage of the air freight handled out of Phoenix goes to Kingman, including fresh perishable vegetables in season." The Kingman division of the line books out an average of 175 passengers per month, and 500 pounds of airmail.

The airline operates four flights daily in and out of Kingman Airport, the modern former Kingman Army Air Base. HAVE FUN ON the river at this point. Left to right, the Santa Fe Railroad bridge, the bridge carrying traffic of U.S. Highway 66, and beyond it, the abandoned highway bridge which now carries the huge natural gas pipeline from the San Juan Basin in New Mexico to the San Francisco area. "a people are happy, too, with the pure, soft wafer supplied by I Chevrolet i Buick Oldsmobile i Cadillac Bower Co-Op Services Area Firestone Tires Sales and Service General Repair Welding Machine Shop and 1 Accessories Phone Blue 30 I KINGMAN WATER GO.

P. O. BOX S29 KINGMAN. ARIZONA Kingman was the first community in Arizona to receive power from Hoover Dam, via a line constructed from the dam in 1938-39 by the Citizens Utilities which serves the town of Kingman. And organization of the Mohave Electric Co-operative in 1946, has since made Colorado River power available through 37- out most of the county.

The co-operative now serves more than 400 members over 208 miles of lines, one running from Davis Dam to Topock, another from the former Kingman air base to Nelson and the Hualpai Mountains, and the third from Round Valley to Signal. Jay Lasater is manager of the co-operative. MOHAVE MOHAVE COUNTY'S Lake Water Fills 200-Mile Area More of Mohave County's area is covered by water than any other county in the- state. For 200 miles along the western border of the county stretch the waters of Lake Havasu, Lake Mohave and Lake Mead, and the remainder of the border is made up of the Colorado River and the Topock swamp. As a result water covers more than 200 square miles of the county's land area.

The Artillery Peak low-grade manganese deposit, considered to be one of the largest in the world, is located in the isolated southern part of Mohave County. ROBERT E. MORROW Real Estate Specializing in STOCK RANCHES MOTOR COURTS Office in Beale Hotel PJione Red 332, Kingman Mead Mohave Havasu Hundreds of Miles of Fishing Shores along the Lakes and Arizona's Colorado "GREAT" LAKES AROUND you can Fish for CHANNEL CAT TROUT you'll be glad you visited jfiriGMfirr Lumber (go. (Formerly Mullin Lumber Co.) KINGMAN, ARIZ. BUILDING MATERIALS PLUMBING and ELECTRICAL SUPPLIES KINGMAN LAKE ALL the TIME Year BASS CRAPPIE HOOVER DAM LAKE MEAD and CASA LINDA CAFE Fine Foods Reasonably Priced On Hwy.

66 Close in KINGMAN FINANCING! 1 Nw Homes nd Horn lm-'( i 1 provemontt. Wo'll be beppy'i i 'to counsel end suggest es-'i i sistence in your financing problems. i 1 Make Your Headquarters in Hospitable Kingman and at BIDDULPH and DUNTON MOTORS 129 Front St. Hwy. 66) Phone Blue 33 P.

O. Box 1071 BV CLOSE IN ON HWY. 6 "Prompt Delivery If It Breaks Our i.