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Charles "Chuck" Kenneth Simmons | Oral History
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Charles “Chuck” Kenneth Simmons was interviewed on January 17, 2005 in St. George, Washington County, Utah by Milton Hokanson, a representative of the Grand Canyon-Parashaunt National Monument Oral History Project. He related his experiences of living on the Arizona Strip at Pacoon Springs.
MH: “Chuck” lives in Scenic, Arizona. How did you become involved with Pacoon [Springs]?
CS: Before we bought the place, we used to go out there to help the old boy. We [were] cowboys on weekends.
MH: Was that Dell Adams?
CS: [It was] Dell Allen. Before that, we used to go up and help old Slats Jacobs. We were weekend cowboys is what we were. We went out and helped him. When Dell started getting older, he decided to sell. We didn’t think we could afford to buy it. He made us a deal [so] we could [and] we took it over. We had to take the ranch over [with] him. [We] both [were there] for awhile. Then Dell left and we stayed there and enjoyed it.
MH: Did you continue to ranch it?
CS: Yes, we continued and developed a lot of [the] property on Pacoon Springs. There were very few acres that could [be] irrigated. We developed those springs. [We] put sprinklers in [and] raised hay.
MH: This [would be] the hayfields down below the big pond. Did you build the house there?
CS: [We] built the house [but] never did finish it. [I] have been building on it for twenty years. It was livable inside.
MH: Yes, it is a nice house. [It has] a nice deck on the back of it. What sort of cattle did you run?
CS: We ran Brahma and Charolais cross.
MH: Brahma and Charolais, that is an interesting cross-[breed].
CS: That is what Dell had when we went there and we kept it that way. We got a little more out of the Brahma than what he had in it. It seemed like back thirty, forty years ago all the brands [of] cattle were so wild that you couldn’t even see them. [The ranchers] claimed people would come in there and rustle them. There wasn’t a boy that couldn’t rustle. We started calming the cattle down over the years and started to get quite a bit of the Brahma out of them. But we still kept the Brahma in because they could handle [the] desert real good.
MH: What was your brand?
CS: We had two or three brands. But our [main] brand was a Lazy L.
MH: Where did that come from?
CS: It came from Dell Allen.
MH: Dell had that [brand] originally?
CS: [Yes], I think Dell probably had that in [Las] Vegas [Nevada] before he came out [to the Arizona Strip]. Dell Allen bought the place [from] Wayne Yates. I don’t think that brand was there [at that time]. We bought the brand [from] Dell. There were two partners, the Donohues and myself. Donny [Donohue] and his wife had a brand. My wife [Jacqueline “Jackie” (Hardy) Simmons] and I had a brand and we had a brand for the ranch.
MH: You mentioned the name Slats Jacobs. Who was that?
CS: Slats was one of the old-time ranchers out there [who] moved into this country [on] the ranch that Blakes have now. We call [it] Jacob’s Well. Slats started that ranch. Before that, he was down at Balance Rock [Canyon].
MH: [That is] closer to Lake Mead [Nevada].
CS: Yes. Prior to that, he and his brother, Jerry [Yates], were where the Nay Ranch is [now].
MH: Is Marilyn Nay still there?
CS: Yes. Marilyn is still there and Clark Bingham [has] the other ranch that is right there. Jerry and Slats were there. From what I understand, they are the ones [who] brought the Brahma cattle into this country.
MH: What about the Tassi Ranch further down the road?
CS: Tassi [Ranch belonged to] Eddie Yates. Eddie came in the early 1900s. He was a small gentleman [and] rather wiry. The Tassi [Ranch owned by Jim Whitmore] and Eddie Yates had all the Pacoon Basin.
MH: They [owned] it all?
CS: [They had] Pacoon, the Tassi and all of it. When Wayne Yates, who was [Eddie’s] son, [was discharged from] the service in World War II, they split up. Wayne took the Pacoon and the upper [land] and Eddie stayed down below.
MH: Are they still ranching there today?
CS: I think it is closed down. After “Ed” Yates passed away, his daughter and son-in-law had it for awhile. Then they sold it to Smith down in Kingman [Arizona] and [he] had it for awhile. He used to come up from Kingman. He had one of those old amphibious vehicles and he would drive across Lake [Mead] and come into Tassi [Ranch]. Then —
MH: To where? Over around Pearce Ferry? Over that way?
CS: Over to Meadview. He left that amphibious [vehicle] in one of those old towns. He ran cattle down below, between there and Kingman. He kept that amphibious car up there. He would come up and run it across and come into Tassi [Ranch]. He always kept some horses there.
MH: Did you use horses or ATVs [All Terrain Vehicles] to gather [round up] your cattle?
CS: We used horses for a long time and then we [were] lazy. We never used ATVs to gather cattle. The weather was too rough. We basically water-trapped them. We controlled all the water and set up traps. In the summertime you could trap every cow on there in three days so why ride for them!
MH: Yes, [get] them in and you [have] them. Where was your market? Did you truck [the cattle] out to Mesquite [Nevada]?
CS: We usually hauled them to Cedar City [Iron County, Utah].
MH: You took them up to Cedar [City to the] auction.
CS: We shipped some to California one time, years ago. We still had the [very] wild cattle that we bought [from] Dell Allen. They were wild! They had an address in Mesquite and the State of Nevada Veterinarian got a hold of me. He said, “You have to ship the cows through the auction. In Bakersfield [California] you have banks. We have to come out and check you out.” I said, “I guess I will probably have to get somebody else to do it. We are not in Nevada.” He said, “That is alright. We will do it.” I said, “Good.” So we talked over the telephone and set up an appointment. I said, “Let me tell you. We haven’t [had] this ranch too long and the place is [fairly well] run down. The corrals and the chutes are run down. I don’t know if [the] chutes would handle the wild cows we have. These are fairly wild.” He said, “I have a brand new squeeze chute. It is a portable one. We will bring that out.”
So they came out. We met them in Mesquite and all of the cows were up at Wayne’s Well. We went in [on] that old rough road for [about] five miles. The roads were not near as good as they are today, either. We got set up and started catching cattle. [During] one full day up there, we ran twenty-some head through that squeeze chute and tore that squeeze chute completely up! [We] tore the corrals up! We had to rebuild the corrals a couple of times. He had two young women [with] him and there was Donny and me. That was all [the cattle] we got through there. He said, “We will have to go into town and we will be back at about nine o’clock in the morning. We have to go all the way back to [Las] Vegas.” I said, “We are going into town, tonight, too.”
The next morning at about six o’clock he called me and said, “We came [back] and checked.” We still had another eighty head [out] there to run through. He had to get a better squeeze chute than what he had. He said, “You know, all these checked out good. I think you have a good herd there.” [Laughter] He said, “I think that must have been a mistake.” [Laughter]
MH: [Laughter] [He thought]: I have had enough of that! Did anybody ever get hurt out there gathering cows?
CS: We [were] thrown off the horses a few times. We [were] run over. Loren Bunker was an old gentleman. He may [have] passed away [by] now. He was in his seventies [when] he was out there ranching. He had the [ranch] up above where Clark Bingham [inaudible]. He would come out there, run up cattle and stand right at the gate and cut those old wild cows out. I was up there one day to help him. He said, “Just get out of the way. I will get them.” He stood there in that gate and those old cows came through there. Just scared the tar out of me! After he got through I said, “Loren, you could get killed out there in the middle of that gate cutting those cows. Get behind the gate or something.” He said, “Oh, they will run over the gate if I do that. Besides that, the Lord protects me.” He was a very religious man. About two weeks [later] I saw him. He was all scruffed up, all over. He could hardly walk. I said, “My God, Mr. Bunker, what happened?” He said, “The Lord must have been taking a nap!” [Laughter]
MH [Laughter] Who developed the water the way it is now at Pacoon? Was that you?
CS: The water was there. Eddie Yates started developing [it]. Before Eddie Yates, I remember being in Pacoon but I don’t remember too much about it. Eddie started doing it. Dell did some of it and we finished developing most of it. But [the plants] have all grown back up. [The water is] choked off now. I was out a few weeks ago [and] I don’t know where those [tulles] come from.
MH: Yes. It [has] grown up in [all] the ponds [out] there.
CS: It chokes that water off. As far as the amount of water there, it was developed wrong anyway. They developed all the ponds right over the top of the springs. Ponds need to be developed below the springs [so] the spring can freely flow into the pond and [flow out] from there.
MH: I have to ask this question. I was out there and I never found the alligator.
CS: Somebody told me that someone went in there and shot it.
MH: Let me back up. Was there an alligator out there?
CS: Yes, there was an alligator there.
MH: How did that come to be [there]?
CS: A friend of ours brought him from Georgia, he or [she], whatever the alligator was. I never could find anyone to sex it for me. He brought it from Georgia in the back of a jeep. He came out here along in November to go elk hunting in Colorado. They drove out in a jeep and brought this little ‘gator about that long. We threw him in one of those ponds. The other three people said it would never live. I said I think it will because [the] water is warm. I had raised a couple of ‘gators when I was a [boy]. We were in a colder country than [this]. Anyway, I thought it would live. We had [the] pond that [is] beside the gate completely cleaned. They put it in the pond up by the house. I never saw it. The pond was grown over quite a bit and a ‘gator that long you wouldn’t [be able to] see. We never saw it. My wife was afraid it went down to what we called the warm pond that we used for a swimming hole. She wouldn’t let the [children] go down there and swim anymore. [She was] afraid that ‘gator had gone down there. She made them go out the front gate and swim in that pond. [It is] completely grown over. There is nothing there anymore.
We were out there one day and, sure enough, there was a ‘gator out there in [the] pond. She moved the [children] out of that pond! [Laughter] But the ‘gator wasn’t all that long. That [was] a year or so [later].
MH: But it did survive?
CS: It survived. There [were] fires out in Pacoon in the late 1980s. I don’t even remember what year, maybe the early 1990s or late 1980s. They sent helicopters in [to] bail the water out of the big pond we had there. Maybe it was the early 1980s or maybe the mid-1980s. I don’t know but it is quite awhile back. My partner said a couple of times, “Oh, they bailed that ‘gator out of there.” I said, “They never bailed that ‘gator out of that pond. They might have scared him to death but they never bailed it out.” Anyway, it went on through another year or so and nobody had ever seen the ‘gator. We were out one spring branding [cattle] out in the corral and [heard a] big old beep, [whatever] you call it, like a bullfrog. My partner said, “The bullfrogs are out early. That sounds like a big one.” I said, “That wasn’t a bullfrog. That is that ‘gator.” A ‘gator makes a deeper noise than a frog; kind of a grunt. We started looking for it and never saw it. The ground was hard around the ponds and [it] never left any tracks. Then we started raising ostriches out there.
MH: I didn’t know you had ostriches.
CS: We would go down to feed the ostriches and [see] a big jackrabbit there. He had been getting in my grain bin. I shot [him] with a .22. I fed the ostriches, came back up and forgot all about [the] rabbit. The next afternoon I could smell that rabbit. He started stinking from lying [on the ground]. It was close to the house and it was almost dark. I thought: I will go over and haul that rabbit off. Then I thought: no, I will wait. I got up the next morning, went over there and I never smelled anything. I [started] looking. The ‘gator got [the] rabbit and went back leaving some tracks. Then we started looking for him. We found him.
MH: How big was he?
CS: The last time I saw him [the ‘gator] was fairly close to ten feet [long].
MH: Oh, good heavens!
CS: Yes. We had an old drag-line out there. We had some hogs and decided to butcher. We used the drag-line for a boon to kill the hogs and work on them. We dropped the guts right there on the ground. Then we swung the drag-line around and started to clean up our hogs. We were going to haul the guts off the next morning. The ‘gator came up and [carried] them off into the water. So we knew he was right there. We started looking for him. We started taking pictures of him. We would go out and sit on [the] drag-line and throw [food] out. He would come out and get it.
He started going down into [the] bigger ponds. I was working in [Las] Vegas. I went to one of the markets and picked up three or four whole chickens in plastic sacks and threw them in the back of the truck [to] let them ripen up. We went out to the ranch [with] some good cameras and went down by the pond. [We] put some stakes four feet apart and then threw those chickens out there. He could smell those chickens and came out. We got up on the bank and watched him. That was four or five years before we left there. He was eight and a half feet then and [had] pressed two of those stakes flush [to the ground]. He got [even] bigger after that.
MH: Did you ever have any trouble with him going after a person?
CS: No. In fact, I think the ‘gator was probably as scared of anybody as a person was of [him]. [The ‘gator] wintered out in the pond by the front gate. It had a hole out there and [had] dammed in. He would come down from the other ponds in the spring. My hired man was lying underneath the pickup working on the bottom of the [truck]. The ‘gator came down the driveway and walked right by him. He was looking at him. He didn’t move too much and the ‘gator never paid a bit of attention to him. [Laughter]
MH: [Laughter]
CS: I had it fenced off around my house to keep the horses [and] the cattle out. They were eating my wife’s rose [bushes] and breaking the propane line. One night I woke up and I heard something outside. I said, “My God, somebody has left the gate open and those horses are in here.” I heard it out front. I walked out the front door with a flashlight. I didn’t see any horses. I turned around and walked back in the house and just got back in bed [when] I could hear [the noise] around on the east side. So I walked out there. [I] looked. Nothing. I went back in the house again and went to the bathroom. [I] just came out of the bathroom when I heard something out back. When I walked out the backdoor [this] time my little dachshund bounded out the door. He could hear something too. He [went] out the door and made a u-turn and came right back in real quick! I walked out there and looked and I couldn’t see anything. I thought: God, what is making that noise. I got up the next morning and I could see where that ‘gator had been tracking right around the house. He had come right around the house and [gone] back to the pond. That is the only time he was up there. I kept ostrich pens there at the house [for] little birds. I never saw him up there fooling [around] with them.
MH: You said you were butchering hogs. Did you keep some pigs out there?
CS: No, we raised these [inaudible].
MH: You raised them. You didn’t just let them run wild?
CS: We did at one time, yes. Right after we bought the ranch, we didn’t have enough cows to support it [so] we bought a bunch of hogs. We were going to raise hogs and let them clean the springs. We fenced them off and [went] up to Enterprise [Washington County, Utah] to get a bobtail truck full of potatoes and a little grain. We had a big cooker out there [and] we would cook up some feed for them. We got tired of fooling [around] with them and turned them loose. They ran down in the wash for a year or so until we could catch them. Finally, [we] shot them.
MH: They will survive in the darndest territories.
CS: My father-in-law said a [rancher who] was there back in the 1930s [lived] in Mesquite and he had a bunch of hogs out there. The old man made a deal with him to buy a truckload of them. They set up a time to go and get them. I can’t remember who [he] was now, Dwight White, maybe. White was his last name. But anyway, the old man went out there and pulled in at Pacoon. There wasn’t anything around there. Nobody [was] there. [There were] old corrals here and there. [He] walked around and looked at the hog pen and couldn’t find [any pigs]. [He thought]: that lying old sucker, there are no hogs around here. He sat around there for awhile underneath the trees and here the old boy came. “You came out to get those hogs! Are you ready to load them?” The old man said, “Yes, I have been ready for a couple of hours.” He said, “Well, let’s go get them then.” He walked over to one corral, it isn’t there now. [He] walked over and took a .30-30 and shot about three times in the air. It wasn’t two or three minutes [until] that whole corral was full of hogs! [Laughter]
MH: [Laughter]
CS: They came up out of the wash up there. He said, “God, how did you do that?” He said, “Oh, they think it is chow time. I have been feeding them burros and they think it is chow time.” [Laughter]
MH: [Laughter]
CS: I know there are people today [who] don’t want to hear that, but that is a fact.
MH: Sure! Did you have a lot of burros down there?
CS: Quite a bunch. We raised two or three [burros] on the ranch.
MH: From wild ones that were already there?
CS: Don Whitney from down in the other valley was running the [inaudible] ranch at Gold Butte. I guess somebody had been there chasing burros. There was a little colt not old enough to even be weaned and it [was] crippled. It [had] run a big stick through its leg. It was all crippled up and he brought it in to the ranch. I was working in [Las] Vegas and my wife was [at the ranch]. Don asked her if she wanted to try to save [the] burro. She said, “Yes, I will try to save it.” She got a bottle and mixed up some milk, made a collar for it and hung it on the clothesline like a dog with [inaudible] around there. I came in the next night. I [noticed that] the wound was festered. I doctored it and she fed [the burro [and later] fed it grain. We turned it loose and it wouldn’t go anywhere.
MH: It stayed right there?
CS: She got to be quite a pet. She got to be a pest!
MH: [Laughter] They can do that!
CS: We had a little two-and-a-half gallon bucket [and] she would [eat] the grain [out of it]. If you didn’t feed [her] when [she] wanted [to be] fed,[she] would get the bucket, pick it up, come around and walk over to you. If you didn’t make a move it would swing her head and [knock] your feet right out from under you. Boom!
MH: [Laughter] [To] let you know [she] wasn’t happy!
CS: Then we got mad. [We] took “Jenny” and an old appaloosa horse I had up to the well. We got tired of fooling [around] with them at the ranch [and] we would turn them loose at the well. Some quail hunters came in and they couldn’t even stop and hunt quail. Old “Jenny” would go over and put her mouth on the knob of [the] camper, turn the handle, open the door, stick her head in and reach [for] whatever she [could] get.
MH: Did they hunt a lot of quail around there?
CS: They did for a long time. [There were] a lot of quail in there. In fact, there is still a lot of quail in there. We would feed them at the ranch. We would sit over on the east side of the house, in the shade in the evening, and throw grain out. It was nothing to have 400 or 500 quail right there. You could see them coming from every direction in the long evenings. My wife would go out every day and feed them.
MH: Did you have any [children] at the ranch?
CS: We have [children]. We didn’t have any children when we lived out there. They were grown and gone by then.
MH: That would be quite a playground for [children].
CS: This is the way we branded calves for awhile. We [would] cut the calves out and put them in the round corral and tell the [children], “We want them [brought to us] one at a time.”
MH: [Laughter] [You] had your own rodeo!
CS: It was a rodeo!
MH: I bet it was.
CS: I had three [children] and my partner had two. My partner’s brother had three. We would [have] seven or eight [children] there. We would have one or two other people on the weekend, seven, eight, nine, ten [children] in the corral and maybe ten or fifteen calves. They were fairly small ones. They would go in there and get them. Oh God, that was a rodeo! We would sit there and watch and laugh! There might be a big [calf] in there and we would have to go in and rope or throw the big one for them. There would be four or five of the [children] holding those calves and [they] couldn’t get [them] down.
MH: They can be hard to throw [down]. Did the burros compete with the cows for forage?
CS: There weren’t that many burros around there. The last year or two, before I left out there, a bunch came in and ate my hay. Those ate probably 100 bales of hay. They tore [the] fence down and ate every bit of it. They would come in at night. I drove out [there] and caught eight or ten [of them].
MH: Did you run your bulls with your cows?
CS: Yes, year round.
MH: So you were calving year round?
CS: We calved year round. We sold a lot of calves [for use as] roping calves. We had people come out there and buy them. We would sell eight or ten calves a month year round. That is about [how many] they wanted for little rodeos, people [who] had little rodeo arenas. We could sell eight to ten [calves] almost anytime [someone] needed them.
MH: Did you have a generator out there for power?
CS: We [used a] solar [system].
MH: How did that work?
CS: Wonderfully! I don’t know how we did it. We didn’t have anything for awhile. I had an old generator if we needed [it], but we never [used it]. Until we built the house, we did 90% of our cooking outside. I had a generator [and] I would run it to the house. I don’t remember what year it was, but I sold [some] property in Mesquite. [I] took the money and invested [it and] put about $30,000.00 into a solar system. I had everything [electrical appliances] in the house that I had [in our] home in Mesquite.
MH: [So] it worked just fine. What about weather? I know it is hot out there in the summer. What about the cold winters?
CS: It is a little cooler than Mesquite [but] I doubt if it is any cooler than St. George. Right at the ranch, where the house and springs are, [it] very seldom ever froze. The springs never froze. The water coming out of there [is] 78° year round and won’t freeze. Sometimes a little ice would get around the edge. But you could drop off the hill over where the ostrich pen was or down where the hayfields were [and] the ice froze that thick.
MH: How did you get in the ostrich business?
CS: That is a separate -
MH: [Laughter]
CS: They were hassling [us] so much [when we were] trying to run cattle [that we] didn’t know from one month to the next if we were going to have a livestock permit in six months or not. We decided [with] the Endangered Species Act, the desert tortoise [situation], we [would] try [ostriches]. It [would] be something to supplement and keep the ranch going. We just went in a little late.
MH: Did they do alright down there?
CS: Raising them was no problem. I gave away 500 ostriches when we —
MH: You had that many down there?
CS: Yes.
MH: Did you keep them penned or let them run?
CS: No, [they were] penned. I don’t know how [the] BLM [Bureau of Land Management] would [act] on a permit for ostriches.
MH: [Laughter] I haven’t an answer for that one either! That is in the Desert [Tortoise] Reserve down there. Did you ever see any turtles?
CS: Very, very few. In the almost thirty years that I was there at that ranch, I never saw a desert tortoise on the private property part of that ranch. Up the road about four or five miles I saw a few. Up on the ridge between Cottonwood and Grand Wash there were a few. There are not many desert tortoises in that country. They can say all they like to say, but there isn’t. There are some in areas, but how does a turtle burrow into rock?
MH: There is a lot of rock down there, I will tell you that. What about bighorn sheep?
CS: [They are] not down that low.
MH: They don’t come down that low even [for] the water source there?
CS: No, [I] have never seen any there. We had a few exotic sheep on the private property for awhile, but we got tired of them and let them run.
MH: What about Indians and archaeological sites? Were there any around there?
CS: [There are] a lot of [items].
MH: I know there are a lot of petroglyphs over by Whitney Pockets.
CS: There are petroglyphs right on top here. There are some Indian caves there. That is up, not straight east, [but] down a little bit southeast out on that corner overlooking that —
MH: [There is] a little knoll there right at Pacoon. I walked up on top of it and there are a bunch of rocks piled up sort of in a semi-circle there.
CS: Those are lookout places. You can go to those, from one to the other, and everyone you find has a different view of [the] different valleys coming in there.
MH: They were there when you got there and they have been there long before.
CS: Yes, and [there are] rock walls. I don’t know where those rock walls came from. Did you see the rock walls?
MH: Yes.
CS: There is a rock wall that you really have to look for. It goes around the whole west side of that knoll. It has been washed out and pushed over but, if you look for it, you can see it in spots. Down where the hayfield was, there is one that comes up the hill. That rock wall came all the way around right up there [from] here to this end and down this end. Around this west side of that knoll —
MH: What would have been the purpose of it?
CS: I have no idea. There is a rock wall across the wash to the east going up that hill.
MH: I wonder if it could have been [placed there] before the turn of the century. [Maybe] somebody didn’t have money for wires so they were trying to build a stock fence.
CS: Before the turn of the century I think the only thing that was out there was a bunch of outlaws and they were not going to build a fence anyway!
MH: No!
CS: I don’t know who built the fences but I think it might go back to the Indians. I know Wayne Yates never built them. I know from what some of the other people tell me that the people [who were] back in there [earlier] never built it. In fact, Loren Bunker told me that he remembers seeing them when he was down there as a [boy] in the early 1920s. I know Dell Allen never had enough energy to build them!
MH: Probably not. Did any of the local Paiute [Indians] from over around Moapa [Nevada] and Mesquite ever come down into that country when you were there?
CS: [Norman] “Norm” Tom [was] there. [He] is [Keith] Nay’s son-in-law. He was down there [for] a little [while] but he doesn’t know any more about the history of those Indians than I do. He may [know], but he [has] never said anything about them.
MH: How long have the Nays been at Whitney Pass?
CS: Keith and Marilyn [Nay] have been there for quite awhile. Keith’s dad was there before that. They probably go back to the 1930s.
MH: That far [back]?
CS: Yes, maybe [in] the 1940s. I don’t know.
MH: If we are going back to the 1930s, did anybody have a still down that way?
CS: “Ed” Yates did.
MH: [Laughter]
CS: There is one of [the] springs at Seven Springs [that is] called Whiskey Spring. Now, where did it get that name?
MH: [Laughter] I guess they had a ready market in Mesquite! I don’t know.
CS: [In] Mesquite and St. George.
MH: Yes, St. George would be right there.
CS: [If] you go back to the 1930s, there wasn’t much in Mesquite.
MH: No, there wasn’t.
CS: I think the first time I was there was [in] 1950 and there wasn’t much there.
MH: A couple of service stations and that was about it.
CS: “Ed” Yates made whiskey down there.
MH: What about outlaws? Did you hear any stories about [outlaws] hiding out down there for one reason or another?
CS: Bill Garrett was down there.
MH: Bill Garrett?
CS: [He] was down at Gold Butte. That is over in [inaudible].
MH: Wasn’t he the [fellow] who [shot] Billy the Kid? [Sheriff Pat Garrett probably killed Billy the Kid July 14, 1881 in Lincoln County, New Mexico.]
CS: I think so. He was there and didn’t die until in the 1950s. [Bill] Shanley was up on top [and] that is the reason he was there. I think every one of those old-timers [who] came in and settled [on the Arizona] Strip was an outlaw or [at least] most of them were. I think most of them were running from the law [and that] was the reason they [would] have been there. Most of the herds that were started up in there were all started out of the [cattle] that [Preston] Nutter lost when he came through there.
MH: That is right. Nutter swam a bunch of cows across the Colorado [River] and took them up through there.
CS: Twice [he took them] right up through Pacoon and up Nutter’s Twist.
MH: Is that the way he came, up through Pacoon?
CS: Yes. At Pacoon there is a watering place.
MH: I have learned more in a half hour than I have researching for two weeks. I really appreciate [this information].
CS: I heard [that], back in the 1930s when Slats Jacobs and those [men] came in here, there weren’t too many fences in the country. Slats brought the first Brahma bulls in here.
MH: He was the first one to bring Brahma [cattle] in.
CS: As far as my knowledge goes, [he brought them] down in that Pacoon basin. The story I have heard is that one of Slats’s Brahma bulls ended up [on the] Tassi [Ranch], Eddie Yates’s place. “Ed” had never seen [cattle] like [that with a] big hump [and] thought [it] was some creature. He let the word out. He was in town and said that whoever belonged to that animal better come get him. “It is a big old bull. He better get him out of there before he breeds some of my cows and I will have to shoot him.” [It is] said that old Slats got a brand new rope and a brand new knife. He [went] down to “Ed” and said, “Here, you will need these.” “Ed” was supposed to have said, “Is that the branding rope to rope and cut that bull?” [Slats] said, “The rope is to rope a bull but the knife is to cut you loose when you have had enough.” [Laughter]
MH: [Laughter] I imagine that would be a job! What were they running for cows then? Herefords? Durhams?
CS: I think he had some Herefords in here, I really don’t know. Herefords were the big [breed] back in the days. They must have had some. But I don’t know anything about cattle. I know my wife’s dad still had quite a few Herefords in the 1950s. He was getting away from them a little bit.
MH: The Brahma does better in that heat.
CS: The Brahma does better in the heat. I think about everybody is away from Herefords now. Herefords got into terrible trouble [by] having eye cancer, pink eye and some [diseases] that other breeds don’t have.
MH: Let me ask you a question. You have been down in that country for thirty years. Now, for better or for worse, it is [the Grand Canyon-Parashaunt National] Monument. What would you like to see them do in the way they manage that monument?
CS: To me, I don’t think a country is any good unless you can see it [and] unless you can get into it. I don’t think the country should be closed off to a lot of [activities]. Tassi [Ranch] is on [National] Park Service [land]. That is a different situation. But as far as the Pacoon ranch and some old ranches like that, they ought to get them back like [they] were. The Pacoon ranch would be a wonderful place for a visitor center of some sort.
MH: I am glad to hear you say that because that is sort of what they are looking at. Making [it] an interpretive site [where] people come in, look around and find out a little of the history [of] what went on down there.
CS: That [ranch] would be good for that. Pacoon is not too far out and you have all that water. [You could] clean [the] place up a little bit. We had it in [fairly] good shape [but] it doesn’t take long [for it to be overgrown].
MH: Then people don’t respect it.
CS: A few weeks ago I went down to find that alligator skull. We went down and had a little picnic. I couldn’t even get into the wash. I can’t walk anymore [or] get out and hike. I am not even sure I could walk up and down that wash without going through the brush. I was on a four-wheeler and figured if the ‘gator was shot there that the skull would be somewhere [near]. The coyotes would probably drag it down into that wash to take care of it. I wanted to run up and down the wash and look for it. I couldn’t even get in there and move up and down [the] wash. I would like to have that ‘gator skull to hang on my fence post.
MH: I will let the [BLM] management know that you have first claim on the alligator skull.
Description
Charles “Chuck” Kenneth Simmons was interviewed on January 17, 2005 in St. George, Washington County, Utah by Milton Hokanson, a representative of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument Oral History Project. He related his experiences of living on the Arizona Strip at Pakoon Springs.
Credit
NPS
Date Created
01/17/2005
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