EXPLORING THE ARIZONA OUTBACK By Bob Difley
As the crow flies I was thirteen miles from the nearest remote outpost, though there was no evidence that a crow or any living creature lived in this waterless expanse. With only bursage and creosote bush as mute witnesses, a shiver of anxiety swept through me as I watched the ominous figure approach followed by a whirlwind of dust. The throaty rumble of his motorcycle was the only sound to penetrate the desert stillness. I squinted at the glint of sun off the cold steel of the revolver tucked into his belt. He bore down on me and skidded to a stop just feet from where I stood frozen. I could feel his gaze locked onto my widened eyes though his face was obscured by the dark smoked faceplate of his black helmet. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. My skin was clammy, my palms sweaty. I couldn't remember where I had put my Swiss Army knife, the only defense I had.
His right hand shot to his belt. Stunned, I stepped back. With deadly purpose his fingers locked around...a water bottle. He pulled it from his fanny pack, tilted his head back, and took a long drink.
"Hot, isn't it," he said.
We were in the Arizona Outback. The Sonoran Desert. Hot. Dry. Populated with formidable spiky plants, fearsome nocturnal creatures, and independent residents reminiscent of the old frontier.
We were both searching for the ghost town of Swansea. He, for an entertaining place to camp with his wife and two little boys. I was lured by the prospects of exploring an abandoned copper mining town (and avoiding my wife's monthly RV cleaning flurry. I just can't bear to see the "useless" items she throws out in her efforts to clear out the clutter. Many of these treasures had been collected during a lifetime of pack ratting, but it was hopeless trying to argue their obvious and irreplaceable merits).
We studied the new BLM information sign and agreed on the left fork. He fired his engine, the roar gradually diminishing as he disappeared before a swirl of dust. I followed, somewhat more sedately in my trusty four-door toad. The unpaved road, common in the Outback, was drivable in a regular low-clearance passenger car, though at diminished speeds designed to keep all the vehicle's parts attached despite the infernal drumming from the road's washboard surface.
The final stretch was announced by an understated "Winding Road Next Three Miles" sign. The road teetered over a narrow saddle, notched a precarious foothold out of the sheer rocky hillside, and contorted its way to the valley floor and Swansea; 28 miles, one hour and 17 minutes from Bouse and the last paved road.
Swansea's birth resulted from the completion of the Arizona and Swansea Railroad from Bouse in 1910. Five hundred hardy souls moved in, worked the mines and furnaces producing copper, and ingested large quantities of suds at the raucous saloons. The fledgling town boasted a general store, moving picture house, post office, a forgotten number of saloons and it's own mining camp newspaper, edited by one of the few women in town. I'll bet she had stories to tell.
Twelve boarding houses, now roofless 13' X 13' crumbling adobe boxes, the remains of the Swansea Railroad Depot and the melting foundations of other forlorn buildings are all that remain.
I reached down and picked up a piece of copper ore from the slag around the smelter. How would the historical development of Arizona been different had the excellent conductivity and ductility of copper not been discovered resulting in the popularity of copper wire, copper heating elements, and pennies. It makes one ponder.
And what if copper pennies only had the value that they have now? It wouldn't have been worth mining the copper to make them. Mr. Phelps and Mr. Dodge would just be drinking buddies instead of world class hole diggers.
What if John Muir had lived in Arizona rather than California? Instead of starting the environmentalist Sierra Club would he have started the environmentalist Protect the Desert from Copper Mines Club? Instead of campaigning for the preservation of redwood trees would its members have thrown themselves into the path of giant earth movers to prevent the proliferation of open pit copper mines? Would there have been a Bisbee? A Morenci? A Swansea?
If not for copper would all those miners who worked the pits have decided to mine something else? Crystals, for instance. Maybe all of Arizona would have turned out to be mystical and spiritual, like an expanded Sedona. Crystal reading shops would be as common as video rental stores. Arizonans would be universally recognized as The Enlightened Ones. Cowboys would sit around their campfires discussing their auras.
On second thought, maybe I'll try to overlook the blight of pockmarks in Mother Earth's skin, the remains of the copper mining booms. It could have been worse.
I returned to my car (is there copper in passenger cars?) and worked my way back up the narrow road where I happened on a caravan of three pick-up trucks with Idaho license plates. I stopped to chat for a few minutes with the three retired couples , as strangers do when they meet in the Outback. They had parked their trailers in an RV park in Bouse and were also bent on searching for the ghosts of Swansea.
Maybe they too will ponder the uses of copper, the abandoned bleak depressions of open pit mines, and the value of pennies, too. And how different Arizona would be if the miners had all come from Idaho and decided to grow potatoes instead.
