LOOKING BACK

When approaching the line dividing Pima and Cochise Counties along I-10, may of today's jaded travelers zooming along with mechanical horsepower from "Back There toward Somewhere Else" may barely notice the big green signs proclaiming Exit 297 which offers access to J-6 Ranch and Mescal. Out-of-the region people may think, if they think at all, that J-6 Ranch is just a gauche name of a bedroom community for workers in Tucson, Benson or Sierra Vista. Mescal suggests a watering hole where spirits of the same name may be obtained to quench one's thirst. Names invoking the Old Wild West, perhaps, but with no real connection to it.

Out of sight, out of mind: the pass between the valleys of the Santa Cruz and San Pedro Rivers is quickly forgotten. But, a century ago memories might have been etched a little deeper.

In the late 1800's rails were being laid eastward from California across southern Arizona toward El Paso and "the States". Tucson celebrated the arrival of the Iron Horse in March, 1880. In June, the puffing, hissing and smoking monster pulled into Benson. Thereafter, residents of that small town located at an important crossing of the San Pedro River would have only memories of their relatively quiet nights of undisturbed sleep free of the piercing whistles and clanging steel of progress.

The steam-powered locomotives of those times used prodigious amounts of water and wood or coal, especially when chugging up the grades out of the valleys; more than one engine was often needed with a train of any size. So, in addition to the station and rail yard at Benson, in 1881 depots were established at Mescal, Vail and elsewhere to service the trains and also to accommodate ranchers who wanted to ship livestock to distant markets. Wayfarers quickly abandoned the rough-riding and dusty stage coaches in favor of the more comfortable and speedier passenger cars.

A small community developed around the Mescal Depot and a Post Office was inaugurated in 1913 and operated until 1931.

The years at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries were often exciting times in southeastern Arizona. Army posts and forts such as Bowie, Grant and Huachuca were established to provide cavalry and infantry troopers - including the famous Black "Buffalo Soldiers" for protecting railroad crews, rural residents and others against bandits, rustlers, Indian raiders and various other troublesome types from both sides of the Mexican border.

In 1907 Lt. Harry Wheeler of the Arizona Rangers confronted an angry man named Tracy at the Benson station. Tracy, of Vail's Station, had felt jilted in a lover's triangle and went to Benson to "set things right". Lt. Wheeler was advised of trouble brewing and went to disarm Tracy, who refused to cooperate. Both men fired a number of times and both were wounded. Although Tracy got the worst of it, he was loaded into a baggage car to be sent to Tucson, but by the time the train reached Mescal, he was dead. Wheeler was taken to a hospital in Tombstone and survived to later become sheriff of Cochise County.

In l936 Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. of Massachusetts wanted to prepare two of his sons, Joseph, Jr. and John F., for the football team at Harvard. He knew a newspaper writer who recommended a rancher friend in Arizona that could invigorate the boys with real work. Jack Speiden, owner of the J-6, agreed to take on the boys for the summer, but he would not tolerate slacking and the only pay they would get was room and board.

Traveling to Benson on the Southern Pacific Railroad, the Kennedy brothers entered a far different world from what they had known before. On the J-6 Ranch they were put to work on all phases of ranch life, from branding and fencing to building a ranch house. After returning East in the fall, both made the Harvard football team.

The trains still rumble thru the pass between the Rincon and Whetstone Mountains, but the station at is Mescal is long gone. Names of the railroads have changed over the years and some of the connecting lines have had the rails taken up, although the beds are still there and provide good byways for biking and hiking. The Iron Horses no longer regurgitate smoke and steam, but those of us who live within a few miles of the tracks can still hear the descendants of the old trail blazers.