Weathering Mother Nature!

Reading family histories in the Arizona Pioneer Ranch Histories gives us interesting pieces of information on the families trying to make a living in early Arizona, detailing the hardships of the land, diseases, attacks from native Americans, attacks from wildlife on the settlers and their livestock, living far from neighbors and a town and the associated lack of companionship, and relating weather conditions that destroyed what they had built in a single season. One example is the devastating snowstorm in the winter of 1937-1938. Tom Pollock had both cattle and sheep. The cattle were grazed in the Big Chino Valley and northward across what would be Interstate 40 on toward the Grand Canyon. He also had sheep at the Willaha Ranch just south of the Grand Canyon. While Pollock was able to save most of his cattle and move them further south, he lost 1,000 sheep in that storm. Of course, official records of drought or record rainfall can be found within the national weather service records but, when the information comes from those who lived through it, it has a different perspective, a more personal look, then just numbers given from some data base.

Another sidebar fact that will need verifying is this the same Mr. Pollock that owned the Arizona Central Bank in Flagstaff?