Joint Meetings, New Sheep Raisers and Wool Shipments

While July 1921 may have seemed there was little information on the sheep industry, there was some important happenings, especially in regards to the joint meeting of the Wool Growers and Cattle Growers Association. While that topic will only be briefly highlighted in this post, it really deserves a post all to itself which I will do next time. But some other happenings for the month were the announcement of new sheep raisers, i.e, births, and the amount of wool shipped from Holbrook. 

Joint Meeting Announced

A joint meeting between the Wool Growers Association and the Cattle Growers Association was announced and was to be held at the Orpheum Theatre in Flagstaff, the second week of July.  Due to the common interests of both organizations, a joint meeting was called to agree upon common goals and to work together for the benefit of both sheep and cattle men in the state.  Drought, short feed and other grazing troubles that the government has put on both industries compelled them to work together.  The Coconino Sun stated, “The general comment is ‘most of us are busted but haven’t found it out yet.’ Still the grim faced old cow and sheep men are not putting up a great wail, but are digging in believing that hard work and patience will again see them enjoying their full measure of prosperity.”  The Secretary of State, Ernest Hall, expressed similar sentiment during the joint meeting of the States’ Farm Bureaus.  “It commences to look as though business conditions throughout the state have been struck rock bottom and there is a feeling that Arizona will soon be on her way back to prosperity again,” he declared.  Others attending the State Farm Bureau meeting stated that it was imperative that livestock owners and farmers work together for the beneficial good of them all.

The State Livestock Sanitary Board also held meetings this week. Many of the cattle or sheep men  belong to this organizations and having the meetings in one location, allows a larger attendance and sharing of ideas.

Future Wool Growers

The Coconino Sun, Flagstaff, announced the birth of two new wool growers in the state. Both children were born in May but the newspapers were often late in publishing such information usually because of not being notified. Word did not travel as fast in 1921 as it does in 2021. The births could have happened elsewhere in the state as the men were with their sheep while the wives were often in summer or winter grazing homes depending on the time of year and had not moved with their family belongings to where the sheep would be for the season. Travel especially could be delayed if the woman was expecting soon.  It was the women’s responsibility to pack up the house goods needed each time their husbands moved the sheep and follow, usually after school was out for the summer and before school would begin in the fall to keep school age children in one school for the year.  Both wool growers had summer homes in the Flagstaff area and sometimes the birth news came from family members or friends of the family. Let’s see who these youngsters were: Mike and Vicencia (the correct spelling) Martinez Echeverria were the proud parents of a girl which they named Josephine.  Harlow Alfonso was born to Harlow A. and Rose A. Gibson Yaeger.  There is more to the story of the birth of Harlow though. In another newspaper(this article was given to me by a member of the Yaeger family), it was reported, “After trying in vain on Monday to get word to Harlow Yaeger that he was wanted at home, Stuart Campbell went to Harlow’s Diablo Canyon ranch and corralled him, to bring him back to town. The reason Harlow’s presence was so badly needed at home was because of the arrival of a young man that morning who claimed that his name was Harlow jr. (sic) and who cried lustily for his dad.”

Wool Shipped

 In other news, 29,000 pounds of wool was heading to the Boston wool market from Holbrook according to the Holbrook Tribune. Five wool growers were the shippers: Gloria Baca of Springerville; L. S. Garcia and J. Dunley, St. Johns;  J. Hancock, Show Low, and Sandoval & Son, Concha.  Hancock was shipping the most wool, 10,000 pounds. It was believed that another 31,000 pounds would be heading east in the near future by other sheep growers.

And that is the news for the first part of July 1921.  Next blog will have more details on the joint meeting of the Wool Growers and Cattle Growers and some interesting weather correlations to today.