Please if you like the stories I post on this site, like and follow me.  Please comment too.  I am open to more sheep stories from the public.  If you want to know more about this industry in Arizona you can find more in my book Where Have All the Sheep Gone?  Sheep Herders and Ranchers in Arizona – A Disappearing Industry.  It is available on Amazon, Barnes and Nobel, or a signed copy can be purchased from me.  Your purchase helps me with funds to record more of the stories of the industry.  Thanks and Happy Trails!

Carmen Auza and one of their herders at the Verde River!

This week the sheep were on the trail near Cottonwood on their annual trek to the summer grazing on parts of the national forest in the northern part of the state.  The sheep had already walked about three weeks when a hiking club and my husband and I caught up with them on Monday.  Tuesday, they were moved across the Verde River and will continue their trek until June 1st when they will be allowed to be on the national forest for the summer.  Sheep ranchers pay the forest service to help keep a healthy forest by their sheep eating the tall grass and undergrowth that leads to worst forest fires.  This should be a free service to grazing animal owners!  If you put your mouse over each picture you can see the captions.

Four generations of sheep ranchers, mother, daughter and grandparents behind

Great Pyrenees – The guard dog

Joe and Carmen Auza – one of the last sheep ranchers in the state

Training a new dog

Trying to get the sheep to move across the river

Donkeys go first; if they will!

What are you looking at?

Loading the donkeys with supplies for the herders

The last of the flock to go across the Verde River.

The sheep are heading north for the summer. Just a few pictures for now.

In Richard and Sherry Mangum’s Flagstaff Album: Flagstaff’s First 50 years in Photograghs 1876 – 1926 they stated that in 1876, Flagstaff was overrun with sheep as the drought in California brought sheepherders into Arizona. The sheepherders found large expanses of open range with abundant grass and water for their flocks. Since this was a good 10 years prior to the railroad coming through, the wool from all these sheep had to be sent to market by first mule drawn wagons over dirt roads to Yuma then loaded on a boat at the Colorado River to head south around South America’s Cape Horn and onward to Boston. Wool, a non perishable product, could make this journey where beef would need refrigeration. And thus, sheep ranching was king!

Combing through my piles of sheep stories I came across a document “Early History of Livestock in Arizona.” Who wrote it, when and why is unknown. I will try to check on the source of the document and update this blog when I can authenticate its source. But it does give us some interesting tidbits about both sheep and cattle in a period starting in 1825 and to my best guess, the early 1920s based on the date 1917 used in the history. While I don’t generally write about cattle, I do need to include this little piece of information about a treaty between the citizens of Tucson and the Apaches where the Tucsonans gave the Indigenous people 100 head of cattle. Now, if this was to keep peace between the Apaches and the citizens of Tucson, I wonder if it was successful as there were reports of the Apaches during the time of the Civil War when no military was here to guard against attacks by the Indigenous people killing many settlers and stealing their livestock. This will have to be investigated further. While the history only states that cattle were given for appeasement, it is a well-known fact that sheep did not fair well in the southern portion of the state as they too were stolen for food.
Many of the stories from this report about the sheep have already been written about either in my book, Where Have All the Sheep Gone? Sheep Herders and Ranchers of Arizona – A Disappearing Industry or in earlier blogs so I will just include those facts that continue the history of Arizona’s sheep.
The commissioner of Indian Affairs reports that in 1917, there were 800,000 sheep and goats found in Navajo County. Their herds had increased even with the Army taken many of the sheep in 1859 – 1863 when the Navajo were forcibly removed from their land and taken to Bosque Redondo, New Mexico. We do know that some of the churro sheep were hidden back in canyons with some of the Navajos and it is assumed that these helped repopulate the reservation. It is these churro sheep that are the original and priced among the Navajo for their meat and wool.
Names of sheep ranchers named in the early history include the Brown Brothers, Baker and Campbell, the Mormons (none given by family name), Charlie Goddard, and Campbell and Francis. Baker and Campbell and Francis have been written about in my book, so I won’t elaborate on them. Several Mormon names are also discussed in my book as they had a wool mill at Tuba City for a short time; competition with California would force the closure of the mill. I will need to find my information on Charlie Goddard, as he is no stranger to me.
The history concludes with the statement that cattle reductions occurred in the period from 1893 to 1900 due to a severe drought by more than half. The price per head of cattle dropped to $10. What happened in the cattle business most likely occurred to some extent in the sheep business, but it has been proven in research that many sheep ranchers were able to hold on better than cattle men. It has also been stated that after this period many cattle men went into the sheep business! The history concludes that at the present time, the ranges have too many livestock and they are undesirable animals. This would have been about 1920s when the forest reserve managers began a reduction program which I have written on earlier and will add more to in the next several weeks.
Once again, I believe that the history had to be written shortly after 1917 as that is the latest date given in the report.

Sheep on the range in northern Arizona.

Johnny Auza, born in November 1941, passed away this past week, April 24.  He would have been 78 years old this November.  The following are just a few things I learned about Johnny as I interviewed him for his father and mother to be inducted into the Arizona Ranching and Farming Hall of Fame March 2019.

Johnny was born the fifth of eight children to Frank and Elsie Barrerras Auza.  Johnny was a native Arizona, of Basque descent as his father, Frank, had been born in the Basque area of Spain.  Johnny worked in the sheep business from an early age with his father, and then as a partner with his brothers, Frank, Pete, in the Auza Brothers Sheep Company.   Counting the time he worked for his father and then partnered with his brothers he spent 50 years in the sheep business in Arizona.  Summer jobs included delivery boy for the Babbitts and deliverer of Budweiser.  His father believed that if a son had no summer job, they would be put as camp tender or some other job working with the sheep.  Johnny told me it was always best to find a summer job and not work the sheep.  Later Johnny would be a heavy equipment operator.

Johnny was a great athlete at Flagstaff High School, graduation in 1960.  While a student at the school, he played football, participated in track and field and was a wrestler.  He received six varsity letters during those years at the high school.

I am still in the process of transcribing the interview I had with Johnny and will add more stories as have time.

In perusing early 1901 – 1903 Williams News through the Arizona Memory Project (azmemory.azlibrary.gov/digital) I found a few tidbits about the sheepmen in the area, weather, and what was happening with the forest. Weather is important to know about as it gives some perspective on grazing conditions as we will see. And the forest, well, that is where the sheep grazed.

One thing that appeared odd was the newspaper had the habit of calling the sheepmen “jolly”.  For July 27, 1901, C.C. Hutchinson was described as the “jolly sheepman”. Another edition, August 3, 1901, reported that “H. J. Gray, the jolly sheepman, and estimable wife, were town visitors Thursday evening. Harry went up agin’ that measly goat in the K. of P. second degree, yet he went in prepared for anything and everything.” In the same newspaper, Gus Reamer is described as “the jolly sheepman”. But, the next couple of statements we are told of Reamer’s bad luck of striking his head after falling from his wagon. It all ended well though as Reamer had friends that went to his sheep camp and brought him into town where many friends would look after him. Continuing my browsing of the newspapers a new description is giving to a sheepman: J.H. Sterling was described as “the popular sheep man”. I wonder why these descriptions for the sheep men. I never saw a cattle rancher described as “jolly” or “popular”.

It was interesting the comments about the amount of rainfall received. Unfortunately, there are more questions than answers to these rain reports. Since the newspapers I am reading are found online at Arizona Memory Project I have questioned several of these newspaper accounts. Each page for each edition that has been scanned are not given dates making it hard to determine the validity of the pages being for that date. Case in point it seems strange that there would be two sections with the caption “Local” and two places where the newspaper talks about the amount of rainfall. It was reported the rainfall for the summer of 1901, August 3, appeared to be very good. “It has rained heavy rains over northern Arizona every day for the past two weeks. An immense quantity of water has fallen. All dams and reservoirs are full and overflowing. The ranges are assured for a year at least.” In another section of that same newspaper (if one can trust that it is the same day) it stated that the “Rain God” was very good to all of Arizona for the past two weeks. Checking national weather statistics for rainfall total for the summer of 1901 can resolve part of the issue.

Monsoon rains may have been particularly good that year. It seems likely that both mentions could conceivably be the same newspaper as each does give a little different perspective on where the rain occurred. But then there is this turn of events. While looking at the July 6, 1901 newspaper, the third page ran this story, “About four inches of snow fell on last Saturday and Sunday. Present indications predict a very favorable season for stockmen.” Ok, snowfall in July? Future searching of the newspaper page containing that story shows a date of February 2, 1903! So, it is likely that the August 3, 1901 newspaper has another newspaper that was scanned with it.

The last story I want to present also may not be from July 27, 1901 newspaper. The newspaper reported that Forest Ranger Ben H. Crowe and Forest Superintendent H. F. Breen was prosecuting Andrew Alasor, a sheepherder, for a fire he caused near Maine. Judge Ranney hearing the case agreed and bound Alasor over to the grand jury with a $500 bond. The newspaper account described fire damage in the past sixty days amounted “to more than all the damage from sheep and cattle since the day of Adam.” The paper further stated that although the decision on the poor man was tough, the Superintendent needs to set an example to protect the forest reserve and enforce the laws of the forest. I doubt that this could be a story from July 27, 1901 when a week later the newspaper reported the heavy rains that have been falling over the state for the past two weeks. If the forests were wet, I would think that the fire damage would not have been so great that it amounted to the description of the “most damage since the time of Adam”!

While these newspapers add to the overall history of the sheep industry in the state even with the uncertainty of the newspaper date, names of sheepmen and herders are gathered. These sheepmen’s names can then be compared to the Arizona Wool Growers Association early records to see if the sheepmen were members. Other information than can be gathered through their records of these men.
And there you have it; a few more tidbits of Arizona sheep history.

Do you like sheep cheese?  Have you tried it?  How about lamb?  Well, if any of these products interest you then you need to check out the Rovey Dairy in Glendale, Arizona.  Paul Rovey has been in the sheep business for about 10 years and the sheep dairy for about five years.  He told me that he literally fell into the sheep dairy business.  His love of lamb and sheep dairy just fell into place with his cow dairy.  There is much to write about his dairy and over the next several weeks, I will do so.  But for now, just enjoy the pictures of his farm.  And, don’t forget to check out his supply of sheep cheeses (there are 8 varieties) and if you are in the mood for lamb for Easter, Rovey can supply you with that also.  He is located at 7711 W. Northern Ave, Glendale.  The store is open on Fridays and in the mornings on Saturday.  And remember, buying locally for those of you in Arizona helps out our economy.

I have written before that George Washington raised sheep on his Mt. Vernon estate as did Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. Jefferson kept two sheep at the White House.  Unfortunately one of the sheep killed the other, attacked a man and killed a young boy crossing the unfenced lawn in front of the White House.  Jefferson removed the sheep back to his estate and not until the ram killed other highly prized sheep, did Jefferson have it killed.  Now that is a little different information about Jefferson and sheep on the White House lawn that I posted earlier because that is what happens with research – new information is being discovered when you research something else.

What I have just learned is that both men were inaugurated in suits made of American wool! James Madison, the fourth president of the United States went one step further. Not only was he inaugurated in an American wool jacket, but it was woven from the wool of his own sheep raised at his plantation home of Montpelier.

For the last 31 years, there has been a Fall Fiber Festival and Montpelier Sheep Dog Trials at Montpelier. This year’s event will be held Oct. 5-6, 2019.  It does not appear that any descendants of Madison’s sheep are still on the grounds.