Pine Valley, Littlefield

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AZ-3-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, Littlefield vicinity, Mohave County, Arizona Pine Valley is located on the Shivwits Plateau about 70 miles south of St. George, Utah, in township 31 north, range 11 west, north half of section 10 (Gila and Salt River Meridian). Its geographic coordinates are latitude longitude (North American Datum of These coordinates represent the west corner of the cabin.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AZ-3-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Pine Valley is one of seven line camps used by Jonathan Deyo Waring and his ranch hands to manage the Home Ranch grazing allotment, now known as Waring Ranch, a large cattle-grazing operation on a remote plateau north of the Grand Canyon in the Arizona Strip. Waring assembled the ranch between about and and operated it with the assistance of foremen and hired cowhands into the late Pine Valley comprises a cabin, a corral, fence lines, and two stock tanks along the line of a natural drainage.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AZ-3-B. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Pine Valley, a component site of Waring Ranch, was documented by the Historic American Landscapes Survey of the Heritage Documentation Programs of the National Park Service. The principals involved were Richard O Connor, Chief of Heritage Documentation Programs; Paul D. Dolinsky, Chief of the Historic American Landscapes Survey; and Jeff Bradybaugh, former Superintendent of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. The documentation was produced during the summer of by project supervisor Christopher Stevens, landscape architect, with Anne E. Kidd, architect; Alexander Matsov, architect; and R. Benjamin Lawrence, landscape architect intern. The large-format photography was completed by James Rosenthal. Jet Lowe created the aerial photography.

The historical report was written by historian Michael R. Harrison in PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 2) Related Documentation: For detailed information on specific sites within Waring Ranch, see the following HALS documentation: Waring Ranch, HALS AZ-3 Horse Valley Ranch, HALS AZ-3-A Green Springs, HALS AZ-3-C Spencer Camp, HALS AZ-3-D Shanley Camp, HALS AZ-3-E Dinner Pocket, HALS AZ-3-F For additional context on historic ranching and economic activity within the boundaries of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, see: Tassi Ranch and Springs, HALS AZ-2 Pine Ranch, HALS AZ-4 Grand Gulch Mine, HAER AZ-78 PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 3) PART

Historical Information

Pine Valley was one in a series of line camps assembled and developed by J. D. Waring to operate his ranch on the Kelly Point plateau north of the Grand Canyon. The history of the Pine Valley camp is given below. For a more complete discussion of the natural and historical context of the entire ranch, see the narrative overview in HALS No. AZ-3 (Waring Ranch).

William Shanley, a rancher who developed a number of sites for running cattle on the southern end of the Shivwits Plateau in the and owned a house and corral at Pine Valley in the early and maintained a fence enclosing approximately 40 acres thereabouts.1 Nevertheless, one George Howard Pemberton applied for homestead entry on 320 acres at the site in In the paperwork he submitted in to prove his claim, Pemberton claimed he had improved the land with a two-room log house with a shingle roof; a cellar; a corral; a small reservoir; fifty fruit trees; a few grape vines; 20 acres of cultivated land; and of fencing.

These claims, supported by the notarized testimony of witnesses Martin Jack Beach and John Spencer, gained him his land patent on March 6, but the following year they were found to be exaggerated. In response to a protest against Pemberton s patent, a General Land Office (GLO) examiner found no evidence of fruit trees, grape vines, cultivation, or fencing. He also found the cabin dilapidated and the cellar in ruins, belying Pemberton s claim that he and his wife had lived on the claim at least half of each year since May The examiner reconstructed the following chain of events: Several years ago two trappers whose names are unknown at this time established a base on the lands now included in this entry.

It is reported they erected a log cabin now standing on the land and built a brush fence around a part of the land referred to in this report as park which they evidently used for a pasture for their saddle and pack horses. After they abandoned their camp located on this land, George H. Pemberton made a homestead filing on the entry, according to reports, for one Warring [sic] who owns other lands in that territory and is engaged in the stock business. We were unable to secure any evidence or information as to what the agreement was between Pemberton and Warring, however Pemberton made very little effort, as shown in this report, to comply with the homestead laws, and promptly after securing a patent, Pemberton deeded the lands to J. D. Warring, and on April 16, Mr.

Warring transferred title to his sister, Elizabeth Warring 1 U.S. Surveyor General s Office, Survey plat of Arizona, Mohave County, Township No. 31 North, Range No. 11 West, Gila and Salt River Meridian, approved Feb. 16, Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records. Field notes on that mention Shanley s house, corral, and fences appear in the Bureau of Land Management s General Land Office records, Book pp. 57 58, but are quoted here from a summary document located in the Waring Ranch files, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument headquarters, St. George, Utah. PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 4) Lent of New Plaza [sic, New Paltz], New York.

This last transfer of the property was evidently made for the purpose of defeating any attempt that may be taken by the Department towards cancellation of the patent.2 Homesteading land as an agent for another person was illegal, as was making false claims about habitation, improvement, and cultivation of a land entry.

Pemberton claimed improvements to his entry worth the examiner estimated their value at Despite the strong indications of fraud, the GLO did not take legal action to cancel Pemberton s patent and reclaim the land due to doubts about the agency s ability to prove the case.3 Jonathan Deyo Slim Waring was one of a number of ranchers who took advantage of changes made to the federal homesteading laws between and to secure a foothold on the Arizona Strip, which he did in the face of stiff competition from the cattle-grazing operation owned by Utah rancher Preston Nutter, the largest one in the region at the time.

Born in New York state, Waring came to Arizona in and worked over the next few years as a stage driver, a miner and oiler at the Vulture Mine near Wickenburg, and as a hand at a ranch near Quartzsite. In the summer of he and two other men went to the Arizona Strip to try rounding up mustangs. This did not prove lucrative, and Waring found employment instead as a driver and ranch hand, working for or with Nutter, Gordon L. George Weston, and William Shanley.4 In after a period living in Penn Valley miles northwest of Pine Valley), Waring moved to a cabin (probably also built by William Shanley) at Horse Valley, about 3.3 miles west-northwest of Pine Valley.

He proceeded to apply for a stock-raising homestead patent on the land surrounding this cabin, which he proved up in September His collusion with Pemberton to acquire ownership of the land at Pine Valley began just after he began the homestead process for Horse Valley.5 The protest against Pemberton s patent came from Ed Johnson, a cowhand on the Arizona Strip who frequently worked for Preston Nutter and probably also homesteaded land for him, just like Pemberton had for Waring.6 Historian Mike Belshaw describes a feud between Johnson and J. D.

Waring that lasted a number of years, and this may have sparked Johnson s protest against Pemberton s Pine Valley patent.7 Johnson claimed that Pemberton s land contained a public watering place that had been in use for more than fifty 2 Land Entry Patent No. Mar. 6, [George Howard Pemberton], Land Entry Files, Records of the Bureau of Land Management (RG National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, Punctuation in the quoted passage has been altered for clarity. 3 Land Entry Patent No. 4 Biographical information on Waring drawn from the fuller discussion of his life and land dealings that appears in HALS AZ-3 (Waring Ranch). 5 Land Entry Patent No. Sept. 18, [Jonathan D. Waring], NARA Land Entry Files.

6 See Mike Belshaw and Ed Peplow, Historic Resources Study, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada (National Park Service report, Aug. 84, 7 Belshaw and Peplow, Historic Resources Study, PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 5) years as well as to feet of merchantable timber, conditions that would have disqualified the land from homestead entry. Johnson also pointed out to officials at the GLO the insufficient value of Pemberton s improvements. Reed Mathis and Chester Thayne, two friends of Waring s who owned ranches near Pemberton s claim, filed affidavits refuting Johnson s water and timber claims, noting that the nearest water was at Green Springs, about miles away.

At the present time, Mathis and Thayne attested in Chas Walters is grazing stock on this entry, and we positively know that he drives his cattle or stock to the Green Springs for water, also that he is compelled to carry all water used for culinary purposes, used at his camp located on the entry, on horse back from Green Springs. 8 William Shanley quitclaimed his rights to the improvements he had made at Pine Valley to Waring in March After using the site as a line camp in his cattle operation for more than three decades, Waring sold the property in to the federal government for management by the National Park Service as part of Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The site has formed part of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument since PART II. PHYSICAL INFORMATION A.

Landscape character and descriptive summary The line camp at Pine Valley lies about 3.3 miles by road from J. D. Waring s former headquarters at Horse Valley, and about 1.7 miles from the camp at Green Springs, where the road to Pine Valley meets the main road along the Kelly Point Plateau. The site is largely forested and flat, except for two large clearings, one of which contains the stock tank that forms the camp s reason for being. The tank is surrounded by a long barbed-wire fence, and the ruins of a log corral and a log cabin stand nearby. B. Character-defining features 1. Natural features a. Topography: The site is largely flat and level, at an elevation of about feet. A major drainage runs southwesterly through the site.

The silty loam that makes up the soil is heavily littered with basalt rocks. b. Vegetation: The Pine Valley camp is centered on a large clearing carpeted with big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) and grasses and ringed by a forest of ponderosa pine 8 Land Entry Patent No. 9 Quitclaim deed from William Shanley to J. D. Waring, Mar. 27, Waring file, BLM Offices, St. George, Utah. 10 The relevant warranty deed for Waring s sale of Pine Valley to the federal government appears in folder J. D. Waring (2 of 2) Waring land files, Lake Mead National Recreation Area headquarters, Boulder City, Nev. (hereafter LAME). PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 6) (Pinus ponderosa), pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla), and Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma). c.

Water: A wash meanders roughly northeast to southwest through the Pine Valley site. Although dry most of the year, it drains seasonal and storm runoff through the site and down to the head of Green Spring Canyon about miles away. 2. Designed features a. Land use (spatial organization): An irregular perimeter of barbed-wire fencing encloses a 5-acre area around the stock tank at Pine Valley. The ruins of the camp s cabin sit about 50 west of the gate into this enclosure, nestled along the edge of the surrounding pine forest. It is likely that additional fence lines in the area integrated the site with historic cattle grazing lands on the surrounding plateau, but the lines of these fences have not been traced. b.

Circulation: The road leading to the camp terminates about 50 from the front door of the cabin. Although the corral is built along the southern fence line that surrounds the stock tank, no formal roads or paths seem to lead to it. c. Views and vistas: The stock tank at Pine Valley is built in the middle of a large clearing, to the west of which runs an even larger second clearing. These large open areas are ringed by a ponderosa pine forest, the tall trees of which block most distant views. d. Constructed water features: Stock tank. The central feature at Pine Valley is an earthen pond, commonly called a tank, about 220 long x 135 wide.

The tank is basically a shallow depression excavated into the ground, and the earth moved aside during its creation forms a 4 - to 5 -high berm around its perimeter. The tank was constructed at a bend in the wash that runs through the site; to fill the tank, a 120 long channel was dug between the wash and the tank. A basalt rock revetment about 36 long stands along one side of the wash to help direct water flow into the diversion channel. Small stock pond. A depression immediately southwest of the main stock tank may be a second tank or pond. It measures about 150 x 30 . It is not linked by channels to either the main tank or the wash Depression and rock pile.

There is a depression 135 east-southeast of the cabin and 160 west of the main stock pond that is lined on its west side by a pile of basalt rocks. These features may be the remains of an excavation about 10 across and about 15 deep noted by a General Land Office inspector in The excavation was an unsuccessful attempt to dig a well, and the rock pile was spoil from the digging.11 11 Land Entry Patent No. PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 7) Dugout. A 17 -wide man-made drainage channel lined with basalt rocks runs for about 390 through the pasture west of the stock tank. It originates near the fork where the stock-tank diversion meets the wash and terminates west of the small stock pond. It may be associated with the unsuccessful well from the or it may be a later water diversion experiment. e.

Buildings and structures: Cabin. The partly collapsed single-pen cabin at Pine Valley measures 18 x 20 and is built of hand-hewn pine logs with lumber and mud chinking laid atop a rock and log foundation. The logs are squared on the interior to work with the chinking to create flat walls; those making up the east wall are square cut on the outside, too. A single entrance way, with door still extant, passes through the center of the east wall. There are centered window openings cut through the north and south walls, but no sashes remain. A ground-level opening cut through the west wall suggests a hearth was once located along the wall, but no evidence of hearth or fireplace survives.

Local folklore holds that the building had no fireplace because the two old men that were making it, building it, they got in a fight and they split. This conflicts with the description of a rock fireplace seen at the cabin by a GLO inspector in but agrees with the appraiser who noted that the building was unheated.12 Only the cabin s four walls remain standing. It formerly had a high end-gabled roof covered with pine shingles, but this has collapsed into the interior. The gables were shingled as well. The cabin has a dirt floor. The land entry file says the cabin was built in but a GLO examiner who saw it in believed it to be older than that.13 A small excavated cellar about 8 x 10 in size and about 6 deep once stood about 50 east of the cabin, but it is no longer in evidence.14 Corral.

A rectangular corral about 30 x 105 stands 415 east-southeast of the cabin. Its north and west sides are made of hand-hewn juniper posts and rails lashed together with barbed wire. Its remaining sides are formed by the barbed wire fence the encloses the stock tank. Observers in the noted a corral made of log poles about 100 yards south of the cabin. This was described as a 12 panel pole corral 6 to 7 poles high to the panel. 15 The wooden corral sections that survive at the site today are similarly constructed, although they do not sit in the location described. The corral is in a semi-collapsed state. 12 Quote from Belshaw and Peplow, Historic Resources Study, Land Entry Patent No. Patrick D. Nolan, An Appraisal of the Waring Ranch located approximately 95 miles south of St.

George, Utah, 16 17, copy in LAME. 13 Land Entry Patent No. Arizona State Museum Archaeological Site Card AZ A:15:32 LAME. 14 Land Entry Patent No. 15 Land Entry Patent No. PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 8) Loading chute. A loading chute, now mostly collapsed, opens out from the north side of the corral. It is made of hand-hewn juniper posts and rails. f. Small-scale features: A barbed-wire fence three strands of double-strand barbed wire supported by juniper logs about long creates a 5-acre enclosure around the stock tank. A single gate opens through the fence 50 east of the cabin. g. Archeological sites: Extensive evidence of Native American use and habitation through the whole of the Waring Ranch area is well documented.

Although a survey of 20 acres immediately around the Pine Valley cabin and tanks found nothing of significance, a cluster of Late Pueblo II period (post AD rock structures was found about a quarter mile away.16 PART III. SOURCES OF INFORMATION A. Primary Sources Bureau of Land Management. General Land Office Records. Land Entry Files. Records of the Bureau of Land Management (RG National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, Waring file. Bureau of Land Management offices, St. George, Utah. Waring Ranch files. Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument headquarters, St. George, Utah. Waring land files Lake Mead National Recreation Area headquarters, Boulder City, Nevada. B. Maps U.S. Surveyor General s Office. Survey Plat of Arizona, Mohave County, Township No. 31 North, Range No.

11 West, Gila and Salt River Meridian, approved Feb. 16, Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records, C. Secondary Sources Belshaw, Mike, and Ed Peplow, Jr. Historic Resources Study, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada. National Park Service report, Aug. 16 Susan J. Wells, The Shivwits Plateau Survey: Archeology at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Publications in Anthropology 56 (Western Archeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 56, 248 49. PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 9) Provencher, Shaun and Len Warner. Cultural Landscapes Inventory for Waring Ranch, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. National Park Service, Wells, Susan J. The Shivwits Plateau Survey: Archeology at Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Publications in Anthropology 56. Western Archeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 10) FIGURE PAGES Figure 1. The cabin at Pine Valley, View looking southeast. From Patrick D. Nolan, An Appraisal of the Waring Ranch located approximately 95 miles south of St. George, Utah, Waring land files Lake Mead National Recreation Area headquarters, Boulder City, Nevada. PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 11) Figure 2. The corral at Pine Valley, View looking southeast across the stock tank. From Patrick D. Nolan, An Appraisal of the Waring Ranch located approximately 95 miles south of St. George, Utah, Waring land files Lake Mead National Recreation Area headquarters, Boulder City, Nevada.

PINE VALLEY HALS AZ-3-B (page 12) Figure 3. The stock tank at Pine Valley, View looking northeast across the stock pond. From Patrick D. Nolan, An Appraisal of the Waring Ranch located approximately 95 miles south of St. George, Utah, Waring land files Lake Mead National Recreation Area headquarters, Boulder City, Nevada.