Pine Ranch, Littlefield

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AZ-4. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument Littlefield vicinity, Mohave County, Arizona Pine Ranch is located on the Shivwits Plateau in the Arizona Strip. The ranch is miles north-northeast of Mount Dellenbaugh and about 81 miles by road south from St. George, Utah. The site lies along Bureau of Land Management Road 103 in township range section 24 (Gila and Salt River Meridian). Its geographic coordinates are latitude longitude (North American Datum of These coordinates represent the southeast corner of the ranch house.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AZ-4. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Pine Ranch is typical of the small, family-owned cattle operations that co-existed on the remote and isolated Arizona Strip from the last decades of the nineteenth century into the second half of the twentieth. The ranch is located in a pine forest on the Shivwits Plateau, a vast tableland in northwestern Arizona that stretches north from the rim of the Grand Canyon. About Wallace Mathis of St. George, Utah, established a seasonal home near Pine Spring, a water source that had been used by mining and stock-raising interests from southern Utah since the Mathis and his sons ran cattle from the site, and, in the mid-1920s, his son Carl lived there nearly full time in order to homestead the property.

Carl built a stock tank, fences, corrals, and other outbuildings and improved the existing ranch house, largely creating the ranch core visible on the site today. From the through the Carl s brother Reed, Reed s wife Grace, and their children were the ranch s primary residents, running cattle from the place seasonally. They sold the property before and the new owners subsequently traded it to the Bureau of Land Management. Since the ranch has lain within the boundaries of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, a federal reserve established to protect the natural, archeological, and historic resources of the remote Arizona Strip. PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 2)

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS AZ-4. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Pine 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 PART I.

HISTORICAL INFORMATION A. Physical History 1. Date of establishment: Wallace Mathis purchased the house and well at Pine Ranch about His son Carl homesteaded the property from to 1 2. Landscape designer: None. 3. Builder: Samuel Radcliff (also Radcliffe or Ratcliff) built the original ranch house. The balance of the buildings and water features at Pine Ranch were built by Wallace, Carl, and/or Reed Mathis, with assistance from other family members, relatives, and hired hands. 4. Original and subsequent owners and occupants: Pine Ranch was first settled by Samuel Radcliff, who lived there for an unknown length of time until about From about until the late various members of the Mathis family of St.

George, Utah, lived at the ranch, usually seasonally in order to manage the cattle herd the family ran on the Parashant. The ranch has been uninhabited since about 5. Periods of development: The history of Pine Ranch breaks down into the following periods: before ca. Native American habitation in the region. A number of Native communities flourished on the Shivwits Plateau in the centuries before Anglo 1 In oral-history interviews, members of the Mathis family have referred to their Parashant property as Pine Ranch. Although the site is called Pine Well on U.S. Geological Survey maps and in the records of the U.S.

Board on Geographic Names, as well as Pine Well Ranch in some National Park Service reports, these names have no historical basis and were created to avoid confusion with Pine Valley Ranch nearby (see HALS No. AZ-3-B). PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 3) settlement. Although no archeological traces have yet been identified at Pine Ranch, many objects and sites have been found in the vicinity. ca. to ca. early use. Pine Spring, a natural water source on the Arizona Strip, was used by the Copper Mountain Mining Company and the Canaan Cooperative Stock Company in the and The stock company made unknown improvements to the spring to expand its usefulness for watering cattle, and the mining company had a water-jacket smelter installed there by Rancher Benjamin F.

Saunders subsequently claimed the spring. In he sold his claim and interest in any improvements on it to rancher Preston Nutter, who, three years later, applied to the federal government for formal title to 39 acres of land surrounding the spring. This land was patented to him in 2 before ca. first known settlement. Sometime before Samuel Radcliff, a rancher or cowhand, built a two-room cabin somewhere on or near Lake Flat, a level meadow that begins about 1/2 mile south-southeast of Pine Spring. He subsequently dug the well that still survives at the ranch and moved his cabin near it. 3 ca. into the Mathis family settlement. Rancher Wallace Mathis purchased Radcliff s house and well about and soon added two rooms to the house.

He and his family stayed there seasonally while working cattle. 4 to Homesteading. Wallace Mathis s son Carl lived at the property nearly full time from to in order to prove out a homestead claim on the surrounding land. He built a stock tank, a saddle house, hen house, hog pen, barn, root cellar, and corrals during this time and received a homestead patent for 640 acres on November 24, 5 2 Nutter s Pine Spring land was S19 lot 2. This lot lies immediately west of the 640-acre tract homesteaded by the Carl Mathis. Preston Nutter to General Land Office Commissioner, May 24, Preston Nutter Papers, box 22, folder 1, J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. 3 The earliest record of the house and well is the U.S.

government s official survey plat of the township that surrounds Pine Ranch, which, although approved in was based on field work done in This survey identifies the Pine Ranch site as the Sam Radcliffe house and well. U.S. Surveyor General s Office, Survey plat of Arizona, Mohave County, Township No. 32 North, Range No. 12 West, Gila and Salt River Meridian, approved Feb. 16, Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records. 4 Grace (Shumway) Mathis, interview by Milton Hokanson, Feb. 21, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument Oral History Collection, Val A. Browning Library Special Collections, Dixie State College, St.

George, Utah (cited hereafter as Bureau of Land Management, Arizona State Office, Cultural Resource Site Record for Pine Ranch (site AZ-A:14:241), June copy in Pine Ranch files, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, St. George, Utah (hereafter cited as PARA). 5 Land entry file no. issued November 24, Records of the Bureau of Land Management (RG National Archives, Washington, PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 4) to continued Mathis family occupation. For over forty years, the Mathis family managed the herd of cattle they ran on the Parashant from Pine Ranch. From the mid-1930s on, Reed Mathis (Carl s brother), his wife Grace, and their children were the primary residents, although they lived there only seasonally. late subsequent owners.

Reed Mathis sold Pine Ranch to members of the Frei and Gubler families, ca. They continued to use the ranch in connection with cattle raising for a few years before trading the land to the Bureau of Land Management for a parcel in Nevada. 6 to present: federal government management. The BLM administers the Pine Ranch property. Since the land has lain within the boundaries of Grand Canyon- Parashant National Monument, which the BLM manages in cooperation with the National Park Service. a. Original plans and construction: No original plans or building records survive documenting the design and construction of the structures at Pine Ranch, beyond Carl Mathis s homestead application, which notes the working buildings he added to the property before b.

Changes and additions: Documentation has not been found chronicling repairs, improvements, and alterations to the ranch buildings over time, although the Mathises are likely to have made many changes during their decades of ownership. B. Historical Context Pine Ranch lies within the Arizona Strip, the remote and isolated portion of northwest Arizona that is bounded on the south and east by the Grand Canyon and on the north and west by the Utah and Nevada borders. Although politically part of the Arizona Territory after (and the state of Arizona from the Strip is cut off from the rest of Arizona by the Grand Canyon and functioned historically as an extension of southern Utah.

The Mormon settlers of southern Utah and southern Nevada provided much of the initiative, capital, and labor for the stock raising, lumbering, mining, and limited settling that took place in the Strip beginning in the and 7 Virgin Branch Basketmaker and Pueblo Indians had flourished on the Arizona Strip from the sixth to the twelfth centuries, and Southern Paiutes first appeared in the region about the middle of the thirteenth century. 8 No archeological sites have been identified at Pine Ranch, but direct evidence of Native hunting, agriculture, and habitation abounds throughout the 6 Grace Mathis interview. 7 Jeffrey H. Altschul and Helen C. Fairley, Man, Models and Management: An Overview of the Archaeology of the Arizona Strip and the Management of its Cultural Resources (U.S.

Forest Service / Bureau of Land Management report, chapter 5. 8 See Altschul and Fairley, Man, Models and Management, chapter 4. PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 5) surrounding plateau. The Southern Paiutes were still on the Shivwits when the Mormons arrived, and Anglo encroachment permanently altered Native lifeways and traditional land- and water-use patterns. If no Paiutes seem to figure in the history of Pine Ranch, it is because the ranch itself represents the disruption to Native culture that livestock grazing and settlement brought to the region. Natural springs were highly prized in the Strip s dry environment.

Pine Spring, about 4 miles north-northeast of Mount Dellenbaugh and about 5 miles north of the rim of the Grand Canyon, was claimed in the late by the Copper Mountain Mining Company, a firm incorporated in St. George, Utah, that worked a claim in Andrus Canyon about miles west of the spring. From about the Canaan Cooperative Stock Company, a business whose owners overlapped with those of the mining company (and with those of many other St. George and Arizona Strip enterprises), rented the spring to water its cattle. By May the cooperative found the spring in very bad condition and stock suffering for want of water and invested its own money in improving it.

At the same time, Acquilla Nebeker sought to lease excess water from the cooperative for the mining and smelting operations of the Red Cloud Mining Company, which the stock company agreed to do. 9 The Mohave County tax rolls for list the owners of Pine Spring as Edwin G. Woolley, Robert C. Lund, and Thomas Judd, St. George merchants who were also connected to the mining company and stock cooperative. The county noted that a water-jacket smelter worth was located at the spring, presumably for use by the Copper Mountain Mine. Subsequently, Pine Springs is also listed among about a dozen springs that rancher Benjamin F.

Saunders quitclaimed to rancher Preston Nutter in Nutter, who was then assembling land holdings and water rights that would make him the dominant rancher on the Strip into the sought ownership of 39 acres around Pine Spring through an application to the federal government in After many delays, the Pine Spring tract was patented to him in 10 Despite the size of Nutter s cattle operation and the sometimes underhanded means he and his men used to control water sources on the Strip, other ranchers operated successfully in the area. Samuel Radcliff and Wallace Mathis were two of these, and they came in turn to 9 Period sources refer alternately to Pine Spring and Pine Springs, with the singular use becoming more common after about Frederick L.

Brown, Paiutes, Mormons, and Mericats: A History of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, draft (National Park Service Pacific West Region Office, July 88, Canaan Cooperative Stock Co. board minutes for Jan. 29, May 18, June 26, July 12, Canaan Cooperative Stock Company Records, Mss B box 1, Utah Historical Society, Salt Lake City. 10 The exact location of Pine Spring is no longer known, but Nutter s tract surrounding it was S19 lot 2.

Nutter secured title to the tract through the lieu-selection process, a mechanism for exchanging land in federal forest reserves for other lands in the public domain that was authorized by Congress in and repealed in For more detail on Nutter s complicated lieu-selection application, which involved twelve tracts in addition to Pine Spring, see the historical report for HALS AZ-3, Waring Ranch. Preston Nutter to General Land Office Commissioner, May 24, Preston Nutter Papers, box 22, folder 1, J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; Brown, Paiutes, Mormons, and Mericats, 98, 106 122 26. PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 6) settle on land immediately adjacent to Pine Spring.

Sometime before Radcliff built a two-room cabin at Lake Flat, a meadow about a mile south-southeast of the spring. Subsequently, he dug a well to water cattle about 1/4 of a mile west of the line of Nutter s Pine Spring property and hauled his cabin from Lake Flat to the new well. 11 Wallace B. Mathis was born in St. George, Utah, the fourth child of Swiss immigrants. 12 He came into the Arizona Strip about and ran cattle and operated a hack or jitney service for a number of years between the Grand Gulch Mine and St. George. 13 In both of these enterprises he worked in partnership with John Sturzeneggar and James Pectol, neighbors and family friends from St. George.

14 The Mohave County tax rolls note that by Mathis owned a half interest in the Mociac Well and a half interest in Swapp Spring (possibly meaning Snap Spring), plus ten saddle horses, 580 range cattle worth and seventy steers worth By the tax rolls list his ownership of Joe-Tin Can Spring (probably meaning Joe Spring and Tincanebitts Spring) and Mociac Spring, plus worth of personal property in the county. Mathis is also known to have purchased Dansill Spring for about 15 Although he kept his primary residence in St. George, 11 A General Land Office report from that found two wells at Pine Spring (one measuring 3 x 4 x 8 and another 4 x 5 x 8.5 with three tunnels [one 80 long] and 225 of pipe) probably describes improvements on Nutter s property, but it could refer to Radcliff s well.

Brown, Paiutes, Mormons, and Mericats, 12 Tenth census of the United States, St. George, Washington County, Utah, enumeration district 93, p. 26, Records of the Bureau of the Census (RG National Archives. 13 Historian Mike Belshaw gives the date of Mathis s arrival on the Strip as although Mathis s son Reed and grandson Wally remembered the date as Mathis himself wrote in April that he had worked in the area for over twenty-five years ; in he wrote he d known it for twenty- five years. Mike Belshaw and Ed Peplow, Historic Resources Study, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada (National Park Service report, Aug. 80, Wallace Wally and Reed Miles Mathis, interview by Milton Hokanson, Jan. 24, Affidavit of Wallace Mathis, Apr. 12, in F. J. Safley, Report on Forest Lieu Selection and H. E.

Preston Nutter Papers, box 52, folder 15, J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; land entry file no. The earliest references found to Wallace Mathis running a hack to the Grand Gulch Mine appear in the Local and general news columns of the Washington County News, Nov. 17, 4, and Nov. 24, 4. For more information on Mathis s involvement with Grand Gulch Mine, see HAER No. AZ-78. 14 The Sturzeneggar, Pectol, and Mathis names often appear in the St. George newspapers together: John Sturzenegger [sic], James Pectol and Wallace Mathis returned Monday from the ranch at Mociac ( Local and general news, Washington County News, Sept.

12, 4); Mr and Mrs Wallace Mathis and Mr and Mrs James Pectol and families left Thursday for the ranch at Parashaunt to spend the remainder of the summer ( Local and general news, Washington County News, July 23, 8); John Sturzeneggar and Wallace Mathis left Tuesday for south range to addend to cattle, expecting to be gone for several weeks ( Local and general news, Washington County News, Mar. 18, 8). 15 Dansil Spring (also Dan Sill and Dansill) is located in Mociac Spring and Well in Snap Spring in Joe Spring in S7; and Tincanebitts Spring in S5. Tax roll research done by Frederick L.

Brown and quoted in his report Paiutes, Mormons, and Mericats: A History of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument draft (National Park Service Pacific West Region Office, July Dansil Spring purchase mentioned in John to Preston Nutter, Apr. 3, Preston Nutter Papers, box 25, folder 7. PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 7) where his wife and children lived, he spent from one to three months each season ranging and watering his cattle on the Strip. 16 Mathis appears initially to have run his operation from Mociac Well, a site about 3 miles southwest of Pine Spring that he owned with John Sturzenegger. A St.

George newspaper item mentioned Mathis coming in from his ranch at Pahshant [sic] to spend a few days with his family, and two summers later the paper noted Mathis and his family and Sturzenegger and his son leaving for Mociac on the same day to spend a few weeks. 17 About however, Mathis purchased Sam Radcliff s well and cabin near Pine Spring. He added two rooms to the cabin and made the place his headquarters on the Parashant. 18 Sometime in the early Mathis s second and third sons Carl (or Karl) and Reed went into business together and began running their father s livestock under contract, in addition to running animals of their own.

In Carl Mathis 76) began residing nearly full time in the house near Pine Spring in order to begin the process of homesteading the land under the provisions of the Stock Raising Homestead Act of During his residence, Carl repaired and re-shingled the existing house (in dug out the well another 10 (to a total depth of 25 ), and added a windmill and pump to the well. He built a reservoir and water troughs and constructed a barn, saddle house, hen house, hog pen, cellar, and corrals. He fenced and cross fenced the land into three grazing pastures using 4.5 miles of barbed wire fencing and 1 mile of timber fencing, and planted rye, corn, potatoes, wheat, and oats in the center of the claim, mostly to produce animal feed.

The amount of land under cultivation steadily increased from 10 acres in to 30 acres in To work the place, Carl kept at least eight to ten head of saddle horses, a team to pull his supply wagon, and a milk cow. 19 During the homesteading period, Carl lived at the ranch during the spring, summer, and fall. Each winter he returned to St. George for Christmas. Usually I returned to the claim in January for [a] brief period, he wrote, and then began a new year of residence within a few weeks[,] not later than March He proved out his homestead claim in and received title to the 640-acre section of land surrounding the ranch house. 20 Carl s brother Reed helped him with the cattle business. For reasons that are not clear, Reed came to own Pine Ranch not long after the homestead claim was proven.

He married Grace Shumway in December and the next summer brought her 16 Affidavit of Wallace Mathis, Apr. 12, in F. J. Safley, Report on Forest Lieu Selection and H. E. Preston Nutter Papers, box 52, folder 15. 17 Local and general news, Washington County News, Aug. 19, 8; Local and general news, Washington County News, July 13, 4. 18 Grace Mathis interview; Cultural Resource Site Record for Pine Ranch (site AZ-A:14:241). The earliest clear reference yet found linking the Mathis family to Pine Ranch appears in Local and general news, Washington County News, Aug. 7, 8. 19 Land entry file no. 20 ibid. Carl Mathis s final proof for his homestead application was witnessed by his father, Wallace Mathis, and friend Clarence Sturzenegger, the fourth child and eldest son of John Sturzenegger.

PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 8) out to the ranch for the first time. 21 She later remembered finding the ranch beautiful but lonesome at first. She also disliked the long drive from St. George, which went by way of the community at Mount Trumbull We had to cross that dang wash twenty-seven times! but she eventually grew to love spending time at the ranch. 22 Like other family members before them, Reed and Grace Mathis did not live at the ranch full time. Reed appears to have been there more often, tending cattle, but Grace would come out on and off during the summers. They lived in St. George the balance of the time and tended another family farm west of the city.

In the first summers Grace spent at Pine Ranch, she was frequently accompanied by Lillian Andrus and Blanche McComb, two of Carl and Reed s sisters. The Mathises eventually had two children, Wally and Barbara, who spent much of their childhood at the ranch. 23 The Mathises had many friends among the other ranchers in the area, and frequently hosted visitors, including Jonathan Slim and Mary Waring, who lived at Horse Valley about 3 miles south. The Mathises were also active in the Latter Day Saint Church, and Reed often hosted young men from the church at Pine Ranch, where he would tell them wild tales of the men who had ridden in that area in the past.

24 By the the last decade the family worked the ranch, the Mathises had about 300 to 350 cows and another twenty to twenty-five bulls on the Strip. That size herd would produce about 200 calves a year, what Reed and Grace s son Wally called a 60 65% calf crop, which is not bad for that country. The calves would be weaned from their mothers in the pasture at Pine Ranch and then hauled by truck to another place the family owned further north in Hurricane Valley. (This ranch was called either Rosenberry Place or Hallmark Place.) Calves that had spent a year at Hurricane Valley were then taken to the family s feed yards at their farm west of the Black Hill near St. George. The St. George farm comprised about 120 or 130 acres where the family raised silage, alfalfa, and grain.

Calves were fed there from fall into spring. When they reached 700 800 pounds, the family would sell them. So instead of selling weaner calves like a lot of people, Wally Mathis told an interviewer, the family would have long yearlings that they would feed out [and] they would be [about two years old] by the time they sold them. 25 The cattle the Mathises raised on the Strip in the first decades of the century were, in the words of Wally Mathis, just a motley bunch of animals . . . . There wasn t any way you could manage the bulls and cows and keep a particular breed because it was open range. Open-range grazing led to over grazing throughout the American West, which brought with it severe erosion, vegetation change, and declining productivity of the land.

These problems 21 Reed Miles Mathis obituary, St. George Spectrum, Feb. 21, 22 Grace Mathis interview. 23 Grace Mathis interview. 24 Grace Mathis interview; Reed Mathis obituary. For more information on Jonathan Waring and his ranching properties on the Parashant, see HALS No. AZ-3. 25 Wallace Wally Reed Mathis, interview by Milton Hokanson, Jan. 24, PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 9) were addressed by the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act in which established a permit system for grazing on the open range. After this act, the Mathises and other ranchers fenced more of their land, one result being they gained control over the breeds of their animals. The Mathises switched their herd to Herefords around this time.

26 Reed Mathis sold Pine Ranch to the Frei and Gubler families in about but retained the southwest quadrant of the homestead acres) and built a new house for his family s summer use. Because of National Park Service efforts around this time to end cattle grazing in Lake Mead National Recreation Area (created in much of the winter grazing area formerly used by Mathis and now needed by the ranch s new owners was closed. According to Wally Mathis, the new owners eventually traded their private ground to the BLM which, in [return], gave them a ranch in Nevada up above Pioche [or] Crystal Valley, or some valley up there. I don t remember the name. But they were forced off the range and the BLM took over.

27 Pine Ranch continues to be managed by the and it now lies within the boundaries of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, a one-million-acre federal reserve created in January under the American Antiquities Act of to safeguard scientific and historical resources in a portion of the Arizona Strip north of Grand Canyon National Park. In proclaiming this national monument, President Bill Clinton cited the desire to protect its natural splendor and sense of solitude, its irreplaceable Native American sites, and the ranch structures and corrals, fences, water tanks, and the ruins of sawmills within it that tell the stories of the remote family ranches and the lifestyles of early homesteaders.

28 Pine Ranch, a leading example of the monument s many ranching sites, is now preserved from future development by its inclusion within the monument s boundaries. PART II. PHYSICAL INFORMATION A. Landscape character and descriptive summary Pine Ranch is located on the Shivwits Plateau, a vast tableland in northwestern Arizona that stretches from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the Utah border. Lying at an elevation between and feet, the ranch core is characterized by a central clearing 5 to 6 acres in size filled with scrub brush and grasses. Two dry streambeds, one running in from the north, the other coming from the east, pass through the clearing and then join, continuing as one to the southwest.

The eastern streambed enters the ranch core immediately adjacent to a stock reservoir or tank, the berm of which is cut through to allow seasonal water flow to fill 26 Wally Mathis interview. Wally also reports the family at one point bought about twenty head of crossbred cattle, which they ran at Snap Spring and where they built a little shack and a stock tank fed by pipe from the spring. 27 Grace Mathis interview; Wally Mathis interview. The land cited by Wally Mathis as winter range included Twin Creek Canyon, Fort Garrett country, and Tincanebitts Point, locations south and west of Pine Ranch along the north rim of the Grand Canyon. 28 Establishment of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, Federal Register (Jan. 18, 26. PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 10) the tank.

The ranch house, a windmill, and the remains of the ranch s former outbuildings range northwestward along a gentle rise that skirts the northeast edge of the clearing. Open- spaced woods line the clearing and edge the slope behind the buildings, creating the appearance of a ring of trees on all sides for observers standing at the ranch house. An access road loops through the ranch core. B. Character-defining features 1. Natural features a. Topography: W. H.

Thorn, surveying the township around what became Pine Ranch in wrote in his field notes, The surface of this township is mostly gently rolling, with small areas of mountainous land along the east side of the east fork of Parashont Wash, and along the west side of Penn Valley, in the northeastern part of the township, and along the east side of the west fork of Parashont Wash, in the northwest quarter of the township. There are also small scattered areas of rolling, nearly level and level land in various parts. The east and west forks of Parashont Wash, course north, drain most of the township. The soil varies from 1st to 4th rate, the predominating varieties being heavy clay, 3rd rate, and rocky, 4th rate.

In the east range of sections, and in the southwest quarter of the township, there is considerable sandy clay loam, 1st rate, and in the various parts, the soil is a gravelly clay, 2nd rate. 29 b. Vegetation: Pine Ranch sits within the Great Basin conifer woodland biotic community, which is characterized by open-spaced growth of Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) and pinyon pine (Pinus edulis) with an understory of shrubs and grasses. Rocky Mountain ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa) are also present in abundance at the ranch. The tree growth is interspersed with natural and man-made clearings dominated by sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) and a variety of grasses.

30 Most of the 160-acre northwest quarter of the Mathis homestead is now deforested as a result of logging activity during the Several oral-history informants interviewed in the remember Reed Mathis allowing Bud Dane, originally from Cedar City, Utah, and later Ben Bistline, from Short Creek (now Colorado City), Arizona, to cut trees for milling at the sawmill Dane had set up at Green Springs, about 5 miles southeast of Pine Ranch. According to Wally Mathis, Reed Mathis accepted rough-cut lumber as 29 Surveyor W. H. Thorn s field notes on are from the Bureau of Land Management s General Land Office records, Book p. 53, but are quoted here from a summary document in PARA. 30 Altschul and Fairley, Man, Models and Management.

PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 11) payment for the trees cut on his property, which he used to build corrals at Pine Ranch, near Mociac Well, and on the Mathis family farm west of St. George. 31 c. Water: The average annual precipitation at Pine Ranch is 12 to 14 inches. Average annual runoff is between 0.1 and 0.2 inches a year. 32 The streambeds running through the ranch are dry except during periods of rainfall. Pine Spring, originally the only perennial water source near the site, was probably altered with improvements during the and then dug out into wells by Its location, somewhere about 1/4 to 1/2 mile east of the ranch core, is no longer known. 33 2. Designed features a.

Land use (spatial organization): The Mathis family ran cattle on the Arizona Strip, grazing them at various locations on the Shivwits Plateau west and south of Pine Ranch, as well as at properties in Hurricane Valley (some 20 to 25 miles to the north) and west of St. George, Utah. Pine Ranch functioned as a headquarters for the Mathises Parashant operation: family members stayed there while tending the cattle, and they brought cattle there to be loaded onto trucks for shipment. The ranch is fenced into functional zones based on these primary uses. The house and outbuildings of the ranch core are built along a gentle rise and enclosed by two parallel lines of fencing that run northwestward from the stock tank.

One line skirts the woods above the house, while the second runs intermittently from the south side of the road by the corral to the windmill. From there it continues another 766 before turning southwest and running beside the access road. This second fence line separates the core from the large clearing that dominates the center of the ranch. This clearing, now about 7 to 8 acres in size, was used for grazing and may form part of the land the Mathises at one time planted with feed crops. The clearing is further subdivided by a third fence that runs southwest from a point 89 northwest of the windmill. This fence is met about 300 below the ranch core by another one that runs southeast through the woods south of the stock tank.

By Carl Mathis had 30 acres under cultivation at the ranch, growing rye, corn, potatoes, wheat, and oats. All that is known about the location of these fields is that they 31 Wally Mathis interview; David Spencer Spence Esplin, interview by Milton Hokanson, Feb. 7, Ben Bistline, interview by Milton Hokanson, Feb. 17, For more information on the Green Springs site, see HALS No. AZ-3-C. 32 Arizona Department of Water Resources, Arizona Water Atlas, vol. 6, Western Plateau Planning Area (Oct. Precipitation average is based on rainfall figures for 90. 33 The spring does not appear on U.S. Geological Survey maps of the area, nor on the earliest federal survey of the township surrounding it, U.S. Surveyor General s Office, Survey plat of Arizona, Mohave County, Township No. 32 North, Range No.

11 West, Gila and Salt River Meridian, approved Feb. 16, Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records. For the description of the wells at Pine Spring, see footnote 10. PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 12) fell within a 160-acre area at the very center of the homestead. 34 It is not clear when the family stopped planting the fields. Grace Mathis, one of the longest residents of Pine Ranch, recalled that the family did not keep a garden at the place, although for a brief time there was a garden tended by others. For two or three summers, one Bill Sorenson, his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren lived at the ranch while Bill and his son worked for Reed Mathis. Amy Sorenson, the daughter-in-law, planted a beautiful vegetable garden by the well, which Reed fenced in for her.

35 b. Circulation: Pine Ranch lies less than a mile off road 103 (on county maps called Mt. Dellenbaugh Road), a well maintained dirt road within Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. A subsidiary access road connecting to road 103 loops around the ranch core. c. Views and vistas: Although the house at Pine Ranch fronts a spacious clearing, the clearing is bounded on all sides by trees, giving the ranch the feeling of an airy but largely private enclave. The trees block most distant vistas, although Mt. Dellenbaugh rises dramatically above them miles to the south-southeast.

Grace Mathis remembered that a stretch of the main road was visible intermittently between the ponderosas from the house during the and the family knew if people passed by or if men were working at the sawmill at Green Spring. This historic vista is now blocked by more recent tree growth. 36 d. Constructed water features: The original Pine Spring that brought cattle and mining interests to the vicinity of ranch site in the late nineteenth century is no longer active. The ranch itself was supplied throughout its working life by a well about 25 deep topped by a windmill and pump.

The well was dug by Samuel Radcliff before and deepened and improved by Carl Mathis in the Mathis also built the earthen-berm stock tank near the well and arranged either pipes or ditches (it is not clear which from the surviving sources) to allow water from the well to be directed into his three fenced pastures as desired and needed. 37 It is possible, but not certain, that the shallow branching ditches that meander through the central clearing and connect to the main streambed are part of this system. e. Buildings and structures: Ranch house. The wood ranch house measures about 30 long x 29 wide overall. It contains four rooms and is fronted by a 22 -8 x 7 -5 porch. From the porch, doors open into the southwest room (about 16 x 12 ) and the southeast room (about 14 x 12 ).

The former, a living room, has a single window opening facing south and a 34 Information provided by Carl Mathis in land entry file no. locates the 30 acres for crops within the 160 acres encompassed within subsections SE NW , SW NE , NW SE , and NE SW of section 24 of 35 Grace Mathis interview. 36 Grace Mathis interview. 37 Land entry file no. PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 13) stone and concrete fireplace cut into its west wall. The walls and ceiling are covered in painted wood fiberboard panels with batten-covered seams, although water damage has caused some panels to collapse. The wood floor planks are covered in multiple layers of sheet linoleum. Doors lead from the living room into the three other rooms.

The southeast room, a bedroom, has a single window opening facing east and is finished similarly to the living room, with fiberboard and linoleum that is also damaged from water. The remains of a closet sit along the room s west wall next to the door leading in from the living room. The northwest room (another bedroom, about 12 x 9 ) is lit by a single window facing west. It is finished with painted board paneling. A small closet remains in the room s southeast corner. The northeast room (about 18 x 9 ) was the kitchen. It has two exterior doors, one on the north wall and one on the east wall, with a band of windows running between them. The walls are finished with fiberboard and heavily weathered linoleum remains on the floor.

The house has a gas refrigerator (in one of the front rooms) and gas lighting. 38 Some furnishings and clothing items remain scattered throughout the house. The house sits on a slight incline. The 2x6 floor joists rest on grade along the north edge of the building, but are supported by a combination of posts and blocks as the site slopes down to the south. The walls of the house are built of 1 -thick boards set vertically and nailed to 2x4 ribbons at the top and the rim joists at the bottom. There is no frame, although some flat studs appear occasionally. One-inch-thick wood battens cover many of the joints in the exterior boards, particularly on the north side of the house.

On the west side of the house, an entire second layer of boards covers the first, adding strength to the construction. The ceilings are formed of widely spaced 2x4 joists with wide, 1 -thick boards fastened between. In a few areas fabric covers the ceiling boards, but for the most part the ceiling construction is hidden underneath fiberboard finishing panels. The house is roofed with wood shingles over boards, although the north-facing half is also covered with a heavily deteriorated layer of asphalt shingles laid atop the wood shingles. 39 The lowest 5 to 6 of the chimney for the living room fireplace is built of stone with concrete mortar. A steel flue pipe, now collapsed, formerly carried the combustion gases up beyond the roof line.

A second steel flue, also collapsed, lies on the roof over the kitchen, marking the former location of the oven and range in the room below. The house was built in two stages, with the two south rooms and the gabled roof over them forming the original building built by Sam Radcliffe before 38 Grace Mathis interview. 39 The construction and condition of the house are discussed in Mark L. Mortier, Parashant National Monument Historic Preservation Report: Condition Assessment and Preservation Recommendations, Grand Gulch Mine and Pine Well Ranch, September 30, (Santa Fe: National Park Service Intermountain Support Office), 122 25. PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 14) Radcliffe s house was located in a different place from where the enlarged house now sits.

Grace Mathis told an interviewer in I think the story is that two rooms [of] the house were over by Lake Flat. A man lived out there [who] helped the Mathis what was his name? He lived there for a long time. I don t know his name; it will come to me. Anyway, they put [the two rooms] on skids and dragged it over and put it next to the hill. 40 Carl Mathis added the two north rooms and the shed roof that links them to the original cabin sometime during the The porch was added subsequently. 41 Root cellar. Immediately north of the ranch house is a root cellar excavated into the hillside. Measuring about 13 x 12 , the cellar has a front knee wall built of logs and a log roof covered in dirt.

The interior is entered through a downward-sloping ramp built in line with the north kitchen door of the ranch house. The ramp and the front interior of the cellar are partly lined with wood boards. The cellar is now partially collapsed, and its interior is filled with debris. Outhouse. About 114 northwest of the ranch house is a two-seat outhouse, which measures 4 -2 wide x 4 -10 deep x 6 -10 high. Its wood floor frame sits on boards placed across the soil pit. Above this, the walls and roof are built without frame of vertical boards. The door is missing and the entire structure is heavily weathered. The roof was restored with new wood after Playhouse. The collapsed remains of a small wood building that once measured about 6 square are located about 72' northwest of the ranch house.

Reed Mathis built it as a playhouse for his two children, Wally and Barbara, and it was probably also used by the children of the many friends Reed and Grace Mathis hosted at the ranch during their stays there. 42 Table and swing frame. A rustic lumber table or platform on timber legs sits just behind the ranch house. Its purpose is unknown. Next to it, two log braces and a tree support a horizontal log that seems as if it were set up to support a swing. Its purpose is also unclear. Collapsed building.

This structure, the first of four buildings that form a small cluster of husbandry-related outbuildings about 105 southeast of the ranch house, is the ruins of a one-room wood-frame, gable-roofed building that appears in a Mathis family photograph of the ranch from the (A copy of this photograph is 40 Grace Mathis interview. 41 Photograph of Pine Ranch, in the possession of the descendants of Reed and Grace Mathis, copy in PARA and in the field records accompanying this documentation. 42 Grace Mathis interview.

PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 15) included with the field records accompanying this documentation.) The presence of a wagon and carriage or cart next to this building in the photograph may identify it as the saddle house Carl Mathis listed among the ranch s assets in it could also be the barn he listed. Small collapsed log building. The collapsed remains of a small log building abut the fence line upslope from the collapsed frame building. One NPS study identifies it as a chicken coop 43; Carl Mathis did build a hen house at the ranch in the but nothing is known of its construction or location. When standing, this ruin would have measured about 13 x 15 . Tack room.

This single-room, wood-framed building, originally about 12 wide x 15 - 5 long, sits about 40 southeast of the collapsed frame saddle house or barn. It is now collapsed. Its gabled roof is largely intact but now sits on the ground with fragments of the walls around and under it. The building s primary distinguishing feature is a 4 -high section of 36 -diameter galvanized-iron corrugated conduit that stands toward the east end of the building. This may have served as a feed bin, and for this reason the building has been called a tack room or tack shed on BLM and NPS inventories. The building post-dates the Mathis family photograph of the ranch from the Large collapsed log building. The ruins of a log building sit a few feet northeast of the tack room.

The building measured about 20 x 30 when standing, and appears to have had a doorway or entrance though its southwest wall. It may be the barn that Carl Mathis listed among the ranch s buildings in Windmill, well, and platform. An excavated well surmounted by a wood tower and self-adjusting windmill mechanism is located 86 south of the ranch house, along the line of the fence that runs northwest from the stock tank. The windmill stands about 20 tall and is built of 4x4 corner posts and a wide variety of differently dimensioned framing members. The remains of a ladder climb the north side of the tower, leading to a maintenance platform below the motor.

The wind vane, heavily pockmarked with bullet holes, survives in place behind the motor, but the sails and the hub of the sail frame now rest on the ground nearby. The well is about 4 square and descends about 20 . It is lined with wood poles laid horizontally. The windmill was partially restored after through replacement of many structural cross members, re- decking the upper platform, and planking over the top of the well. The water outlet pipe for the well points east, toward an adjacent 12 x wood- frame platform that may once have supported a water tank. A galvanized metal tank, now smashed, that sits south of the windmill may, perhaps, have been positioned on this platform.

It is also possible a hollowed-out log with the remains of a galvanized liner in it, which sits 100 southeast of the windmill, was once filled from the well. 43 Mortier, Parashant Preservation Report, PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 16) Grace Mathis recalled the well providing very good water. 44 Corral and cattle chute. Log poles set in a rough square define the former limits of a corral built between the northwest berm of the stock tank and the ruins of the tack room. These poles once supported horizontal boards, but only a few boards remain in place. The road from the tank to the ranch house runs past the corral; on the opposite side of the road a short section of intact slab fencing leads to a cattle chute made of milled lumber. f.

Small-scale features: Most of the fencing at the ranch is made of wood poles with barbed wire strung between, although a few sections of horizontal-board fencing and log-picket fences survive to either side of the windmill. g. Archeological sites: None have yet been identified at Pine Ranch, but many Native American sites are documented in the vicinity and throughout the Shivwits Plateau. PART III. SOURCES OF INFORMATION A. Primary Sources Bureau of Land Management. General Land Office Records. www.glorecrods.blm.gov. Canaan Cooperative Stock Company Records. Utah Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah. Establishment of the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. Federal Register (Jan. 18, 29. Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument Oral History Collection. Val A.

Browning Library Special Collections, Dixie State College, St. George, Utah. Land entry file no. issued November 24, Records of the Bureau of Land Management (RG National Archives, Washington, Pine Ranch files. Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, St. George, Utah. Preston Nutter Papers. J. Willard Marriott Library Special Collections, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. Tenth Census of the United States, Records of the Bureau of the Census (RG National Archives, Washington, B. Secondary Sources Altschul, Jeffrey H. and Helen C. Fairley. Man, Models and Management: An Overview of the Archaeology of the Arizona Strip and the Management of its Cultural Resources. U.S. Forest 44 Grace Mathis interview.

PINE RANCH HALS AZ-4 (page 17) Service / Bureau of Land Management report, Arizona Department of Water Resources. Arizona Water Atlas. Vol. 6. Western Plateau Planning Area. October Belshaw, Mike, and Ed Peplow, Jr. Historic Resources Study, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada. National Park Service report, Aug. Brown, Frederick L. Paiutes, Mormons, and Mericats: A History of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. Draft. National Park Service Pacific West Region Office, July Mortier, Mark L. Parashant National Monument Historic Preservation Report: Condition Assessment and Preservation Recommendations, Grand Gulch Mine and Pine Well Ranch, September 30, Santa Fe: National Park Service Intermountain Support Office. C. Newspapers Washington County News St. George Spectrum