By William "Bill" Peck
Burro Creek glides down from the high plateaus of the Baca Grant into the Big Sandy River where together with the Santa Maria River; they combine to form the Bill Williams River. History has had a habit of confusing these streams, the names of which are reversed and interchanged on older maps.
I first became acquainted with Burro Creek in 1943 when Louie Schmidt took me there. Louie lived in small house in Hillside beside Darnal's Store. A single bed occupied the north wall that was also a lounge, storage area and took up a good part of the 12' by 15' floor space of the building. A wood stove took up the east wall and the wonder of the place, an assay furnace and shelves of chemicals squoze in beside a neat shelf of books, classics in Latin Greek and German, serious volumes on chemistry and mineralogy and philosophy, occupied the west wall. Louie was one of the last real prospectors that built the west.
Louie took a liking to me since I was perhaps the first and last Hillsideean to inquire about his library. One day he mentioned that he was going to Burro Creek for a couple weeks to visit a friend and wondered if I should like to come along. Burro Creek! That was where the giant Colorado Salmon were rumored to abide. Since 4" sunfish were whoppers in my regular fishing hole, such an offer had merit.
I grabbed my mescal stalk and a can of bait, and off we went. It was thirty-five miles to John Zannaropolis's place that sat on a hillside that offered a view of the Creek. We arrived in the back of John's khaki GI truck. The color and the truck were somewhat exotic at the time.
John was remembered by us Hillsideeans for promoting a tungsten mine to the government during wartime. The mineral his Burro Creek mine possessed was scheelite, a calcium-tungsten carbonate, and was amorphous, that is, it was like clay, and slimed when milled and impossible to collect by gravity separation from the gangue. John worked on this separation problem for years. He had an impressive laboratory and was building a mill powered by the creek water.
John's house was as great a marvel as his truck. He shared it with his nephew, John Robinson, as the two worked diligently building their mill. The house had a screen porch that surrounded it, as did most desert houses of the time. Canvas shades sheltered it from the winter storms and summer sun. The entire structure stood upon a poured concrete floor made from sand. It was roomy and bright and so designed that the air cross-circulated through it. There was an indoor sink and an outdoor shower heated by the sun. A generator provided lights at night. It was the most comfortable and well-equipped and roomy house I had seen.
By this time I was thirteen, and Arizona law didn't make school attendance compulsory after 12 years of age if you had finished the 8th grade, I figured I had out-distanced my teachers and had quit. I sat mesmerized by the conversations of the two Johns and Louie as they discussed subjects such as: mining, milling, geology and prospecting. A whole new world unveiled itself.
Mornings and evenings when the fish were biting I could be found fly fishing for bonytails. These are the bonytail chubs that are now on the endangered species list but then abounded by the hundreds in the clear water riffles of Burro Creek that ranged to 15 inches long. We called them "Verde Trout," excellent game fish that would both hit a fly and leap from the water when hooked just like a trout.
Other, huge three-foot fish swam the quarter mile long, deep, clear pools. Their identity is still a mystery, but it is possible the fabled Colorado Salmon still existed, if there ever was such a fish. Catfish of 25 pounds or more were common. Something swam off with one of my twenty-pound test lines one night during a total lunar eclipse.
John Zannaropolis took a liking to me and offered to take me under his wing and teach me chemistry and math. It might have worked out if he hadn't mentioned the math. I wasn't inclined to stoke my brain with book learning after having my imagination triggered by the stories of lost mines I had been hearing. And the fish called, too.
John Robinson woke us all up during the night yelling and screaming like the devil had him. A foot long, inch wide centipede had clamped onto his belly and wouldn't let go. We tried everything but the durn critter just clung to John. John Z finally yanked it lose with a pair of pliers. John was in such agony that we all left for Hillside in the GI truck. John spent months in the hospital recovering. This was a rather sad climax to a kid's adventure.
An old house, which dates into the early part of the century, stands near the Zannaropolis Mill. A mechanical arrastra, a device to grind ore with, and the remains of a wonderful example of an early home (it was more than a house, as it had once known the hand of a woman) decays in the desert sun. Recent vandals have added to time's hand and the timbers are caving in. Today, the Zannaropolis Mill and house are a pile of ruins. How soon time extracts its dues, the sun does its work and thoughtless people obliterate man's early works. Ancient edifices were made of stone and clay. Our world of paper and wood will never equal their test of time. Soon not a trace of our early passing will survive.
(William Peck is a long time resident of Hillside. If you are interested in writing short histories of Yavapai County and the region for the Courier, contact the Museum Archives at (928) 445-3122)
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (Courtesy of Bureau of Land Management). Reuse only by permission.
Today one can find campgrounds along the banks of Burro Creek off of highway 93. The author went on a fishing trip to the area in the early 1940s where he spent time with some real miners. The trip is still very clear, right down to the sour ending.