By Ronald E. Bromley
(In September of 2003, there appeared Days Past article about Humboldt, which inspired this author to send in these reminiscences to the Sharlot Hall Museum)
It was 1945, but my first visit to Humboldt, Arizona is quite vivid. We left Los Angeles early one morning in our 1941 Studebaker Champion with suitcases neatly packed into the trunk to save room for all five passengers on the long, hot, and often dusty ride. Most of the time dad drove and mom (Vivian) sat in the front with Bob Jr. or me. Grandma Wahlater sat in the back with one of us grandchildren.
Dad had been able to get enough gas stamps for this long trip, primarily because the War had ended. One night in a hotel and then late the next evening we arrived in Humboldt. Dad turned left onto Main Street, the Black Canyon Highway, and made a right turn going down and across the railroad tracks, then a second right and up a little hill to uncle Nels and Aunt Elsie's house.
It was grandma's first visit in five years. She and uncle Nels did lots of talking and the next few days showed us lots of places and things that were important to them. Places like 'Nob' Hill, with its sidewalks and tennis courts. Just two years later, Nels and Elsie would move into the last house on the hill and live there until it burned down in 1950. Many of the other fine houses on the hill had been moved to Prescott after 1937 when the Smelter closed.
Our hosts pointed out 'The Hollow', 'Little Mexico' and 'Cook Town'. We saw where the hospital my mother was born had stood, the foundation of the old company clubhouse and the steps to what had been the domed schoolhouse. For my brother and me the important things were the burros that roamed the streets freely and the coffee shop next to the general store. The coffee shop served ice cream and had four slot machines. Aunt Elsie made sure that Bob Jr. and I got our share of ice cream and grandma put a few nickels into a slot machine. Why we were there was hard for a 5 year old to understand, the important thing was it was a fun vacation with grandma.
My grandmother was Bessie May Riggs. She gave birth to Vivian M. Riggs (my mother) on August 5, 1914 in Humboldt. She was delivered by Doctor Charles S. Vivian (her namesake) just 10 days following the tragic death of her father, Daniel Milton Riggs. Riggs was a pipe fitter for Consolidated Arizona Smelting in late 1913 and helped to re-open the smelter at Humboldt, which had been idle since 1907. According to the coroner's inquest, Riggs was "shocked to death by a powerful electric voltage" while installing a pipeline at the pump house on Chaparral Gulch. He was buried in Prescott at the Mountain View Cemetery.
For the next seven years Vivian was raised primarily in Humboldt, but also around the McCabe, Blue Bell, and Little Jessie mines with her half brother Sidney F. Buckles. Bessie was employed by the company to run boarding houses in Humboldt and near these other mines. I have seen a photograph of my mother, age 8 months, sleeping in an apple box on the kitchen floor of the McCabe boarding house.
Things were not easy for a widowed mother trying to raise two small children in a smelting town, so Bessie wrote to her younger brother Nelson R. Johnson and pleaded with him to come to Arizona and help her. In 1916, Nels arrived in Humboldt and went to work for Charlie P. Wingfield in the general store. Nels was a big help to Bessie, but at the same time was very active in his own pursuits. He met Elsie Love, courted her, and they married in 1917 in Prescott.
Things began booming at the smelter and in all the mines in north-central Arizona due to the war effort. Hundreds of railroad cars were moving ore to and from the smelter. One of the railroad workers in Humboldt at this time was Elmer Frederick "Fred" Wahlater, a Spanish American War veteran. Nels and Elsie became friends with Fred who then became acquainted with Bessie and her two children.
In April of 1918, Nels was sent to Kansas to be trained to fight in World War I. Two months after leaving Prescott, Nels was fighting in France. He was wounded and returned home to Humboldt in April of 1919. Shortly after Nels' return, a marriage license was issued to E.F. Wahlater and Mrs. D.M. (Bessie) Riggs on September 2, 1919. According to the certificate of marriage, the ceremony was actually performed on the day before by the Reverend M.A. Martin and witnessed by Nels and Elsie.
The winds of life are ever changing and hard times again slowed the production of copper in the mines and smelters of the Humboldt area. Fred Wahlater found work in the roundhouse at Cooley, Arizona (now McNary) with the Apache Lumber Company. Some years later he would move his family west, always finding good employment with the railroad companies that sprang up. His last, and one of his longest jobs, was with the Veterans Administration Hospital at Sawtelle, California, as a steamfitter. Both Fred and Bessie died and are buried in California.
Vivian M. Riggs married Robert E. Bromley in Los Angeles, California, in 1934 and raised two sons: Robert E. Bromley Jr. (now of Bend, Oregon) and Ronald E. Bromley (this author, who lives in Prescott). She visited Humboldt many times throughout her life, and died in 1989.
Nels and Elsie Johnson had two children, a son Richard and a daughter Beverly. As mining slowed down they left Humboldt for a while, but returned in 1939 when Nels bought the general store from C.P. Wingfield and renamed it the Leadway Department Store. For the next 10 years Nels and Elsie ran the store, coffee shop, and sometimes the gas station and theater.
In 1949, Nels sold the store and went to work for the Iron King Mine, as a night watchman. He died in 1952 and Elsie passed away in 1970 in Phoenix. Their daughter Beverly lives with her husband, Don Schuck, out Williamson Valley way. Their son Richard passed away in 1970 and is buried in the Mountain View Cemetery, less than 100 yards from D.M. Riggs. Both have good views of the Prescott High School football field. I like to believe that both were or are football fans.
As I drive around this area today, I lament that everything has changed, but it is good to see the smoke stack at Humboldt and gaze down Lonesome Valley and remember how it was in the late 40s, 50s, and long before.
(Ronald E. Bromley retired after thirty-seven years with the Boy Scouts of America in California, Idaho, Washington and New Mexico and moved to Prescott on July 1, 2003)
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(Vivian Riggs) Reuse only by permission.
Vivian Riggs takes the upper hand of this automobile in 1917 Humboldt, Arizona. You may have never heard of the Riggs or the Johnsons of Humboldt, but their story will help you to understand the tapestry of lives that it takes to make up a community.