By Mona Lange McCroskey

Curtis Ritter passed away in the Cottonwood hospital on September 7, 2006, with his sons, Jake and Tom at his side. Curtis, at ninety, represented the third generation of ranching Ritters to live in Yavapai County, and those who knew and loved him will sorely miss his friendly, gentle presence. Curtis was a storyteller without equal. His passions included flying, radio, and his family. He was equally at home behind the controls of his airplane, driving a school bus, or at a Soil Conservation District meeting.

Curtis' grandfather, rancher Jacob Ritter, and his wife came from the Texas Panhandle to Arizona with the Simmons party. They sojourned for a few months in Prescott before going on to California. In about 1868, Ritter returned to Arizona with some livestock (and a rose bush that is still living) and established the T Ranch in the Hillside area. Their nearest neighbors were Yavapai Indians. It was there that Curtis' father Ed, was born in 1885. One of Ed's most vivid memories was that of going to Prescott with his father on one of his supply buying trips, which he made every six months. It was 1900, and when they topped out where they could see Prescott, they could see smoke billowing from the Whiskey Row fire. 

In 1907, Ed married Nellie Grace Miller (Arizona's Mother of the Year in 1955), who had come from West Virginia to nurse her health-seeking brother, Curtis Miller. Ed was cowboying on the "T's," which by then had been sold to an eastern syndicate, when he met Nellie, who was cooking for the round-up crew. They established their home six miles northwest of Kirkland on the road to Hillside, in a house now occupied by Tom and Phoebe Ritter. A son, Curtis Jacob Ritter, was born to them in 1916. 

Young Curtis attended school at Kirkland through two years of high school classes, then graduated from Prescott High School in the Class of 1934. He was a member of the football team. He completed a correspondence course from the L.L. Cooke School of Electricity and received his amateur radio license in 1931. While he was in high school, he worked at Prescott's first radio station, KPJM, under the tutelage of announcer Frank Wilburn. After graduation, he worked as a truck driver for the Hillside mine and as a "general roustabout" at the combination store-post office-hotel in Hillside for a while. 

He was working at the Yarnell Mine on July 3, 1936, when he married Nora Spillers, whom he had met at a road camp where her father ran the grader. They observed their seventieth anniversary this year. Curtis and Nora first lived in Yarnell, and at Hillside in a tent beside the railroad track, where the light from oncoming engines shone right in the doorway. They had two surviving sons, Jake and Tom, and another, William, who died in infancy. 

Curtis claimed to have been the only male member of the Kirkland Women's Club, because he did all of their chores for them. Nora was dance hall chairman, and together they were stalwarts at the monthly dances for a long time. Incidentally, Nellie Ritter had held the same position years earlier. 

In 1941, the Ritters built their home on the ranch across the road from the original ranch house, or rather, had it hauled up from Phoenix. They paid a thousand dollars for a pre-built kitchen, living room, bedroom, and bath, and lived with a "V" in the living room floor until they constructed an FHA farm home in about 1961. Curtis and Nora lived in that home until 2004, when they moved to the Arizona Pioneers' Home. The bank of Kirkland Creek behind their house was the site of countless gatherings and observances, including weddings, Ritter-Lange family reunions, pig roasts, and Curtis and Nora's sixty-eighth wedding anniversary party. 

For forty-nine years, Ritter served as a member of the Triangle Soil Conservation District, comprised of local people who looked after soil and water erosion issues, and the larger State and National Associations of Conservation Districts. He was president of the state group. Curtis and Nora traveled to many, many meetings, including those held in Hawaii, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Kansas City, Portland, and Las Vegas. Vestiges of the equipment program, in which the District furnished surplus caterpillars, etc. to help stop erosion, languished at the Ritter Ranch for years after the program ended, to the delight of a multitude of visiting children. 

Ritter's community involvements were eclectic. He ran for Yavapai County Supervisor in 1964, and for State Senator, unsuccessfully. He appeared in a Tom Mix movie filmed at the fairgrounds, and acted as master of ceremonies for the rodeo queen contest. In the late 1960s, he was on the Mineral Board of Arizona. He and Vi Irving, of Skull Valley, were instrumental in bringing REA power to Kirkland-Skull Valley area. He was a member of the Arizona Living Stockman's Hall of Fame, and the Yavapai and Arizona Cattle Growers Association. He had a public address system, and he announced regularly at ropings and gymkhanas around Kirkland and Yavapai County. One time he, mistaken for Tex Ritter, was asked to be grand marshal of the rodeo parade. In 2005, he was an honorary parade marshal, for real. 

In 1939, Curtis, along with partners, took his boat to Alaska, sailing from Seattle to Ketchikan, to make his fortune fishing. This venture was interrupted when his father died and he had to return to the ranch. Later, Curtis and Jake made numerous boating and fishing trips to Guaymas, where he became a self-taught scuba diver. 

Curtis was proud to have served his country as an electronics repairman and "slow-speed" radio operator in the Army during World War II. He was in the National Guard before the war, served in the Regular Army during World War II, and re-enlisted in the Guard when he came home in 1945. Called up briefly with the Guard during the Korean War, he attained the rank of second lieutenant. Ritter became the oldest second lieutenant in his National Guard unit and finally had to retire because he was over age in grade; otherwise, he would probably have still been a member. He continued his service as a member of the Ground Observer Corps, an early warning device during the Cold War. He monitored airplanes that were flying overhead. 

In the 1950s and 1960s, he broadcast weather conditions for the Bureau of Reclamation over a short wave radio. 

When Ritter returned from the service, he was really interested in television. He talked to people and looked at sets every chance he got. One day, he was in the RCA wholesale house in Phoenix, when the salesman suggested he sell some sets in Yavapai County. He started with a few sets on consignment and sold about fifty before Sam Hill Hardware got the RCA dealership in Prescott and objected to his competition. He climbed mountains and buttes all over Yavapai County, with "big old antennas" and telescoping masts that went fifty feet in the air, his boys in tow. Basically, he just walked around with the antenna, looking for a signal. His sons were relieved when he began driving the school bus. 

Curtis had been a member of the Kirkland School Board for thirty years when he began driving the school bus, a job he inherited from his sister, Rose. The Board was having trouble finding a good driver, and when Ritter said he would drive "if they'd raise the wages a couple hundred bucks," he found himself employed. The ranch was leased at that time, and he didn't have much work there. He had to put the old bus into drivable condition until a brand-new one arrived, and the first day was terrible. The students, seventh grade through high school, did everything they could possibly think of to make his job difficult. He carried on for years, and in spite of all the tribulations, Curtis formed real bonds with the children. He passed his days in town watching trials in Judge Hancock's court, where son Tom was the court reporter, running errands for people, or napping on the "real nice couch" that Tom had in his office. In 1983, Curtis and Nora lived with Jake in Oregon for a year after his wife died, helping with the children. 

Ritter raised polled Hereford cattle in partnership with his mother and his Uncle, and on his own after their deaths. After he returned from World War II, Curtis resumed ranching. He bought two registered heifers, and by 1967, he had built the herd up to about fifty head of registered Herefords, plus a "commercial herd" of about 175 head. At the same time, he had a commercial hay-baling outfit; working the area from Skull Valley to Waggoner to Kirkland, and as far south as the Muleshoe Ranch. 

Perhaps Curtis was happiest when indulging in his "airplane hobby." His interest stemmed from the time he was a small boy. His first flight was at the dedication of Ernest A. Love Field in Prescott in 1928. He had saved up five dollars, for which he could have a ten-minute ride around the airport in an old Jenny. For ten dollars, he could have flown over Prescott. He settled for the five-dollar ride, and they had just gotten started when an oil line broke on the engine and covered the windshield with oil. The pilot landed, the plane was wiped clean of oil, and, because of the mishap, Curtis got the ten-dollar ride, flying over Prescott. He was unable to get into the Air Corps in the service, but his passion for flying was unabated. After the War, he received an unexpected loan payment of eight hundred dollars and he took flying lessons. Finally, the Ritters were able to justify owning an airplane that Tom could also use in his court reporting business. Curtis and Tom made an annual pilgrimage to the air show and races at Reno; they had reservations to go again this year in September. 

Curtis Ritter endeared himself to everyone with his kind, unassuming manner, perhaps inherited from his West Virginian mother. His family, his friends, colleagues, and probably the students who rode on his school bus, will remember him always. He was proud to have been a member of one of Yavapai County's "first families." 

(Mona Lange McCroskey is a published historian, a dedicated volunteer at Sharlot Hall Museum, and long-time Yavapai County resident.) 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(pb005bi77-169p1445)
Reuse only by permission.
Curtis Jacob Ritter, 1950s.