By Stan Brown

 This is Part 1 of a three part article.  Part 2 was published on June 28, 2008 and Part 3 was published July 12, 2008 and all are in the SHM L&A Days Past Archives.

The Las Fuentes Resort Village in Prescott, off Ruth Street, comes by its name naturally, which is Spanish for "springs" or "fountains." It is situated on the site of several artesian springs that bubble out of their granite prisons at the northern end of Miller Valley. The area was originally called "West Prescott." The springs form headwaters for the North Fork of Granite Creek, the primary drainage for the Prescott area and the uppermost tributary of the Verde River.

Here settlers established Prescott's earliest farms at the foot of hills that rise abruptly to the heights of current Rosser Road and the Yavapai Indian Reservation. The first Anglo family to settle in the Prescott area, Julius and Celia Sanders with several of their children, arrived at this place in March of 1864. They were grateful to find abundant water, luxurious grass and proximity to Fort Whipple's protection from Indian raiders. 

The wanderlust that afflicted so many American pioneers in the second half of the 19th century had plagued Julius Sanders. In 1860, he uprooted his wife and the unmarried five of their eight children, to prospect for gold in Colorado. A year later he packed their wagon and headed for the gold strikes in California. For several years the family farmed and sold produce to miners while Julius and his sons Robert, Tom, Peter and Irvin continued their search for the elusive metal. 

In 1863, they got word of the Walker Party's gold strikes in Arizona on the Hassayampa River and Lynx Creek. Julius sent his sons Robert, then 30, and Thomas, then 18, from California to check on it. They arrived in November and found the prospects so hopeful they sent for their family. Meanwhile, the Miller brothers, Sam and Jake, members of the Walker Party, had already begun to stake out squatter's rights in the area they called Spring Valley. It would soon be called Miller Valley. Tom and Robert Sanders had also located a well-watered tract of flat land in the area and staked their claim for the family. 

In January of 1864, Julius and Celia Sanders sold their California farm and began the trip to Arizona. After crossing the Colorado River, they often had to blaze their own wagon road across the rough desert trail. The toll roads that would lead from Hardyville and Ehrenburg to Prescott had not yet been built. The hardship of this trip was compounded when their wagon broke down three times and then had to be discarded, with all their possessions put on the mules. Then Irvin's pistol fell from its holster while he was chopping wood, discharged, and he sustained a wound in the shoulder. This wound gave him trouble for many years, as indicated by this quote from the Arizona Miner, October 1, 1907, "Irvine Sanders, the pioneer freighter, is out after a long sick spell, the result of a gun shot wound he accidentally received while driving into the country in 1864. He is expected to resume business soon." 

At this same time, the Territorial Governor's party, along with Cavalry units, arrived at Del Rio Springs in Chino Valley. The rest of the Sanders family probably arrived along the trail we call Iron Springs Road. Then it was often referred to as the Skull Valley Road. Robert and Tom Sanders showed their family the site they had chosen for a farm. It began at a spring bubbling out of the granite rocks, and there they pitched their tents. That spring still flows today and can be found tucked among the trees at the intersection of Willow Creek, Miller Valley, Iron Springs and Whipple Roads. This is just south of the helicopter pad at the Yavapai Regional Medical Center today. 

Over the next weeks, the Sanders family cleared the land running east, and found the artesian springs that form the headwaters of the North Fork of Granite Creek where Las Fuentes Resort Village is located today. The springs and seepage at the foot of the surrounding hills provided excellent grass for cattle; the goodly stand of timber provided both firewood and logs for cabins. Within a few weeks, the family ran out of supplies and, to sustain themselves, they moved out to Fort Whipple at Del Rio Springs in Chino Valley. The Army employed them and, in addition to their pay, they received rations. After three weeks, the Miller Brothers' pack team arrived from Ehrenburg with supplies and this enabled the Sanders' to move back to their location in Spring Valley. They set up a permanent camp, continued to clear the land and used the logs to build a two-room cabin and other necessary buildings. They fenced much of the tract to keep in their cattle, and began preparations to raise crops. They had no sooner gotten the house built when Julius, true to the pioneering spirit, wanted to move the family again, this time to Texas. However, Celia and the children refused to be moved and he was forced to settle down and improve the land. 

In July 1864, a second wave of settlers arrived in Miller Valley, as it began to be called, and in the fall several more families arrived. However, the Sanders family had laid claim to the choice land with the flowing springs, including the current Las Fuentes property. A number of 'firsts' were happening: in November, the marriage of Mary Jane Ehle, whose family had come in July, was Prescott's first wedding; the first child born in Prescott arrived January 9, 1865 to John and Molly Simmons, who had arrived in Miller Valley the previous October; in May and June of 1864 the town had been named and laid out along Granite Creek": and the Sanders brothers had joined the Miller brothers on freighting trips that brought supplies from the Colorado River to Prescott. The Sanders family was cultivating their land, raising garden produce and 35 acres of corn. In between freighting and farming, the men of the family continued to work the mines on the Hassayampa River and pan for gold on Lynx Creek. 

Fort Whipple had moved from Chino Valley to Granite Creek, and the proximity of soldiers enabled settlers like the Sanders to carry on without attacks by the Indians. However, skirmishes continued, including one event close by: Celia Sanders heard Tom Simmons calling for help because he was pinned down by an Indian ambush. She ran up over the hill toward Fort Whipple for help, and after encountering a soldier on the road, help soon arrived to chase off the raiders. 

Tom Sanders set about developing his own freight business. He had enough money from his share of the corn crop to buy six mules and a wagon. With this equipment he could haul bigger loads and make better time than with his packhorses, caravanning with the Millers for added protection. Julius Sanders continued to acquire additional tracts of land in the northern part of the valley. And as the years went by, he sold parcels of these tracts to his sons and to other newcomers. 

The Sanders' siblings branched out in business and the social scene. In 1867, Mary Francis Sanders married Sam Miller, uniting the two original settler families in Miller Valley. In the late fall of 1872, Tom sold his freight outfit to the Miller brothers, and took a trip to Illinois. He was 27 years old and memories of his childhood and early youth drew him to the place of his birth. He also desired to see the siblings he had left behind, especially his sister who was now a widow with three children. She was in the Sanders' hometown of Girard, Illinois, south of Springfield. Jake Miller went back with Tom because he had children in Peoria, Illinois. Tom stayed with them a while in Peoria and, when he met one of Jake's daughters; it was love at first sight. He wrote in his memoirs, "I saw Cynthia Miller and I felt that she was the girl for me. But I trusted to the future as I knew Jake was going to take the children back with him and I would see them again." 

After his visit in Peoria, he continued on to Girard to see his widowed sister, Lockey. He stayed with her through the winter and the damp weather caused him to have a cold the entire time. That spring of 1873, he writes, "I made arrangements to move my sister and lost no time in getting her on board the train for the Golden West. I got through transportation for her to Orange, in Orange County, California, with a brief stop at Tecumseh, Nebraska, where we visited our two sisters living there." 

After settling his sister in California, he returned to his father's farm in Prescott and joyfully discovered Jake Miller had brought his girls, Serelda and Cynthia to Arizona as he had promised. They were living at the Miller ranch "close to my father's home, which pleased me very much. I had not changed my mind a bit about Cynthia being the only girl for me. I began a furious courtship as soon as (I) could gracefully do so after my return. I think it was about a month before I got her to consent to accompany me to the altar. I hurried up and got a preacher for fear that she might change her mind. She made a fine wife, loving, kind and considerate and was loved by the neighbors everywhere we lived." 

Part II of III will appear next week.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(pb037a1p12)
Reuse only by permission.
Mr. & Mrs. Julius Sanders, c1870s. 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(citn211pa)
Reuse only by permission.
Looking toward Prescott from Miller Valley, 1884. 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bure4110p)
Reuse only by permission.
The Sam Miller residence, which was located at a site near the recently closed El Chapparel Restaurant on Miller Valley Road, c1890s.