Aaron M. Wright, Ph.D.
As the country celebrates its 250th anniversary, it helps to put Arizona’s history in context. Arizona wasn’t part of the United States until acquired from Mexico in the mid-1800s. In 1776, as eastern colonies were signing the Declaration of Independence, the Tucson’s Spanish presidio was less than a year old, and Yavapai County remained uncharted territory.

But Arizona has a 250th anniversary to commemorate. The National Park Service calls it Anza250—marking a colonizing expedition from the Province of Sonora to the San Francisco Bay region, the northern reach of New Spain. Led by Spanish Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, the 1,800-mile journey from late 1775 to mid-1776 included about 250 people—mostly soldiers and their families—and roughly a thousand head of cattle. Remarkably, only one person died, while three were born, meaning the party grew during what must have been a grueling trek.

Letters and diaries by Anza and his companions— Pedro Font, Tomás Eixarch, and Francisco Garcés, all Franciscan priests serving missions in northern Sonora—allow historians to trace the route. Across Arizona, the party followed the Santa Cruz River north to the Gila River, then west, following the Gila to its confluence with the Colorado River at present-day Yuma. The National Park Service commemorates this path as the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail.

The expedition passed far south of Prescott, but that doesn’t mean the region—or Yavapai County—was untouched. One of the priests, Garcés, was a seasoned itinerant who had already traveled widely in central Arizona and southern California. After Anza’s party reached the Colorado River, Garcés set out alone to search for a route linking Mojave villages along the river with Spanish missions on the Pacific Coast, particularly San Gabriel near present-day Los Angeles. After charting this route—the famed Mojave Trail—he turned east, seeking a connection between Mojave country and the Western Pueblos of Hopi and Zuni. Such a corridor would have linked the church’s northernmost New Mexico missions with those of Alta California.

To reach Hopi, Garcés enlisted Hualapai guides he met among the Mojave. To show him the breadth of their homeland, they chose a circuitous route across much of what is now the Hualapai Reservation. From the Mohave Valley, they traveled east through Sitgreaves Pass in the Black Mountains, crossed the Sacramento Valley and passed through Railroad Pass near present-day Kingman. They continued through Hualapai Valley, around the north end of the Peacock Mountains, and into Truxton Wash. Ascending the wash, they reached the Aubrey Cliffs, climbed onto the Coconino Plateau, crossed Cataract Canyon and finally joined the Hopi Trail near the Little Colorado River.

Just as Anza’s winter route passed south of Prescott, Garcés’s 1776 summer journey passed to the north through what are now Mohave, Coconino and Navajo Counties. Yet a close reading of Garcés’s diary suggests his guides may have led him briefly through a remote corner of Yavapai County. Here’s how.

Garcés records reaching wells he named Pozos de San Basilio, now known as Peach Springs. From there, he describes traveling in several directions before heading northeast toward the Aubrey Cliffs. The most logical route from Peach Springs—mirrored today by the Seligman Subdivision of the BNSF Railway—would be east through Yampai Canyon, at the headwaters of Truxton Wash, toward the Yampai Divide, then northeast across Aubrey Valley. This stretch of Yampai Canyon, site of the historic Nelson mining community, lies in the far northwestern corner of Yavapai County.

So, as part of his wide-ranging travels across the Southwest, Francisco Garcés—Anza Expedition priest guided by the Hualapai—appears to have stepped, if only briefly, into Yavapai County 250 years ago.

Aaron M. Wright, Ph.D. presents “Following Their Footsteps: Indigenous Geography and the Anza Expedition of 1775-1776,” 2 pm, March 21st at Sharlot Hall Museum’s Education Building Auditorium. Visit sharlothallmuseum.org/event-calendar/ for details.
 
“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1. The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.