plendid past to a future
as one of the important towns of the Southwest, if the stories of untold
riches near by her are to be believed.

A little to the east of Tubac and separating that town from Patagonia is
Mount Wrightson, one of the highest mountains in Arizona. Nicknamed "Old
Baldy" after its famous namesake in California, this mammoth pile of
rock and copper was in the old days a landmark for travelers, visible
sometimes for days ahead on the wagon trails. It presaged near arrival
in Tucson, for in a direct line Old Baldy is probably not further than
forty miles from the Old Pueblo.

We camped at Tubac during the summer and part of the winter of 1867 and
I remember that while we were there I cooked a reception banquet to
Colonel Richard C. McCormick, who was then and until 1869 Governor of
the Territory of Arizona. I forget his business in Tubac, but it was
either an electioneering trip or one of inspection after his appointment
to the office of Governor in 1866.

In the early part of 1868 we moved to Fort Buchanan, which before the
war had been a military post of considerable importance. It received its
name from the President before Lincoln and was garrisoned by
Confederates during the Civil War. We re-built the fort and re-named it
Fort Crittenden, in honor of General Thomas L. Crittenden, a son of the
Hon. John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, who was then in command of the
military district embracing that portion of the Territory south of the
Gila River. Crittenden was beautifully situated on the Sonoita, about
ten miles from where I now live and in the midst of some of the most
marvelously beautiful scenery to be found on the American continent.
Fort Crittenden is no longer occupied and has not been for some time;
but a short distance toward Benson is Fort Huachuaca, where at present a
garrison of the Ninth Cavalry is quartered.

During part of 1868 I carried mail from where Calabasas is now--it was
then Fort Mason--to Fort Crittenden, a proceeding emphatically not as
simple as it may sound. My way lay over a mountainous part of what is
now Santa Cruz county, a district which at that time, on account of the
excellent fodder and water, abounded with hostile Indians.

On one occasion that I well remember I had reached the waterhole over
which is now the first railroad bridge north of Patagonia, about a half
mile from the present town, and had stopped there to water my horse.
While the animal was drinking I st