|
 William
Augustus “Tex” Barkley owned and operated the
Quarter Circle U Ranch for almost 50 years. In the
1940s, Barkley’s ranch covered more than 117
sections. The family ran cattle from Canyon Lake in
the north to almost Castro Springs in the South.
Their range included most of Peter’s Mesa east of La
Barge Canyon and Barkley also had a lease on several
sections of state trust land around Superstition
Mountain. The Barkley Cattle Company owned most of
the land that Gold Canyon and Meadow Brook is
located on today.
Harold Christ and the Dinamount Corporation bought
the Barkley Ranch in 1970 from a business group who
had purchased it from the Barkley heirs in 1965. So
much for the demise of the old Barkley Cattle
Company. Let’s talk about the wild bulls of West
Boulder Canyon.
Each Spring and Fall Barkley would check out his
calve crop and round up the yearlings. There were
several areas on his stock range where it was
impossible to ride a horse. Most cattlemen will tell
you Barkley had the roughest stock range in the
Southwest.
 Removing
wild cattle from Old West Boulder Canyon became an
annual event, but not part of the regular roundup.
Any cattle successfully removed from Old West
Boulder Canyon’s upper reaches would have to be done
on foot and with dogs. There was always water in the
pot-holes and good grass in the Spring, high on the
slopes of Superstition Mountain’s east side. This
was an almost impossible range from which to remove
cattle.
There were old timers around that had a variety of
suggestions on how our problem might be solved. One
old man claimed he used to take a jackass into the
mountains and tie the jackass to a wild bull and
eventually the jackass would lead the bull out of
the mountains. This idea might have been sound in
some areas, but I wasn’t sure you could get a
jackass into the area. Another man suggested we
shoot the bulls, jerk them and haul them out in
packages. This idea sounded most practical to me,
but it was not my decision to make.
Tex Barkley died in early Fall of 1955, and his son,
William Thomas “Bill” Barkley, took over the
operation of the ranch. Jimmy and Tafoya Ruiz lived
at the Quarter Circle U Ranch, and old Jimmy had
worked for Tex for many years. Jimmy stayed on for
about two years after Tex Barkley died, and then he
retired.
It was during my first summer working for the
Barkley’s that I learned of the wild bulls in Old
West Boulder Canyon. I was young, inexperienced and
not too knowledgeable about cattle. I suggested to
Bill that I hike up in the canyon with a couple of
the dogs and try to haze the bulls down into West
Boulder Canyon. I put on my military brogans and
with two of Bill’s cow dogs I started my hike into
Old West Boulder Canyon from the First Water Ranch.
This experience taught me that wild cattle were just
plain “wild.”
Hiking up Old West Boulder convinced me these old
bulls didn’t want to be disturbed. They didn’t plan
on leaving their habitat. The dogs barked, the bulls
jumped from one rock to another and basically
avoided all herding attempts. There was no way these
bulls were going down Old West Boulder Canyon, and
Bill wasn’t very happy with my attempt. Now I
understood why some cattlemen recommended shooting
wild bulls in impassible country. Eventually, the
wild bulls of West Boulder Canyon were shot to rid
their impact on the fragile ecosystem of the canyon.
Cattle were totally removed from the western end of
the Superstition Wilderness by 1990. No grazing
permits have been issued on the western end of the
Superstition Wilderness Area since then. The Barkley
Cattle Company owned most of the land that Gold
Canyon and Meadow Brook is located on today. Several
years ago the Gold Canyon and King’s Ranch Resort
area had a problem with cattle, but this was because
of cattle permitted to graze on state trust land
adjacent to Superstition Wilderness Area.
Wild cattle, grazing cattle, cowboys, windmills,
dirt tanks, salt blocks, barbed wire, and cow pies
on the landscape were all part of the ranching
heritage of the Apache Junction area. For the most
part, it is all gone.
Today, the closest thing to wild bulls and cowboys
are the rodeos here in Apache Junction during the
annual Lost Dutchman Days in February and Ben
Johnson Days in November. |
