Pinetop-Lakeside

Early settlers were blessed with natural springs, seeps, and streams, but water rights were not won without a fight. According to Gene Luptak, author of Top O’ the Pines, Henry Huning filed a complaint against water users upstream from Show Low Creek in 1894, charging that they illegally diverted a tributary of Show Low Creek by means of a dam and ditches.

The trial began in December 1895. To Huning’s dismay, the judgment divided water rights equally between litigants on Show Low Creek and its tributaries, giving each party sufficient water for small-scale farming.

Hans Hansen Sr., who settled in Woodland in 1892, had faith that an LDS colony could sustain itself in the mountain country if reservoirs were built. Hans Hansen Jr. and his wife, Loretta Ellsworth, joined his parents in Woodland in 1893. In 1897, Hans Hansen Sr., Hans Hansen Jr., and S.E. Jewell filed the first known notice of appropriation of water from springs in the Pinetop area for the purpose of diverting water to a proposed dam and reservoir. Woodland dam was built.

Hans Hansen Sr. died suddenly in 1901 in Colonia Juarez, an LDS colony in northern Mexico. The following year, Hans Hansen Jr. was called to go on a two-year mission for his church. His wife, known to everyone as “Aunt Retta,” continued to run their farm and raise the children while he was gone. To support her family, she took in sewing and washing and boarded the schoolteacher until she found her true calling as a nurse and midwife to all who needed her.

In 1905, Hans’s younger brother Niels and his wife, Rosabel “Belle” Gardner Hansen, borrowed money and bought the house Niels had built for Will Amos two years earlier. One day, Niels was showing the settlement to Brigham Young Jr. As they rode across a stream, Young is said to have remarked, “This is a beautiful lake site. A town could be built on either side. What a wonderful place to dwell!” It was a prophetic exclamation.

From 1896 to 1904, Arizona experienced the most severe drought yet recorded, according to the Palmer Drought Severity Index. All the springs on top of the Rim dried up, with the exception of Adair. Clearly, a larger reservoir was needed.

Residents of the new colony negotiated with the Show Low Irrigation Co. to use water from the Adair and Walnut springs for irrigation. In return, they agreed to raise the small existing dam to the 10-foot level. The job was completed by 1910.

Niels Hansen designed and made his own surveying instrument to stake out the main canal that would supply irrigation water from Lakeside Lake (now Rainbow Lake) to farmers and ranchers along Show Low Creek. Skeptical neighbors told him his system would not work because he was “trying to make water run uphill.”

Other pioneers involved in water negotiations were John L. Fish, Joseph Peterson, Alof Pratt Larson, John Heber Hansen (no relation to Hans or Niels), and Louis Johnson.

In the early spring of 1906, the six men hunkered down on the sunny side of Niels Hansen’s barn, tossed out a few suggestions, and decided unanimously to call their home Lakeside. When the decision was made, Belle Hansen tied a red cloth to a broom handle in lieu of a flag, and waved it in the air shouting “Hurrah for Lakeside!”

An often-told story is that after the naming of the town, Niels Hansen, Joseph Peterson, John L. Fish, and Louis Johnson rode their horses up to Adair Spring, the primary source of their future irrigation water. Peterson offered a toast to Hansen, saying, “Here’s to the Mayor of Lakeside,” and they all bellied down on the bank to drink a toast with pure, cold spring water.

In October of that year, the US Postal Service hired John L. Fish to serve as the first postmaster of the new town of Lakeside.

Lakeside Lake became the center of activities. Residents cut ice and stored it in sawdust for the summer months in anticipation of ice cream socials. An open pavilion known as the Bowery was built in 1910. It had a plank floor and a roof made of leafy boughs supported by poles. Sunday services were held there before a church was built.

Lakeside pioneers went all-out for the Fourth of July. A barrage of gunfire from ranchers and farmers woke the community at daybreak. Niels Hansen drove a four-horse team pulling a double wagon bed of serenaders. Don L. Hansen said, “Everyone who could sing or thought they could sing crowded in the wagon and rode from one end of town to another singing patriotic songs.”

A morning parade was followed by patriotic speeches. In the afternoon, families held a potluck picnic under the pines. Pony races, footraces, and contests of all kinds took place. Swimming and diving competitions and boat races were held on the lakeshore. Local cowboys competed in a rodeo on a flat that became the Lakeside Forest Service campground.

Leora Schuck summed up early life in Lakeside: “The biggest joys of those days was when we met together at church, house parties, celebrations, etc., with a closeness that made us one big family.”

BIG SPRINGS. Sacred to the White Mountain Apache people for centuries, Big Springs was once a gathering place for Apache ceremonies. Big Springs is now part of the Lakeside District of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests and is used by the Blue Ridge School District as an environmental study area. (Photograph by Lloyd Pentecost.)

HANS NIELSEN HANSEN. Hans Hansen Sr. was a Danish immigrant living in Utah who responded to pioneering settlement calls from LDS leader Brigham Young. As a missionary, he covered vast distances between Salt Lake City and Mexico. In 1879, he moved to Arizona. Serving as bishop of the LDS Show Low Ward in 1884, he traveled to and from Juniper (Linden) and Fort Apache on a little mule. In 1882, he and his wife, Mary Adsersen, bought land in Woodland from Joseph Stock for 20 head of cattle. His sons joined him in the building trade, and they constructed houses from Snowflake to Fort Apache, many of which are still in use. (Courtesy Anne Snoddy-Suguitan.)

HANS NIELSEN HANSEN HOME. This is a photograph of the Hans Nielsen Hansen home in Woodland. (Courtesy Marion Hansen.)

HANS SAMUEL HANSEN, 1902. Hans Hansen Jr. was born in Washington, Utah, in 1862, the son of Hans Hansen Sr. and Mette Adsersen, who died when Hans was two. In 1880, Hans and his sister Anna Jaques and her husband came to Adair, near Show Low. Hans and his father were expert masons, known for using the materials at hand in construction. They made their own plaster of Paris, cement from native clay, and adobe bricks. Hans and Loretta Ellsworth traveled the “Mormon Honeymoon Trail” in a covered wagon and were married in 1885 in the LDS temple at St. George, Utah. Hans devoted his life to his family and community. He died in McNary Hospital in 1953 at age 91. (Courtesy Anne Snoddy-Suguitan.)

LORETTA “RETTA” HANSEN. Like countless other Mormon pioneer women, “Aunt Retta,” as she was known, showed her mettle when her husband, Hans, went to Denmark on a two-year mission for his church in 1902. She had grown up on the Ellsworth ranch in Show Low, riding and driving cattle like her brothers. Her husband’s absence called for extraordinary strength and self-reliance. By the time Hans returned, she had the respect of all the mountain people for her selfless service as a midwife and nurse. In spite of painful rheumatism, she continued to serve with joy, delivering hundreds of babies, almost until her death in 1940. (Courtesy Nancy Stone.)

NIELS SAMUEL HANSEN. The younger brother of Hans Hansen Jr., Niels Hansen moved in 1906 to Lakeside from Show Low, 14 years after his parents, Hans and Mary, had settled in Woodland. Often called “the Father of Lakeside,” Niels was the driving force behind the development of dams and irrigation systems and the man largely responsible for encouraging colonists to come to Lakeside. Historian Leora Schuck remembered, “He was jolly, loved children, frequently carried jelly beans and dimes in his pocket that he surreptitiously . . . handed to some child.” (Courtesy Anna Jackson.)

HARRIET ROSABEL GARDNER HANSEN. Pictured here at top right, friends and family called her “Aunt Belle,” and she was known for her generosity, hospitality, and miraculous ability to make food stretch for her large family and anyone who ventured by. Leora Schuck wrote, “She cooked great pots of beans and beef and vegetable stews and baked huge batches of bread. She played the piano and taught local children to sing. Both school and church services were held in their home at various times. All the Hansen boys could sing and play instruments; all the girls could sing and play the piano. Aunt Belle lived to see all 11 of her children grown.” (Courtesy Renee Penrod.)

RILEY GARDNER HOME. For pioneer women, life consisted of “goodbyes”—leaving familiar surroundings to travel to an unknown frontier; leaving luxuries, conveniences, and even necessities behind; and leaving a husband who had to work away from home for weeks, months, or years at a time. This photograph is of Riley Gardner’s farm. His wife, Frances, is holding a baby while he holds an older child on his saddle. Gardner was a cattleman, cowboy cook, farmer, missionary to the Apaches, and first constable of Pinetop and Lakeside. After raising their nine children, they donated two acres of land to the LDS Church for a cemetery. (Courtesy Marion Hansen.)

NIELS HANSEN HOME. The Niels Hansen family is seen here in 1910 in front of the home Niels built for Will Amos in 1903 and bought back in 1905. From left to right are Erwin, Rosabel (with baby Charles), Don, George, Junius, Irma, Ernestine, Anna, Marion, and Niels. (Courtesy Marion Hansen.)

JOHN LAZELLE FISH AND MELVINA CHENEY. John Lazelle Fish was born to a Utah pioneer family. He was one of the six founders of the LDS colony in Lakeside. He married a Pinedale girl named Melvina Cheney in 1888, when he was 20 and she was 15. They lived in Holbrook, where John worked for the Arizona Cooperative Mercantile Institution (ACMI) store. They spent part of each summer in Pinedale so their children could enjoy the mountains. In 1903, Melvina died at Pinedale, leaving John a widower with seven children to raise. (Courtesy Hazel West Fish Gillespie.)

SATURDAY NIGHT BATH. This charming photograph of Melvina Cheney Fish was taken in Holbrook when her husband, John L. Fish, worked at the ACMI store. It is a reminder of the endless chores of a pioneer wife and mother in the days when water had to be heated on a woodstove and children had to take turns bathing in a tub, youngest first. From left to right are Julia, Hamilton Murphy, Ambrose Marion (baby), and Melvina. (Courtesy Hazel West Fish Gillespie.)

JOHN L. FISH AND JULIA TANNER. Relatives cared for the seven children of John L. Fish and Melvina Cheney when she died. When he married Julia Tanner of Joseph City in 1904, she took on the responsibility cheerfully and had nine children of her own. The family moved to Lakeside in 1906, where he bought a squatter’s right from Billy Scorse, which he homesteaded in addition to a large acreage around it. He served his community as the first postmaster, street planner, justice of the peace, health officer, water master, and church leader. He donated part of his land for both a church and a town school. (Courtesy Arlene Fish McCabe.)

JOSEPH AND AMANDA ANDELIN PETERSON. Joseph Peterson graduated from Brigham Young Academy in Provo, Utah, in 1897, the same year he married Amanda Andelin. The couple moved to Snowflake the following year to organize the new Snowflake Stake Academy. He taught there for eight years, taking off one year for graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1906, the Petersons moved to Lakeside with Niels Hansen’s group, but he continued teaching, encouraging hundreds of young people to strive for a college degree. He also served as a territorial representative, Navajo County school superintendent, and county supervisor. He and Amanda had six children. She died in Holbrook of typhoid in 1919 at age 47. In 1924, Joseph married Lydia Jane Savage Smith. He died in Snowflake in 1943 of lung cancer. (Courtesy Leo Peterson.)

ALOF PRATT AND MARGARET SMITH LARSON. Alof Pratt Larson was born in Snowflake in 1882. In 1904, he married Margaret Smith, a schoolteacher he had been courting for four years. In 1907, they moved to Lakeside and homesteaded on the west side of the lake. Pratt, as he was called, was the first bishop of the Lakeside Ward of the LDS Church, serving from 1912 to 1918. Margaret played the organ for many occasions and was remembered for her popular ice cream socials. Pratt was a surveyor, blacksmith, and carpenter, and set up the first “party line” telephone between Show Low and Lakeside. They kept their land in Lakeside for a summer home but moved to Taylor in 1920. The Larsons served missions to native people on the Navajo, Apache, and Maricopa reservations and in Hawaii. (Courtesy Norma Larson.)

LOUIS AND THERESA FLAKE JOHNSON. Louis Johnson was born in Utah in 1872, but his mother and father moved to Pinedale, on the Mogollon Rim, when he was seven. They built a one-room log cabin but ran out of food the first winter. Niels Hansen rode out and gave them flour and salt pork. The following summer, Louis’s parents left for New Mexico to work on the railroad that was headed west. Louis lived with the Niels Peterson family for six years. At age 15, he hired on as a cowboy for rancher William J. Flake and boarded with James M. Flake. Flake’s daughter Theresa married Louis in 1901, when he was 28 and she was 20. Following the birth of their daughter Lois, Louis went on a two-year mission to Denmark. Theresa moved to Lakeside and cooked for the men who were building the Lakeside dam. When Louis returned, they bought property on both sides of the lake and began farming. Their second child, Anthon Louis, called Tony, was the first child born in Lakeside. The Johnsons had 13 children and raised four grandchildren. Louis died in 1955 at age 82. Theresa died in 1972 at 91. (Courtesy Louise Johnson McCleve.)

JOHN HEBER HANSEN. The oldest of the six founders who named Lakeside, John Heber Hansen was born in Utah in 1859. Tough and self-reliant from a childhood on the frontier, he had little schooling but learned to read and write. At age 20, he was trail boss of an outfit that brought 500 head of cattle, 150 horses, and three emigrant wagons from Utah to central Arizona. Working as a cowboy in the Tonto Basin, he married his boss’s daughter, Emily Jennison Fuller, in 1885 in the St. George, Utah, LDS temple. After many moves, they joined Niels Hansen’s colonists in Lakeside, living in a tent until he could build a house. Emily died in 1921. John Heber, known as “Uncle Dick” to his many friends, lived alone the rest of his life. He died in 1945 at age 86. He lived a life of danger, adventure, hardship, and, in the end, great satisfaction. (Courtesy Melba M. Gardner.)

JOHN HEBER HANSEN AND EMILY JENNISON FULLER HANSEN ON THE PORCH. Leora Schuck described Uncle Dick as “Tall, lean, and weather-beaten, he looked the part of the pioneer he was.” He may have been as tough as a boot heel, but Uncle Dick did not grumble about helping his wife, Emily, by holding a skein of yarn while she wound it into a ball. They both look the picture of contentment. (Courtesy Craig Hansen.)

RANCHER GEORGE SCOTT. George Scott was one of the Scott brothers, early-day sheep ranchers on Show Low Creek and its tributaries. The Scotts came from Oregon to Arizona, with Felix arriving in Holbrook first in the late 1870s. Robert and James came about 1878. Robert had several ranches and was known for his hospitality. Among his many friends was Army scout Tom Horn. In 1898, Robert married Anna Christina Hansen of Lakeside, the widow of Sanford Jaques Sr. (Courtesy Nancy Stone.)

WOODLAND SCHOOL STUDENTS. According to a Navajo County semi-centennial program published in 1929, the first classes were taught in Woodland in the winter of 1893–1894 to 10 pupils. By the time this picture was taken, the school population seems to have doubled and added a dog. The first teacher was Sadie Crandall, and the second was a Mrs. Coleman. The teacher on the right is probably Ruby Potter. (Courtesy Nancy Stone.)

LAKESIDE SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH TEACHERS. In a history written by Ferrell Fish, he stated, “Our early pioneers took the education of their children seriously. The fall of 1906 found them holding school in Uncle Niels’ house with Miss Lucea Foster as teacher. School was held for five months that first year with 13 students in attendance. Classes were moved to Hansen’s bunkhouse for the next five years.” (Courtesy Arlene McCabe.)

SCHOOLTEACHER RUBY POTTER. Ruby Potter was a pretty lady with many admirers. Her best beau was John Elam Fish. They were serious enough to have this portrait taken. (Courtesy Arlene McCabe.)

“ROUGHING IT.” Ruby Potter seems to be slightly unsettled after riding sidesaddle over the malapais and through the mud. (Courtesy Arlene McCabe.)

THE BOWERY. The Bowery was an open-air pavilion with a wooden floor and a roof of boughs supported by poles. Before a church was built, Lakeside colonists held church in the Bowery in summer and in the schoolhouse in winter. (Courtesy Louise Willis Levine.)

MOCK STAGE ROBBERY. During summer festivals, one of the popular events was a mock holdup put on by local cowboys for the benefit of visitors. White Mountain Apache families drove “up the hill” in wagons for these occasions, setting up camp under the pines, participating in races and rodeos, and even playing the part of “wild Indians” for the stage holdup. At night, the Apache campers would build a bonfire and perform Crown Dances, which white people of that time referred to as “Devil Dances.” This photograph was probably taken in the 1920s. (Courtesy Ben Hansen.)

MELODRAMA. Music and drama were part of the summer festivals. This is apparently a melodrama, as the heroine seems to be pleading to the black-hearted villain, “I can’t pay the rent.” In the center of the back row are Erwin and Don L. Hansen. (Courtesy Ben Hansen.)

FIRST AUTOMOBILE IN LAKESIDE, 1912. Ezra West bought the first automobile in Lakeside. From left to right are “Aunt Retta” Hansen, Earl West, Laverne West, Gertrude Hansen, Mary Hansen, Lamar Ellsworth, Hans Hansen, Ezra West, and Julia West. The girls in front are Mary and Gwen West. (Courtesy Lonnie Amos West.)

WHEN THE COWS COME HOME. Before 1919, Lakeside residents had to milk range cows, the outcome of which was unpredictable and sometimes unproductive. Niels Hansen bought 25 head of purebred Holstein dairy cows and a bull named Jerry in Safford. He drove them over the old military trail through Rice and Cassadore Springs to Fort Apache, then up over the Rim to Lakeside. When a cow became sore-footed, Hansen would split a horseshoe and shoe the cow. With his dairy established, he and his sons sold milk, cheese, butter, and ice cream as well as eggs and vegetables to the people working at the mill in McNary. (Courtesy Ben Hansen.)

PHILE KAY FREIGHT OUTFIT TO FORT APACHE. Philemon Henry Kay was born in Idaho in 1877 and came with his parents to Arizona when he was a year old. In 1907, he married Anna Elizabeth Hansen, the daughter of John Heber and Emily Hansen. To support his family, he had many jobs, including freighting with a team and a wagon between Holbrook and Fort Apache. In 1924, he began hauling freight in a truck. One year, he delivered a load of Christmas gifts for Apache families to the Lutheran church in Whiteriver and was unable to get home when a blizzard closed the road. He had to stay with Rev. Edgar Guenther and his wife, Minnie, so he pitched in. They divided clothing and toys from eastern donors, 100 pounds of mixed nuts, apples, and oranges donated by Holbrook mercantile stores, and ribbon candy from Salt Lake. Phile and the Guenthers made 12 washtubs of popcorn. They filled sacks for the Apache children as well as Phile’s family of 12. When Phile saw Reverend Guenther on the next run, he told him it was the best Christmas his family ever had. (Courtesy Guenther Collection.)

THE REV. EDGAR AND MINNIE GUENTHER. Edgar Guenther was a young seminarian at the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod Seminary when he learned there was a pastoral vacancy for missionary work among the Apache Indians of Arizona. There was one prerequisite he lacked. The church wanted a married man. Edgar was not even engaged, but he had been seeing a young lady named Minnie Knoop. He showed up on her doorstep as soon as he could get there and asked her if she would marry him and go to Arizona. Without hesitation, she said yes. The young couple traveled by railroad, freight wagon, and buckboard to Fort Apache in 1911. It was the beginning of a lifetime of Christian service to the White Mountain Apache people. With the support of Chief Alchesay and the Apache people, Edgar Guenther established a church, a school, and an orphanage, nursed the sick through the flu epidemic, and ministered to six congregations. Minnie raised their nine children and several Apache children while serving as the church organist and a nurse, teacher, and community leader. She was honored as a national Mother of the Year and is in the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame. (Courtesy Guenther Collection.)