TRAVEL WITH THE BAYFIELD BUNCH:)): Pearce Arizona Mercantile Store

Showing posts with label Pearce Arizona Mercantile Store. Show all posts

Saturday, November 28, 2009

OLD PEARCE HERITAGE DAYS PART 2

REFLECTIONS IN THE RANCH POND

We are under stormy skies with heavy wind gusts. A few spatters of rain a couple hours ago & that was about it. Cold front bringing in rain & snow to the higher elevations over the next few days. Might see some snow on the Swiss Helm mountains east of us.

AN OLD TIMER REMEMBERS DAYS GONE BY

Jeanie & Ray, the ranch owners made it home to-day after their 3 week cruise to Hawaii. Had themselves a good time but they were looking pretty tired with lots of un-packing to do. We didn't tie them up with a bunch of questions like, how big was the ship, was Hawaii green, did you swim in the ocean & if so was the water really wet!!

I sorted out all my Pearce Heritage Days photos to-day, assembled them into an album & am uploading that album right now as I'm typing this. You can see those captioned pictures by clicking OLD PEARCE HERITAGE DAYS You can also see our previous visit to Pearce LAST MARCH. If anyone reading this happens to live in this area maybe you could pass on the albums address to anyone living near here. I'm sure some of the folks would get a kick out of maybe seeing some of their friends. I did catch a few colorful characters' with my 200mm lens:))

THIS COLD WILD WEST STARE NEARLY FROZE UP MY CAMERA LENS

This is a brief history of Pearce: The discovery of gold in the 1880's set off gold rush fever & resulted in prospector's flooding into the area from neighboring mining towns like Tombstone & Bisbee. The frenzy was so great that it nearly emptied Tombstone of it's residence. People dismantled their homes & business's & hauled them over the Dragoon Mountains by wagonloads to Pearce. By 1896 100 homes had been built with 2 or 3 being added each week. A stage & mail route was established to Tombstone & soon Pearce had 4 grocery & merchandise stores, many eating places including 2 Chinese restaurants, a butcher shop, 4 boarding houses, a blacksmith shop, livery stables as well as brothels & saloons. A Doctor's office opened & by 1896 Pearce had it's own Post Office & jail. A school opened in 1897 & was also used as a Church. The population soon blossomed to 1500 residents with a large dance hall, movie theater, & a golf course. Mining & Milling Companies had moved in establishing mines & by 1903 a rail line was in operation bring supplies & hauling out the ore. The mine flourished until 1904 when flooding limited underground mining. A fire at the mine in 1910 added further stress to the declining market but the town struggled on into the 1930's. The mine finally closed & the railway was terminated. People demolished their homes to avoid paying property taxes & by 1935 less than 50 people lived in Pearce. To-day Pearce is a ghost town. The mine is silent, streets are deserted, & only a few buildings remain including the old Pearce Store built in 1896. Once a year the town comes to life for 2 days following the Thanksgiving week-end.

TAKING THE ALPACAS FOR A WALK

Kelly & I consider ourselves very fortunate to have been a part of Pearce's Old Heritage Days for a few hours on Friday November 27th & I hope my photos somehow find their way onto area computers & into the hearts of the local folks in the area. Thanks for the photo opportunities folks:))

To-morrow we are off to see a lady who lives just 6 miles from the Mexican border in a 14 sided house called a Polygon. That should make for some interesting photos.

Monday or Tuesday I'll post photos & some history of the ghost town we drove through Friday.........Courtland.

We received a couple of electronic internet cards from some Arizona friends lately but we haven't been able to open the cards yet because of our Verizon megabytes problem so to Jerry & Suzy & Paws & Hooves we'll say thanks in advance until we can get over to the Elfrida Library to open them. Thanks guys:))

GROANER'S CORNER:(( I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a mussel.

BLOGGER WEBSITE http://thebayfieldbunch.com/

OUR PHOTO ALBUMS http://picasaweb.google.com/stargeezerguy/

The only thing better than right now will someday be the memories of right now....AL.

MY SMUG MUG (I am finally working on updating this site)

http://stargeezer.smugmug.com/

OLD PEARCE HERITAGE DAYS

SUNDOWN AT THE RANCH TO-NIGHT

We ate ourselves up some dust this morning on the old Ghost town trail to Pearce. We had heard there were a few old ruins left from an old mining town called Courtland along the dusty road east of another ghost town...Gleeson. A few stone walls & old masonry is about all that is left amongst the prickly pear cactus & Mesquite trees. One heavily constructed concrete building had iron bars on small high windows which made us wonder if it had once been a jail. A long cement slab sidewalk fronted what must have been 6 or 7 stores at one time. Only the low crumbling wall foundations are left showing through the low scrub brush. I will post photos of Courtland in a later blog & will upload an album on to-day's short hike later this week. Despite re-sizing my photos I am still reluctant to upload everything to our web album through our Verizon broadband because something is still chewing up our megabytes!! I will wait until we get to the Elfrida LIbrary again.

OLD RUINS IN THE GHOST TOWN OF COURTLAND

We rolled into the tiny community of Pearce just before noon. The road runs right through town so we just pulled off to the side where people were scattered about looking at some old farm machinery. There isn't too much in Pearce but what is there is interesting. We had been to Pearce this past March & on that day we were the only ones on the street. But, things were livelier to-day with Pearce's annual Old Pearce Heritage Days in full swing. Vendors, music, colorful characters, old machinery, & best of all.....the old general mercantile store was open for viewing. The inside of this store is a treasure trove of old artifacts. I was very surprised when I walked through the front door to see the excellent shape this store was in & how every nook & cranny was tastefully filled with everything imaginable. I was immediately attracted to the colors & the way the store was cozily lit. Old lamps, dated china, glassware, clothes, showcases & shelves filled with history. We have been through old stores before & I would say this one in Pearce is one of the best.

THE PEARCE MERCANTILE STORE

An small red & obviously antique machine sat by the road whirring & chugging with a wide belt turning a barrel like thing with a bunch of ice cubes inside. It was a home made ice cream machine:)) Kelly waited nearly half an hour at this spot for the next & last batch of home made ice cream to be made. In the meantime I wondered off & corralled myself a big double Texas hamburger. Just finished that up when Kelly walked over with a cup of ice cream. First time I remember eating home made ice cream & it was really tasty. Kelly tried on some unique palm frond hats & finally found one on a seconds table for $10. Live music in a small alley beside the old store had the old timers taping their toes.

ENTERTAINMENT IN THE ALLEY

My enjoyment at these types of events is photographing things. I enjoy candid photography & it's fun watching for people doing just ordinary things that people do. The colors & merchandise inside the Mercantile Store also made for some interesting pictures as well as the old farm machines outside. By the time we got home I had 3 camera's with 261 photos to download. Takes me awhile to edit each & every photo in my Picasa photo editing program at the end of the day but I enjoy that just as much as taking the pictures. It's a fun hobby for me. It will take me a few days to get all my Pearce photos from to-day into an album & up onto the web but maybe, just maybe somebody from Pearce may stumble across our site some day & maybe even find themselves on the internet:))

A FESTIVE ATMOSPHERE TO-DAY

We were back to the ranch by 3 & it didn't take me long to get my feet up & get some zzzzzzzz's rolling. It was a good day because we got to see some new scenery, scramble around some ruins, take a few pictures & just generally enjoy another fine sunny Arizona day. And, of course it was another in a series of great sunsets:))