Superior, Pinal, Silver King, Queen Creek, Picket Post, Magma, and Boyce Thompson, Arizona:

a brief history

Globe to Superior highway circa 1929

Globe - Superior Highway (US 60) near Globe circa 1929

Just west-south-west of present-day Superior, about 2.5 miles, and not a half mile east of the present-day W. Boyce Thompson Arboretum (in Picket Post canyon) is the confluence of 3 streams, the middle of which is now called Queen Creek. In the early prospecting years in Arizona, 1850-1875, stream and wash beds were the easily navigated routes through mountainous areas. There, on the ridge to the east of the junction of three such routes sprung a small supply-route town which was called Hastings. Nearer the confluence, 11/28/70, a General Stoneman set-up an Army camp (called Picket Post Camp), and began construction of a road to the new Globe Mine up the north fork. While digging for the new road, one of his soldiers, Sullivan, is credited with first discovering the silver-load that was to become the Silver King. By 8/71 Stoneman lost command to Crook, the camp was abandoned, and the road was never improved beyond the future Silver King site. Sullivan showed samples from his mine-site to a friend, a Florence (35 miles SW) farmer, and then supposedly disappeared (believed killed by natives). The farmer, along with 4 friends, went looking for Sullivan's silver and found it a few miles north-east of the old Picket Post. Starting about 1873 they began workings, but being poor miners, they initially lost money a lot of money. They sold the mine to a Yuma man Jim Barney, who eventually incorporated the company as Silver King of Arizona Mining Co. to raise development capitol in 1877, and a mining frenzy began there.

Apache Trail circa 1923

Near Roosevelt Lake, north of Silver King, circa 1923

The ore and supply route for the Silver King went along Picket Post canyon and at the first water a milling/transportation town sprung-up, for the mines' ores, at [about] the present-day location of the W. Boyce Thompson Arboretum: the Thompson family home later during the teens. Called Picket Post its Post Office opened 4/10/1878 and was changed to the name of Pinal 6/27/1879, by which time it had about 2000 residents, and a newspaper called the Arizona Drill. Meanwhile, 3 miles up the road and very near Hastings a new vein was being worked too (discovered 12/4/1871): not so rich as the "King" it was called the Silver Queen Mine. Miners who could not get work at the Silver King in the '80's flocked there, and as mine-residents spilled out around Hastings the town-site became know simply as Queen. In 1888 the bottom fell out of the price of silver and the mines shut down. By 1891 Pinal City had only ten residents and the Post Office was closed. Silver King was re-capitalized in 1916 by officers Alex Downe, E. Cowper-Thwaite and F.C. Mason at $1,500,000. Still, it only kept its Post Office until 5/15/1921.

Apache Trail circa 1926

Apace Trail In the southern Superstitions circa 1926

For the next 12 years little is written about the area, but in 1900 the price of copper dramatically rises. The ores of the Silver Queen region, less like the King 3 miles distant, were also rich in copper, and the Queen mine, and other nearby claims, went into full-production. A big new player was the Lake Superior and Arizona Mining Company who owned the Gold Eagle Mine and numerous claims. Based in Michigan their only Arizona Director was W. A. Holt of Globe. Incorporated 9/30/1902 and capitalized at only $200,000 they were reorganized, and properly capitalized ($2,500,000) in 1904. And here George Lobb pops-up in Hastings laying out a new townsite. He names it Superior purportedly to acknowledge [what he believes, or hopes will be] the source of the town's existence, and 11/19/1902, six weeks after L.S.&A. got their first money, he opens the first Post Office there with himself as Postmaster. In 1904 it is still described as a tent-city, with a few crude permanent structures. L.S.&A. suspended work in 1907. Work on the claims was resumed in 1910 by contract to Magma Copper Co. but again is suspended in 1911. In March 1913 the Gunn & Thompson interests, who as Magma Copper Co. had an option on the property expiring in 1912, are reported to have offered $100,000 on sinking the shaft, other development, and adding several claims to their group, in exchange for half their stock and title to half their claims. Apparently refused, by 1915 L.S.& A. were again reorganizing to try to find more development money. By 1916 they were again negotiating with Magma.

Claypool tunnel on US60

Claypool Tunnel on US 60 circa 1930

In June 1910 William Boyce Thompson realized the commercial value of ore processing close to the mines and formed the Magma Copper Company. It then owned the Silver Queen outright, and the apparent purpose for the new Magma Co. was to capitalize the processing, ultimately with $1,500,000. One source says that by 1914 Magma had built a tremendous new smelter in Superior. Another perhaps better source claims that it was a sophisticated reduction plant completed 8/14, linked to the mine by a 2600' cable-tram, and that their smelting was still being done at by ASARCo at Hayden. They also had almost 100% ownership of the new Magma Arizona Railroad Co. rail line from Superior to the Arizona Eastern R.R. north of Florence at Webster, later called Magma. The narrow-gage rails still cross US89 just south of Florence Junction.

Old Highway in Queen Creek Gorge

Circa 1928

It also seems that Magma's construction of steel power lines down the rugged Queen Creek canyon, in 1915, from the Magma Inspiration Mine at Miami (near Globe) to power the Queen Mine and works had beset the groundwork for the new highway to Globe. In 1925 this was to become the transcontinental US60 (later also US70) highway and ultimately secured Superior's place on the map more permanently than even the successful Magma itself could. Formerly the route from the west had been the rough Apache Trail bypassing Superior far to the north running from Apache Junction to Globe and past the dam at Lake Roosevelt. Incidentally, the generators in that dam were the origin of Magma's cheap electricity (at $49 per horsepower/year for 1917) that made those power lines so intensely desirable. While the Superior smelter, whenever it was built, was closed in 1981, neither I-8 or I-10 have fully replaced the need for this old US highway. Much of the current roadbed from Superior to Globe dates to the 1950's, the beauty and scale still not ruined by modern "highway engineering," and is one of Arizona's most scenic drives. Parts of the old roadbed and the old power lines are still visible in the gorge.

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