The Arizona Stage Line

By: Ron Mc Coy

THE ARIZONA STAGE LINE

Riding a horse in pioneer pathways has always appealed to my sense of imagination and desire to experience the same thoughts and sights of yesteryear. The land in which I live can be described as being composed of “sun, shadow, sand, adobe, and silence. Combine all these elements and mix in some history and you might come up with some deep thoughts.

Near our home here in Queen Creek, Arizona is the Desert Wells stage coach stop. The stage stop now in crumbled ruins was not an overnight stop or one in which the horses were changed. It was just a place to provide water for the horses and allow passengers a chance to get out and stretch their legs or perhaps take a short nap in the shade of the porch.

The Desert Wells stop was a plain one room adobe building surrounded by a water trough on three sides and a porch on the south side. The stage line operated from 1868 to 1916. I am surprised that it ran so long in view of the progress automobiles had made by that time.

The route ran north from Florence crossing the Gila River and into the San Tan Mountains. The stop was then another 25 miles from its final destination in Mesa. During this forty eight year period of time one can only speculate on the various kinds of people who traveled this route.

I have often picked up this stage coach road in the San Tan Mountains and in the shadow of the towering Malpais as the late afternoon sun drifted behind the mountains with all its varied Amber hues mixed with gold in sky, my mind can only wander. In the deep silence that abounds I can almost feel pounding of hooves, hear the grinding of the wheels and the jingle of the harness announcing the approach of the evening stage. I look for it to round the bend but I see only where it once ran. Then I wonder who all was here before me, did this journey change their lives. The untold stories are left untouched.

A person’s mind can only drift as they ride along this now silent road with a sun that is now near gone. Life is certainly an adventure.

Ron McCoy
Queen Creek, Arizona

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