March 4th, 2024 Road Trip and Interesting Places

At the entrance to the campground, there is a sign about the Oatman Farm Tours (but only on a Tuesday).  When we were talking about it, Sue mentioned about the site of the Oatman Massacre so today we decided to try and find it.

What a great spot:

We passed this building and stopped.  We found out later that it was a stage coach stop.

That is one massive beam!

Have no clue, it was just sitting there.

We continued our journey and crossed over the now dry Gila River Bed - it was massive!

We passed the entrance for Oatman Farms and just kept going - we thought the grave site was outside the farming area - yes, we were wrong.

We turned around here - yes, that is volcanic rock:

A little bit about Oatman Farms:

"Oatman Farms™ is a fearless food company with a mission to revitalize and sustain family farms in hot and dry desert environments, including our own Oatman Flats Ranch, the Arizona farm that has been in my family for four generations.

Our farm has been a vital gathering place for thousands of years, and a recent witness to the desertification and degradation of American farmland. To preserve and steward the land, my wife, Leslie, and I are committed to using regenerative, organic farming practices, growing heritage crops adapted to our soil and climate, and working with chefs and bakers to craft delicious products. Eat Fearlessly™! 

J. Dax Hansen, Owner

In 2020, Oatman Flats Ranch became Arizona’s largest organic grower of heritage wheat, with a bumper crop of White Sonora, Red Fife and Blue Beard wheat. All the wheat fields are sown with a wide array of summer cover crops, and the drylands pastures with diverse native grasses, herbaceous flowering plants, and wildflowers. We are growing several different varieties of prickly pear and agave to intercrop in the driest fields, as well as native leguminous trees and heirloom fruit trees. These arid-adapted perennial plants will not only serve as food crops, but also as windbreaks, wildlife habitat and soil conditioners."

https://oatmanfarms.com/pages/our-story

They are doing some great things here in the desert!  (I love finding new places.)

So we headed thru the farm gates; talked to one of the tour guides on where to go; then off we went. We still got lost but found some more neat stuff. (Tours were advertised for Tuesdays but this week was changed to a Monday - wish we would have known.)

This was used as a storage building:

Notice the huge cottonwood tree.  The river banks were lined with these trees before the dams:

Part of Oatman Farms:

Crossing the Gila River Bed - this river bed is huge.  I cannot image what this is like during monsoon season.

Looking upriver:

These were some type of gourds - not sure where they came from:

Looking down river:

The road coming down from the bluff to the river bed:

I cannot imagine crossing this with horses, oxen, and covered wagons when it was full of water.

Beautiful wildflowers:

More river bed:

We are now in the middle of the river bed:

And yet it continues:

I should have measured the mileage from one bluff to the other.

We were not sure what road to take once we came out of the river bed so we wandered and saw this - The Fourr Cemetery.

Fourr Cemetery
"Twenty-something years after the Oatman Massacre, William and Lucinda Fourr, and their family settled in the area., where William ranched and served as an agent at the Butterfield Stage stop. Of the six children they had between their marriage in 1868, and when they left in the area in 1880, four died here. The Fouur Cemetery is where the children are buried: Seven-year-old A.F., month old F.F. -- on the same sad date in January 1877 -- and an unnamed baby, stillborn. (I'm not sure about the fourth child.) The Fourrs eventually had eight children who survived to adulthood, with William living until 1934, and Lucinda in 1942. Stanley Heisey, a Life Scout of Troop 263, has installed a bench, a logbook, and otherwise restored the site."

What a beautiful area and kudos to the Eagle Scout that restored this site.

We wondered some more and then found the Oatman burial site.

This was not the massacre site but it was near here.

From there we walked the area towards the location of the river and the wagon trails.

This is Oatman Flats where the river ran thru this area with the bluffs all around:

That is our truck in the distance:

The river ran alongside that bluff:

On the left, there is a drop off of about 20-30'.  Hard to see with the trees.

In doing research for the blog, the family was massacred somewhere here - either on the bluff beyond or in the river bed or the bluff in front.  Still not sure.

Also there are wagon wheel marks in stone near here.  Next time thru, we will have to do more research to find them.

There is a wealth of information here on the massacre, on the survivors, and on the captives. (Natives took the two oldest girls).  The town of Oatman Arizona is named after the family.  Very interesting.

https://azoffroad.net/oatman-massacre

https://www.frontiertimesmagazine.com/blog/the-oatman-massacre

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_Oatman

https://www.carlsbadhistoricalsociety.com/Carlsbad%20Historical%20Society_files/historical/Oatman%20Massacre.htm

Will we come back again - Absolutely.   There are so many things to find in this area - ghost towns and historic buildings plus would love to do the tour.   And the campground is just beautiful.

What a great day.  We finished the day with another great campfire.  It was so good to connect with Sue these last few days (Thank you Sue).  Hopefully we will see her again before we head north.

We are heading to Casa Grande tomorrow so stay tuned and enjoy today.