Wickenburg Massacre Site

Whew, it was another hot one today, about 90 degrees but we still managed to take an ATV tour with other Michael and Cathy leading the way to the site of the Wickenburg Massacre in 1871.  There is a maze of trails out across the desert in this area, we left North Ranch about 8:30, visited the site and ended up at the Dairy Queen off Vulture Mine Road and Highway 93. 

Lots of gates to open—Geri and Larry in their ATV travels started a tradition of giving the gate opener and gate closer a piece of candy—so there is a battle to be the one to close the gate, first in line of course opens the gate and automatically gets candy! Easy, mostly flat trails today and we enjoyed our lunch in the shade near the massacre site. 

There are conflicting stories about the perpetrators who murdered eight people on the morning of November 5, 1871.  Indians were the prime suspects, or was it Mexicans dressed as Indians or was it white men dressed as Indians??  Books of the Southwest, Arizona Library gives a very good account of the massacre—the only female, Ms. Sheppard and a male passenger jumped from the stagecoach opposite of the attackers and ran—they were both wounded but survived.  Ms. Sheppard was taken to Date Creek Camp hospital and later moved to California.  It is reported in the above article that she died several years later in California from the results of her injuries in the fracas. 

I was under the impression that there were graves at this site we visited—the stones certainly appear to surround graves but all the accounts of the massacre I read state the bodies were buried in Wickenburg??  Maybe the stones are just placed where the victims fell?? 

It was another great day spent with friends—as I said, our journey included a very refreshing stop at the Dairy Queen—as hot as it was that diet Coke and mini-Blizzard I had tasted so good!  Emmi was a trouper about wearing her new goggles—a couple with a dog in the truck stopped us at the Dairy Queen asking how we got Emmi to leave the goggles on—we put them on this morning, scolded her a couple times about rubbing her face with her paw and that was it.  Here she is telling other Michael how awful they were first thing this morning.

One styling Emmi girl!

This hill doesn’t look steep but let me tell you, it was, probably the steepest hill I’ve been down on the ATV!

Tonight we enjoyed dinner out at the Arrowhead Bar & Grill with the gang from today, a perfect ending.