Gila River history

Much of history took place on or by rivers. We just spent five days dry camping above the Gila Box section of the Gila River in southeastern Arizona, looking down on a flood of history--and prehistory. According to archeologists, the first people in the Gila Box hunted wooly mammoths 12,000 years ago. Hohokam, Mogollon, Anasazi and Apache Indians later built settlements there. The Spanish conquistador Francisco Coronado and his soldiers passed through the Gila Box on a 1540 expedition. The famous fur trader James Ohio Pattie trapped beaver in it from 1824 to 1828, and during the Mexican War General Stephen Kearny led an army through it on the way to California. Confederate soldiers hid in the area during the Civil War. Then, in the early 20th century, farmers began settling in the Gila Box valley.

Everybody's gone now, even the farmers, subdued by the economy of the 1930s. History won't record our visit to the river, but in camping there we've sensed a bit of the history.