Page 250 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

Cooks and Florida Station, 14 miles away, for a fare of $1.50. In October of 1901, there were plans to change the delivery of mail to Cooks from Florida Station to Faywood Hot Springs. No evidence was
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available to indicate that this change occurred. However, in 1905, the daily mail delivery to Cooks from Florida, including rural delivery to people along the route, was changed to emanate from Nutt Station.
Apparently, at the same time, a Mr. Allsop (probably Robert L.) lost the contract, and Wallis
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acquired it.
that a little six-stanza ditty titled “The Road to Cook’s Peak” was penned by an unknown author. The last stanza mentions the “Wallis stage route” and specifies only a two-mule team, so it could not havebeenmorethanamailhackorexpresswagon.56 The stage line either continued on northeast from Florida Station, parallel to the railroad, or a separate stage operated between Cooks and Nutt Station over the new mail route road.
On August 14, 1906, Guadalupe Apodoca, the stage driver on the Cooks-Nutt route shot and killed Juan Gallards for no apparent reason. He was held in the Deming jail for possible trial, depending on
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weaponless.
The wild animals around the Cooke’s Peak
foothills were not the only enemies of the goats and their owners. In late March or early April, 1905, flock owners had already sheared their goats when a sudden vicious storm dumped two feet of snow on the range. The Gassaways lost 600 animals and the
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Ragsdales 400
Various stores were operated at the mining camps
duringperiodsofsignificantactivity. Unfortunately,
little information was located regarding these estab-
lishments or their owners. In the spring of 1903,
Joseph Hitchens started a mercantile business in
Cooks, but by 1910, the only retail establishment
recorded at Cooks was a grocery store run by Poe’s
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the outcome of the inquest
Whatever the out-
listed living in Cooks
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Later, sometime after 1916,
George Henry King hauled the mail to Deming, but
only for a short time as he left Cooks for Deming in
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1920
Several residents in and around Cooks raised cattle
or goats. Soon after Charles Gassaway married Mary Matilda Ragsdale Baker in the mid-1890s, they bought 3,000 Mohair (Angora) goats. Other Cooke’s Peak area residents also raised goats and cattle, and the animals thrived on the grass of the
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mountain hillsides
newspaper near the end of 1902 referred to the “vast herds of goats” around the base of Cooke’s Peak.
The presence of these animals in the rugged hills lured predators. The Deming paper reported that Charles Pace shot two large bobcats that were raid- ing his goat pen, located near the post office, and that 15-year-old Charles Grover had trapped a full grown lynx in O.K. Canyon. Lacking a gun, Grover stoned the animal to death.61 Grover’s younger brother was not so fortunate later that year. James, who was 12-years old at the time, saw two large mountain lions, but they escaped as he was also
Mining and Ranching Around Cooke's Peak
This contract probably fixes the time
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come, in 1910 Mitchell was still the only stage driver
A letter sent to the Deming
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The elder Mrs. Grover ran a grocery storeattheGraphicMineaftermovingtherein1891. She was still running the store in the summer of 1903 with the help of her daughter Ruth. Later, in about
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1914, she started a similar business at Cooks
As happened with many mining camps, the for- tunes of Cooks petered out and were reborn, Phoenix-like, several times. These rollercoaster periods of prosperity and economic starvation were keyed to the market price for ore rather than its currentavailability. Cookswasnotborninarushor a hurrah as were so many communities based on more precious metals. Likewise, Cooks did not die a sudden or violent death, as had so many previous mining or single economy towns, but rather expired with a sigh and a whimper. The miners drifted away from the ancient mountain, honeycombed with their efforts, after feeding off its riches in a calculated mode of self-destruction by removing the retrievable
ores and by ingesting the toxic mineral.
After 1905, large scale production at Cooks again fell off drastically because the easily accessible high- grade ores had been exhausted. Up to 1905, mine production remained mixed but active. However, in 1906 ore shipments lagged so badly that Wallis again sought outside resources and secured a construction contract to extend the railroad bed south from
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By June the Luna Lead Company smelter in Deming closed and the manager left for Mexico to attempt the purchase of ore there. He apparently had some success be- cause the president and general manager from New York, R. E. Powell, indicated four months later that
the smelter was preparing to resume operation in a
wife, Ida.
Guaymas, Mexico, along the coast
day or two
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