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Joe Mayer and His Town

In 1881 a young man with hazel eyes and black hair named Joseph Mayer journeyed from the mining camp of Tip Top to the banks of the Big Bug Creek. The clear running water and the tall trees were a welcome sight.

Joe Mayer was born Joseph Hoffmayer in 1846 in Olean, New York. Only French was spoken in his home. At age 14 he left home as a result of a troublesome life. He changed his name to avoid being found by his ill tempered father. The ambitious young man made his way west by way of the circus and wagon trains. Joe was bright and ambitious. He learned to ride, cook and bake and was quick with figures. He made friends wherever he went because he was honest, reliable and generous. A couple of his friends were Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill Hickok.

During Joe’s wanderings from Colorado to Kansas and New Mexico, he met Sarah Belle Wilbur. Sarah had red hair and blue eyes. She was born in Maine and could trace her ancestors back to the Mayflower. The two traveled west to Globe, Arizona. Their wedding was postponed due to an outbreak of smallpox. Sarah had been vaccinated against smallpox and nursed the sick using the juice from canned tomatoes and castor oil as her only medicines. Joe was sick with smallpox and lost all his hair (it came back thick and straight rather than curly). His face was permanently pockmarked for years.

They left Globe and moved to a gold mine outside the city where Joe bought half-interest in a boarding house. They were finally married there on December 11, 1877. They lived a year at this mining camp then moved to Tip Top in the Bradshaw Mountains. Here they bought a restaurant and stayed until the silver ran out at the mine.

Joe rode over the mountains to the banks of the Big Bug Creek. There was a shack and corral owned by William A. Muncy, a friend of Joe’s. Bill sold the place to Joe for $3500 in gold on a handshake. When Joe brought Sadie and their two infant daughters to his new home, they spent the night at Bumble Bee Stage Station. They then traveled through Antelope Station (later Cordes) and then nine more miles to Big Bug Station.

Joe hired carpenters from Prescott to build their new home and stage station on the banks of the Big Bug Creek. There were long porches front and back, one big room was a general merchandise store with a bar for thirsty miners and cowboys, and adjoining was a dining room and kitchen.

The station was a success because of Joe and Sarah’s hospitality. This was a time when roads were dangerous with highwaymen, raiding Indians and weather hazards. Those traveling from Phoenix to Prescott were glad to reach the ease of Big Bug Station. The Wells Fargo Express from Phoenix stopped at the station often carrying gold and guarded by a shotgun rider. The driver carried a shovel to remove thick, gummy mud from the wheels after a rain. In 1882, the Wells Fargo stage station known as the Big Bug Station was renamed Mayer after its owner, Joe Mayer.

Joe had many enterprises. He bought horses and branded them BM; he accumulated a herd of cattle and branded them with a pine tree. He planted an orchard with trees he shipped in along with the black walnut, mulberry, cherry and plum trees which grew wild. There was a deep well for the household; trees and garden were irrigated with creek water. Joe had the contract for mail service between Mayer and Stoddard and delivered mail by horseback.

Place miners worked every stream for miles around for gold, silver, copper and lead. Joe Mayer grubstaked many prospectors and acquired interest in small mining ventures. Joe owned the French Lily, the Butternut and was half-owner with Jim Slack of the Henrietta. The Big Ledge Development Company bought his mines. The first smelter in Mayer was built in 1902 by George Treadwell of San Francisco. It used oil for fuel and proved ineffective for processing large quantities of ore. He constructed a second smelter in the same area. It provided many new jobs and brought more families to town. The last smelter to come to Mayer was built by the Grey Eagle Reduction Company with H. A. Wagoner as president. It closed after three years.

In 1889 onyx was discovered in Mayer. It is said to be one of the largest and finest deposits in the U. S. At first, Joe thought it was petrified wood. Joe, George & Al McCann, and Captain Buckey O’Neill formed a company for the mine. It was then sold to George Underhill and his son with George becoming the superintendent of the operation. The rock was cut into blocks that were fifteen feet by ten feet by two feet; these blocks were lifted out by derrick and shipped to Vermont where it was cut and polished. The company operated two years and then shut down due to litigation.

Sarah sent for her mother and Uncle Hiram. Hiram took advantage of the good soil and ready water and started his own garden, orchard and herd of cattle branded HY.

Sarah, known as Sadie, was active in the community. She was the first postmistress in Mayer when the first post office was established in 1884. She opened at most any time for residents to get their mail, including Sundays. She used a small room in her home for the post office. There was no physician in town, so Sadie often acted as the town doctor. She was known to extract slivers of steel from miners’ eyes using a magnet. She often set broken bones. Sadie was a fine shot, one evening there was a disturbance in the henhouse; she opened the window and fired a shot. In the morning she found her old pet hen shot through the eye.

Joe and Sadie parented four children – Mary Bell, named for her paternal grandmother, was the oldest and was nicknamed Mamie. Martha Gertrude, named for her maternal grandmother, was next and was nicknamed Martie. Their son was Wilbur Joseph and nicknamed Burr. In 1892 another daughter was born, Winifred Lucille, nicknamed Winnie. Mamie had thick, wavy, long brown hair and pansy-blue eyes. Martie also had dark hair and blue eyes.

Joe and Sadie’s children all attended the university in Tucson. Burr then attended business college in Los Angeles where he became reacquainted with Annie S. Skelton whom he then married. Martie married Dr. Robert Nelson Looney on June 28, 1900. Dr. Looney practiced surgery in Mayer, the hospital at McCabe and then Prescott. He served many years as state health officer. He also served as physician and surgeon for the Santa Fe Railroad.

The town of Mayer experienced its first disaster in February of 1890. It had been raining heavily with no sign of the downpour letting up. Joe and Sadie moved their possessions to higher ground, and their Chinese servant Pete cooked and baked. A dam built six miles up Big Bug Creek by a placer mining company gave way sending water and boulders downstream, uprooting trees and killing and rushing dead cattle down into Mayer. The original Big Bug Station was swept away, but Joe was quick in rebuilding. He found part of his house downstream and salvaged the lumber. Everyone pitched in and Joe hired two carpenters, Fred Steece (a Mayer minister) and George Rich. Meanwhile the Mayer family lived in a two room cabin built by George and Al McCann.

Joe hired four Chinese boys to run the new restaurant. He enlarged his corral and soon had a livery stable in operation. Freight wagons left overnight often carried dynamite for the mines. Because Sadie worried about explosions, Joe built a powder house in a cave up the mountain side.

Joe built the first schoolhouse in Mayer, and Sadie would keep 2-3 out-of-town children so they could attend. She never charged for room and board, she must of loved children. Before long, a second one-room schoolhouse was built to be within walking distance for the children. Joe paid the teacher their first month’s salary and they boarded in his home. The first teacher was Miss Francis (Fanny) Willard who later married John Munds who then became the Yavapai County sheriff. In 1914 Fanny was elected to the state senate. Molly Ruffner, the wife of George Ruffner who also became Yavapai County sheriff, was a teacher in Mayer too. Other teachers were Mabel Meany, A. E. Joslin, Dr. R. N. Looney and Grace Overman.

There were three schoolhouses before the red brick schoolhouse was built. One of the previous schoolhouses is across the street and is now a private residence. Ernest Love, a World War One hero and flying ace attended this school. After the red brick schoolhouse was built, the previous schoolhouse was used as a meeting place for the town and as the polling place. The red brick schoolhouse was built after Joe’s death.

Joe provided right-of-way for the Santa Fe Railroad to build a branch line in 1898 between Prescott and Mayer. With the railroad, Mayer became a commercial center for the area. The first ticket agent was Ben Snyder. Cattle, sheep and ore were shipped by rail. Shepherds and cattlemen stopped at Mayer Station to load up on provisions for the long journey ahead. The train also brought passengers, mail and ice. In 1902 the railroad was extended to Crown King and to the mining camp of Poland.

There were now many visitors from far away. A man & wife visited from back East and were very interested in Indian life. They were pleased to find a large Apache camp across the creek. Joe’s daughters accompanied them to the camp where they found a man cooking something over the fire. His cooking can was full of wood rats, skins and all. When an animal would float to the top, he would poke it with a sharp stick & the air would escape with a whistle. The lady guest became quite pale and everyone was ready to go back across the creek.

Joe built a hotel with a large porch across the front and a railed balcony across the second floor. There were long hallways and many rooms. Before the upstairs was portioned, Joe held a dance party with an orchestra from Prescott. At midnight supper was served by Joe’s Chinese cooks. The center piece was a roast suckling pig with an apple in its mouth. One of the cakes was a castle surrounded by trees and flowers decorated by Hom, one of the Chinese cooks who had once worked for a French baker.

In 1900 Joe bought an antique Brunswick bar and matching cabinets made of hardwood and hand carved for his saloon. It had been shipped around Cape Horn in 1861. It was sold in 1965 to the Pioneer Foundation for $10,000 and now resides in Pioneer, AZ.

The Mayer Realty Investment Company was formed by Joe Mayer, George Treadwell and George’s son. In 1904 they incorporated the town, laid out streets and sold lots. Lots were offered from $1 to $500 each and could be purchased on the installment plan. The town piped water from the Grapevine Spring and had gravity flow to the town.

Some of the early businessmen were Frank Wagner, the town’s first blacksmith, who built the White House hotel. W. S. Deeds was the town’s brickmaker and he provided the material for Joe’s business block. John Martin had a garage and the tuberculosis sanitarium. Mr. Freeman published the Big Bug Enterprise and Mr. Hill printed the Mayer Miner. Frank Giroux had the assay office, Frank Heffernan had the hardware store, Sam Lee had the laundry, and Jim Bark had a meat market.

One day Joe had a visitor from his hometown, Olean, New York, a friend of his family. He brought the news that Joe’s father and older brother Gus were dead. His mother’s health was bad and she wished to see Joe before she died. Joe made the trip to New York to visit his mother and younger brother Tony. She died shortly after his visit.

The town continued to grow. But on a rainy night in December, 1909, Joe’s visions ended. Thinking he heard a prowler, he armed himself, and went out to investigate. He lost his footing, fell and accidentally shot himself fatally. He was attended at home by his son-in-law, Dr. Looney and by the priest from Prescott, Father Mandin. All the Mayer businesses closed and the school bell tolled as Joe’s funeral train passed. Joe was buried from Sacred Heart Church of Prescott with his brother Masons marching behind him to the cemetery.

Homer B. Wood was appointed administrator of Joe’s estate. Most of the burden, however, fell upon Burr’s shoulders who worked in the store which was terribly in debt on account of too much credit and too few collections. After he cleared the store of all the old debts, Sadie turned the store over to Burr to run as his own. She let Joe Martin manage the Mayer Waterworks. She let the Chinese cooks go and did the cooking herself.

After Joe’s death, Sadie worked in the boarding house until it closed. Then she focused her time at working in the post office. One day she tripped over a mail sack and fell, breaking her hip. Sadie died November 11, 1934 after suffering a stroke. She’s buried beside Joe at Mountain View Cemetery in Prescott.

Joe Mayer had big dreams but never sought personal glory. He lived to see his children grow up, receive their education in Mayer and the State University in Tucson.

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Arizona Highway 69 Chamber Of Commerce
11255 S. HIGHWAY 69, Mayer, AZ 86333

Phone: 928.632.4355
Fax: 928.632.4355
Web: www.arizonahighway69chamber.org
E-mail: Hwy69chamber@commspeed.net

 

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