The name of Cave Creek may have come from the stream of the same name that originates at a cave in the mountains 2 miles north of the present day town, as described on an old military map? (No one knows for sure, though. It may have come from an early miner by the name of Edward Cave .) The area called "Bloody Basin," which is just north of Cave Creek (you can see the sign from I-17 North) was the site of many terrible skirmishes between US Army scouts and Apache Indians? The last skirmish to take place between the cavalry and the Apaches took place on Christmas Day, 1873 at the "cave on the creek?" (The defeat of the Apache Indians made it safer for the miners to move into the area.) The original date palm trees at Rancho Manana grew there because of the date pits thrown away by cavalry soldiers while they rested for lunch on their way to Fort McDowell? The first recorded mine in Cave Creek was the Continental, in 1873? Cattle ranchers came out to join the miners in Cave Creek during the 1880's and sheep ranchers joined them both during the early 1900's? These interesting tidbits, and more, were presented on January 18 th to a rapt audience at the Cave Creek Museum by Beverly Metcalfe Brooks, the museum's historian. She disproves the old saw about history being a boring subject. Of course, it helps when you're not just memorizing obscure dates in an old dusty classroom, but instead listening to the fascinating stories of actual people who once lived in Cave Creek when it was just a small hamlet. Beverly has a passion for history. "It goes back to when I was about 4 or 5 years old and I asked my mother and father to tell me about the olden days ," she tells us. "I was a shy, little nerd. Instead of reading comic books like the other kids, I would read books like Treasure Island and Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves ." Beverly was born in Zion , Illinois and moved to the small town of Elcho , Wisconsin (population 200) when she was 7 years old. She was raised on a farm there, which had no electricity or running water. There were plenty of horses, though, so she learned to ride young. The family moved back to Zion when she was 13, and after she graduated from high school, Beverly bought her very own horse, which she named Dolly. "So, it was like coming home," when Beverly visited Cave Creek for the first time in 1958 to vacation on a dude ranch here. Cave Creek in 1958 was a very small outpost in the middle of the Sonoran Desert . Phoenix was a very long distance of 35 miles away. Although the water company was established here by then, many of the homeowners still depended on hand-dug wells, most of which were lost when golf courses were built in Cave Creek in later years. Many children still rode their horses to school. It was on her fourth visit to Arizona in 1960, during a trail ride to move a herd of horses from Sierra Vista to Cave Creek, that Beverly met Bill Metcalfe, who swept her off her feet and married her after a whirlwind 3-week courtship. "He wouldn't take no for an answer," she recalls. "He was a very charismatic man - he knew everyone. I always said that Bill never knew a stranger. I'm sure that if he had met Queen Elizabeth, she would have let him call her 'Liz' after five minutes." They had enjoyed twenty-two years of marriage and had two children together, when Bill died in 1982. Beverly later married Chuck Brooks. They have been married for twenty years, and as Beverly tells it, "We have the best blended family - my two, his two and our five grandchildren." Beverly has been very active in Cave Creek community activities since the 45 years she came here. She was an early member of the Mothers' Club, which became a very influential force in town. They were responsible for starting a newsletter entitled The Mothers' Club Vacuum Cleaner , which was the forerunner of two local newspapers - the Black Mountain News and the Foothills Sentinel . She is one of the 13 charter members remaining from the original 174 founders of the Cave Creek Museum . And, although she is glad for all the progress and modern improvements she has seen take place over the years, she isn't very happy about all the real estate developments that have swallowed up the beautiful desert land that she loves - and she let's you know it! Cave Creek and its welfare has been a personal quest for this energetic, friendly and enthusiastic woman. "This is the best time of my life - aches and pains and all, because I've come into my own. I've written my own family history - about 400 pages and 250 photos, which took 15 years to research. I've had 60 copies made for the family, and if it does nothing more than make my great, great grandchildren open up a history or geography book afterward, it will all be worth it. Being the historian for the Cave Creek Museum is a labor of love for me, and I intend to stay with it for a long time to come."
INFO> Cave Creek Museum : Corner of Basin Road and Skyline Drive; 480-488-2764; www.cavecreekmuseum.org; Second history session at 2 p.m. on 2/15/05 and the third session at 2 p.m. on 3/15/05 . |
