National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior

Cultural Resource Management

Intermountain Region 

TUZIGOOT NATIONAL MONUMENT

Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

By William Stoutamire

National Park Service, Intermountain Cultural Resource Management

Professional Paper No. 77
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

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Cover: Cattle grazing at Tavasci Marsh, ca. 1990. The Allen Ditch can be seen in the foreground. Courtesy of Tavasci Marsh, 

FMI.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

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Water in the Desert: 

A History of Arizona’s Tavasci Marsh, 1865 – 2005

By: William Stoutamire

Intermountain Cultural Resource Management

Professional Paper No. 77

National Park Service, Intermountain Region

Cultural Resource Management, Santa Fe

2011
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

4

Abstract:

Transferred to the National Park Service (NPS) in 2005, Tavasci Marsh is a unique 

riparian area within the Verde River watershed. However, decades of intensive land 

management and irrigation for the purposes of agricultural production and dairy farming greatly 

altered the once ecologically diverse marshland. With the intention of providing an historical 

context for NPS administrators at Tuzigoot National Monument, this report will convey the 

narrative history of settlement and farming at the marsh, from the arrival of the first AngloAmerican settlers in the 1860s to the NPS’s assumption of ownership in 2005. Through the 

study of historical photographs, maps, aerials, title records, manuscripts, and oral histories, this 

essay will attempt to determine the history of the marsh through an analysis of human impact and 

development.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

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In a landlocked region that is nationally renowned for its dry climate, sweltering summer 

heat, and low annual rainfall totals, Arizona seems to be an unnatural candidate for the existence 

of Tavasci Marsh, a rich riparian wetland. While such areas are relatively common along the 

lower Colorado River basin, central Arizona’s Tavasci Marsh stands as the largest remaining 

wetland on the northern reaches of the Sonoran Desert. In the Southwest, where for centuries 

water has been the source of life, culture, and settlement, such a unique environ has historically 

lent itself to development and cultivation by local inhabitants. While the relationship of early 

American Indian peoples to the marsh is currently interpreted at Tuzigoot National Monument, 

there exists a general lack of understanding regarding its use in more recent times. Such 

knowledge is necessary for administrators from the National Park Service to effectively manage 

the property, and enhance its ecological and interpretive value for modern visitors.1

This is particularly important in light of recent realizations within the scientific 

community that such riparian habitats are much more of a rarity today than they were just one 

hundred and fifty years ago. According to L.A. Hawkins, a dentist in the Jerome mining 

community and one of the earliest white settlers of the Upper Verde Valley, in the 1860s the 

Verde River “bottom was from one half to one mile wide, and was covered with a dense forest of 

trees, with thick underbrush, which it was very difficult to even get through on foot, every half 

mile or mile there would be a beaver dam.”2

 1 This paper does not speculate on the activities of prehistoric or historic American Indians in the marsh and its 

surrounding environs. Its sole focus is on the management of the property by Anglo settlers and their descendents in 

the last century and a half.

 Decades of human manipulation of the landscape, 

from irrigation and cultivation to mining and grazing practices, have greatly altered the 

waterways, plants, and wildlife associated with this region, creating a new landscape that 

2 “Tavasci Marsh,” manuscript, n.d., Tavasci Marsh Collection, 525926160, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold, 

Inc., Phoenix, AZ [hereafter cited as Tavasci Marsh, FMI].
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scarcely resembles its natural condition as observed by Hawkins and his generation. 

Contemporary ecologists report that more than 90% of Arizona’s native wetlands, including all 

but two such habitats in the central portion of the state, have been destroyed or greatly altered by 

human development. It is this realization that guides modern movements for the preservation, 

restoration, and interpretation of one of Arizona’s few existent riparian environments, Tavasci 

Marsh – its plants, its wildlife, and its human past.3

Severed from the Verde River nearly 10,000 years ago, Tavasci Marsh and neighboring 

Peck’s Lake – a manmade recreational area that originally formed a natural extension of adjacent 

wetlands

4 – existed as a spring-fed oxbow ecosystem until the late nineteenth century. The 

subsequent development of a rich mining community in nearby Jerome, however, led to an influx 

of settlers into the region, many of whom recognized that the area’s booming population would 

necessitate a steady supply of foodstuffs for local markets. Homesteading on the natural 

marshland, which provided good soils and a constant water supply, these individuals instituted a 

series of agricultural developments that continued unabated until the removal of the Tavasci 

family, for whom the marsh is now named, in 1991. In nearly one hundred and forty years of 

human activity on the marsh, irrigation, farming, and grazing practices have greatly altered the 

landscape of this riparian wetland, introducing new species of flora and fauna while 

simultaneously reducing or eliminating the presence of native vegetation and wildlife. An 

understanding of these changes will provide the necessary historical context for the National 

Park Service’s planned restoration of the marsh.

 3 “The Importance of Tavasci Marsh: An Overview of Relevant Environmental and Economic Issues,” (SWCA 

Environmental Consultants, Inc., February, 1990), 3, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; Jim Burton, “Wetlands Preservation,” 

Wildlife Views, June 1990, 18, Tavasci Marsh, FMI. 4 Amelia Ryan and Lorraine Parsons, “Tavasci Marsh Wetland Assessment: Wetland Vegetation Communities, 

Conditions, and Functions,” (National Park Service, September 2009), 5.
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I. Early Exploration and Settlement

Image 1: A hunting party from Camp Verde, including the naturalist Edgar Mearns, on the approximate location of the 

Tavasci homestead, January, 1887. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Washington, D.C.

The Anglo-American settlement of the Upper Verde Valley began in 1865, with the 

arrival of the first white pioneers from the territorial capital of Prescott, Arizona. Although in 

1871, President Ulysses S. Grant designated the land forty miles upriver from Camp Verde and 

ten miles on either side – encompassing modern-day Tavasci Marsh – as a reservation for 

Yavapai and Apache peoples, this order was reversed four years later and the land was made 

open for settlement. According to historian Jack Cotter, “in the latter half of the 19th Century, 

cattlemen and farmers began drifting into the valley, and the 80s brought an influx of prospectors 

and miners to open up the copper veins in the hills to the west.”5

 5 Jack Cotter, “Tuzigoot National Monument,” Arizona’s National Monuments, Popular Series No. 2, (Santa Fe: 

Southwestern Monuments Association, 1945), 6.

Led by Morris Andrew 

Ruffner, who first discovered and laid claim upon the copper ore deposits in the vicinity of 

present-day Jerome, Arizona, in 1876, these new migrants brought with them the desire to 

develop the agricultural promise of the valley for the purposes of creating sustainable mining 

communities in an area that was otherwise distant from modern modes of transportation, most 

notably the growing American railway system. Rather than bringing foodstuffs via horse drawn 

wagon from Prescott – a forty-mile journey that required traversing the pass over Mingus 
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

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Mountain – these settlers sought instead to develop the floodplain of the perennial Verde River 

for agricultural production, while utilizing the nearby uplands for the grazing of cattle and other 

livestock. Even after the completion of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in northern Arizona in 

1883, and the construction of a subsequent spur to the mines at Jerome, the continuing local 

production of foodstuffs proved vital to the growth and development of the region’s mining 

communities.6

Employing their rights under the Homestead Act of 1862, these early settlers to the valley 

first claimed ownership to tracts of land along the banks of the Verde River, which provided 

them with a constant supply of fresh water for drinking and irrigation. Under the Act, 

individuals could apply for a “preemption claim” on one quarter section of land – equal to 160 

acres – which, after a minimum of five years of constant usage, could be transferred into the 

direct ownership of the homesteader and his or her family. One stipulation of this act attempted 

to ensure that such properties were lived on and developed, stating that “such application is made 

for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and that said entry is made for the purpose of actual 

settlement and cultivation, and not either directly or indirectly for the use or benefit of any other 

person or persons whomsoever.”7

 6 “The United Verde Copper Company: A Series of Articles Describing the Organization, Operations, and Activities 

of this Company in the Jerome District of Arizona”, The Mining Congress Journal, April 1930, 5; Russell 

Wahmann, “A Centennial Commemorative, United Verde Copper Company, 1882-1982,” The Journal of Arizona 

History, Vol. 23, No. 3, Autumn 1982, 249-255.

 As such, it is likely – though not assured – that homesteaders 

in the Upper Verde Valley made use of their property, and resided therein, for at least five years 

prior to the recording of their claim with the General Land Office (G.L.O.) of the United States. 

Therefore, as Figure 1 indicates, the settlement of the marsh probably began simultaneously with 

the development of the first mining claims in Jerome in the late 1870s.

7 U.S. Congress, An Act to Secure Homesteads to Actual Settlers on the Public Domain, 37th Cong., 2d sess., May 

20, 1862.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

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Indeed, one of the earliest maps of this region – created in 1877 by the Surveyor Generals 

Office in Tucson (Figure 2) – reveals the presence of a residence under the name of Ruffner in 

the approximate vicinity of the wetland and the eventual Tavasci homestead. According to the 

later recollections of L.A. Hawkins, this “Ruffner” refers to Morris Andrew Ruffner, Jerome’s 

first and most well-known prospector. Of Ruffner, Hawkins writes, “there was a prospector 

‘squatted’ on the land where my father decided to locate . . . a gentleman of the old school . . 

Mr. Ruffner had no use for the place . . . so my dad gave him $300.00 for his Squatters Right 

and he continued (Mr. Ruffner) to live with us, and rode up in the mountain prospecting daily.”8

The first official homesteader to occupy this land, laying claim to the southernmost 

portion of Tuzigoot National Monument’s recent land acquisition, arrived on the property in the 

mid-1870s and received her homestead deed on September 3, 1884. Harriet M. Hawkins and her 

husband, William Hawkins, both native Tennesseans, brought their six sons and two daughters to 

the Upper Verde Valley in 1876, where William and the eldest three boys engaged in farming 

along the banks of the Verde River. Following William’s death in the early 1880s, Harriet filed 

and received her homestead claim, residing on the property for a number of years thereafter.

 

This arrangement continued until 1876, when Ruffner discovered the “Eureka” cooper mine and 

staked a claim.

9

 8 L.A. Hawkins, manuscript, undated. Ruffner Collection. In possession of Mrs. Melissa Ruffner.

Although available records do not indicate the type of farming conducted or the detailed 

processes involved, early irrigation reports reveal that the Hawkins family irrigated thirty-seven

acres of their property, on the western side of Tuzigoot hill, with water from the river for the 

growth of sustenance crops and other produce. Referred to as the Hawkins Ditch – or the Emory 

Hawkins Ditch, after ownership of the homestead passed to one of the younger sons in the 1890s 

9 The 1890 Census was destroyed by fire and thus it is not possible to determine who remained on the property at 

that time. 
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– this minor irrigation system was in continual use for more than two decades. Representative of 

the first significant Anglo-American attempt to irrigate and cultivate the riparian zone in the 

vicinity of the marsh, this original ditch was abandoned by the Hawkins family in 1896 and was 

later buried by the creation of the tailings pond in the early 1900s.10

Seven years after the Hawkins family provided sufficient evidence of residence and 

improvement to obtain their property on the Verde River, Talitha C. Wilber – the widow of 

Daniel E. Hawkins and wife of William Wilber – received a deed to the adjacent lands to the 

north (see Figure 1). A native Missourian, who likely married into the Hawkins family during 

their lengthy residence in that state, Talitha, her new husband, and their children farmed the land 

that now, in part, constitutes the Tuzigoot ruin and Tuzigoot National Monument museum. 

Similar to their neighbors and family to the south, the Wilbers likely engaged in subsistence 

agriculture and minor irrigation, utilizing the waters of the Verde River through the 1876 

Hawkins Ditch and, potentially, the nearby marsh. Additionally, a 1905 U.S. Geological Survey 

map (Figure 3) indicates that both the Wilbers and Hawkins families established their residences 

at the base of Tuzigoot hill, on the eastern side. As a nearby stream exits the adjacent ridge in 

that vicinity, it is further likely that waters from this small stream were used for the irrigation of 

the settlers’ croplands.11

In 1890, one year prior to the establishment of the Wilber homestead, Thomas Goodwin 

received a similar deed to the property to the north, including the land that constitutes the proper 

 10 U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1880 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 28, Yavapai County, Arizona; Ryan 

and Parsons, “Tavasci Marsh Wetland Assessment, 5; Harriet M. Hawkins, homestead deed, September 3, 1884, 

Tavasci Marsh, FMI; O.A. Turney, “Water Supply and Irrigation on the Verde River and Tributaries,” 1901, quoted 

in T.A. Hayden, Irrigation on the Upper Verde River Watershed from Surface Waters, 1940, 274; “Report of Fowler 

and Frankenberg to the Conference Committee of the Associated Canals: Verde River and Tributaries,” 1896, 

quoted in Hayden, Irrigation on the Upper Verde River, 241. 11 U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1880 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 28, Yavapai County, Arizona; U.S. 

Bureau of the Census, 1900 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 69, Yavapai County, Arizona; Talitha C. 

Wilber, homestead deed, November 23, 1891, Tavasci Marsh, FMI.
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boundaries of what is today referred to as Tavasci Marsh (see Figure 1). A Scottish immigrant, 

Thomas and his father, John, raised beef cattle, likely including the native English Hereford or 

“white face,” for the local markets, especially the growing town of Jerome. While their 

interactions with the marsh are largely unclear, the actions of later resident cattle ranchers –

including the Tavascis – indicate that drier patches of land around the wetland were suitable for 

grazing livestock. In addition, early irrigation reports reveal that the Goodwins utilized the fresh 

water from a nearby spring – known today as Shea Springs – to water and cultivate four acres of 

their property, likely for either the growth of subsistence crops or livestock feed. John Tavasci, 

Sr. later stated that at least one drainage ditch, referred to as the Middle Ditch and running 

through the marsh itself, existed prior to his family’s arrival on the property in 1928. Whether 

this canal, as well, was constructed by the Goodwins or later denizens remains unclear, however,

as for unknown reasons the property quickly passed through the Goodwin family until, on 

September 5, 1900, John, Jr. and his wife, Margaret, deeded the land to a local Irish saloonkeeper 

and prospective rancher, Daniel O’Shea.12

A prominent citizen in Jerome, O’Shea was no stranger to the oxbow in the Upper Verde 

River, having previously been involved in the ownership and construction of the region’s 

primary irrigation canal, which remained in use until 1991. Redirecting water from the Verde 

River via a diversion dam, this lengthy ditch system channeled the flows through Brewer’s 

Tunnel, on the property of Hugh Brewer (see Figure 1), across a pipeline spanning over Pecks 

Lake, around the north and east sides of Tuzigoot hill, and back into the river to the south. At 

 12 U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1880 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 28, Yavapai County, Arizona;

Thomas Goodwin, homestead deed, December 31, 1890, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; John H. Ladd to Charles M. Holt, 

April 16, 1987, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; John Tavasci, Sr., interview by author, Clarkdale, AZ, April 1, 2010; “Chain 

of Title: Shea Home Ranch,” Tavasci Marsh Collection, 162414354, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold, Inc., 

Phoenix, AZ [hereafter cited as Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI]; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1900 U.S. Census, Population 

Schedule, District 70, Yavapai County, Arizona; “Report of Fowler and Frankenberg,” quoted in Hayden, Irrigation 

on the Upper Verde River, 241.
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various times referred to as the Tunnel, Allen, or Hawkins Ditch,13 its completion in 1896 

signaled the first successful cooperative endeavor between the homesteaders in this region and 

the nearby United Verde Copper Company (UVCC). According to O.A. Turney’s irrigation 

report, dated 1901, two men by the names of Allen and Wood – representatives of Senator 

William A. Clark, the owner of the UVCC – worked directly with O’Shea, Emory Hawkins, and 

other area residents to plan and construct a watering system that could replace the much smaller 

and outdated 1876 Hawkins Ditch. By the early 1900s, the Allen Ditch effectively irrigated 

more than 300 acres of land, including 124 acres within the boundaries of Tuzigoot National 

Monument’s recent acquisition. Ultimately, the completion of this system enabled settlers and 

the UVCC to enact rapid changes in the riparian basin, culminating in the creation of the Pecks 

Lake recreational area, the construction of a nine-hole golf course, and the formation, on the 

marsh, of Shea Home Ranch and the Clarkdale Dairy.14

Before examining this story further, however, it is first necessary to understand the 

general irrigation and land use practices that farmers and ranchers employed in this region 

around the turn of the twentieth century. In 1901, Turney described an ever-growing network of 

ditches and canals spiraling outward from the main sources of irrigation, like the Allen Ditch. At

this time,

their methods of applying water are the crudest, even under company ditches 

there are no headgates; every man taps the canal in a half a dozen places and 

keeps several small heads continually running on his alfalfa. Most crops are 

planted in the spring; there is little irrigation during the winter; the only winter 

irrigation in on alfalfa. Acreages are in the following order: Corn, hay, fruit, 

potatoes and garden produce.15

 13 To avoid confusion, I will hereafter refer to this irrigation system as the Allen Ditch, which is its most prevalent 

demarcation in maps and other historical documents.

14 Hayden, Irrigation on the Upper Verde River, 101-102, 211; Turney, “Water Supply and Irrigation on the Verde 

River and Tributaries,” quoted in Hayden, Irrigation on the Upper Verde River, 274. 15 Turney, “Water Supply and Irrigation on the Verde River and Tributaries,” quoted in Hayden, Irrigation on the 

Upper Verde River, 282-283.
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While this statement applies more broadly to the Upper Verde Valley, it is likely that the 

Hawkins, Wilbers, Goodwins, and O’Sheas treated their newly created water source in a similar 

manner and raised similar crops. With booming markets in Jerome, Prescott, and Flagstaff 

outstripping supply, company ditches and ever more extensive irrigation for the purposes of 

maximizing production became the norm in this region in the early half of the 1900s.

As such, when O’Shea and his wife, Margaret, finally settled on the marsh in 1900, they 

immediately engaged in the production of dry goods for the markets in Jerome and Cottonwood 

and, according to John Tavasci, Sr., raised Hereford cattle. The Shea Home Ranch, as it came to 

be known, grew throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, both in size and production. 

On April 26, 1906, O’Shea purchased an additional 80 acres, incorporating the northern portion 

of Tuzigoot hill (see Figure 1). He also assisted in the development and maintenance of further 

irrigation and drainage systems in the marsh, which he then utilized for the betterment of his 

ranch. Indeed, Shea Springs – a collection of springs at the base of the ridgeline to the east of 

Tuzigoot National Monument – bears his surname as he was one of the earliest settlers to make 

beneficial use of its constant supply of fresh water for the purposes of creating irrigated 

croplands and pasture.16

 16 This spring is also commonly referred to as Goodwin, Taylor, or Big Springs. The former title is an obvious 

allusion to Thomas Goodwin’s residence on the marsh and use of the spring’s water to irrigate four acres of land.

 Likewise, the Warranty Deed from O’Shea’s eventual sale of the 

property reveals that he owned a 29/96th share in the Tunnel Ditch and irrigation canal, which 

extended through the location of his residence near the southeastern tip of Peck’s Lake (see 

Figure 3). It is clear, therefore, that Shea Home Ranch made extensive use of all available water 
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

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sources for the development of fertile, usable lands and, in all likelihood, began or continued the 

process of draining the marshland itself.17

Despite these successive developments, the period of independent ownership in the 

vicinity of the marsh ended abruptly in the early 1910s, when the UVCC expanded into the 

Verde River basin below the mines at Jerome. Purchased by Senator Clark, a Montana copper 

baron, in 1888, the UVCC grew rapidly under his ownership and, by 1910, began investigating 

potential regions for further growth and development. Needing a larger, more modern smelter 

facility in order to meet with increasing supplies of copper ore, Clark turned his attention to the 

establishment of a township that would later bear his name – Clarkdale. Ideally situated on the 

banks of the Verde River, with access to a constant water supply and the Verde Valley Railway, 

the Clarkdale Smelter and its accompanying mining town were considered vital to the UVCC’s 

future success. Unfortunately for Clark, however, the area that his engineers had designated for 

development lay in the hands of private landholders, like the O’Sheas.18

Thus, in the early 1910s, the UVCC began to purchase independent ranches in the 

planned location of the Clarkdale town site and its immediate vicinity, obtaining approximately 

2,000 acres of new property “for water rights and for a location to process copper ores mined 

near Jerome” by 1912.

19

 17 U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1920 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 108, Yavapai County, Arizona; U.S. 

Bureau of the Census, 1930 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 6, Yavapai County, Arizona; Summary of 

Shea Springs Water Right, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; Daniel J. O’Shea and Margaret O’Shea to United Verde Copper 

Company, warranty deed, October 30, 1911, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; Tavasci, Sr., interview by author.

 For those individuals and families residing in the Upper Verde Valley 

riparian zone, this massive land acquisition resulted in a significant shift in ownership, 

management, and land use practices. Whereas farmers and ranchers in this region had, for more 

18 John E. Laning, “Historical Growth of the United Verde Smelting Plant at Clarkdale, Arizona,” “The United 

Verde Copper Company: A Series of Articles Describing the Organization, Operations, and Activities of this 

Company in the Jerome District of Arizona”, The Mining Congress Journal, April, 1930, 5; Ken C. Bennett to 

Michael O’Donnell, February 26, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI.

19 Ken C. Bennett to Michael O’Donnell, February 26, 1991, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI.
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than three decades, raised livestock and cultivated foodstuffs for the explicit purpose of selling 

their goods to local miners and their families, they had always done so freely and independently 

of the mining companies. For the next eighty years, the O’Sheas, the Tavascis, and their partners 

and neighbors would operate under the overarching management of the UVCC and its 

successors, with the latter claiming ultimate authority over all water rights, land use practices, 

and crop or livestock production.20

While the town of Clarkdale and its smelter would eventually be constructed on the 

western bank of the Verde River, the UVCC’s purchase of the properties beyond the opposite 

eastern shore, including the marsh, served a three-fold purpose. For one, Senator Clark and his 

associates viewed Pecks Lake, the Tunnel Ditch, and the nearby wetland as providing an ideal 

landscape and set of pre-existing services for the creation of a large recreational area for miners 

and their families. In the 1910s, as part of the formation of a much larger network of social 

services for the booming communities in Jerome and Clarkdale, the UVCC constructed a ninehole grass golf course in and around the lake. Complete with “natural” water hazards and an 

accompanying country club, the Verde Valley Golf Club utilized water from the Tunnel Ditch to 

maintain its greens and fairways. Likewise, new water management policies regarding Pecks 

Lake, including the supplemental diversion of water from the Verde River, grew the natural 

wetland into a lake of such size that it became a popular location for fishing, recreational 

boating, and even motorboat races. The occasional drainage of the lake from its southeastern 

outlet – near the O’Shea and, later, Tavasci homesteads – increased the need for a sufficient 

 20 Tavasci, Sr., interview by author; John Tavasci, Sr., interview by Nancy Dallett, Clarkdale, AZ, November 14, 

2007.
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drainage system for the remaining marshlands, ultimately resulting in the creation of the Pecks 

Lake or Tavasci Ditch.21

A second reason for the UVCC’s acquisition of the lands on the eastern bank of the 

Verde River pertains directly to the company’s planned smelter facility on the adjacent shore. 

Completed in 1915, after three years of construction, the Clarkdale Smelter was a modern 

industrial structure for its time, greatly improving the efficiency of ore extraction and the 

production potential of the mines in Jerome. Nevertheless, its two towering smoke stacks 

constantly spewed pollution into the air, endangering nearby crops and livestock and threatening 

the stability of farming operations in the vicinity. While the smelter was still in operation, John 

Tavasci, Sr. later recalled, a strong westerly wind would, approximately once per year, carry 

fumes from the smelter across the marsh, killing his family’s alfalfa crop and much of the 

wetland’s native vegetation. Realizing this potential hazard, and cognizant of the legal suits that 

would inevitably follow from the destruction of private croplands, Clark and the UVCC 

purchased an extended buffer zone within the potential smoke cloud from the planned location of 

the smelter facility. On those lands, including the marsh, that were not developed for 

recreational purposes, farming and ranching continued, but on a leased basis that circumvented 

would-be lawsuits before they could arise.22

For those leased farmsteads that continued to operate in the years after the completion of 

the Clarkdale Smelter, like the Shea Home Ranch, local businessmen and associates of the 

UVCC formed a new management organization – the Upper Verde Farm and Orchard Company 

(UVFOC). Established in the summer of 1912 by Harry R. Brown, LeRoy Anderson, and Will 

 21 Noel Pegues, “Recreation in the Verde District,” The Mining Congress Journal, April, 1930, 108; Wahmann, “A 

Centennial Commemorative,” 265. Hereinafter referred to as the Tavasci Ditch. This ditch runs from the Pecks 

Lake outlet structure to the Verde River. 22 John E. Lanning, “Historical Growth of the United Verde Smelting Plant at Clarkdale, Arizona,” The Mining 

Congress Journal, April, 1930, 58-59; Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.
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L. Clark (of no relation to Senator Clark), the UVFOC was created “to own, lease, control, 

operate, manage, exchange, sell, purchase or otherwise acquire or otherwise dispose of farms, 

orchards, ranch lands, and to engage in all kinds of farming, ranching, raising of stock, fruit, and 

in general to do all things necessary to the proper conduct of fruit raising, ranching, and 

farming.”23 For sixteen years, the UVFOC directed the cultivation and livestock operations

along the eastern bank of the Upper Verde River Valley, issuing leases to local farmers and 

ranchers and coordinating the sale of their foodstuffs to the markets in Jerome, Clarkdale, 

Cottonwood, and Prescott. By 1928, when the UVFOC reconveyed these properties to the 

UVCC, the company claimed ownership of approximately 2,500 acres of land to the east and 

northeast of the Clarkdale Smelter and its potentially destructive smoke cloud (see Figure 4).24

Unfortunately, as no leasing records exist from the operations of the UVFOC, it is 

difficult to reconstruct the human occupation of the recent NPS land acquisition during this 

period and, consequently, how exactly the marsh’s inhabitants utilized their available resources 

in their ranching and farming endeavors. The clearest obtainable documentation pertains to Shea 

Home Ranch, which the UVCC acquired on October 11, 1911 and conveyed to the UVFOC in 

1913. The O’Sheas continued to raise Hereford cattle and irrigate their pasturelands with the 

waters from Shea Springs and the Tunnel Ditch, though all of their existing water rights were 

deeded to the mining company. Given the spatial limitations of their property for grazing 

purposes, due to the presence of the 60-acre marsh, it is also likely that during this period the 

O’Sheas constructed and maintained the drainage channel that the Tavascis later referred to as 

the Middle Ditch. Spanning the western edge of the wetland, the O’Sheas intended for this deep 

canal to drain as much of the spring-fed marsh as possible, thereby increasing the grazing land 

 23 Prescott Journal Miner, August 23, 1912. 24 Upper Verde Farm and Orchard Company to United Verde Copper Company, warranty deed, February 18, 1929, 

Book 147, Pages 8-9, Tavasci Marsh, FMI.
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available for their cattle herd. Incidentally, this ditch remained in use for this same purpose until 

the Tavasci family abandoned the property in 1991.25

One residual effect of the UVCC and UVFOC ownership and management of the marsh 

and the surrounding area in this period was the final consolidation of the property into what 

would become, in 1928, the Clarkdale Dairy.

 25 Summary of Shea Springs Water Right, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; Daniel J. O’Shea and Margaret O’Shea to 

United Verde Copper Company, warranty deed, October 30, 1911, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; “Chain of Title: Shea 

Home Ranch,” Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; Tavasci, Sr. interview by author.
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II. The Clarkdale Dairy

For thousands of immigrants to the American Southwest in the early 1900s, the region’s 

rich mining deposits and constant demand for labor served as a veritable magnet for westward 

migration. Paul Tavasci, a native of northern Italy, was one of the hundreds of Italian 

immigrants attracted by Jerome’s famous copper mines and the promise of a better, “American” 

life in the mining camps of the UVCC. With the assistance of his father-in-law, who gave him 

financial aid for his passage to Jerome, and his brother-in-law, whose employment at the mines 

enabled Paul to quickly find a job, Paul and his new wife, Mary, arrived in central Arizona in 

1924. Residing in Jerome, Paul immediately began to work for the UVCC, using mule teams to 

haul latrines and human waste out from the extensive underground tunnel system before cleaning 

the portable restrooms with high-pressure hoses and returning them to the bowels of Mingus 

Mountain. By 1928, Paul, who never worked as an actual miner, and his young family had 

become important members of Jerome’s Italian immigrant community, establishing friendships 

Image 2: Looking northwest at the Clarkdale Dairy, ca. 

1930s. Courtesy of John Tavasci, Sr.

Image 3: Paul Tavasci, Jr. (left) and John Tavasci, Sr. 

(right). Courtesy of John Tavasci, Sr.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

20

with the families of Guido Marianni and Nat Rezzonico that, ultimately, formed the foundation 

of the Clarkdale Dairy partnership.26

About this same time, Charles W. Clark – the son and successor of the late Senator Clark, 

who died in 1925 – realized the need for a consolidated dairy operation to supply the UVCC 

mining communities in the Upper Verde Valley with fresh milk. Although smaller, individually 

run dairies existed in this region in the 1920s, including a minor venture in the approximate 

location of the present-day tailings pond, the UVCC desired to create a single undertaking, 

managed by a number of partners, which could serve as the de facto company dairy for the 

smelter and the mines. According to John Tavasci, Sr., Clark “believed in his own people” and 

desired to give them a monopoly on the delivery of milk and other dairy products to the markets 

in Clarkdale. Given the limitations of milk at this time – which, prior to pasteurization, required 

daily delivery and almost immediate consumption – such an operation would need to be located 

close to the centers of population but far enough away to provide sufficient range for the grazing 

of large numbers of cattle. In addition, the new dairy would require an available supply of fresh 

water and fields sufficient for the growth of alfalfa, corn, and other forms of ensilage and cattle 

feed. 27

Having reacquired the former Shea Home Ranch, which had already proved to be 

adequate for the raising of livestock and included a large ranch house and pre-existing irrigation 

system, from the UVFOC in 1928, Clark settled on that property as the site for his new dairy. As 

an added benefit, the residence and outbuildings of the aforementioned small-market dairy

operation to the west of Tuzigoot hill – now beneath the current tailings pond – could be utilized 

by the partners in the short term, while waiting for company workers to complete the 

 26 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett. 27 Ibid.; Ibid.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

21

construction of a more sufficient homestead and dairying facility at the original O’Shea home

site. Thus, in 1928, with these plans in mind, the UVCC issued a ten-year lease to the Tavascis 

and their partners, enabling them to establish the Clarkdale Dairy on 250 acres centered around 

the marsh, while simultaneously granting the new dairymen grazing rights to four additional 

sections of land on the hills to the north and east.28

As relatively poor immigrant laborers, however, the Tavascis, Mariannis, and Rezonnicos 

lacked sufficient funds to create and foster a successful, large-scale dairy operation on their own, 

without further assistance from Clark and the UVCC. Indeed, while the marsh would eventually 

prove to be a suitable location for the prospering of the Clarkdale Dairy, it necessitated a 

significant amount of work before its productive value could be fully realized. For one, while 

the old O’Shea ranch house could sufficiently accommodate one family – the Tavascis – a full 

partnership, like the dairy, required a multi-family homestead, complete with individual 

residences, a milking house, and multiple barns, silos, and corrals. Realizing this fact, Clark 

provided the Tavascis and their partners with enough seed money for the construction of four or 

five additional homes, all of the associated outbuildings, and the necessary facilities for a 

modern-day dairy operation, as well as the purchase of the partnership’s first sixty or seventy 

head of Holstein cattle. Although hastily built, these structures – including a large two-by-one 

lumber ranch home, hay and milking barns, numerous corrals, a twenty-foot tall concrete 

ensilage silo, and a storage tank for water piped from Shea Springs – formed the nucleus of the 

Clarkdale Dairy for the next three decades.29

In addition, despite the earlier cattle operations at Shea Home Ranch, the marsh and 

surrounding property remained in need of further development and irrigation in order to 

 28 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.

29 Ibid.; Ibid.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

22

accommodate the potential expansion of the new dairy, which initially had a monopoly amongst

the ever-growing UVCC mining communities in Clarkdale and Jerome. Thus, within the first 

few years of leasing the property, Paul Tavasci, his partners, and their hired Mexican-American

laborers – including two families that lived on the homestead – worked to maintain and enlarge 

the area’s pre-existing irrigation system. Using three pairs of mules and multiple work horses 

that the UVCC gave to the dairy following the installation of an underground railroad in the 

nearby mines, the dairymen and their employees performed annual repairs on their portion of the 

Tunnel Ditch, from the golf course to the Verde River, regularly removing nearly one foot of 

sediment and debris. They also expanded this irrigation system on the lands to the south of the 

wetland, thereby creating additional fields for pasture and the growth of crops. Throughout the 

duration of the cattle operations in the area, this system, regularly maintained, provided sufficient 

water for the irrigation of the fields of alfalfa, “Mexican June” corn, and sweet Sudan grass that 

constituted the herd’s regular diet.30

Perhaps the greatest challenge that the Tavascis and their partners faced in their desire to 

expand the Clarkdale Dairy was the marsh itself, which, if left unchecked, would cover more 

than one hundred acres of prime pastureland. As John Tavasci, Sr., later recalled, “if I could 

have killed the swamp, I would have. There is no use denying it because it was just taking up 

our land.”31

 30 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.

Building upon the ditches that were first installed and maintained by earlier 

residents, most notably the O’Sheas, the dairymen and their employees created a three-tiered 

drainage system that joined at a point just south of the wetland’s furthest extent, passed under a 

dirt road through a cast iron culvert provided by the UVCC in the 1930s, and discharged its 

contents into the Verde River (see Figure 5). Consisting of the aforementioned Tavasci Ditch 

31 Ibid.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

23

and Middle Ditch, as well as the newly built Shea Springs Ditch – located at the base of the slope 

– this system effectively removed the majority of the wetland’s water supply and reduced the 

size of the marsh to approximately fifteen acres. On the reclaimed land, which ultimately served 

as the pasture for those cattle ready to be milked – dry cattle grazed on the fields to the west and 

south of the homestead – the Tavascis and their partners planted Bermuda grass and constructed 

a series of bridges to prevent their livestock from walking on and destroying the sides of the 

canals. Of course, the presence of a nearby natural wetland, no matter how well drained, 

presented its own problems for roaming cattle, some of which ultimately perished after being 

trapped overnight in the muddy embankments.32

The control and management of water was not the only necessity for the continued 

growth and expansion of the operations at the Clarkdale Dairy, however, as the new tenants 

quickly found themselves in conflict with native flora and fauna, as well. While many local 

grasses proved to be excellent forage for the farm’s Holstein cattle, others, most notably the 

pervasive and fast-growing cattail, remained ever-present nuisances to ranchers interested in 

maximizing their available grazing lands. As such, the Tavascis and their partners engaged in 

annual controlled burns of the cattail stands, sending enormous plumes of black smoke into the 

air and effectively controlling, but never eliminating, the plant’s presence in the marsh. 

Additionally, the dairymen found their desire to expand their pasturelands, particularly in the 

southern portion of the property, impeded by dense growths of mesquite tress that, though not as 

invasive as cattails, cluttered the dairy’s already patchy, hand-wrought, field system. Utilizing 

their mules and skiffs, as well as dynamite from the mines, the partners resolved this issue during 

 32 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

24

their first few years on the property, exploding dozens of mesquite trees and hauling the stumps 

out of the fields to be burned or otherwise disposed of elsewhere.33

The ranchers interacted with the marsh’s native animal life in a similar manner, finding 

some creatures to be impediments to their dairy’s operation, while viewing others as potential 

sources of subsistence and even profit. In regards to the former, local beavers proved to be a 

constant annoyance, as their propensity for dam building in the irrigation and drainage ditches, as 

well as the marsh, constantly threatened to flood the nearby crops and pasturelands. In order to 

mitigate this issue, the Tavascis and their partners either hired trappers or simply shot the beavers 

that were found in the marsh and surrounding vicinity. By contrast, ducks and fish, which also 

inhabited the wetland, proved to be vital sources of food for the families living at the homestead 

– especially in the 1930s and 1940s, when the site was at its maximum capacity. Interestingly, 

the Tavascis and their partners employed the same technique to fishing as they did to the removal 

of native vegetation, finding dynamite from the UVCC mines to be just as effective at collecting 

dinner as it was at clearing mesquite trees from the fields. In recalling his childhood on the 

property, John Tavasci, Sr., later expanded upon this story, explaining that they would often 

collect enough fish with a few sticks of dynamite to fill a washtub in the rear of one of their 

mule-drawn wagons.34

In their quest for food and profit, the dairymen also introduced certain non-native animal 

species to the marsh environment, presuming that its unique and life-sustaining ecosystem could 

serve as a new habitat for other wetland species – most notably, bullfrogs. For a few years after

the marriage of John Tavasci, Sr., in the early 1940s, his new father-in-law, Harvey Gazard, 

resided on the property and assisted in the operation of the dairy. An enterprising individual, 

 33 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett. 34 Ibid.; Ibid.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

25

Gazard believed that bullfrogs could make a positive addition to the wetland ecosystem, and that 

of the surrounding riparian zone. As such, he purchased six pairs of large Louisiana bullfrogs 

and turned them loose at the marsh, hoping that they would provide a ready source of food and, 

when collected in excess, could be sold to the markets in Cottonwood and Clarkdale. While the 

frogs did ultimately serve both these functions, they unfortunately overpopulated the region, 

spreading first to Pecks Lake and then into the remainder of the Upper Verde Valley. The 

bullfrogs eventually became so prolific, John Tavasci, Jr., later recalled, that “you could go out 

on the lake with a flashlight at night and see eyes . . . sitting on a lily pad.”35

 35 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author.

Image 4: The Rezzonico family, and others, outside the Clarkdale Dairy Milk House during the ranch's period of peak 

production. Ca. 1930s. Courtesy of John Tavasci, Sr.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

26

During this time, another non-native species – the dairy’s Holstein cattle – also expanded in 

terms of population and reach. Effective drainage practices and the removal of native vegetation, 

both of which significantly increased the amount of pastureland available for grazing, coincided 

with a growing regional population, leading the partners at the Clarkdale Dairy to triple the size 

of their herd, to nearly two hundred head of cattle, by 1946. This was further influenced by the 

implementation of better irrigation techniques and the use of modern fertilizers in the fields of 

alfalfa and corn, enabling the partners to produce more feed and, therefore, support a larger herd. 

Indeed, despite the Great Depression, World War II, and the emergence of privately owned

competing dairy ventures in the Upper Verde Valley, the operations at the Clarkdale Dairy 

continued to thrive. Even the decline of the dairy’s parent company, the UVCC, and its ensuing 

purchase by the Phelps Dodge Corporation (PDC) in 1935, did not significantly affect the 

progress and development of the ranching operation – although it did coincide with a new lease 

agreement and the transfer of Tuzigoot hill to the federal government for the purposes of 

establishing Tuzigoot National Monument in 1939. Throughout this period, the Clarkdale Dairy 

provided regular door-to-door deliveries of milk and other dairy products to miners and their 

families in Jerome, Clarkdale, and Cottonwood. By the end of the war, the operation had 

reached its maximum productive capacity.

36

Unfortunately, a series of developments in the immediate postwar period – both at the 

marsh and in the surrounding mining communities – brought about a number of changes to the 

Clarkdale Dairy that, in due course, would lead to its decline and eventual closure. For one, the 

historic dairy partnership, which had provided the necessary manpower and resources for the 

management of the operation during its growth, dissolved in 1946 with at least one partner, Nat 

Rezzonico, moving to the vicinity of Prescott in order to establish the Prescott Dairy. While this 

 36 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

27

resulted in John, Sr., and his brother, Paul, Jr., purchasing shares in the partnership with their 

father, Paul, Sr., the diary’s transition from a multi-family joint venture to a single-family 

operation presented new challenges given the business’ size and the popular regional demand for 

its products. The issue of declining manpower became even more of a concern over the next few 

years, with the death of one of the dairy’s most reliable ranch hands – a Spaniard, named 

Segundo Prada – and the subsequent firing of the operation’s other hired laborers, who, John Sr., 

later claimed, proved to be difficult to work with and often unreliable.37

New technological developments in the dairy industry on a national scale, particularly as 

related to growing concerns over issues of health and sanitation, further compounded the 

difficulties facing the Tavascis as they sought to continue their work into the 1950s. According 

to John Tavasci, Sr., local doctors and the regional health department became increasingly 

disillusioned with the prospects of the area’s dairy operations using open truck beds to deliver 

raw milk to the community, a practice that was standard at the Clarkdale Dairy since its 

establishment in the 1920s. The resultant regulations of this new movement forced expensive 

changes upon the Tavascis’ operation, requiring the purchase and use of closed-container trucks, 

as well as modern pasteurization and homogenization equipment. Totaling more than $30,000 

worth of expenses, these new directives placed a significant financial burden on the diary, 

ultimately making it difficult for the Tavascis’ local milk sales to garner a profit. Even after 

expanding their door-to-door delivery of dairy products to the cities of Prescott and Flagstaff, the 

Tavascis found that, by the mid-1950s, insufficient revenue and increasing competition from 

larger corporate creameries negated any potential benefits of continuing their traditional 

operational model. For the next few years, until the closure of the dairy in 1958, the Tavascis 

 37 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

28

delivered their product and that of the other regional dairies, in bulk, to Phoenix’s Carnation 

Milk Creamery.38

This is not to argue, however, that all of the technological advancements at the Clarkdale 

Dairy in this period promoted the eventual downfall of the operation. Indeed, the addition of a 

tractor, purchased by John, Sr., in 1954, provided needed mechanization to many of the regular 

activities at the marsh that had previously been performed by hand or with the assistance of a 

mule team – including the plowing of croplands, the clearing of pasture, and the annual 

maintenance of the irrigation and drainage ditches. This also led to the continued modernization 

of the farmstead itself, as the 1950s saw the installation of a gas pump and fifty-gallon 

underground storage tank at the farmstead, as well as two septic tanks. Nevertheless, this 

progress was soon met with yet another setback when, in the mid-1950s, a major fire destroyed 

the hay barn and milk house, neither of which the Tavascis rebuilt.39

 38 Ibid.; Ibid.

39 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.

Image 5: The Clarkdale Dairy tractor, currently in the possession of John Tavasci, Sr. Courtesy of Will Stoutamire.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

29

The final, and perhaps most significant, development that brought about the eventual 

demise of dairy farming at the marsh occurred in the surrounding mining communities, far 

beyond the control of the dairymen and their labors. In 1953, with the mines at Jerome 

producing declining amounts of usable copper ore, the executive management at PDC decided to 

cease operations. The closure of the mines, in turn, resulted in an immediate decrease in the 

population of the Upper Verde Valley, as miners, their families, and the community support 

structures that had been built around the region’s copper industry all turned elsewhere for 

employment and opportunity in the mines of the Southwest. For the Tavascis and the Clarkdale 

Dairy – the success of which, the 1930s and 1940s, relied on the generous support of the UVCC

and PDC – the population busts in Clarkdale and Jerome presented even further challenges to the 

dairy’s continued profitability at the midpoint of the twentieth century. Compounding upon 

ongoing struggles with declining revenue, unreliable labor, and increased corporate competition, 

the closure of the mines forced the Tavascis to cease dairying in 1958 and sell their 280 head of 

Holstein cattle.40

 40 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

30

III. From Dairy to Beef

Despite the termination of full-scale dairy operations at the marsh, the Tavascis continued to 

utilize their ranch, on lease from PDC, for the purposes of raising cattle until their departure from 

the property in 1991. Having sold their Holstein stock, the 

family now invested in 135 beef cattle and their calves – of the 

Hereford, Santa Gertrudis, and Angus varieties – for the 

purposes of turning the now-defunct dairy operation into a more 

recreational, part-time cattle ranch and hay farm. The first 

evidences of this changing business model began to emerge in 

the mid-1950s, during the decline of the Clarkdale Dairy, as 

John, Sr., his young family, and his brother, Paul, Jr., all moved 

off the property and into neighboring Clarkdale. Although they 

continued to remain involved in the management of the ranch, 

the brothers also began to pursue alternative employment 

options, with John, Sr., eventually owning and operating the 

Verde Valley’s school bus transportation system. When Paul, Sr., passed away in 1966 and his 

widow, Mary, moved to Clarkdale, the population of the homestead declined even further and, in 

1971, John, Sr., purchased his brother’s remaining shares in the partnership. For the next two 

decades, only John, Jr., and a hired ranch hand – Tony Velazquez – lived on the property. Even 

then, both men resided there on a more irregular, part-time basis, living in two trailer homes 

following the burning of the main ranch house in the mid-1970s.41

 41 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.

Image 6: The Tavasci Homestead, 

ca. 1970s. Courtesy of John 

Tavasci, Sr.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

31

Although the population of the ranch declined in the latter half of the twentieth century, 

the Tavascis and their hired laborers continued to participate in the annual maintenance of the 

irrigation and drainage ditches, via backhoe, and sought to promote additional improvements 

upon the land. With less help readily available in this period, the Tavascis worked closely with 

Charles Van Gorder, of the Bridgeport Soil Conservation District, to develop a more sustainable 

and less labor-intensive land management plan for their property. First agreed upon in 1951, and 

carried out over the ensuing decade, this new strategy called for the leveling of 109 acres of 

otherwise patchy, hand-wrought farmland and the subsequent creation of permanent pastures. 

According to Van Gorder, such lands would “furnish a source of succulent food for livestock. 

They also build up poor soil and control erosion on steep slopes and provide added income for 

the farm . . . Permanent pastures have proven very beneficial for beef cattle as well as dairy 

cattle.”42

As Figure 6 indicates, this plan resulted in the development and expansion of both subirrigated, fenced croplands to the southwest of the farmstead and at the base of Tuzigoot hill, as 

well as Bermuda and dry pasture on the marsh itself and in the fields to the south. The Soil 

Conservation District also widened and deepened the Tunnel Ditch, constructing new irrigation 

structures and flumes with the intention of providing a greater supply of water to more than one 

hundred acres of newly created fields. By replacing the native vegetation with ryegrass, orchard 

grass, tall fescue grass, and a variety of legumes, and instituting a system of rotational usage on 

the improved and fertilized permanent pastures, the Tavascis were thus able to significantly 

reduce the amount of manpower required to sustain their beef cattle operation. Indeed, by the 

1970s, when Velazquez and John, Jr., were the sole residents of the homestead, the fields 

 42 “Soil and Water Conservation Plan: Phelps-Dodge Corp. (Old Clarkdale Dairy, 1951),” Tavasci Marsh, FMI.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

32

required only thrice-daily irrigation, thereby considerably decreasing the total effort necessary to 

maintain the pastures and care for the cattle.43

As the creation of permanent pastures enabled the Tavascis to manage their property and 

livestock on a smaller part-time, recreational basis, the period in which the family used their 

lease of the marsh to raise beef cattle was also characterized by increasing interactions between 

members of the surrounding community and the wetland riparian zone. In the late 1950s, for 

instance, the Tavascis permitted a Mexican-American family from Clarkdale – the Uribes – to 

construct a small shack on one acre of land in the southern fields, where, with John, Sr.’s, 

assistance, they grew corn, tomatoes, string beans, and sugar cane. According to John Tavasci, 

Jr., in recalling his childhood, although the Uribes never lived on the property, they became close 

friends with the Tavasci family – even providing children, like John, Jr., with occasional supplies 

of sugar cane. Likewise, in the 1970s and 1980s, the Tavascis permitted Clarkdale’s elementary 

schools to conduct educational tours on the lower portion of the marsh and allowed local high 

school students to hold their annual graduation party – complete with music, drinks, and bonfires 

– at a small picnic area just beyond of the marsh’s southernmost extent. Events like this served 

to increase the popularity of the region as a place of both recreational opportunity and significant 

ecological value, a two-fold community sentiment that became important to the preservation and 

restoration of the wetland in the 1990s.44

For the Tavascis, however, this growing public attachment to the marsh as a habitat 

worthy of conversation signaled a coming period of transition. With increasing instances of 

trespassing by birdwatchers from the nearby national monument, John, Jr., later stated, “that 

 43 Ibid.; Tavasci, Sr. interview by author. 44 Tavasci, Sr. interview by author; Tavasci, Sr., interview by Dallett.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

33

started the protectionism or the interest in [the wetland] as a marshland to be preserved and that 

effort or that movement moved the rancher out and moved in the” environmentalist.45

Image 7: Beef cattle grazing at Tavasci Marsh, ca. 1990. The Allen Ditch can be seen in the foreground. 

Courtesy of Tavasci Marsh, FMI.

 45 Ibid.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

34

IV. Development, or Restoration?

Unbeknownst to the Tavascis, such debates over potential opportunities for the public use 

of the Pecks Lake/Tavasci Marsh46 riparian zone had already begun within the real estate 

division of PDC, under the management of Ken C. Bennett, in the mid-1980s. For Bennett and 

other PDC executives, who planned to construct a large residential neighborhood – the Verde 

Valley Ranch – on the lands immediately to the west of Tavasci Marsh, the future of the wetland 

lay in either its full-scale development or its environmental restoration. Indeed, in 1986,

following the removal of the property from a planned land exchange with the Bureau of Land 

Management, PDC contracted with the Tucson-based P&D Technologies for the creation of five 

conceptual development plans for Tavasci Marsh. Consisting of between 109 and 196 units, of 

varying sizes, each design was based around the understanding “that a predominantly retirement 

market will be attracted to the project, many of whom will prefer a more rural alternative to the 

more ‘manicured’ environment planned for the Verde Valley Ranch.”47

 46 The phrase, “Tavasci Marsh,” came into use by the mid-1970s, though the exact date is unclear.

As such, each concept 

provided for the creation of small “natural” open spaces alongside the residential housing plots 

47 P&D Technologies, “Preliminary Development Options for: The Tavasci Marsh,” 2, Tavasci Marsh, FMI.

Image 8: Two water control structures installed by the Arizona Game 

and Fish Department in 1993, as part of the planned restoration of 

Tavasci Marsh. Courtesy of Tavasci Marsh, FMI.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

35

and the plan’s highlight feature – an equestrian facility, a resort hotel, a camping ground, or even 

an “Indian demonstration farm.”48

While P&D Technologies’ conceptual drawings remained confidential within PDC, it 

soon became clear to Bennett and his coworkers that the general public in the Upper Verde 

Valley desired to restore the marsh to its natural condition, and it would create a significant 

outcry if PDC’s residential plans for the property were made known. In addition, pressure from 

the National Park Service’s (NPS) John Thomas to restore the marsh and create trails for public 

access, as well as Bennett’s realization that the entire site lay below the area’s 100-year flood 

plain, further persuaded PDC to favor the restoration of the marsh. With this in mind, by the end 

of the 1980s, Bennett and his colleagues changed their perspective, now believing that the 

rehabilitation of the wetland’s natural habitat would “significantly enhance the value of the 

adjacent lands, including the Verde Valley Ranch project.”49 On January 15, 1990, after 

multiple failures to establish partnerships with the NPS, the Nature Conservancy, and the 

Conservation Fund, PDC entered into a cooperative agreement with the Arizona Game and Fish 

Department (AGFD) for the management and restoration of Tavasci Marsh.50

Of course, in 1990, the most immediate impediment to the rehabilitation of the property 

by representatives of AGFD and PDC was the continued presence of the Tavascis’ cattle ranch in 

the wetland and surrounding vicinity, as well as their regular drainage of waters from the lake, 

marsh, and spring into the Verde River. That year, as part of the aforementioned cooperative 

agreement, PDC canceled the Tavascis’ grazing lease on the marsh itself, giving them sixty days 

 48 Ibid., 3-5, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; John Thomas, et.al., to Ken C. Bennett, May 27, 1986, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; Jack 

Bestall, et.al. to Ken C. Bennett, April 8, 1988, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; Ken C. Bennett to Jack Bestall, May 13, 1988, 

Tavasci Marsh, FMI.

49 “AZ Game and Fish AG and Topographic Map,” n.d., Tavasci Marsh, FMI. 50 John Thomas, et.al. to Ken C. Bennett, June 6, 1988, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; A. Scott Williams to Ken Bennett, 

February 28, 1989, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; Ken C. Bennett to Tom Macy, July 20, 1989, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; Ken C. 

Bennett to J.S. Whisler, et.al., July 15, 1991, Tavasci Marsh, FMI; “Agreement and Amendment of Agreement,” 

January 15, 1990, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

36

to remove their livestock before AGFD fenced in the property. Just one year later, seeking to 

remove the ranchers from the area altogether in order to further promote the land’s restoration –

or as Bennett phrased the issue, bring the Tavasci lease “in line with our current economic 

plan”51 – PDC issued the family a new lease agreement, which raised John, Sr.’s, monthly rent 

from $75 to $500 and, as a result, ultimately went unsigned. By the summer of 1991, the 

property lay vacant of humans and livestock for the first time in decades and, in the mid-1990s, 

PDC contracted for the final demolition of the homestead and the abandonment of its well.52

With the Tavascis and their cattle now removed from the region, representatives of 

AGFD were finally able to move forward with their plans for the marsh’s restoration. Their 

objectives were two-fold: “primarily to protect, enhance, restore, and monitor the native 

biological diversity of Tavasci Marsh” and “secondarily to provide educational and recreational 

uses of the marsh compatible with its sensitive nature.”53 Seizing upon the opportunities for 

financial assistance provided by President George Bush’s wetlands restoration initiative, AGFD

obtained $15,000 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s “Partners for Wildlife” Program for 

the purposes of constructing water control structures across the Tavasci and Shea Springs 

ditches, near their confluence at the southernmost extent of the natural marshland. Once 

completed, these weirs enabled the Department to effectively restore the wetland to its historic 

size, which contemporary environmental experts estimated to be approximately eighty acres.54

In addition, AGFD constructed an observation deck and a small trail system in order to 

open the marsh, now considered an important birding site by the Audubon Society, to birders and 

 51 Ken C. Bennett to Mr. and Mrs. John Tavasci, Sr., April 5, 1991, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI. 52 Agreement and Amendment of Agreement, January 15, 1990, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; Ken C. Bennett to Mike 

Schern, April 8, 1991, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; Grazing Lease, 1991, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; Redline Markups 

and Contracts, Tavasci Marsh, FMI. 53 “Tavasci Marsh Restoration: Final Environmental Assessment,” June 24, 1993, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI. 54 K.C. Bennett to T. M. Foster, April 24, 1995, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; K.C. Bennett to S.A. Crozier, April 25, 

1995, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI.
Tavasci Marsh Special History Study

37

the general public. While a lack of sufficient funds ultimately prevented the Department from 

completely fulfilling its recreational plans for the property – which called for one additional 

observation deck, more trails, a small parking area, and a visitor comfort station – its 

management of the wetland did initially enable greater access to one of Arizona’s few remaining 

riparian marsh environments. In the early 1990s, for example, Nancy Burnett, a volunteer 

naturalist at Red Rock State Park, routinely brought local school children to weeklong 

environmental summer camps at Tavasci Marsh. According to Burnett, her program provided 

students with an opportunity to learn how a marsh ecosystem operates through the collection of 

water samples, the examination of native flora and fauna, and the exploration of Shea Springs. 

Unfortunately, however, with the completion of the AGFD restoration project in 1995, concerns 

over liability and potential damages – as well as the limited access provided to the site given its 

lack of sufficient financial support, parking and recreational facilities – forced PDC to curtail 

many such community-based activities.55

Indeed, by the end of the 1990s, AGFD’s inadequate funds and staff, and the subsequent 

decline in permissible public access to Tavasci Marsh resulted in the property falling into 

disrepair, leading to the unintended expansion of the wetland. In particular, the local beaver 

population, which was historically controlled by the ranchers in the region, grew significantly in 

this period and constructed an elaborate system of dams throughout the marsh. This system 

quickly became so extensive that, in 1998, PDC’s Mark Fitzgerald informed a member of the 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the largest beaver dam “extends a few hundred feet 

across the marsh at the road crossing” and had raised water levels in the wetland to eighteen 

 55 Nancy Burnett to Duane L. Shroufe, September 27, 1994, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; Nancy Burnett to John Zamar, 

September 28, 1994, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI; J.H. Zamar to Nancy Burnett, November 8, 1994, Tavasci Marsh (2), 

FMI.
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inches above the tops of the recently installed AGFD water control structures.56

 56 Mark J. Fitzgerald to Elizabeth Borowiec, June 26, 1998, Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI.

 The 

uncontrolled expansion of the marsh also enabled the overgrowth of certain species of plants –

most notably, cattails – into the former pasturelands and crop fields of the old Tavasci cattle 

operation.
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V. Conclusion

Thus, by the time Tuzigoot National Monument finally acquired Tavasci Marsh from 

PDC in 2005, after more than two decades of failed attempts to exchange for the property, 

human management had shaped a new landscape. From early irrigation practices for the purpose 

of raising subsistence crops to more recent attempts to drain and, eventually, restore the marsh 

itself, the story of human habitation at Tavasci Marsh has been one of constant interaction and 

contention between humanity and the surrounding environment. Through the progressive 

removal and regulation of native species to the introduction of non-native flora and fauna – from 

alfalfa and corn, to cattle and bullfrogs – the marsh as it exists today is vastly different from what 

J.A. Hawkins described in the early 1860s. Hopefully, with an understanding of the changes 

brought upon Tavasci Marsh in the past one hundred and fifty years, its new stewards, the 

National Park Service, will be able to effectively manage and interpret the property for future 

generations.
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Bibliography

Cotter, Jack, “Tuzigoot National Monument,” Arizona’s National Monuments, Popular Series 

No. 2, Santa Fe: Southwestern Monuments Association, 1945.

Hayden, T.A., Irrigation on the Upper Verde River Watershed from Surface Waters, 1940.

Prescott Journal Miner.

Ruffner Collection, in possession of Mrs. Melissa Ruffner.

Ryan, Amelia and Lorraine Parsons, “Tavasci Marsh Wetland Assessment: Wetland Vegetation 

Communities, Conditions, and Functions,” National Park Service, September 2009.

Tavasci Marsh Collection, 162414354, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold, Inc., Phoenix, AZ.

Tavasci Marsh Collection, 525926160, Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold, Inc., Phoenix, AZ

Tavasci, John, Sr., interview by author, Clarkdale, AZ, April 1, 2010.

Tavasci, John, Sr., interview by Nancy Dallett, Clarkdale, AZ, November 14, 2007.

“The United Verde Copper Company: A Series of Articles Describing the Organization, 

Operations, and Activities of this Company in the Jerome District of Arizona”, The Mining

Congress Journal, April 1930.

U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1880 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 28, Yavapai 

County, Arizona

U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1900 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 69, Yavapai 

County, Arizona

U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1920 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 108, Yavapai 

County, Arizona

U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1930 U.S. Census, Population Schedule, District 6, Yavapai County, 

Arizona

U.S. Congress, An Act to Secure Homesteads to Actual Settlers on the Public Domain, 37th 

Cong., 2d sess., May 20, 1862.

Wahmann, Russell, “A Centennial Commemorative, United Verde Copper Company, 1882-

1982,” The Journal of Arizona History, Vol. 23, No. 3, Autumn 1982.
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41

Methodology:

As the National Park Service owns few records regarding the historical use of Tavasci Marsh, 

this project involved trips to multiple public and private repositories. Nancy Dallett, who is 

working on an administrative history of Tuzigoot National Monument, gave me access to her 

collections as a starting point for my own research. Other materials were gathered from Arizona 

State University’s Hayden Library Arizona Collections, Ancestry.com, and from conversations 

with Prescott historian, Melissa Ruffner. Perhaps the greatest wealth of information, however, 

was found in the archives of Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold, Inc., which houses the records 

of the UVCC and Phelps Dodge.

Contacts:

Hayden Library, Arizona Collection

(480) 965-4932

Melissa Ruffner, Prescott Historian

(928) 445-4567

Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold, Inc.

Michelle Hughes, Archivist

(602) 366-8108
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Appendix

Figure 1: Map indicating original settlement of Tavasci Marsh. Courtesy 

of Tavasci Marsh, FMI.
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Figure 2: 1877 Map of the Surveyor Generals 

Office, Tucson, AZ. Courtesy of Northern 

Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ.
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Figure 3: 1905 USGS Topographical Map, 

Courtesy of Noble Science Library, Tempe, AZ.

Hawkins

Wilber

O’Shea
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Figure 4: Map of the UVFOC Holdings, NPS 

Acquisition Highlighted. Courtesy of Tavasci 

Marsh, FMI.
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Figure 5: A 1949 Phelps Dodge boundary map, indicating 

the Clarkdale Dairy lease and related improvements. 

Courtesy of Tavasci Marsh (2), FMI.
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Figure 7: “Concept B,” one of P&D Technology’s 

development plans for Tavasci Marsh. Courtesy 

of Tavasci Marsh, FMI.
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National Park Service, U. S. Department of Interior