The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-04-17
AWAY IN ARIZONA
Frost Destroys Some of the Early
Fruits.
THE BIG MONTEzUMA CANAL
An Attempt to dump Townsite that Was
Happily Frustrated Without Seri-
GUS Results.

THATCHER, ARIZONA, April s, 1891. Cor
respondence of the Herald. Our beautiful
valley was visited by very severe frost
last week, which destroyed most of the
early fruit, consisting of peaches, apricots
and plums; but it did not iniure the hay
and grain crops, although it has made them
later than they otherwise would have been.
The recent floods In the ella river have
caused great loss of crops to the farmers in
the vicinity of Thatcher, by washing their
lrr1gatlng canals away, the Union canal
alone, which furnishes water for our town,
costing about IS 600 to repair it.
Mr.. w. w. Damson has succeeded in get
ting appointed postmaster for Thatcher,
vice Mrs. Elizabeth Layton removed /;
cause unknown. The people, however,
manifested their displeasure in having our
former postmaster removed by circulating
petition, addressed to the postmaster gen.
| eral to have her retained, which large ma
lorlty OF the public signed, but Mrs. Layton
uecnned to act as postmaster any longer;
therefore, the petition was not sent. Mrs.
Layton has made US good postmaster, al
ways accommodating and attentive to bus
mess, therefore the people were sorry &c
lose her, they were afraid the change
would not be for the better
The latest move towards advancement
here Is the extension Of the Montezuma
canal, which will run about two miles south
OF our town, covering many hundreds OIL
acres of valuable land, which, up to the
present has been valueless, on account Of
not being covered by acanal.
Our farmers will cut their first crop Of
hay about the 1st of May, and will harvest
their grain about a month later. and ther
plant corn, potatoes, squash, melons, ano
sugar cane On the same ground.
| The latest scheme here was the at
tempted jumping of our townsite by some
OF our pretended stake '.reformers,
which, happily for the residents O.
Thatcher, failed. A few years ago Mr.. G
Layton bought the land On which our towr
is situated, from Mr.. Anderson, and re
ceiyed deed, which, however, was can
celled on the statements of certain individ
uals here. which, on investigation, proved
to be erroneous. and the land was after
wards reinstated. Some parties wrote Il
the land Office at Tucson, to find what LIANT
there was under the extension of the Mon
tezuma canal subject to entry. Our ere
formers" instead of informing MIR. Lay
ton that there was some mistake ii
the land Office, went post haste' to tn
county seat to see, as they afterwards al
legged, that their friends y and neighbor
did not lose their homes but were only pre-
vented from attempting to Jump the Ian
by the fact that they could not raise tn
$500 necessary to file on it as townsite
Mr.. Layton finally learned in an ''of
handed" way of what was going on, and az
companied by Mr.. William ID. Johnson, i'm
mediately set out for Tucson to investigat
the matter, and found that the land ha
been cancelled and also reinstated agaiI
Now you can hear some of the reform
ers'" friends say: Pm glad they mad
old Layton little trouble, anyway.
Yours, etc., OBSERVER.