Arizona republican., 1908-03-21
PIONEERS PAST GAN
 ONLY BE GUESSED AT
The Fact That He Lived at All Was
 Only Accidentally Discovered.

l Resting in a place of honor on the
 top of his desk, empty-eyed and grin
 ming with a well preserved set of
 Rooseveltian teeth, the skull of man
 who once possessed more than com
 mon physical development, faces Sup
 erintendent Robert Craig of the city
 water department Mute and unre- sponsive to the jocose remarks of Re
 corder Thomas and the other water de-
 partnent officials housed in that apartment of the city hail. but never
 theless as affable as one in it's help | less but dignified condition may be- this silent visitor from another genera
 ton. perhaps q former civilization. is q guest unwelcome to the janitor. Fred
 Gardner. Fred is not exactly "skeered"
 but he has bit of the old superstition about graveyards in his mind and ad-
 dressing Ned Creighton chief clerk of
 the water department. he said: "I wish you'd have Judge Thomas put that hombre in the vault I don't like to
 have him around. l. have to meet you here every morning and one'' dead
 one" is enough.
 This skull is the head-piece of a skeleton that was found yesterday by the men engaged in connecting the new water pipe with a service pipe from a house near the corner of Mad ison and Second avenue. The skeleton
 was found in a sitting posture and q workman's pick penetrated the skull
 before he was aware of the presence of the past" Coroner Johnstone was notified in due course but by the time he arrived the curio hunter had got in
 his desecrating work and this, per haps Phoenix oldest citizen. was al- ready dismembered and scattered all over the townsite. The upper bone of one leg had been carried to the sher ifs office. the head to the city hall. and other bones to other parts. The coroner viewed the spot where the re- mains had laid and announced sol emnly that the statute of limitations had run against the case and he re- fused to consider it in his court. There wasn't enough left of the deceased to even hang a court decision on, much
 less collect a fee.
 The identity of the skeleton is and always will be unknown. Death came upon him before the advent of Arizona Bill or Alkali Ike, for there wasn't a
 metal beer check or a six shooter to
 be found anywhere near his resting place. He may be a representative of that ancient civilization that flourished
 in this valley in larger numbers than the present inhabitants, back In the days to which the mind of man, nor yet his records, runneth not back.
 Most likely though the skeleton is that
 of an Indian. though his frame is larger than that of most of the tribes
 men in these parts. The cheek bones are high. the forehead not specially
 well developed. while the top of the head is rather too high and full and the thickness from the nose to back of the head is too slight to suggest a Caucasian type. The leg bone at the sheriff's office is longer than that of most men so he must have been we'll toward seven feet tall. The fact that the body was found in sitting posture is also in accordance with old customs among the Indians and some of the oldest settlers say that when the town was first laid out, Indians resided in huts in that locality in quite large numbers, as they did also just east of the present Gold hotel.