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Ed Sweeney, top of photo, shares Cochise's Rock
with a group of local history buffs only weeks after the rock's location
was discovered. Present on this tour were several archeologists and
members representing the Arizona Historical Society and the Forest Service.
Landowner Jerry Dixon, facing camera, had visited this cozy recess many
times in the past never realizing he had been hiking so near the actual
site of Cochise's 1872 domicile. This photo looks eastward toward
the site of the old Dragoon Spring stage station.
Take yourself back 130+ years as you view this photo and the background
would be virtually the same, but in the foreground you might well be seeing
Cochise wrapped in his favorite red blanket, smoking, peering off toward
Tucson in deep and solemn thought, perhaps in the company of his only American
friend, Tom Jeffords.
It was atop this rock, also, that Cochise stood side by side with General
Howard to announce to his Apaches that peace had been decided upon (this
according to specific information given by Thomas Jeffords to Alice Rollins
Crane). The climb to the top of this monument could not have been
an easy one for one-armed General Howard -- but he was a man of immense
strength and there can be no doubt he would have relished the challenge. |
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