Apex was a lumber town on the

Grand Canyon Railway The Grand Canyon Railway is a heritage railroad which carries passengers between Williams, Arizona, and the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. The railroad, built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, was completed on September ...

situated in

Coconino County Coconino County is a County (United States), county in the North Central Arizona, North-Central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. Its population was 145,101 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The county seat is Flagstaff, Arizon ...

, Arizona. Founded as

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

on a wye on the

Atlantic and Pacific Railroad The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad was an American railroad that owned or operated two individual segments of track. One connected St. Louis, Missouri, with Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the other connected Albuquerque, New Mexico, with Needles in Southe ...

, the community was dissolved when lumbering activity ceased in 1936.

Geography

Apex was located near the junction of Forest Service Road 335 and the rail line.

History

Apex was a

founded on a spur track of the

in the late 1920s by the Saginaw and Manistee Lumber Company of Arizona, which built a headquarters for their milling operations. In addition to the headquarters building, the community originally consisted of "seven houses perched on the east slope and seven more and the school on the west, along with two oil tanks and a water tank for the locomotives." There were also several sheds and other buildings used to service the train and support mill operations. The houses in Apex rested on temporary foundations. The company maintained a

commissary A commissary is a government official charged with oversight or an ecclesiastical official who exercises in special circumstances the jurisdiction of a bishop. In many countries, the term is used as an administrative or police title. It often c ...

. Men without families would typically live in camps moving with the cutting activity, while families lived in a community at Apex station. The settlement had its own school and telephone service. Many of the workers and their families were from Sweden and Norway. Lumber operations by the Saginaw and Manistee Lumber Company ended in 1936 and it was abandoned. Apex School District #3 opened in fall 1929 in a boxcar converted into a one-room schoolhouse. The school at Apex, along with the neighboring one at the mining town of Anita, were at one time the only racially integrated schools in Arizona. The school never exceeded 15 pupils, and closed in spring 1936. In May 1936, the community was disbanded when logging activities ceased. After removal, the houses were removed, leaving only the foundations. Shacks on boxcars were burned in bonfires. The schoolhouse was one of the last buildings in Apex; it, too, was removed.

Northern Arizona University Northern Arizona University (NAU) is a public research university based in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States. Founded in 1899, it was the third and final university established in the Arizona Territory. It is one of the three universities gove ...

maintains the Apex, Arizona Archaeology Project, educating the public on life in Apex during the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

References

{{Coconino County, Arizona Populated places in Coconino County, Arizona Ghost towns in Arizona

Geography

History

See also

References