Desert Wells, originally Desert Station, a
stagecoach
A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...
station on the
La Paz–Wickenburg Road
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
*La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
*"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smit ...
in the 1870s, is a
populated place
In geography, statistics and archaeology, a settlement, locality or populated place is a community of people living in a particular place. The complexity of a settlement can range from a minuscule number of dwellings grouped together to t ...
in
La Paz County,
Arizona
Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...
, United States. It lies at an elevation of and is located 4.7 miles west-southwest of
Vicksburg on
U.S. Route 60
U.S. Route 60 is a major east–west United States highway, traveling from southwestern Arizona to the Atlantic Ocean coast in Virginia.
The highway's eastern terminus is in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where it is known as General Booth Bouleva ...
.
History
Desert Wells was originally known as Desert Station, a stagecoach station on the La Paz–Wickenburg Road, in what was then
Yuma County. It lay 26 miles from
Tyson's Wells to the west and 20 miles from
Flint's on
Centennial Wash to the east. In 1875, it was seen by
Martha Summerhayes, and later described in her book ''Vanished Arizona'':
At night we arrived at Desert Station. There was a good ranch there, kept by Hunt and Dudley, Englishmen, I believe. I did not see them, but I wondered who they were and why they staid in such a place. They were absent at the time; perhaps they had mines or something of the sort to look after. One is always imagining things about people who live in such extraordinary places. At all events, whatever Messrs. Hunt and Dudley were doing down there, their ranch was clean and attractive, which was more than could be said of the place where we stopped the next night, a place called Tyson’s Wells.Martha Summerhayes, ''Vanished Arizona Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman'', The Salem Press Co., Salem. Mass., 1908.
/ref>
Desert Station appears on
Arizona Territory
The Territory of Arizona, commonly known as the Arizona Territory, was a territory of the United States that existed from February 24, 1863, until February 14, 1912, when the remaining extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the ...
maps between 1875 and 1880,
[Sheet No. 3, Department of Arizona. Revised, 1875. Compiled under the authority of Maj. Gen. J.M. Schofield Commanding Mil. Div. of the Pacific by 1st Lieut. J.C. Mallery Corps of Engrs. Published by authority of The Hon. The Secretary of War in the Office of the Chief Of Engineers U.S. Army Washington D.C. 1876. Drawn by J.W. Ward.]
/ref>[Official Map Of The Territory Of Arizona Compiled from Surveys, Reconnaissances and other Sources. By E.A. Eckhoff And P. Riecker, Civil Engineers, 1880. Drawn by Eckhoff & Riecker. The Graphic Co. Photo-Lith. 39 & 41 Park Place, N.Y. Entered ... 1879, by Emil Eckhoff and Paul Riecker ... Washington, D.C., 1880]
“Official Map of the Territory of Arizona” showing La Paz – Wikenburg Road and Hardyville – Prescott Road with mileage between locations along the roads, from davidrumsey.com, accessed on June 21, 2016 and an itineraries in 1878.[Richard Josiah Hinton, The Handbook to Arizona: Its Resources, History, Towns, Mines, Ruins, and Scenery, Payot, Upham & Company, San Francisco, 1878]
/ref> The name was retained for many years. It took its present form because it had a 120-foot well.[
]
See also
* Apache Wells, Arizona
References
{{coord, 33, 42, 30, N, 113, 49, 18, W, display=title, source:GNIS
Populated places in La Paz County, Arizona
Stagecoach stations in Arizona
La Paz–Wikenburg Road