American History True Story

 

Quote from Cities of Gold, by Douglas Preston, 1992, a wonderful historical fiction narrative.  “A journey on horseback across the American Southwest in Coronado’s footsteps.”  Story from pages 123-124:

“The valley, we learned was first settled by a man named Colonel Henry Clay Hooker. Hooker, one of the great pioneer stockmen in Arizona history, was born on a farm in New Hampshire in 1828. He ran away to the California goldfields in ’49, opened a hardware store in Hangtown, California, and became a prosperous merchant. In 1866, a disastrous fire swept away his uninsured house, business and goods, leaving him nearly penniless with a wife and three children to support.

“But Hooker had an idea. Scraping together all his remaining money, he bought 500 turkeys from local ranchers and announced his intention to drive them from Hangtown over the mountains to Carson City, Nevada. Everyone thought it a ridiculous idea and when it came time for him to leave, much of the town turned out.

“With the aid of one helper and several trained dogs,” an account went,” he headed his strange procession across the mountain tops….. as he was coming down the mountains not far from his destination he was suddenly confronted by a precipice too steep to descend and all but impossible to skirt. The dogs so pressed and worried the birds, trying to force them to make the descent, that the birds finally became desperate and took to the air. Said Colonel Hooker: ‘As I saw them take wing and race away through the air I had the most indescribably feeling in my life. I thought, here is good-bye turkeys! My finances were at the last ebb; these turkeys were my whole earthly possession and they seemed lost.’

“But the case was not so bad as it seemed. In the valley below, Hooker, and his helper, and his dogs, succeeded in rounding up the aerial squadron and steering it once more toward Carson City and VICTORY!

“He sold his turkeys at a spectacular 350% profit and with this money laid the foundations for one of the great cattle fortunes in Arizona Territory.”