Finding the origin of Don Luis

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts.
Naming of Parts (1942), Henry Reed

This is the opening of a poem I remember from a college literature class. (I was an English minor.) I recall the title, “Naming of Parts,” whenever I think of all of the various parts of the community of Bisbee.

I don’t really know why this comes to mind so readily, but I suppose it’s because to fully grok what Bisbee was and is, one must understand its various parts. And there are dozens.

This is a list of Bisbee-area communities I quickly sketched out in response to a friend’s questions. Are there others, past and present that I missed?

One of those parts is Don Luis. Roughly the area from Tovreaville to the intersection of Naco Highway with Highway 92, it’s one of the oldest parts of Bisbee. Perhaps the oldest part outside of Bisbee proper.

I posted the reprint of an article about Don Luis’ name on the website this week, knowing full well that I had issues with it, and that others would, too. But these issues need discussion.

The origin of words

The study of the origin of words is “etymology,” coming to us from Latin and to Latin from Greek. (But we really don’t need to know the etymology of “etymology,” now do we?)

A branch of etymology is toponymy, which deals with the origin of place names. So the study of the origin of Don Luis falls into that sub-field.

As well as having etymology, we have “folk” etymology. Those terms are related similarly to history and folklore. That means when people don’t necessarily know the origin of a word, they may make something up based on what it sounds right or what it could be.

With folk toponymy, people make up origins when they don’t know the real deal. And, let’s face it, origins can easily become obscured by the passage of time if nobody bothers to write them down.

When you see an article with a non-specific person, like “somebody” named Luis, you become suspect.

That seems to be what we see in the Gazette’s story about the origin of Don Luis. Even though the reality has been written down, it’s just not easy to find that information. (Online search through millions of newspaper pages is truly a wonder!)

Don Luis (the community) was created when the railroad came into Bisbee in 1889. At that time, the mining interests of Phelps Dodge, or the Copper Queen company, were being run by two men, brothers Ben and Lewis Williams.

Two points along the railroad between Bisbee and Fairbank were named for prominent men: Don Luis and B. A. Packard, the latter an important cattleman and politician in the area. Packard is about seven miles further along the line toward Fairbank, and there are no remains of it today.

Lewis Williams was commonly referred to as Don Luis, according to a number of articles in early newspapers.

He did not name the railroad siding himself, apparently. The railroad was under the superintendency of his brother Ben, according to a railroad timetable, which ran in the Epitaph / Prospector from Tombstone in 1894. In the ad (printed below) we see that Ben Williams was superintendent of the Arizona & Southeastern Rail Road, which later would become the El Paso and Southwestern after a major expansion.

This timetable, printed in the Sunday, Nov. 4, 1894 issue of the paper, is the first mention of Don Luis, the place, that I can find in the old newspapers.
In “Arizona Names,” the book which is the authority on the subject, we see that Williams is the namesake for the siding. The book cites the “50th anniversary edition” of the Douglas Dispatch, from 1952, as its source. I don’t have online access to that paper.

The first resident

The Gazette article says that the namesake, the ill-identified Mr. Luis, was the first resident of that particular part of the Bisbee community.

That doesn’t appear to be accurate. According to the Bisbee Daily Review of June 19, 1904, that distinction belongs to Charles Hull, who is referred to as “the original settler of Don Luis.” That information is repeated elsewhere in the old newspapers.
Hull was the proprietor of the Half Way House, which probably best could be described as a bar that provided a break for those traveling between Bisbee and Naco. It came into existence when travel between the two communities was by horseback or wagon or walking, so a respite — with ice-cold beer — five miles out would be appreciated.

An ad in the Bisbee Daily Review from July 26, 1902. Hull advertised his establishment regularly.

The original building of the Half Way House still exists. In 1937, it was transported in one piece from its original site to the Hull Ranch, which is off Naco Highway just below today’s Border Patrol station.

The family lived in the house as it was being transported, as it required four days’ transit!

Athletics at Don Luis

The Gazette remembrance, which is unsigned, makes it appear that a sports complex was built when Bisbee High started playing football. But there were athletic activities in Don Luis many years earlier. The 1904 article mentioning Charles Hull, for example, was referring to a steer-tying contest, which would be taking place in the neighborhood over the Fourth of July weekend.

I don’t know whether the rodeo and baseball and football facilities are the same, but it’s logical that they are, since it would then not be necessary to duplicate grandstands and other infrastructure.

The Review promised that: “There are many who never saw a roping match between broncho busters, and the one at Don Luis promises to be a good exhibition, as it is understood that beef cattle will be roped.” (Okay, cowboys, why is roping of beef cattle more exciting than roping of other cattle?) And this was neither the first nor last rodeo event in the area.

Long before the 1904 rodeo, there was baseball! An 1898 article in the Weekly Orb (a forerunner of the Review) promoted a baseball game that would be taking place the following day.

That game was being played by teams of the “railroad boys” and the “store colts.” (Colts was lower case, meaning it may not have been a “mascot,” but a description of the young men.) Since the manager of the store team was Billy Brophy, we can assume that the store in question was the Phelps Dodge Mercantile store.

Another baseball game was recorded in the Orb that same day, presumably, having been played the prior week. It was between soldiers from Fort Grant and Bisbee team led by Capt. Turnbull. (A team captain? A mining captain? A military captain?)

The newspaper was effusive in its praise of the local boys, saying there was “more ginger in that ball game than you could find in all the spice stores on the United States.”

Importantly, the article described the field, pointing out that it was a good game, “considering the condition of the grounds and the high wind blowing all day.”

Two trainloads of people came to the game, in addition to those who made their way there by private conveyance. The reporter counted a total of 580 fans in the crowd. The final score was 21-15 in favor of “the city of copper.”

As I come up with more good stuff about sports at Don Luis, I’ll share it. One piece of information I can’t find is location. I would assume that since the field was used until the Warren Ball Park opened in 1909, the Don Luis field would have shown up on a topographic map during those years. No so, as you can see in the illustration on bisbeehistory.com.

It is interesting to note that the Half Way House, with its ice-cold beer, is given a typeface equal to that of Don Luis itself! It must have been a favorite of the survey engineers!