14 <strong>Gateway</strong> to the Copper Corridor <strong>2022</strong>
Looking Back: Picturing t he trail BY DAVID SOWDERS Assistant Editor Making their way over the Apache Trail, the travelers declared Roosevelt Dam “a very marvelous piece of work.” Their next stop was the “little mining town” of Globe, then to Phoenix and California – “A wonderful trip.” Somewhere along the way they bought a souvenir postcard of the Trail, mailing it to a relative or friend back east. It was mid-November 1927; the Apache Trail was 22 years old and the Globe & Bowie Railroad, aboard which their postcard was mailed, had been around for more than 30. But the card is also part of the story of an immigrant who made it big. Curt Teich was 19 when he came to the United States from his native town in Thuringia, now part of Germany. Coming from a long line of printers and publishers, he had worked as an apprentice printer. Teich landed in New York City in 1895, going to work as a printer’s devil. He soon moved on to Chicago, where the company he founded became the world’s largest printer of scenic postcards – like the one the travelers sent in 1927, depicting the Apache Trail and Superstition Mountain. The Apache Trail, initial- David Sowders/Copper Corridor Superstition Mountain and the Apache Trail, as seen on a vintage Curt Teich postcard ly called the Tonto Wagon Road, was built as a supply road to the Roosevelt Dam construction site. The road follows the course of a Native American foot trail. With Apaches providing much of the labor, it was finished on Sept. 3, 1905. After the trail’s completion, the Southern Pacific Railway Company started offering side trips down the scenic road to the dam. Around this time, Curt Teich brought a German postcard style to the United States, launching the colorful, large-lettered “Greetings From” cards that would become so well-known. Teich based them on the German “Gruss Aus” cards that started appearing in the 1890s. His firm, Curt Teich & Company, was also a pioneer in offset printing, which they started using in 1910. In 1905, as the Apache Trail was nearing completion, Teich crossed the country by train. Carrying a camera, he took photos of numerous small-town businesses along the way. From these pictures, he made his first sizable print run. “The frontier has passed, the cattle are vanishing, the west is changed,” wrote famed author Zane Grey in a Sept. 1927 letter to the Coconino Sun newspaper, published by the Sun the same month our travelers visited Roosevelt Dam and Globe. In November 1927, the Phelps Dodge mine at Morenci was producing an average of 3.75 million pounds of copper a month, but mining could still be dangerous work. In Superior, five men lost their lives in a fire at the Magma Mine; crews from the Globe and Miami mines helped battle the fire. On November 24, Globe High School ended its football season with a “fiercely fought” 6-6 tie against Safford. During his 1905 trip, Teich personally took $30,000 worth of postcard orders during this cross-country journey. As the company grew, he would employ hundreds of traveling salesmen/ photographers. These men not only sold postcards to homes and worked with businesses to create advertising cards, but also took the pictures. Like the Apache Trail postcard – printed under the company’s C.T. American Art line – a number of pictures depicted scenes in Arizona, including the Globe-Miami area. In June 1928, Curt Teich & Company records show, a man named Henry (or Harry) Herz ordered a number of postcards featuring scenes around Globe and Miami; designs included the Gila County Courthouse, Bullion Plaza School, Broad Street, Sullivan Street, the Southern Pacific Depot and the Claypool Tunnel. Curt Teich & Company remained in business until 1978, closing shop around four years after the passing of its founder. The Apache Trail remains, though much of that scenic road is now impassable due to fire-related flood damage in the last few years. <strong>Gateway</strong> to the Copper Corridor <strong>2022</strong> 15