THE COKE OVENS

In the 1960s a popular hobby was building dune buggies. These buggies were used to run down the dry riverbeds and across the many acres of desert land owned by the state of Arizona. This story is about one of those dune buggies, two guys, a dog, some historic coke ovens (better known as the beehives), the Gila River, a ghost town, and a drunk. Let me add before going on, in the process of doing a little research for this story (a true story) I am glad to hear that the Coke Ovens are still there and that the site is a historical landmark on the National Registry.

In the 1960s there were many boys my age that learned welding and mechanics while in high school agriculture or vocational education classes. These were common skills for those that worked on the farm, ranch, or supporting businesses. We also used those skills to fix up old cars, old trucks, and dune buggies. I use the term dune buggy loosely because few of them ever saw a dune. Most of them were used to drag Main Street, run the riverbeds, or chase rabbits across the flat desert terrain. If you can remember the roadster racing across the desert in the movie Indiana Jones, you will have some idea of what I am talking about. The buggy in this story was not as nice as that one, though my good friend might disagree.

My good friend Mark was a year older than me, and though his family moved to town after he graduated from high school, we developed a friendship through the church, and we shared a lot of common interests. His father and mine both worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, we liked hunting, and we were both interested in agriculture. Mark decided to use some of his summer money and time to build one of these buggies. I can’t recall for sure, but it was probably an old 50s or 60 station wagon or sedan, I believe it was a Chevrolet. This required stripping most of the body off, shortening the frame, widening the rims to give more tire surface, and doing what was needed to make it roadworthy and registerable. There was no hood and no top, just an open cabin with doors and a windshield.

It seemed like it took only a few weeks to complete the job. It was a rough looking machine with the original windshield and doors, but that is about all. Of course, to us it looked great! He built a rectangular toolbox that sat over the gas tank on the back of the buggy. This is where he kept all the essentials for desert travel and of course the handyman jack, a must for any country boy.

I can remember several times when we tried driving in the riverbeds with other vehicles, like the picknick we had with our sisters, his sister and mine. We spent almost the entire time trying to get our truck out of the riverbed, but that is another story. I cannot recall for sure, but I think we tried this buggy in the river. It was not good. Although this buggy didn’t work well in sand, it was great for climbing rocky hills and flat desert roads.

It was on one of those hot Arizona days that we decided to take a trip to the Coke Ovens or what most people in that area called the beehives. There are five ovens, and each is about 25 feet in diameter and 30 feet in height. The Coke Ovens are historic ovens constructed sometime during the 1870s to fire mesquite trees to make coke for smelting ore. They are located across the Gila River one and a quarter mile west of the old Cochran ghost town site along the Southern Pacific Railroad. However, you could get to these ovens by taking an old ranch road up over the hills and between the two buttes to the west of the river. Then dropping down the hill next to the ovens. This buggy was perfect for that trip.

One of the interests we shared was guns. In Arizona at that time, there was plenty of land for hunting, and almost every boy I knew hunted. In fact, many of us had a rifle rack in our trucks, and more times than not a rifle. Hunting was a popular sport, and I remember taking a hunters safety course before getting my hunting license. Anyway, we gathered a few guns and rifles, packed some food, made a place for Rocky, Mark’s black cocker spaniel, and headed for the ovens.

It took us a good bit of the morning to make our way up the ranch road to the ovens. We drove past farmland east of Florence and through the box canyon, a trip at least I had made with our family and another when we first moved to Arizona in the early 60s. I remember my dad and his friend getting the wives and kids out of the station wagon so they could bounce it one way or the other to get through the box canyon. Somehow we made it without a scratch.  

The road continued to deteriorate the closer we got to the ovens. Eventually we had to climb what some currently call the “stair steps.” We literally crawling over a ledge of large rocks that made up that part of the road. A jeep might have been a better vehicle, but that old buggy seemed to have no trouble, it seemed to be made for the task. At some point we stopped at some cattle pens near the top of the mountain to stretch our legs, have lunch, and maybe shoot a few bottles. It was the afternoon before we reached the ovens. We dropped down the slope covered with sand and rock and drove the short distance to the ovens. This was not the first time we had visited the ovens. Horseback and Tote Goats were great ways to see the ovens; I’ll let you research Tote Goats.

I always found it interesting to imagine how it was when the ovens were being built and used. One of the ovens still contained some items from more recent times left by someone who took up residence for a while. Knowing that we had the return trip to make, we didn’t stay very long. Turning the buggy around we started back up the hill. Starting up the hill was all we could do. We didn’t think about it coming down, but all that loose rock and sand made it impossible to get back up the hill. This buggy was heavy in the front and light in the rear, and getting uphill traction was impossible. After giving it several tries, we decided to see if there was some other way. The only other option we found was to try and cross the Gila River to the ghost town of Cochran and take the main road home. It was a much faster route. The only obstacle was the river.

The Gila River could not have been more than a quarter of a mile from the ovens, and on the other side was the old ghost town, Cockran. When we reached the river, we could see that it was flowing pretty good. Apparently, the dam was open and releasing more water than usual. This was a problem. We took off our boots and waded in the river to see how deep the water was, check the current, how wide the river was at that point, and see if we could get up the other side. Rocky was a good swimmer, and we had a little fun throwing rocks in the river to see him dive for them.

You must remember, at this time there were no cell phones, which meant there was no way to contact anyone if you were running late. It was getting late, and we knew at least our mothers would get worried if we didn’t show up when we said we would. We decided to chance it. We searched for the shallowest spot in the river (what may have been the old crossing), unloaded what we thought we should, and got ready to cross. I can’t remember for sure, but I think we both decided to make the ride. The first twenty feet or so went well, then it happened. We hit a sandy spot in the river and the water began to wash out below the front tires. I don’t know if Mark gunned it to make it the rest of the way or slowed down, but it was only a few seconds before the fan on the motor hit the water and the motor died. I think we were close to the halfway point, but that didn’t matter, we were stuck, and stuck good.

The worst part of being stuck was not that we could not make it to the other side, but that we could not even get back to the side we started on. This buggy was stuck in the middle of the river, and we didn’t know how we were going to get it out. Fortunately, it looked like the sand had stopped washing out from under the tires and the buggy was not going to sink any further. The unfortunate thing was that it was getting late, and we didn’t have much light left in the day. The only thing we could do was to walk to Cochran and see if there was anyone around to help us.

It was not a long walk and what we found was not very encouraging. We found a man sitting in his car drinking. I can’t remember what it was, beer, wine, or whisky, but he looked and acted like he had been there a while, and he said he was not planning to leave anytime soon. We didn’t want to leave the old buggy there in the river with all our belongings, and we didn’t want to wait around for the man to finish his drinking. Although we didn’t think it would do much good, we wrote our parents’ phone numbers on a piece of paper and asked him to call them when he got home. We headed back to the river to get what we needed out of the buggy and made camp. Sleeping out in the open was not new to either of us. We found a large, downed tree that made a good backrest and built a fire.

In the process of making camp, we came across a large rattlesnake. Although we had food, we shot the snake, skinned it, and cooked it over the fire. Yes, it tasted like chicken, but not very good chicken. I think Rocky may have liked it better than we did. We settled in and spent the rest of the evening and a good part of the night just listening to the sounds of the desert, watching the fire, and telling a few stories.

To our great surprise, the man in the car did make it home and called our parents. Our dads showed up sometime around midnight. There was nothing we could do with the buggy, so we gathered up what we didn’t want to leave and drove home. We would have to come back the next morning to get the buggy out of the river.

For some reason I don’t think we made it back very early the next morning, though I’m not sure why. As I recall, the return party included the two of us, our fathers, and most likely my little brother, who often tagged along with Mark even after I left home. We gathered what we thought would be needed to get the buggy out, rope, cable, chains, and the handyman jack, and headed to the river.

When we arrived at the river, the buggy was still sitting in the river, right where we left her. I don’t recall all the conversation, but I am sure it included at least one statement along the line of, “what were you two thinking!” Somewhere in the process of figuring out what we were going to do, it was decided that the river was too deep on the Cochran side and the best thing we could do was to get it back to the coke oven side and leave it until the river was lower or we found another way out. Once that was decided, our only problem was getting it out.

Those that didn’t want to ride back in wet clothes stripped down to their underwear. The remoteness of the area didn’t require modesty. Wading into the river and using spare tires to float the chains, cables, ropes, and handyman, we made or way to the buggy. Although the river was not quite waste deep, the current was still strong enough to give us a little challenge. As I recall, trying to back the buggy out was not an option. The only thing we could do was to use the chains and the handyman and inch it out one handyman length at a time.

It took us the rest of the morning to get the buggy back onto the far bank. We took everything we thought would possibly be vandalized off the buggy: spare tire, tools, battery etc. Then we left it in what was considered a good place and started for home. Both our dads were connected somehow to the management of the dam upriver, and it was decided that as soon as the river level dropped, we would return to get the buggy across the river.

Unfortunately, I was not around when the water level dropped, but Mark told me it was a fairly easy process of getting the buggy across. In fact, he almost drove it across in the shallower water. It was pulled the rest of the way with a jeep.

There are many other stories, adventures, and good memories of that friendship with Mark. However, like most friends, our dreams and desires took us in different directions. I believe Mark ran a Feed store for many years in Southern Arizona and is now managing a ranch in the same area. Mine took me to Texas to find the love of my life, and to the adventures she and I shared and are still sharing. We now live in Southern Illinois and are still making great memories.