adventure – I like to write junk…

EXPLORING CRYSTAL CAVE

“The boys had started out about noon Sunday, reaching the mouth of Crystal Cave about 1:30 o’clock.”

I’m as interested in reading about other people’s adventures as I am in my own. Reading has become more the norm here lately, with our excursions amounting to daily outings rather than weekly or longer ones.

I have over 150 stories about early-day expeditions, including this one from Arizona, written almost 100 years ago. I transcribed it, correcting numerous typos and archaic sentences. See my note at the end of this story for current cave information and a bit of personal trivia on those involved.

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From “The Border Vidette” – Nogales, Arizona – August 9, 1930:

“Marooned for twenty-four hours a mile deep in a cave, in total darkness, and afraid to move more than a few feet of distance because of the treacherous passageways and deep canyons on all sides, four youths, three of them Nogales boys and one from Yuma, were rescued about 1:30 o’clock yesterday afternoon by a searching party at Crystal Cave in the Santa Rita Mountains, 20 miles west of Sonoita.

The boys who went through this rather harrowing experience were: David Coughanour, Jr., 20; his brother, Clay, 17; Paul Macgregor, 18, all of Nogales, and M. E. Hughey, 19, of Yuma.

“We owe our lives to the fact that we told our parents where we were going,” said David Coughanour, recognized leader of the exploring party, “and we surely were almost overcome with joy when we heard the searching party coming after us. We yelled as loudly as we could when we first heard sounds of tapping up above us, but it was fully two hours before they found us.”

The boys had started out about noon Sunday, reaching the mouth of Crystal Cave about 1:30 o’clock. Armed with two carbide lights and a small supply of matches, they started into the narrow entrance on their exploring expedition. They had explored the same cave the Sunday before but were anxious to go further this time.

They had proceeded about a mile underground when Clay Coughanour, who was carrying one of the lights, stumbled as he tried to dodge a loose rock that was rolling down towards him, and the light slipped from his hand and fell to the bottom of a precipice, fully a hundred feet below. Hughey was with him at the time.

The other two were quite a distance away, and it was with considerable difficulty that Clay and Hughey finally managed to climb back to where the others were. Clay then carried the last remaining light. Again, he slipped and fell, and the light was extinguished, leaving the four boys in total darkness.

The heavy, damp atmosphere in the cave had rendered all of the matches useless, so nothing could be done. It was suicidal to attempt to find their way back, so they stayed where they were on a small elevation about 15 feet square and just waited.

Fortunately, there was a small pool of fresh water close at hand, so they did not suffer from thirst. But as time passed, they grew increasingly anxious about their safety. Being accustomed to exploring caves, they were not at all frightened by the darkness or loneliness. They were merely afraid that they might be exhausted from starvation or exposure.

Due to the dampness, they were unable to sleep and had to exercise as best they could to keep warm. They had driven to the cave, and their car was left standing near the entrance. They also had thrown their hats on the ground near the opening of the underground passage.

When their sons failed to return home late Sunday night, W. R. MacGregor and David Couganour, Sr., set out to search for the boys. The latter had said they were going to Crystal Cave. Unable to find any trace of the lads after an all-night search, the men returned to Nogales and formed a search party, including themselves, veteran deputy sheriff Hugo Miller, and a Mexican helper.

While they were still searching yesterday, they were joined by T. F. Friday and son and a detachment of troops from the C.M.T.C., occupying two Army trucks and bringing provisions enough to last for four days.

Several trips into the treacherous cave had been made by the search party, but without success. They located the boys. Hugo Miller was the first to reach them, and right behind him came Jack Donlin, carrying a strong light.

“They had come in the hardest way,” said David Coughanour Sr., “and as soon as he had a light, we showed them the easiest way out.” We were not long in getting out, either, and we sure were glad to see daylight again. We did not realize we had been in there for 24 hours. We thought it was midnight and were surprised to learn it was noon the next day. Certainly, we were hungry when we got home, but we were not suffering. We all feel fine now.”

Note: The Chiricahua Crystal Cave is now a protected, gated cave in the Coronado National Forest near Douglas, AZ, roughly east of Nogales. It offers spectacular quartz crystal formations within 2.38 miles of passages. Access is strictly managed with a required permit, fee, and key from the Douglas Ranger Station. It is approximately 436 miles from Lake Havasu City.

Paul Clark MacGregor died on August 21, 1997, at the age of 85. He’s buried in Bisbee, Arizona. Marvin E. Huey passed away on June 11, 1981, in Oklahoma. He was 70. The newspaper had Marvin’s last name spelled wrong. Clay Bernard Coughanour died on April 10, 1988, and is buried at McGee Ranch Cemetery in Sahuarita, Arizona. He was 75.

David Elmer Coughanour Jr. was the hardest to track down, and it gets somewhat confusing. He had the same name as his father and grandfather, whom died in 1904 and 1937, respectively, while David Coughanour Jr. also named one of his sons David Coughanour IV.

David III continued to live in Mexico, where he had mining interests and worked as a pilot and owner of a flying service. One newspaper article shows him losing power in a small Beechcraft airplane given to him by President Miguel Aleman of Mexico, as a Christmas present, during a flight over Los Angeles. He successfully landed in a field. This information is substantiated in the July 24, 1964, “Oroville Mercury Register.”

At one time, he was a pilot for several Mexican political figures, including the president, while some people also believed he had connections to a local cartel, although this was never proven. An article titled “The Bunker,” written by Melissa del Bosque and featured in The New Yorker on April 10, 2023, detailed such.

In 1962, David’s son, David Coughanour IV, was shot and tragically killed in Chihuahua over what was thought to be a robbery. David III died in 1975 at the age of 69, and his widow assumed control of all mining operations. From my research, it appears that after surviving that harrowing cave experience, this man literally lived on the edge of a cliff for the rest of his life.

MRS. STEINHARDT

“When Mrs. Steinhardt sent that card in 1949 to someone she either personally knew or met, the woman and her husband were finishing up a three-week cruise to Alaska.”

If I had a dollar for every time someone called me Michael Hawkins, I’d be a rich man. I stopped correcting folks on the pronunciation during my earliest days. While in school, if a teacher from another class said, “The Hawkins boy did it! — I knew immediately they were talking about me.

I believe the Hawkins name has a good ring to it, although I didn’t learn until much later that John Hawkins, the pirate, was also a slave trader.

Throughout the year, someone will write my wife and accidentally spell her first name, Jolene, when in fact the correct spelling is Joleen. It sometimes perturbs her, but I always say, at least they’re thinking of you. The analytic way to look at this is that they had a 50-50 chance at spelling things correctly, yet still got it wrong.

Alaska and Arizona names are perhaps the trickiest to spell or pronounce, with me often having to look online or in my old, 1964, “Dictionary of Alaska Placenames.” Yes, I have an original such book, and it’s one of my prized possessions. Speaking of dictionaries, what are those companies that print dictionaries doing now?

There’s a big push to change easy-to-pronounce town and geographical names of Native origin. The Inupiaq name for Barrow is Uqtiagvik. I doubt the younger Inupiaq population can even pronounce it, let alone me.

Kasilof is an Alaskan name of Russian origin. It’s supposed to be pronounced “kuh-SEE-lof,” but I’ve heard pioneer Alaskans say, “ka-SEAL-off.” It makes no difference to me because I know what they’re talking about.

Chemehuevi is an Arizona Indian tribe, and I often get tongue-tied trying to say it, with a street here in town named that. The correct way to pronounce it is “cheh-mih-WAY-vee.

The Hualapai Mountains are near Kingman, Arizona, and instead of me trying to remember this, let alone butcher the spelling or pronunciation, I often say to people, “Those mountains near Kingman.” Folks know what I’m talking about.

Mt. McKinley has been called Mt. McKinley going back to 1896. That’s the name I was taught throughout school. History shows it was called Buishale or Bulshaira before then, with it being named that by Russian explorers. Some will tell you that it was called Denali going way back.

Neither the Inuapiq nor the Koyukun Athabascan Indians nor any other Alaska and Canadian tribes had a written language. They did have a word for it in their language, meaning tall mountain. Somewhere along the way, in the latter stages of history, the sound uttered by Indigenous people was interpreted by European translators to be Denali.

I’ve found the Buishale or Bulsharia names in old newspaper articles going way back and documented them. The often-used newspaper term, “It’s here in black and white,” is hard to dispute.

President Obama officially changed McKinley to Denali in 2015. Trump officially changed it back to McKinley in 2025. It makes no difference to me what it’s called, Buishale, McKinley, or Denali. I’ll know what you’re talking about.

A vintage postcard from the 1940s has a picture labeled Mt. McKinley on the front. These days, that same postcard would undoubtedly be printed with Denali.

The short note inside with both sender and recipient names caught my attention. I wasn’t expecting to find anything unusual about either person. Initially, I misinterpreted one name to be Steinholdt when in fact it was Steinhardt. That made a big difference.

Mrs. Steinhardt sent the card from Ocean Falls, British Columbia, on August 19, 1949, to Mrs. Abigail Huber in Salida, Colorado. The one-cent and two-cent stamps are Canadian in origin. A short message written in perfect cursive says,

“8/18/49

Greetings & best wishes from Mrs. Steinhardt.”

Mrs. Abigail Leffingwell Huber lived a normal life, it seems, passing away in 1967 at the age of 87 in California. I make this assumption, finding nothing controversial or outrageous written about the woman in newspaper articles.

Abigail was born in Vermont in 1880, marrying Jacob Manley Huber in 1901. They lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Due to Jacob’s ill health, the family moved to Colorado in hopes that it would help. That’s where Jacob died in 1914.

J.M. was a partner in Huber Brother Manufacturing Company. The family was quite wealthy. They made washing machines and powered wagons, along with farm implements. Abigail continued to reside in Minneapolis before relocating to Colorado, and then on to California in 1954 to live with a daughter. After Mrs. Huber passed away, her remains were shipped back to Minneapolis to be interred next to her husband.

When Mrs. Steinhardt sent that card in 1949 to Mrs. Huber, Dulcie Steinhardt and her husband and daughter were finishing up a three-week cruise to Alaska. Their ship, the Canadian National Steamship SS Prince George, was only commissioned for service in 1947. It regularly stopped in Ocean Falls, British Columbia, Canada, where the postcard was mailed. It seems reasonable that she sent out quite a few cards from there.

Laurence Adolph Steinhardt was the United States Ambassador to Canada at that time, and his wife, Dulcie Cecile Steinhardt, along with the couple’s 24-year-old daughter, Dulcie Ann, made that trip. A newspaper article from July 19, 1949, substantiates the Alaska vacation. Mr. Steinhardt had previously been ambassador to Peru, Turkey, Russia, and Czechslovokia. The family was well accustomed to traveling.

On March 28, 1950, only 7 months after their Alaska adventure, sadly, Ambassador Laurence Adolph Steinhardt perished in an airplane crash in Ramsay, Ontario, Canada.

This was big news, making all the newspapers, as Mr. Steinhardt was a prestigious man, well-liked in political and military circles, and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Steinhardt is buried in Arlington Cemetery. Six months later, his daughter married Allan Arthur Sherlock, a distinguished pilot during WWII.

Mrs. Steinhardt (Dulcie Cecile Hofmann Steinhardt) eventually remarried, but when she died in 1974, she too was laid to rest in Arlington beside her first husband.

Ocean Falls is a water or seaplane accessible town in British Columbia built by the Crown Zellerbach Paper Company in 1906. The company provided residences for its employees and even had a company store, barber shop, hospital, school, and post office. At one time, 3,900 people lived there.

When it became too costly to keep the pulp mill running, Crown Zellerbach shut things down in 1973. Buildings were left as is, and over time, succumbed to the constant rain.

Many of the structures were removed, with others now rotting away. It’s estimated that a few dozen people currently live there year-round, with the post office remarkably still open. It’s now as close to being a ghost town as a town can get!

Laurence, Dulcie Cecille, And Dulcie Ann Steinhardt

SS Prince George outside Ocean Falls, B.C. – 1949

SS Prince George final demise in 1995.
The vessel sank as it was being towed to Hong Kong for scrap.

Huber Manufacturing (Huber Brothers) – 1942

THE JEEP WAVE

“So far no one has waved at us but in due time I suppose that’ll change.”

Over the years, I’ve had several friends along with in-laws who owned Jeeps. I believe Charlie Hart was the first followed by Gary Adair in the 1970s. Jeff Thimsen in Alaska eventually came to drive one and then Arizona friends, John Ballard, Tom Gildea, and Jim Brownfield.

Out of all of these names, Jim Brownfield is the only survivor where still owning and driving a Jeep is concerned. Riding with him one day I noticed a person in a decked-out Jeep Wrangler wave as he drove by. Asking if Jim knew the guy, my pal replied, “No, that was a Jeep Wave.” He went on to explain that Jeep owners much like motorcycle riders sometimes wave or acknowledge each other while on the road.

Not long after that, my wife and I purchased a Jeep Grand Cherokee. This model wasn’t four-wheel-drive with us figuring we wouldn’t need it. Our vehicle wasn’t a typical Jeep like the Wrangler or Gladiator either, and for 3 years, I can’t recall anyone waving at us. There were a few instances of receiving the middle finger after we placed a lifelike photo of Donald Trump on the rear window. A sufficient number of “thumbs up” also occurred.

With our little Jeep climbing up there in the mileage department, we decided that the time was ripe to trade it in. A fellow from Anderson Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep had been calling for several months asking if we might be interested in upgrading. They had some 2024 models with a nice rebate including an additional markdown.

On presidential election day, Joleen and I decided it might be a good time to roll the dice and take Brian Marazoni up on his offer. Finding what we wanted on their website first, I made an appointment with Brian to look things over. It only took us a few hours to be handed the keys. Our first stop was In-N-Out Burger on the way home for celebratory fries and a drink.

This Jeep is a bit taller than our old ride yet we knew that beforehand. Jim and Pat Brownfield’s Jeep Gladiator is much the same and we’d climbed in and out of it several times. Doing so is a great stretching exercise.

A couple of friends advised that we’d regret purchasing any type of vehicle sitting up high in our senior years, yet we ignored them. A set of mountable doorsteps was ordered and that took care of the problem like right now.

So far no one has given us the Jeep Wave but in due time I suppose that’ll change. If by chance we get ignored, I’ll order a Trump decal like the last one and place it on the passenger rear window. “The Donald” loved to ride in the back of our Grand Cherokee and I’m sure it’ll be the same with this new rig.

Just for grins, I might stick Kamala on the driver’s side rear window just to see if those two can now get along!