Historic preservation isn't faring well in the current recession. Sharlot Hall Museum is down to a skeleton crew, for example, as state funding rapidly dries up. Which is too damn bad. There's an important piece of Prescott history sitting over in the Granite Dells waiting to be available to the public, in one way or another. I'm referring, of course to the old Granite Dells swimming lake and attached facilities. I'm sure that there are others like me whose most poignant memory of Prescott is a memory of swimming and picnicking at the Dells.
All of which is by way of introduction to my recent adventure. Back in July, I posted
pictures taken from the roadside of the remains, together with a bit of gossip about the site. A few weeks later, the current owner of the property made contact and invited me over to take a detailed look from the inside. Wow! Who wouldn't jump at the chance?
Friend Patty, who had also enjoyed swimming in the Dells as a child, drove me over to meet Mark Wirth, a Phoenician, for the guided tour.
I got a closer look at the remains of the pool...
...as well as pictures from the old days. The lake, by the way, was filled by a ditch that connected with nearby Granite Creek.
The old bath house/concession stand had been brought up to date.
And we were invited into the pavilion, half of which has been updated to provide a summer getaway for Wirth and his family, with the other half remaining "as is". Or, to put it exactly, "as was".
The pavilion was built right around this granite boulder. Many of the signs, pictures and other memorabilia were given to Wirth by Mrs. Payne, one of the original owners of the facility.
Amazingly, even a few of the old booths remain.
However, Wirth had a motive in inviting me out to Granite Dells: he's interested in historic preservation and a future for the property. At one point, the city, which has bought up a fair amount of acreage in the Dells, showed an interest in buying, but then backed out. A plan (see the map above) for a private club was shot down by county P&Z after nearby residents let out a NIMBY shout. So just what does happen to this gem? A conference center? A youth hostel? Museum? City park? It would be a shame for the land to get parceled out as just one more subdivision.
Friend Andy C. sent this image of an old postcard entitled simply "an irrigation system near Prescott Arizona". He believes it is the original flume carrying water from Willow Creek in the Dells to the Bianconi Ranch. A brief history he passed along:
This property may have been owned by Joseph Curtis who grew peaches and melons prior to sale to Alfred Clough in 1877. Sharlot Hall Museum has photos of vineyards, apple trees, and a fishing lake on the Clough property. He died in 1908 and the ranch was bought by John Bianconi. Bianconi had the largest peach orchard in the state here (34 a) and produced many other crops. The Bianconi Brothers won many ribbons at the Arizona State Fair and the Northern Arizona Fair (later YC Fair). The flume was present by 1911. In 1936 when the Willow Lake Dam was built, Bianconi sued and received an award of water from the Chino Valley Irrigation District. This was all for naught, as his peach trees caught peach mosaic and were destroyed to prevent spread of the disease. The ranch was sold to a cattle rancher in 1941 and was bought by Robert H. Kieckhefer about 1950.
The remains I photographed last fall are the final bones of the flume system.
Posts
