Yee Wee Is A HE And Four Wheeling!

 I said it once and I'll say it again ... Arizona has the craziest lightning and thunder storms EVER!  Last night, all night long, thunder shook my house and rattled the windows.  Even though my eyes were closed, I could see lightning light up the room.  The rain on the roof was so loud, there was NO sleeping.  Now it's down to a steady rain.  Just WOW!!

Anyway, turns out Yee Wee was a He instead of a She as I had been told.  Shortly after 1900, a mysterious Chinese gentlemen settled in Gleeson, saying he was related to Quong Lee, the famous owner of the Can-Can Restaurant in Tombstone.  Yee Wee opened a restaurant and fed the miners for years.

By 1930, there were no more customers, but he kept his restaurant sparklingly clean with red tablecloths, ready for anyone who might stop by.  When the fire raged through town, ammunition stored in his basement exploded for days and his restaurant burned to the ground, but his little cabin survived.

Supposedly born in Canton China in 1890, his age was a guess.  A neighbor helped the old crotchety gentleman with groceries on occasion and was always wary of the shotgun Yee Wee carried.  If Dan happened to miss a day, Yee Wee would say "I see you TOMORROW"!

This image, although I thought it was Yee Wee's house, is apparently not.  In fact, so far I haven't been able to find anyone who knows who owned this house still standing.

When Yee Wee passed away, the court assigned neighbor Dan the job of having him buried.  It was a crazy scene when the undertaker, fresh from the saloon, fell into the grave hole.  Then they discovered either the casket was too long or the grave too short.  While a Catholic Priest gave the eulogy, a Tombstone Deputy shot off firecrackers to ward away evil spirits.

Later, in cleaning out Yee Wee's house, they found old letters, a little money and some Chinese War Bonds.  They also found an envelope with a San Francisco return address, holding a check for $605,200 from the Bank of Canton.  In the end, the check disappeared, the Deputy who helped Dan photograph everything disappeared along with his shrimp boat in a hurricane, and the Canton Bank said the account was inactive.

It's a mystery since he apparently also went by the name Wong Him and although they sent the remains of his affects to his granddaughter in China, his grandson says there IS no granddaughter.  Where did the check go and who wrote it in the first place?

And so with all that in mind, I headed out down the dirt washboard road towards Courtland.  These buildings are still standing on the side of the road, but I have no idea what they were used for.  

This one appears to be a shop building since you can see the sides where slots held big windows on either side of the door.

I figured going on a Saturday would be a good thing.  There would be lots of people around in case I got lost or stuck for some reason.  This is the entrance road to Courtland proper, but the gate is again locked.  Guess I'll have to make another trip.  

As I pulled over, two cars and four ATV's passed me.  That was it.  I saw no other vehicles for miles.  All along the road were puddles like this where the water ran across the road.  Actually, the farther you go, the better the road gets since no one drives this area unless they have to!!

I quickly pulled over when I spotted this still standing building.  This is the Courtland Jail.  The boom of Courtland began in 1908 with the mines and by 1921 was almost a ghost town.  The original jail was an old mine shaft with a wooden door.  An old Mexican was jailed overnight, but tried to escape by setting his mattress up again the door and lighting it on fire.  Oops ... the next morning, he had to be drug out of the mine shaft unconscious.  

A duplicate of the Gleeson jail, it was built in 1909 of concrete, steel, railroad ties and leftover steel rails.  It was a nice place to spend a few days instead of in the tents the miners lived in.  The miners could work on the roads to reduce their time, but preferred to stay in the cushy digs with a bathroom and a sink (shown below).

There were eight men to a cell, but they were happy, calling their new home the Bright Hotel.  The same thing that happened to the Gleeson Jail, removal of windows and bars, happened to this "hotel".  Everything was taken to build the jail in Benson.

And I'm OFF again, heading over the backroads to Pearce.  I discovered it's about 16 miles of dirt road, but I've got all day, one candy bar and six bottles of water.  What could happen??

I finally spotted one lone car, which honestly I was pretty wary of stopping to ask if the road was open all the way.  Oh yeah he said ... the road is dry now.  Well, not so much was my experience, as I came upon section after section where sand and dirt had been washed over the road, turning it into mud.  This was the first one.  They got worse as I got closer to Pearce.

Several sections I just barreled through .. if you go fast, you won't get stuck, right?  I was sure wishing I had put that shovel in the back for this trip.  The further I went, the worse it got until I came to a very long section where the water had flowed down the road like a river.  

RATS!!  It was a long drive back, so I stopped, put it in 4-wheel drive and floor boarded it!!  It was a slippery slide for a ways, spinning tires for a ways further and finally, with a big sigh of relief, I was through that bad section!!  Lucky for me, no shovel needed, but NEXT time, it will be in the back of my truck!!

There were a few more bad sections ... you can see the water here ... so I kept it in 4-wheel drive for the next couple of miles.  There were no washouts other than one big river that crosses the road ... a little bumpy when you are moving pretty fast.   I would have taken more pictures, but my hands were glued to the steering wheel!!

By this point, the road was good again and I was thinking "I could walk to those buildings if I had to".  Maybe I should have Mr. Chance show me how to change a big tire since there is absolutely NO SERVICE on my phone anywhere along this road.

At last ... this is the end of the dirt road at Pearce Arizona.  I looked around for the town.  Nothing ... there was nothing but a lot of PRIVATE PROPERTY signs.  

At long last, I hit pavement ... YAY!  I didn't get stuck out in the middle of nowhere.  What I DID find was the perfect FOR SALE building for ..... well you know ...... a QUILT STORE!!