The Saginaw and Manistee Lumber Company and Williams Arizona

  BEALE WAGON ROAD AND SURVEY EXPEDITION: THE UNITED STATES CAMEL CORPS; ADVENTURES OF CAMELS ON THE WESTERN FRONTIER                                         COPYRIGHT; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (5/10/22) In May of 1856, The Army took delivery of 33 camels and their handlers at Indianola, Texas. In 1857 Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale was tasked with surveying and building a wagon road from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to the Colorado River. Lieutenant Beale was not a newcomer to the southwest, having served with Kit Carson in 1846, and an appointment as Indian Agent for all of California and Nevada ( Ferrell,16,17;Getzmann, 140, 284.) What is notable is that the well-equipped expedition used camels for transport. Some 22 camels and their handlers participated in the endeavor. The wagon road would provide another artery for the westward bound immigrants. Though int...

                                   CHALENDER MILL AND LINES SOUTH (Revised and Updated 12/21) COPYRIGHT; ALL RIGHTS RESERVED (5/10/22) A rare picture, possibly of the Chalender Mill, circa 1893-1897. Arizona Memory Project: Williams, Arizona Collection. A copy of the original scan is available at the Williams Historic Photo Project. The Chalender and Williams Mills were built in 1893. The two sites gave the Saginaw a firm footprint in the regional lumber market. The second mill site at Chalender proved crucial to the survival of the new company. In July of 1896, the Williams mill burned to the ground. This did not deter the investors; by June of 1897 a new and larger mill was constructed on the Williams site. With the new mill, and expanded capacity, the Chalender site was redundant. An unlikely end to an operation that kept the production flowing when the main mill was in ashes...