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welcome to an extremely special edition of Mysteries of the Superstition
Mountains we are in Cave Creek today right in front of TrueWest Magazine now
you're saying to yourself why are you out there instead of the Superstitions well
we're gonna find the connection between President Roosevelt and the Superstition
Mountains with Executive Editor Bob Boze Bell you know President Theodore
Roosevelt has historic ties to Arizona with the building of the world's largest
masonry dam which he was present to dedicate in order to accomplish this
feat a wagon road had to be constructed
through the Superstition Mountains to haul supplies a Roosevelt dam Apache
trail was finished in 1905 and that's when our story begins in 1905 Bob we
hear about Teddy Roosevelt and Geronimo but we never really hear about him
together how are they connected well I love this story about Geronimo at
Teddy Roosevelt's inaugural parade and I've had a couple people tell me that
it's not quite right but I'll tell it to you anyway
okay because I just love the story I think it says so much about him so by
the 1900's Geronimo was at Fort Sill Oklahoma and he was quite the celebrity
and people wanted him they showed up at the exposition in Omaha and he showed up
at the World's Fair and he showed up at all kinds of carnivals and stuff but he
demanded to be paid and so Teddy Roosevelt wanted to put on a really big
show for his inaugural parade and he wired the authorities in Fort Sill he
said I want Geronimo and Geronimo says we got to pay for my horse and so they
requisitioned $194 to him to ship his horse and so
then Geronimo went to the train station and to go to Washington DC and he was
carrying a suitcase and he got on the train and every stop he'd get off and
he'd say I'm Geronimo I'm Geronimo the war chief the Apache war chief and he
would sign his name on the pictures that he had for quarter and he would sell the
buttons on his coat he would sell his hat and he would get back on the train
you can open up his suitcase and he had a sewing kit needed so but
oh and go to the next stop he did that all the way to Washington DC so he gets
to Washington and the army officers say where's your horse and he said oh you'll
get me another one and slowly got him another horse he's writing his own horse
in the parade and he died with $10,000 in the bank the guy was he imagine what
he would have done on Wall Street the guy will talk about the wolf of Wall
Street that would be goatallah the man who yawned Geronimo had been in prison
over the time he was supposed to be in there did he ever approach Roosevelt to
have him released there's a story that Geronimo had a meeting with Teddy
Roosevelt in the White House and that he made a very eloquent plea to go go home
and Teddy heard that and basically told him I'm sorry you cannot go home and he
couldn't politically you could not send him home because of all the havoc he had
caused and forty some years in Arizona why was there a controversy about
Roosevelt bringing Native Americans with him to the parade yes and Teddy
Roosevelt said I just wanted to put on a good show
he was very controversial in in Arizona quarters it would be like if you brought
Osama bin Laden to a parade in Washington DC in the early you know
after 9/11 I mean he was he was literally perceived as a terrorist in
Arizona and there were many families who lost family members to his raiding so
yeah he was very very controversial in his day can you tell us the names of the
Native Americans well this is a very stellar group of Native Americans coming
down the street and Tedy Roosevelt was right he put on a show in addition to
Geronimo in the parade we have Quanah Parker okay
the famous Comanche buckskin Charlie who was a Ute hollow horn bearer Sue
American Horse famous Indian sue little plume a Blackfeet and of course Geronimo
they're the most legendary Indian in the United States history how does
Geronimo tie to Arizona oh yeah well he was born and he was born
in out in the head of the Gila River the headwaters and there's controversy over
that because the headwaters are technically north of Silver City New
Mexico present-day but there is some tradition that it was over by a Clifton
globe because the Apaches have a tradition where when you would come by
your birthplace they would roll you in the four directions you'd get off your
horse and they would roll you east and west and north and south as a tradition
of the place you were this is where you came into the earth and this is where
you go out and so he was born in that area and of course he was as he was
prisoner and not a prisoner but he was he was in San Carlos which is east of
globe and he was also up in Fort Apache area and he of course raided extensively
through all the corridors going south through apache pass into Mexico he was a
terror of Mexico in Haunos
and fronterrace and all through the Sierra Madre
in fact his idea of the vacation was to go south and kill every Mexican he saw
and so he probably spent as much time in Mexico as he did in the United States
what is this story about the Mexicans massacring Geronimo's family should that
make us a little more empathetic towards him well that's a controversial incident
he yes in his autobiography he he claims that while he was away that soldiers
from Sonora came into Haunos and killed his wife and his kid and his family and
Grandpa how many killed his family and that that turned him against Mexicans
forever but what is not often said which he didn't admit his so they were giving
being given rations in Haunos and then they would go raid into Sonora and
kill people and steal all our stuff so the soldiers in Sonora said well we're
tired of that and so they basically sought us let's go clean out that nest
of vipers and they came to kill and he happened to be raiding
in Sonora at the time so I don't feel quite as sorry for the old man as some
people do and there there's a lot there's a lot of people who try to give
him a saint.. he was no saint you know he was a very very human and I think
it's kind of ironic that his name and Apache is his real name Gothel means he
who yawns I don't think anybody yawned around that guy what about the names
Geronimo's cave in the Superstitions was he really there yes and one of the
things that happens is it could be real it could be really but but if someone
dies and they become famous within everything gravitates to them you know
you know this is Billy the Kid Canyon this is Jesse James treasure you know
where he leaped over a mountain you know what I mean and so legends have that
magnetic ability to take names to them and so I look at the name of the cave
with a little bit of a little bit of the Chamber of Commerce and maybe named that
well did Geronimo take refuge in the Superstition Mountains and in the cave
that's now known as Geronimo cave just another one of those mysteries of the
Superstition Mountains
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