Description

Lucky Strike

Fringed Redmaids, Silver King Mine and Apache Leap, Superior, AZ
28×22 Oil on Canvas
Bloomed 3-12-23 3:30 PM

$4400

A friend came to visit, and I dragged her and her family to a site I hadn’t explored before near Superior. I was hoping we would find poppies blooming, but it was too early in the season.
We climbed a rise to get a better look at the Apache Leap cliffs and the rolling hills.

Just east of where we stood, beneath Kings Crown Peak in Comstock Wash was the site of the richest silver mine in Arizona, producing $42 million worth of silver ore between 1875 and 1900.

In 1870, General George Stoneman ordered the construction of a road from Camp Picketpost to the Pinal Mountains. A soldier named Sullivan, who was working on the road, found some heavy black rocks which he showed to a rancher named Charles Mason. Mason and some companions went looking for the source of the rocks after Sullivan died. The group was attacked by Apaches; one man died and was buried near Stoneman’s grade. The group’s mule strayed during the burial and when they went looking for it, they found the silver rich outcropping with Sullivan’s markings.

But enough about silver; what was the pink and bright green carpet at our feet?  Spead this way and that were bight and pale pink fringed redmaids. Small, yes, but mighty; a bright and cheery foreground to the landscape beyond. I don’t suppose the miners paid much attention to their beauty back then; they probably trampled over them on the way to the mine. But the plants are edible; maybe they snacked on them?

There is always something wonderful to discover the in desert, be it silver or pink.
And I did bring home a mighty dark rock too. It was a lucky day.