The Tortilla Flat Museum

The weekend of November 26, 27, and 28, 2004 the citizens at Tortilla Flat, a small settlement 18·miles northeast of Apache Junction. (State Route 88), celebrated their one hundredth anniversary. A large white banner across the restaurant's facade announced this special occasion.

The parking lot on both sides of the Apache Trail was filled to ca­pacity. Visitors filled the boardwalk along the south side of the road. Good 'Ol Country & Western music filled the air from the outdoor pavilion. Near the eastern end of the boardwalk was a small building with a brightly yellow lettered sign that read museum.

Another sign announced that the museum's small building represented the schoolhouse that once stood in Tortilla Flat across the creek. Students attended this school under the guidance and supervision of Ms. Spencer Dingle in 1934.

The Tortilla Flat Museum represented a very interesting part of 11 the Superstition Mountains Apache Trail history.

Reclamation engineer Louis C. Hill first recognized the need for a service road between Mesa and the Roosevelt Dam site in 1903. The businessmen of Tempe, Mesa, and Phoenix also recognized the impor­tance of such a road for economic development in the Salt River Valley. Funding was obtained and construction began in November of 1903. Tortilla Flat construction camp was established in 1904.

The road was completed in September of 1905 at a cost of $551,000. More than one million pounds of freight was hauled over the government road during the first month of operation. Every ten to twelve miles along the government haul road a change station was established. Tortilla Flat was soon to became a change station after construction on the haul road was completed.

A change station was used to swap the teams of mules pulling heavy loads to the Roosevelt Dam site. Change stations remained in operation until the gasoline engine (horseless carriage) replaced the mule and horse teams.

Concord stages were used on the Apache Trail up until 1910. The Apache Trail served during the tran­sition between the horse and mule teams and the horseless carriage.

Tortilla Flat remained a change station throughout the period when mule teams were used to pull loads along the Mesa-Roosevelt Haul Road. Sometime after 1915 Tortilla Flat reverted to private ownership. The earliest private operators of Tortilla Flat provided services for the early travelers of the Apache Trail. The Southern Pacific Railroad publicized and promoted the Apache Trail nationally. Actually it was a ticket agent named E. E. Watson who worked for the Southern Pacific that named the Apache Trail in 1915. The Southern Pacific had a franchise on the Apache Trail for several years and therefore spent thousands of dollars in ad­vertisement and promotion of the Apache Trail.

The Tortilla Flat Museum reminds us of the many owners of Tortilla Flat who shared their lives with the travelers of the Apache Trail. Dur­ing this span of one hundred years many interesting historical things occurred along the Apache Trail.

Theodore Roosevelt traveled the Apache Trail in 1911 to dedicate Roosevelt Dam. Tom Mix made movies along the Apache Trail in the 1920's. Wilbur Wright flew an airplane along the Apache Trail from Roosevelt Lake to Phoenix in 1916. Glenn Ford starred in a major motion picture titled "Lust for Gold". Barry Storm published Thunder God's Gold from Tortilla Flat, Arizona. These are just a few things that happened along the Apache Trail during the past one hundred years.

Lois Potter-Sanders has re­searched much of the history of Tortilla Flat. She traced down all of the owners and was able to obtain photographs and information about their tenure at Tortilla Flat. Lois assembled many tidbits of his­tory about Tortilla Flat and the people who lived there. She had the schoolhouse of 1934 reassembled and it now stands as the museum. The museum is small, but complete.

In the middle of the room is a school desk that serves as a platform for the guest registration. The museum has been open only a short while, but hundreds of people have visited and enjoyed it. Lois opened a fantastic window into the local history of Tortilla Flat. She readily admits that without Tortilla Flat owner, Alvin Ross' support and backing, this museum would still be on the drawing boards. The Tortilla Flat Museum serves as a won­derful time capsule for the history of Tortilla Flat and the past one hundred years.

The drive from Apache Junction toward Tortilla Flat on the Apache Trail is both beautiful and spectacular. The scenery is aweinspir­ing in the words of President Theodore Roosevelt who wrote of the Apache Trail in March of 1911.

The trip to Tortilla Flat will take you by many viewpoints; including Canyon Lake and many other points of interest.

Enjoy a drive to Tortilla Flat and enjoy one of the world's smallest, but most complete museums.

Tom Kollenborn ©2004

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NEW SCHOOL AT TORTILLA FLAT

Mesa Journal-Tribune, September 23, 1932

Tortilla Flat, located on the Apache Trail between Mormon Flat and Fish Creek, has its first school building. Creation of a new school district at Tortilla Flat was recently accomplished and carpenters last week finished construction on the building.

School opened Monday morning with registration of 14 pupils. Mrs. Spence Dingle of Mesa is instructor.

The school served the children of Tortilla Flat, the Canyon Lake area and Horse Mesa Dam. The actual school house was moved to Horse Mesa Dam after the flood of 1943. At Tortilla Flat, the replica school sits where it originally was located, at the end of town by the old hanging tree.

Excerpt of 1989 letter from Shirley D. Kennicott, Atla Dingle's daughter

"I do have some memory of my mother's tenure at Tortilla Flat. Because of the school's distance from our home, my mother would spend Monday through Friday each week at the little school, staying in the attached living quarters. When I was in the first grade, father took me to visit my mother at school and I attended her classes for two days. I had really looked forward to this visit and somehow expected preferential treatment while in her class -- a big mistake on my part as she was even more strict with me than she was with the other students.

If my recollection of the classroom is correct, there were ten pupils; five Petersons and five O'Conners who spanned grades one through eight. The O'Conner family ran the general store, gas station and a small diner, while Erin Peterson supervised the dam. It is my understanding that the Petersons and O'Conners were reminiscent of the Hatfields and McCoys. "