Memories, Honors and more......

Remember this blog is for me, not for you that's why I have an obsession with Cibola. I've taken a few of the newer Arnetts there to show them the scenery and needless to say they have been underwelmed. Lex, Syd, Kensie and Megs tried to act interested, but somehow I could sense that they just wanted to get back in the car to turn on the air conditioning. I also took Lacy and Dave and while they feigned more interest than the aforementioned Arnetts, they still weren't totally captivated by the wonderment know as Cibola.

I'm sorry, I am obsessed. So much so, I have begun conversations with the Cibola Natl. Wildlife Refuge about compiling a history and maybe some sort of marker or plaque to one Howard Arnett -- without whom much of the refuge wouldn't exist as it does today.

First, a little history. Cibola was home to the Yuma Pima Indians and was thought to be the famed cities of gold. de Coronado made his way through this area and discovered it not quite up to his "gold standards".
In the early 1900's, steam ships made their way up the Colorado River from the Baja gulf and stopped in Ciblola to offload goods. There was a Post Office (remember seeing that, children) run by one Louis Bishop, probably the father of Bob and Zetta. Incidentally, he became very ill and the closest doctor was in Yuma so they just put him in a small wooden dingy and let him float down. He died on the way.

Anyway, our ancestor, Howard M. Arnett (maybe some of you knew him), homesteaded some of this land, clearing it from brush, trees et al. He also dug the famous Arnett canal (as it is now known) which spans several miles to the old path of the Colorado River and now is the main water source for Cibola Lake.

There are many memories in the minds of the Arnett boys (like picking up stumps and sticks in the fields while cooking beans for breakfast with some of the stumps as firewood). We would have to throw the stumps on a flat bed trailer. Howard said he needed it done, to clear the fields, but we knew better, it was to keep us busy. It was that or dig a hole and fill it up again.

But I digress, I'm posting some photos of cibola to spark some memories in the older generation. The refuge people want a history of how the land was cleared and such.