From "The Taming of the Salt; the Salt River Project"

"A compilation of biographies of pioneers who contributed significantly to water development in the Salt River Valley."

Chapter 20 relates to Franklin Tomlin Alkire, who came from

St. Louis, Mo.

Son of Josiah Rush Alkire, g/s of George Alkire & Catherine Rush, g-g/son of Harmonas & Lydia Alkire.

Quite a story of the man.

"He helped perfect the Articles of Incorporation and served on the Board of Governors."

"The night he arrived it must have been difficult for Franklin Tomlin Alkire to believe Arizona had a water problem. The 21-year-old son of one of St. Louis' great merchants, Alkire climbed down from the warm comfort of a Southern Pacific car at Casa Grande to be greeted by a driving rain.

The date was January 7, 1886.

As the rain poured from a darkened sky, Alkire splashed through the mud and water to find shelter and await the stagecoach that would take him to the Silver King Mine.

The storm continued as the stage pulled out. Not one of the crowd that usually gathered for arrivals and departures was present. Only those who had to be, were out. Those.......and a band of robbers who figured it would take more than a winter storm to keep them from the $17,500 mine payroll which the stage carried.

Alkire tried to join in defending the coach but he couldn't find his Winchester, which had been packed inside. As it turned out, the robbers were equally frustrated. "They took the big green Wells Fargo box," Alkire related at his 50th wedding anniversary. "But it was a dummy. The money was in an old canned-beef box."

From the mine he traveled to Mesa, this time in a vegetable wagon. His next stop was Tempe, and finally, Phoenix.

"The Salt River was booming, in flood," Alkire recalled. "The ferry service was held up and you couldn't get across the river. We were stuck there a week; finally got across in a rowboat after the river subsided a little."

Some ten years after that first wet journey, Alkire joined other Valley farmers and ranchers in wishing for even a fraction of that amount of water.

"Every cowman and sheepman in Arizona was wiped off the map," Alkire said of the drought of the late '90's. Looking at the withered crops, cattle, and human spirits, Alkire made a silent promise that it would never happen again.

But what can one man do? At the time the flow in the river had dropped to as low as an average of 850 acre/feet per day, but in July 1900 it was even lower--an average of 225 acre/feet daily. Thousands of acres of cropland lay barren; the dust rising from farmers boots was the only harvest.

Then came the signing of the National Reclamation Act on June 17, 1902.

Business and water leaders, once they understood that under terms of the act the Tonto Basin reservoir could be built, called for a mass meeting to be held in the courtroom in Phoenix on August 2, 1902.

It was agreed at the meeting to name a committee of 26 members to represent the various canal companies and the City of Phoenix. Frank Alkire was one of those named to represent Phoenix.

The committee enlisted the aid of Judge Joseph Kibbey to draft a plan of procedure in the formation of an Association. To facilitate Kibbey's plan, the committee on September 4 named an executive committee of 11 members.

The members of this committee, who were to devote endless hours in discussing and perfecting the Articles of Incorporation of the Salt River Valley Water Users' Association, which were drafted by Kibbey with help from George Maxwell, were:

Frank T. Alkire, A.J. Chandler, William Christy, B.A. Fowler, Dwight B. Heard, Lin B. Orme, Frank H. Parker, H. Simkins, W.H. Wallace, E.W. Wilbur and J.W. Woolf.

The completion of the articles and their filing with the Maricopa County Recorder on February 7, 1903, did not complete their work. First, the farmers would have to be signed to membership in the Association.

Alkire and the other committee members spent many more hours explaining the purpose of the Association and the articles to the farmers. Most of the farmers, though some with reluctance and misgivings, signed their acreage into the Association.

But Alkire's job was not over, even then. He was elected to the Association's first board of Governors, and was the last living original director when he died January 26, 1962, at the age of 96.

One of the early historians wrote of Alkire:

"Kindly and affable in manner, he enjoys a wide acquaintance throughout this part of the state and commands the unequivocal respect and confidence of all who know him."

The description is a perfect fit. It just doesn't go far enough. Alkire never backed down from what he believed. And, when the going looked rough, he simply took a tighter grip and hung on.

That was what it took to make the Water Users' the success it became then--and is today. Looking back at the accomplishment, one writer observed that many crisis had been faced by the Water Users'.

"But due to the wisdom of the men at its head, due to the determination of its members that nothing would stand in the way of the culmination of their desire, it has weathered every storm and is today a living, vital, functioning association."

Alkire came by his spirit naturally. Of Dutch descent, Alkire's paternal ancestors came to America in the late 1600s, settling first in Maryland and then in Virginia. Alkire's father was one of the first California pioneers to reach Sacramento in 1849.

The elder Alkire made his stake in six months, and later settled down in St. Louis to establish a wholesale grocery business.

Frank Alkire attended public school in St. Louis and later went to Smith Academy in that city.

He spent the winter of 1874 in California with his father and stopped for several months in Texas before setting out for Arizona.

His first sight of Phoenix was restricted by the abundant cottonwood trees and he had to ask directions to find the business district. There were about 2,500 persons in the city at that time.

The Missouri native was interested in ranching and went to the Tonto Basin area where he hoped to get his start. The cabin he built there was later acquired by Zane Gray as a wilderness home.

Although Geronimo was on the warpath and Indian raids were always imminent, it was not this danger that forced Alkire from the Tonto Creek country. It was the high cost of stocking spread.

The answer, apparently, was to buy a ranch already stocked, and Alkire found just what he wanted at New River. the Triangle Bar Ranch had the only natural spring on the road from Phoenix to Prescott, and it became one of the largest ranches in Central Arizona: 55 miles long and 25 miles wide.

Three years after his arrival in Arizona, he went to San Diego, Cal. for his health. It was there he again met Asenath Phelps, a girl he had known in St. Louis. They were married on April 9, 1889. He brought his bride home to his ranch in New River, Arizona.

After the couple's second child was born, Alkire decided to move his family into town, and for the next 11 years he and his brother, George, ran a mercantile business in the city.

But opportunity had a way of knocking often for the Alkire's.

In 1905 it was ostriches. With plumes a fashionable favorite, the Alkire Ostrich Farm, three miles south of Glendale, was a profitable affair. And they didn't stop with plumes. One article reported that the Alkire brothers sold baby ostriches to the Fred Harvey Co. each Thanksgiving, to be served instead of turkeys at Harvey Houses across the country.

Called "One of Phoenix's most progressive and dependable men of affairs," no one was much surprised when Frank Alkire made it possible for Phoenix to have the fifth automatic telephone system to be installed in the United States. The company was later purchased by American Telephone and Telegraph Co.

A year after president Theodore Roosevelt spoke, March 18, 1911, and pulled the lever at Roosevelt Dam to bring water to the Salt River Valley, Alkire bought part of the 21-year-old Phoenix printing, book and school supply firm of McNeil Co. The firm published the first edition of Arizona Highways Magazine and in 1914, the Arizona Revised Statutes.

Cattleman, rancher, merchant, banker, printer, civic leader and staunch supporter of the reclamation movement, Alkire was all of these, and all these fields were better because of him.

When asked about his extremely busy life, Alkire once responded:

"I have no complaint of life. It's been good in some ways and tough in others. It has been a long time, yet all of it seems only yesterday."

Some additional notes from Carl Porter regarding some of the history involved:

"Visitors to Phoenix, Az., should ask to see the Alkire collection at the Arizona State Museum. I understand it includes the 2nd largest Indian basket ever made. The home in Tonto Basin, which he sold to author Zane Gray, was the only house that is, or could be in 4 states simultaneously. This is not hard to find on a map, being the only place in America where 4 states meet.

The Fred Harvey "Harvey House Restaurant" are largely forgotten now, but when he first set them up, to serve the railroad traffic, they created quite a new wrinkle. If you can get a hold of "Those Harvey Girls", which was a Betty Grable vehicle, with Judy Garland I think, you can learn about Harvey's high standards of service, which made him quite wealthy in a short time.

Getting to his account of his early fore bearers, we know a little more about them today than he did. Given the fluctuation of boundaries over the family ancestral home, the origin point appears to be very close to the Netherlands, sometimes under French or German control, perhaps even under Belgium control at times. But, as has been pointed out, there was no country called "Germany" for more then a century after our family left, it makes it easy to see how the descendants might have rather vague notions of exactly where the family lived.

Franks' mother was overlooked in this piece, and was exceptional in her own right. Just being a college graduate made her very special in her day, but she was personally acquainted with Lincoln, as well as several governors & other statesmen of Illinois. I attribute no small share of the success described in the account of Franks life, to the benefits he enjoyed merely being her son.

The Alkire Grocery, sold out just before the turn of the century (1900). In 1904, came the truly remarkable St. Louis World Fair! To have been a business man among the firebrands who planned that; who saw the Mississippi river spanned by Eads' bridge, when all the engineers said: "It couldn't be done!" The shaping of these influences show pretty clearly in the careers of Frank & his brother / partner George.

Lastly, the influence of grandpa, Rev. George Alkire, intimate friend of Barton W. Stone, selfless evangelist, builder of great spiritual strength, must have been great. All these influences must have truly contributed to this very extraordinary, & successful Arizona pioneer."

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