Through Time and the Valley

11. Government Canyon

11 Government Canyon Eight hours after leaving the Brainard Ranch, we arrived at the Leroy McGarraugh place in Government Canyon, an orderly outpost of civilization thirty-five miles from the nearest town. We found the owner, Mr. McGarraugh, burning weeds out of a cattle guard with a butane torch. After swapping opinions on the weather-as Irecall, the consensus was hot and dry-we stabled our animals in a very substantial set of corrals Mr. McGarraugh had built. Constructed ofheavy two-by-six planks bolted to railroad ties, these pens not only gave the appearance of being indestructible, but represented something of a marvel ofengineering as well. Having built a few miles of crooked fence in my day, I could appreciate 103 104 -- Through TiIne and the Valley The late Leroy McGarraugh, who operated a ranch in the rugged country around Government Canyon, poses beside a machine he built in his shop. He used the machine for pulling rods and pipe out of windmills, which in this vicinity may go down as far as 400 feet to water. the symmetry and form of Mr. McGarraugh's creation. Given that the digging of postholes is less than an exact science, and that corral building is generally approached with functional rather than aesthetic goals in mind, it came as rather a shock to find not one gate too wide or too narrow, and not one post out of line or off center-this in a set of pens that covered half an acre. When I mentioned this to Mr. McGarraugh, he smiled modestly and said, yeah, well he'd spent quite a lot of time on those pens-as though anyone with enough time to spare could have done as well, which I happened to know was not true.Most people I knew would simply have used more time to make more crooked Government Canyon - 105 fence. But if Mr. McGarraugh was not as awed by this feat of engineering as I, the reason lay in the fact that he was more accustomed to it. He was, after all, a master mechanic and builder. Given the tools and the time, he could build almost anything. After we had stabled the animals, we climbed in Mr. McGarraugh's pickup and drove to a high mesa that stood just south of the house. We had seen it that morning from the divide on the edge of the Brainard land. From that distance it had appeared to be a cone-shaped peak, but on closer inspection we found it to be a three-tiered affair, the first step sixty or seventy feet high, the second about a hundred, and the third, which formed a point of rock about twenty-five feet in diameter, rose a hundred and fifty feet above the valley floor. Mr. McGarraugh theorized that the mountain was used as a lookout point by a culture of Pueblo Indians who lived in Government Canyon years ago, and he showed us the rock outline of a house on the second level. About twentyfour feet long and eighteen feet wide, the dwelling opened to the east and might have been used as a dormitory for sentries. From the pinnacle, they enjoyed an unobstructed view of the valley in three directions and could have observed the approach of an enemy eight or ten miles away. In all probability, the Indians in Government Canyon belonged to the Panhandle Pueblo culture which thrived in the Canadian valley between 1000 and 1400 A.D., and which extended north to the Buried City on Wolf Creek in Ochiltree County. In contrast to the Kiowas and Comanches who came later, these sedentary people builtapartment villages and diverted water courses to irrigate crops. Their houses, built of native rock and adobe, and caulked with caliche , contained no windows but were "air conditioned" by means of ventilating shafts. Although they had neither steel nor beasts of burden, they achieved a high degree ofcivilization and spread over a large area along the river. Why the cities were suddenly abandoned , what caused these people to vanish from the Panhandle, 106 - Through TiIne and the Valley remains a mystery, but by the time Coronado passed through the country in 1540, their cities were already in ruins. Mr. McGarraugh had found abundant evidence of their presence on his ranch, not only several house sites, but also a quantity of fire pits, flint drills, scrapers, awls...