On November 11, 2012 my grandpa Arlee T. Maxwell would have been 107 years old. This article written about him in the August 1992 Arizona Highways was written by William Hafford and is entitled:
"Millionaire Mountain Man"
"In 1944, When I was 14, bagging a Thanksgiving turkey was high on my priority list. But I had been having no success. I knew I was a good trout fisherman, and I was pretty good at downing fast-flying quail with my old single-shot .20-gauge shotgun, wild turkeys, though, were something else.
I had worn out a lot of shoe leather tramping through Arizona's White Mountains trying to bring home my first turkey. Truth to tell, I had never seen a turkey in the wild. My outdoor hunting and fishing magazines said they were extremely cautious birds with an uncanny ability to elude hunters. No doubt about it.
My dad wasn't having much luck with the wild birds, either. That's what he told Arlee T. Maxwell while we were having pie in Arlee's little motel restaurant in Show Low. Arlee and my dad had known each other for many years, so Arlee finally took off his apron, got his cigar-box turkey caller, and took us down some dirt roads to a place where he said we could find wild turkeys.
We looked, and Arlee squawked, but we didn't see any turkeys. I just kept walking, and Arlee kept squawking. He squawked again off to the left. Then pretty soon, he squawked off to the right. Wait a minute!
If Arlee was squawking off to the left, he couldn't be squawking off to the right. Oh, boy!
And then I saw the bird. I leveled the shotgun and squeezed off a shot. Bang! I had my Thanksgiving turkey.
It seemed to me that Arlee (I never called him Mr. Maxwell) also knew every trout stream, lake, and pond in the White Mountains. He knew where the deer were as well. To my young mind, a friend like Arlee was an invaluable asset.
After awhile, I moved away from Arizona and stayed gone for more that 25 years. When I returned in the fall of 1989, I wanted to look up old friends.
But I put it off, and the weeks turned into months. Finally, on May 18, 1990, I decided to give Arlee a call. The woman who answered the phone paused for a long moment after I made my request. "I'm terribly sorry to tell you this," she said, "but I was just leaving to go to Arlee's funeral."
A few weeks later, I made a trip to Show Low to talk to some of Arlee's family and acquaintances. After a few conversations, I realized I had always held a rather one-dimensional view of Arlee; mountain man. He was more than that. Like many whose lives spanned America's Great Depression, he experienced the ups and downs of life. The consensus was that Arlee had the capacity to smile through years of adversity and, at the same time, hold out his hand to others.
"He did more to build the community of Show Low and this part of Arizona that any man I know," said one old-timer.
So So I dug into Arlee's life. He was born in Nutrioso, about 15 miles south of Springerville, in 1905.
He was from a family of ranchers, farmers, and lawmen. His father came into Arizona across the Colorado River at Lees Ferry, then migrated south to the White Mountains where Arlee grew up.
During his final year of high school, Arlee went to work as a wrangler for the Cross Bar Cattle Company. In 1926 he married Verdie Robinson, a local girl. According to Arlee, the honeymoon consisted of a hard day of baling hay on his parents' ranch.
In 1928, Arlee, with his wife and baby daughter, Imogene, moved to Winslow where he started a promising job with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Later, a son, Marlin Lee, was born, and then the Depression settled in. The promising job turned into a layoff.
Arlee's mountain-man instinct took him back to the high country and a remote spot called Gobbler's Peak. He had an idea. Even though the Depression was taking jobs away from most people, Arlee reasoned that the wealthy would still have money. Without any outside help, he built a hunting and fishing lodge in country that was rife with trout and wild game. Arlee would be the guide; Verdie, the cook and housekeeper.
In theory, the idea had merit. But no one had anticipated the length and depth of the Depression. Even the wealthy were hit hard. Arlee abandoned the lodge, came out of the mountains, and found a job with the Arizona Highway Department.
He stayed with the department, and in 1943 he was assigned as highway maintenance supervisor for a large area of the White Mountains country. Because the maintenance yard was in Show Low, he moved his family there. Shortly after, he purchased a small motel with 11 frame cottages and a 12-stool cafe. That's where I first met the mountain man. My dad and I always stopped for homemade pie and hot chocolate at Arlee's place.
The last time ia saw Arlee was in the early '60s, just before I left the state. During the time I was gone, Arlee branched out. In Show Low, he built the Maxwell House Motel and Restaurant, a 122-unit facility. He restored the historic Pain Pony Lodge 32 units, and became owner of the Apache Pines Motel, 35 units. Later he built a large convention center that draws groups both from Arizona and out of state. He also accumulated numerous other properties in the White Mountains area and was a founder and the chairman of Frontier State Bank, (Now National Bank of Arizona).
Another long-term Show Low resident told me, "If Arlee was wealthy, he never showed it. Most of the time he was smiling and trying to help others. Many times he gave jobs to people who weren't exactly top prospects. But they needed the work and, surprisingly, some of them stayed with him and got promoted."
Another said, "Arlee was a jokester. In later years, he liked to poke fun at himself. Once he came into his restaurant with a black shoe on one foot, a brown shoe on the other. One of his cronies pointed this out in a loud voice. Heads turned. Patrons stared. Arlee smiled. 'I like 'em that way,' he said. 'I've got another pair just like em at home.'"
One day in the summer of '45, Arlee took my dad and me on a fishing excursion to one of his "special places" far back on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. We bounced over washboard dirt roads. Off in the distance, I could see the 11,590-foot summit of Mount Baldy. The ruts got dimmer and dimmer until he road played out entirely.
"Now we walk," Arlee said to me. and walk we did, deeper and deeper into the ever-thickening forest. Finally, he stopped and pointed. "There it is."
"It" was a six-foot-wide stream, tumbling down from the high country. I was not very impressed until I got up close and peered down into a pool beneath a small waterfall. Wow! It was filled with pan-size trout lazily fanning their tails against the current.
Arlee told my dad to fish downstream, while he and I fished upstream. Arlee started walking, and I followed. After several miles, we came out into a small valley. I could see beaver dams and water backed up behind them.
Arlee slipped along the side of a beaver pond and said, "Edge you way down there and toss your salmon egg right out next to that beaver house."
I did, and before the bait had gone a foot beneath the water, a fierce tug bent my rod. I set the hook, knowing I had caught a big one. "Ease him in gently," Arlee cautioned, as he stepped into the water and netted the trout. Then, hoisting my prize, hesaid, "Eighteen, maybe 19 inches." That's a mighty big trout for a tiny stream.
I was eager to try for another. "No," said Arlee, "that's all." I couldn't understand why until he told me. "We're going to have a little fun with your dad." He laid out the whole scenario, and we started back. When we finally located my dad, I hid the trout behind my back.
"You have any luck?" my dad inquired. Just as Arlee instructed, I replied, "Only caught one."
"Only one!" my dad exclaimed. "Only one! I got my limit." He opened his creel and showed us a nice bunch of trout eight, nine, 10 inches long. "Only one?"
Than, as Arlee had coached me, I held my monster trout in front of Dad's face. His eyes bugged out, and his jaw dropped. Then we all laughed. There were a lot of good times like that.
Over the years, a number of awards and honors came Arlee's way, including being named Arizona Pioneer of the Year in 1982. Arlee also played an active role in politics, campaigning for a number of Arizona governors, and in 1985 he was inducted into the Arizona Democratic Hall of Fame.
Arlee Maxwell also was held in high regard by the Apache. Having grown up on the periphery of their sprawling reservation, he had many Indian friends. In the mid-'60s, he was asked to serve as chairman of the board for the Apache Sunrise Ski Resort, one of the most daring business investments the tribe had ever made.
Today, the Sunrise Ski Resort is a glittering recreational jewel, high in the White Mountains, boasting 42 skiruns, lodging, restaurant facilities, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling, and sledding.
Bill Hancock, president of Frontier State Bank and one of Arlee's close friends, says, "He was a bridge builder. He built bridges between people and always worked to make life better for others."
Long ago I knew him as a fun-loving man, who was familiar with every creek and ridge in the White Mountains. A man who wore faded jeans and a flannel shirt and could call a wild turkey. Now I know he was much more than that."
I thought you might like to know a little bit about my Grandpa Arlee, your great grandpa. I remember him as always being happy and in a good mood. I am grateful to call him my grandpa.
