St. Johns/San Juan Arizona & Another Poker Game

St. Johns, in the White Mountains of Arizona, has interesting and somewhat competing histories of how it came to be settled and named. So, we're going to have to do a series and start with what appears to be the "official" version. In this version, there was yet another poker game-- similar to the Show Low story (see below post) that allowed the winner to found the town. But, as we've hinted, there may be some opposition to this version...



St. Johns is located in the High Desert of the White Mountains in northeastern Arizona, approximately 18 miles west of the Arizona-New Mexico border, at an elevation of 5,730 feet. The "official" version of the founding and naming of the town is excerpted from the work of the below cited author.

"At the site of the future St. Johns, the crossing of Little Colorado River was called El Vadito (Spanish: "the little crossing") by Spaniards who first explored that section of the country. From 1864 on Soloman Barth, a trader to the Indians, packed salt from the Zuni Salt Lake to miners at Prescott and came to know the St. Johns region well. In a poker game in 1873 he won enough cattle and land from the Mexicans to permit him to forsake an itinerant trader's life and to settle down with his brothers Nathan and Morris to help him. He changed the name from El Vadito to San Juan (Spanish: St. John).


One story says that the name came from that of the first woman resident, Senora Maria San Juan Baca de Padilla. Another asserts that the name comes from the annual feast of San Juan on June 24, which Spanish-Americans still celebrate in St. Johns as they do in other communities. In 1866 William R. Milligan (see Round Valley) came to the area, followed in 1870 by Frank Walker, who settled near the present St. Johns (see The Meadows, Apache q.v.). Soon a settlement began to grow at the crossing on the Little Colorado. By 1872 Spanish-Americans had established an agricultural community where St. Johns is today. In 1874 Juan Sedilla erected a stone cabin there.

Sol Barth sold out his interests in 1875 to Ammon M. Tenney, a Mormon agent who located on the G Bar or Sedro Ranch some thirty-five miles north of St. Johns. Following on Tenney's heels came Wilford Wodruff, president of the Church of Latter Day Saints, who on March 29, 1880, located a Mormon settlement approximately on mile north of St. Johns, but on September 19, 1880, Erastus Snow advised moving the settlement to high ground adjacent to the Mexican settlement. The name Salem was selected for the new location and steps were taken to establish a post office, which, however, never opened because of hostility to the Mormon settlement.

St. Johns was made the county seat in 1879, but in 1880 as superseded by Springerville. However, in 1882 St. Johns again became the county seat, retaining that honor to the present."

Post Office established as Saint Johns April 5, 1880. Sixtus E. Johnson Post Master. Name changed to St. Johns, April 18, 1893.

TO BE CONTINUED...


Barnes, Will C.; Granger, Byrd (ed.) Arizona Place Names University of Arizona Press. 1960.
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