Geronimo....Roosevelt and the Superstition Mountains

[Music] welcome to an extremely special edition of Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains we are in Cave Creek today right in front of TrueWest Magazine now you're saying to yourself why are you out there instead of the Superstitions well we're gonna find the connection between President Roosevelt and the Superstition Mountains with Executive Editor Bob Boze Bell you know President Theodore Roosevelt has historic ties to Arizona with the building of the world's largest masonry dam which he was present to dedicate in order to accomplish this feat a wagon road had to be constructed through the Superstition Mountains to haul supplies a Roosevelt dam Apache trail was finished in 1905 and that's when our story begins in 1905 Bob we hear about Teddy Roosevelt and Geronimo but we never really hear about him together how are they connected well I love this story about Geronimo at Teddy Roosevelt's inaugural parade and I've had a couple people tell me that it's not quite right but I'll tell it to you anyway okay because I just love the story I think it says so much about him so by the 1900's Geronimo was at Fort Sill Oklahoma and he was quite the celebrity and people wanted him they showed up at the exposition in Omaha and he showed up at the World's Fair and he showed up at all kinds of carnivals and stuff but he demanded to be paid and so Teddy Roosevelt wanted to put on a really big show for his inaugural parade and he wired the authorities in Fort Sill he said I want Geronimo and Geronimo says we got to pay for my horse and so they requisitioned $194 to him to ship his horse and so then Geronimo went to the train station and to go to Washington DC and he was carrying a suitcase and he got on the train and every stop he'd get off and he'd say I'm Geronimo I'm Geronimo the war chief the Apache war chief and he would sign his name on the pictures that he had for quarter and he would sell the buttons on his coat he would sell his hat and he would get back on the train you can open up his suitcase and he had a sewing kit needed so but oh and go to the next stop he did that all the way to Washington DC so he gets to Washington and the army officers say where's your horse and he said oh you'll get me another one and slowly got him another horse he's writing his own horse in the parade and he died with $10,000 in the bank the guy was he imagine what he would have done on Wall Street the guy will talk about the wolf of Wall Street that would be goatallah the man who yawned Geronimo had been in prison over the time he was supposed to be in there did he ever approach Roosevelt to have him released there's a story that Geronimo had a meeting with Teddy Roosevelt in the White House and that he made a very eloquent plea to go go home and Teddy heard that and basically told him I'm sorry you cannot go home and he couldn't politically you could not send him home because of all the havoc he had caused and forty some years in Arizona why was there a controversy about Roosevelt bringing Native Americans with him to the parade yes and Teddy Roosevelt said I just wanted to put on a good show he was very controversial in in Arizona quarters it would be like if you brought Osama bin Laden to a parade in Washington DC in the early you know after 9/11 I mean he was he was literally perceived as a terrorist in Arizona and there were many families who lost family members to his raiding so yeah he was very very controversial in his day can you tell us the names of the Native Americans well this is a very stellar group of Native Americans coming down the street and Tedy Roosevelt was right he put on a show in addition to Geronimo in the parade we have Quanah Parker okay the famous Comanche buckskin Charlie who was a Ute hollow horn bearer Sue American Horse famous Indian sue little plume a Blackfeet and of course Geronimo they're the most legendary Indian in the United States history how does Geronimo tie to Arizona oh yeah well he was born and he was born in out in the head of the Gila River the headwaters and there's controversy over that because the headwaters are technically north of Silver City New Mexico present-day but there is some tradition that it was over by a Clifton globe because the Apaches have a tradition where when you would come by your birthplace they would roll you in the four directions you'd get off your horse and they would roll you east and west and north and south as a tradition of the place you were this is where you came into the earth and this is where you go out and so he was born in that area and of course he was as he was prisoner and not a prisoner but he was he was in San Carlos which is east of globe and he was also up in Fort Apache area and he of course raided extensively through all the corridors going south through apache pass into Mexico he was a terror of Mexico in Haunos and fronterrace and all through the Sierra Madre in fact his idea of the vacation was to go south and kill every Mexican he saw and so he probably spent as much time in Mexico as he did in the United States what is this story about the Mexicans massacring Geronimo's family should that make us a little more empathetic towards him well that's a controversial incident he yes in his autobiography he he claims that while he was away that soldiers from Sonora came into Haunos and killed his wife and his kid and his family and Grandpa how many killed his family and that that turned him against Mexicans forever but what is not often said which he didn't admit his so they were giving being given rations in Haunos and then they would go raid into Sonora and kill people and steal all our stuff so the soldiers in Sonora said well we're tired of that and so they basically sought us let's go clean out that nest of vipers and they came to kill and he happened to be raiding in Sonora at the time so I don't feel quite as sorry for the old man as some people do and there there's a lot there's a lot of people who try to give him a saint.. he was no saint you know he was a very very human and I think it's kind of ironic that his name and Apache is his real name Gothel means he who yawns I don't think anybody yawned around that guy what about the names Geronimo's cave in the Superstitions was he really there yes and one of the things that happens is it could be real it could be really but but if someone dies and they become famous within everything gravitates to them you know you know this is Billy the Kid Canyon this is Jesse James treasure you know where he leaped over a mountain you know what I mean and so legends have that magnetic ability to take names to them and so I look at the name of the cave with a little bit of a little bit of the Chamber of Commerce and maybe named that well did Geronimo take refuge in the Superstition Mountains and in the cave that's now known as Geronimo cave just another one of those mysteries of the Superstition Mountains [Music]

Channel: Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains

Views: 38,994

Keywords: Charlie LeSueur, Superstition Mountains, The Lost Dutchman Mine, Superstition Mountain Museum, Opal Images, Arizona, History, Gold, Treasure, True West Magazine, Bob Boze Bell, Geronimo, Indian wars, President Roosevelt, Roosevelt Dam, Apache Trail, Geronimo Cave, Apache, Pima, Larry Hedrick, old West, True West, Mexico

Id: 5sIRsayXbqQ

Length: 8min 17sec (497 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2019