SAWMILLS

A sawmill was already in operation in Barfoot Park when Brannick Benjamin Riggs bought it from Major William Downing.  He operated the sawmill for 10 years then because of a Federal Law taxing all stumps on the mountain he went broke and had to sell out.  These wheels were found in the area of the sawmill years later.  We don’t know if BB used them to haul cut trees to the sawmill or not.  They have been an interesting artifact in connection with the sawmill business.  

From the time BB was a little  boy, the lumber business had been a part of his family’s life. His Grandfather Thomas, his father and his uncle James had a saw mill in Bandera County Texas where they all cut trees and hauled them to San Antonio.  James Monroe was a skilled shingle maker.  When the family moved to Colorado they set up a sawmill in the canyon near their home.  They cut lumber and made thousands of shingles that they sold in the area. This provided a large part of the family income. After the family moved to Arizona they lived near the Chiricahua mountains which had a good stand of timber. The country in Cochise County and the surrounding area was developing.  Homes were being built and large underground mines were being developed. The need for lumber was great and the nearby Chiricahua mountains provided the availability of trees.  BB was not a rancher at heart.  He loved being in the mountains and doing the work of a lumberman.

In 1896, Brannick, age 29 and his brother, James J bought the sawmill in Barfoot Park in the Chiricahua mountains from Major William Downing and it became known as the Chiricahua Lumber Mill.  Brannick was able to use his degree in Civil Engineering as he used and maintained the saws and machines in the mill, located appropriate sites and grades for the tracks used to bring the felled trees to the mill for sawing.   James Jay was an investor but Brannick Benjamin ran the sawmill.  He provided timbers for the mines in Pearce, Bisbee and Morenci.

Tuesday, 15 Sept 1896

Arizona Range News
Messrs. Jas. J. and Brannick Riggs went to Tucson on Wednesday to make application in the U.S. Land office for permission to

cut timber on public lands in the Chiricahua Mountains, as per notice previously published in our columns.  The Riggs brothers

are enterprising and deserving young men, and we hope their application will be allowed.

Brannick married Martha Smith in October 1896.  They lived on a small ranch near the Prue Place.  In the summer time the family would move to a cabin near the sawmill where they stayed until cold weather came.

Brannick ran the sawmill about 10 years.  After the Federal Government organized the Forest Service, a “Stumpage Law” was enacted.  Men came in and counted all of the stumps on the mountain, whether Brannick had cut the trees or not.  He had to pay taxes on all the stumps on the mountain.  That was more than the mill could pay out, so after struggling along for ten years, Brannick finally sold out and in 1906 accepted a position with the Copper Queen Mining Company estimating timber land; first in New Mexico, then in Mexico.