Mobile, Maricopa’s neighbor, now and then

Mobile is a small community located about 15 miles west of Maricopa on SR238, and north of the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. It is in Maricopa County and bordered by two majestic mountain ranges: the Estrella Mountains to the east and the Maricopa Mountain Range to the west. 

Mobile is a quiet, serene settlement situated in the middle of the desert where neighbors can greet each other or visit at a moment’s notice. When you hear the name, Mobile, it conjures up the name Mobile, Alabama for most people. However, the name Mobile was hooked onto this little settlement back in the 1800s when the Southern Pacific Railroad was laid across southern Arizona, and a siding was created at this point to provide water for steam engines.  

Today, not much remains to indicate that at one time Mobile might have developed into a thriving town. It almost became host to an oil refinery and hazardous waste facility at one time. In 1988, it was the proposed site for the Superconducting Super Collier and considered by the ENSCO Hazardous Waste Facility, but neither of these possibilities took root. However, against the wishes of many of its residents, the Butterfield Station Waste Management Facility did locate at Mobile.

Mobile’s History
It was a white man who first carved out a life in the midst of Mobile in the early part of the 1900s. Edison Lung homesteaded the area around 1922 and continued to live there for the rest of his life. Lung was born in Indiana, but moved, for a short time, to Columbus, Ohio, where he worked as a glass blower. After contracting asthma, his doctor advised him to move to a dryer climate. He left Ohio, heading westward, and ended up as a carpenter in Oklahoma. In 1920, he moved to Tucson, Arizona, where he helped to build St. Mary’s Hospital. His next job took him to Mobile with the Southern Pacific Railroad pumping water from a well for the steam engines of trains. When the railroad transferred him to Yuma, he absolutely refused to go, quit his job and laid down stakes at Mobile catering to railroad personnel and travelers.

Records show that Lung filed an application to enlarge his homestead in 1922 and received a title to that land in 1925. His homestead consisted of a frame and stucco house, a store located downstairs and a post office with sleeping quarters on the second floor. The homestead had a gas station, a cow barn, a chicken coop and a storeroom. His wife ran the post office and made a living by providing services to travelers and railroad employees who passed through the area. Edison raised cattle, hogs and chicken on his homestead. Around 1935, he decided to modernize the property and bought a Delco electric generator that provided the family with lighting and the use of a few appliances. Records also show that he and his family motored to Maricopa to dances at the Maricopa Hotel and to other recreational events throughout the 1930s. 

Black Community: 1920-30s
During the late 1920s and early 30s, Mobile became a black settlement as people began to homestead the land. According to Mark Swanson (An Archaeological Investigation of the Historic Black Settlement at Mobile, Arizona), the population in the 1930s was between 100 and 150, and consisted of mainly black settlers. Most of these early settlers did not work for the railroad, but came from Oklahoma or Texas by way of Phoenix. The Southern Pacific Railroad called their section house located in the area, Mobile, and thus the origin of the community’s name.

According to Swanson’s research, Mobile credits John Cobb, Joe Douglas and Archie Giles as the first homesteaders. The first momentum of successful black homesteaders were Lee Elliot Williams (homestead awarded in 1933);  Richard Cobb Williams (homestead awarded in 1933) and Homer Abraham Williams (homestead awarded in 1933); Willis Thomas, Hezekiah McGriff, Eli Weddington,  James Manor, and the Israel Nelson families settled in the area during the 1929-30 era. 

Mobile Schools: 1930-60s
The first school in Mobile contained grades 1-8 and consisted of two railroad cars placed end to end. White children went to school in one car and black children went to school in the other car. Later, the white children were transferred to a wood frame schoolhouse that was moved from Rainbow Valley (1936-37) and placed near the home of Edison Lung. It continued to educate these children up to the 1960s. 

The black residents of Mobile built a small schoolhouse named Nelson Elementary School for their children. When the community started to grow and needed a bigger school, the government built a much larger one in the same location. Several families lived and worked in Mobile throughout the 40-60s. Their young children went to Mobile School, and, after eighth grade graduation, they were bused to Percy L Julian or South Mountain High School. 

In an oral history interview with the two Deck brothers (Pierre and Daniel) and their lifelong friend, Fezel Adams, Pierre Deck recalled “…the desks were in rows. Each grade, first through eighth, was assigned a row.” According to Fezel Adams, “It was a big room with about ten students. The parents were the cooks, and they were the best in the world. One week it would be my mom… and I remember Mrs. Johnson…they would switch off or they would both come in at the same time. Ms Hudson…Ms Kinney…and Ms Mitchell was there, and it was good food in those days. Good…great food…..Good home cooking! They don’t cook like that anymore! You had greens! You had ribs…you had all the good stuff.  The school was a good meeting place…too…a place where you could all get together and congregate.”

Growing Up in Mobile
These three former Mobile residents expressed what it was like growing up in Mobile, “One thing about Mobile…I don’t care who you were. You were family. If you needed something….you got it. I don’t care how it came to you….you got it…you didn’t have to pay it back. It was just one big family. I mean you had your bickering and stuff…but if somebody needed something…there was always someone there with it. There were wonderful people who lived there…those I knew. If you were hungry… you didn’t have to ask for it. Big boxes of food were there for you. It was not even like borrowing it…it was just that we are all in it together.” Their grandmother and step-grandfather raised Daniel and Pierre. According to Pierre, “I watched my grandfather come from nothing to having something …to be proud of who you are. You just do the right thing and that’s how I was raised.  In Mobile everybody stood out. Funny thing about it everybody had about ten…eight children and everybody was important.” 

Daniel Deck reminisces, “Nobody had running water or electricity. They hauled the water. No electricity…dirt floors….no windows….a pot bellied stove you stuck wood into. My grandma and grandpa, they worked pretty hard. When sand was dumped out there…snakes would just lay down and sleep.  You had to walk out to the outhouse…you didn’t have a bathroom. If you encountered a snake, you would just jump it or go around. There was not an animal around that the snake would back up from! You live here and they live over there. You had to look under the covers and under the bed and everywhere. You might get out of bed and they would be sleeping right next to you.” 

Another incident with snakes involved the two Parmar boys who lived in Mobile. The older brother had caught a snake and thought it would provide a better lunch for his little brother. During lunch, the six-year old brother opened his lunch box and the sidewinder bit him. Harold Williams, the local one-armed famous painter, happened to be at the school and said the boy did not say a word until he opened his knife with his teeth and the kid began to cry. 

The Bottomless Pit
Daniel and Pierre also remembered the deep….deep…deep well near their house. “It was a bottomless pit. I don’t know if it was a cave-in or what. It was about a hundred yards behind our house. We were always back there and running around back there. You could run right over it and fall right through it. You’d see old cows walking through there and down the hole they’d go. My grandfather put a cover over it, but they were old boards. You didn’t want to step on them.” Daniel and Pierre talked about the well being so deep that when you threw rocks down it, you couldn’t hear them hit the bottom. During the time they lived there, the whole area was clean and you could see far distances, but today there are lots of trees and brush around.  It would be difficult for a person to see the big hole. They would be gone forever and no one would know. 

One of the problems in Mobile was the abundance of wildlife that came into their yards and stole whatever they had.  According to Pierre, “They came out of the mountains, desert….bobcats, deer, weasels, mountain lions, coyotes and lots of javelinas. They took the chickens, pigs…anything.”

The “Psycho” House
The big “Psycho” house, located in Mobile northwest of the school, was both frightening and intriguing to those who lived there. “That two story scary house there on the corner….it looked like the house on a hill…what was that hotel on “Psycho”….the Bates Motel….way backwards and scary looking.  You looked at it and it looked like something was moving in it. When I rode my bicycle…I rode fast to get past that thing. Nope…nobody lived there.  We went out there once…and we went in there… it had steps up and a balcony all around…it was beautiful the way it would have been back then.  However, we looked around and could hear things squeaking and everything and we got out of there. Nobody wanted to live there.”

Fezel Adams remembered a mystery man who came to Mobile to get his mail.  “There’s another man out there that nobody remembers. He looked like he was down in years. He’d come in there to that post office and get his mail. He would have a big stack of mail. He was a very strange man. He wouldn’t talk to anyone. He lived behind the mountain. He had a long beard, and he was like a lion. He was really strange. The post office would save his mail and he would come by and get it. (This man was probably the father of Mrs. Kinney….Archie Giles)

Mobile Pioneers
Worthy Adams Family
Fezel Adams was the second born of Worthy and Gladys Adams. His early years were spent in Phoenix, but the family left in 1955 when he was about ten years old and moved to Mobile. Fezel and his four brothers and four sisters lived a short distance from the two Deck brothers in Mobile. Fezel went to Mobile school during his elementary years and South Mountain for a while, but graduated from Maricopa high School in 1965. His father, Worthy Adams, was a custodian at the old schoolhouse and the family lived there about eight years. Then Adams moved his family to Hidden Valley where he became a cotton-picking contractor for several years. When work began to slow down in the 1970s, the family moved into Maricopa.” Worthy Adams walked with a wooden leg, worked hard all of his life and raised ten kids. When asked about his hero when he was growing up, Fezel Adams did not hesitate. “My dad was my hero. I would go fishing with him, and he would teach me a little about everything and tell me where he was raised at. He had brothers and one came to see him one time. He came down one Christmas.”

Sam Johnson Family
Sam Johnson was the step-grandfather of Pierre and Daniel Deck and retired from the Navy. He raised hogs at Mobile. He said that coyotes were very smart animals. They would outsmart you if you were not careful. One would distract you while the others would circle around to steal another pig while you were dealing with the first one. Pierre recalls, “My grandparents homesteaded there. They raised pigs and chickens, eggs…and she sold eggs. They homesteaded southeast of the school.” One mystery that puzzled some visitors was a big cement house on the Johnson property that was never finished nor lived in. 
 
Daniel and Pierre Deck spent most of their youth in Mobile living with their grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Sam Johnson.  Their father, who never came to Mobile, was Daniel Paul Deck and was a bus driver in San Francisco, California. Their mother was born in San Francisco. In 1954, their mom left San Francisco and took her children to Mobile when Pierre was five and Daniel was two. Their grandparents bought a house in Phoenix for their family.  However, their mother was not able care for the two youngest children and gave them up for adoption. Grandmother Johnson traveled to Phoenix and rescued Daniel, but it was too late for his sister. She had already been adopted. Daniel lived with his grandfather and loving grandmother from that time forward. He completed his school years at Mobile through the sixth grade and then attended Percy L Julian School and South Mountain High School in Phoenix.

The two Deck brothers remember that it was not always pleasant at the grandparents’ place. Pierre remembers one childhood encounter, “We had a big chicken ….you don’t turn your back on him or he would beat you up…before you can get back in the house he would beat you up. He would watch for you to come out of the house. We would look out for him before closing the door. One day I bought me a hammer and a little tool set and said the next time that chicken comes out and attacks me, I’m gonna get him. Well, I hit him so hard that his neck was crooked…..He never chased me again after I whooped him up beside the head. That was one bad chicken! He was the biggest, baddest chicken I have ever seen. I’d walk out there and hear the chickens making all kinds of sounds and here he comes.” Pierre also recalled his pet chicken named Jody. “One day they were sitting at the table ready to eat and someone said, ‘Do you remember Jody?’ Well here he is right here on the table.” 

Daniel also recalls his pet chicken called Google, “Yeah!  I love chicken…but I had Google…I called him Google because I’d go to school and he would hop along with Freckles following me. He’d hop along behind the dog all the way down to the school. Freckles would lay out there and Googles would be on top of Freckles. When the bus would come, Freckles would be running around and around and he would be running around, too.  One day I would come out there…. and there would be no Googles.  I would say…what happened?  Then I saw the bag. I saw they had cut up all the chickens and they were taking them in to sell them. I’d say ….Ohhh my God! You got my chicken.”

What about that big cement house that was never finished beside the Johnson house? Well, it never got finished according to Daniel. “My grandfather laid that foundation and he made his own bricks to build the house. My grandmother used to say …Sam when are you going to get back to making those bricks? And he would go back to making them. It was going to be a big strong house. My grandfather would never deal with the white man. He always said…pardon my French…never go to the white man for anything. He would deal with Baldock and I guess with your husband (Harry Brock) and that is about it. He didn’t deal with too many other people. You know in all my life…he never shared too much. I don’t know if it was because he was the step-grandfather or whatever, but you could never get into that man. You could never have a conversation with him. I don’t know.”

The Deck brothers spent most of their growing up years living in the isolated community of Mobile with no television or movies. When asked the question, who was your hero when growing up, Daniel Deck, did not hesitate, “My hero was my grandma. I mean she instilled in me what I am today. I thank the Lord for her every day. I am sure glad that she was my grandma. That’s my hero.” According to Pierre, “When we had a fight…she stepped right in that fight…and she would say …that language I don’t appreciate that language …where’s the soap…yes…you don’t cuss around that lady. In addition, she would get that ear you know…and ouch!  In addition, she would say…do you think you are bad? (I am tall and she is short) I will drop you right here. She dropped me and I went down. Ohhh… yes…a beautiful woman. She made her own clothes. She made my prom suit. She made nice stuff. There was not anything that lady couldn’t do for her grandkids. Ohh boy …everybody ought to have a Nana like that!”

Some of the best memories of growing up in Mobile for Daniel were smelling the flowers and definitely studying the stars. “I remember that is one thing we used to do…lay out and point out the Big Bear, the Little Bear …the little dipper. You could find them. Out there, it was dark! That is what we would do at night. We would get the bunk beds and put them out there…right outside…and we’d sleep outside with the stars and the wind blowing. However, it was not the stars nor was it the flowers that Pierre favored. “I thought living in Mobile was boring. I just loved the food!”

John and Samantha Cobb
John and Samantha Cobb lived in Mobile during the 40-50s. Mr. Cobb was a hard worker and took care of his money. He worked in the pecan trees until he was well into his 90s. He worked in the pecan trees on Pat Murphree’s Farm when he was 92 years old. He frequently brought his savings to the post office and asked Fred Cole to store it in his safe. John Cobb was as honest as the day was long. He did not like coolers or air conditioners and would never go into a room where they were in operation. Mrs. Cobb was postmaster for a time at Mobile and ran a small grocery store. Later, Joe Kinney and then his mother were postmasters and received mail at the store. 

Cynthia and Nathan Kinney
Cynthia Kinney first came to Mobile in 1945 with her father, Archie Giles. She lived with her father on land that he had homesteaded 10 years before.  By 1958, she was married to Nathan Kinney who worked for the railroad. Nathan Kinney served on the school board for several years, too. Their son, Joe, was also on the school board for a time. Fezel Adams remembers that Joe drove the school bus and was the postmaster for a short while, and later his mother took over the job. Today, the Kinneys live in a double-wide trailer in the same place their home was located before it was destroyed by fire years ago.

Diamond Hudson
Diamond Hudson moved to Mobile the first time in 1946. She returned in 1949 to live on the homestead that at one time belonged to John Cobb. She says that by the end of the 1940s most of the original homesteaders were gone from the area. Jim Hudson, her husband, worked in the Maricopa area at one time, with Waste Management. 

Allen Fields
Allen Fields lived in a small house close to the Mobile store east of the school. It was a one-room cabin covered with rusty tin on four sides and the roof. A tornado struck the community in about 1972 that did a lot of damage to all the buildings in Mobile…except for Mr. Field’s house. His little house did not have a scratch. After he died, he had no dependents, and Diamond Hudson took over his house and tore it down. When the house was torn down, local rural mail carrier, Harry Brock, saw that it had huge telephone poles imbedded in the ground and around the whole building with little space between the poles. In about 1966, electricity came to Mobile. Most residents welcomed this luxury, but Fields refused to have it. He never had electricity all the time he lived there.

One time he was passed out and lying in his doorway with Elmo Hudges, Sr. trying to revive him when Harry Brock arrived with his mail. Fields received help from Gila Bend and continued to live independently for several more years. He drove a 1953 Chevy Sedan that was disabled on the road one day. Brock came along and offered to help. He found the car had a loose distributor, corrected the problem, and reconnected it. It ran fine after that. 

Walter Hart
Walter Hart lived close to the store in Mobile and had a 1941 Studebaker pick-up prior to the 60-70s. Even when he was still in his 90s, Hart walked from Mobile to Phoenix to buy groceries or finish any other business needed. He lived alone.  
 
Viola Weddington
Viola had two sons, Louie and “Baby.” Harry Brock, the rural mail carrier, remembers that she built her own house located south of Mobile school and had to crawl under a fence to get to the mailbox that was located about a half mile away. She scampered under the fence as if she were a teenager. Brock remembers that Louis was a smart dresser and frequently wore a little hat. In the summertime, most of the people of Mobile slept outside. One day, Louis Weddington told Brock that he awoke from his cot and looked at the sand under his bed. He saw two sidewinder tracks. He stayed in bed for a quite a while trying to figure out if he had two sidewinders under his cot or if one sidewinder had come and departed. 

Hudson Walker
Hudson Walker lived at the railroad crossing just before you get to Mobile (from Maricopa). He was a cotton laborer contractor and had a small motel for his cotton-picking employees. He also had several children who were loaded up in the open truck whenever he went to Maricopa to buy groceries and other necessities. 

The Future of Mobile

There was a fierce battle between the local Mobile residents and the Butterfield Waste Management Company and big government at one time. The whole community gathered forces to keep this company out of Mobile. However, they lost, and the company brought in their big trucks and their trash to fill a large section of the pristine land that had served the community and its people for many years. Today, the people still lament the outcome of this decision. Daniel Deck sums it up, “I don’t know what kind of water they are drinking there in that well with Waste Management. That well used to be so pure. You didn’t mess your teeth up or anything. The water was good. They had big tanks that you put up on rocks, and the motor would bring the water up. But Noama is the one who tried to stop them (Waste Management) from coming in….She called me all the way to LA…to come down to a meeting there about the Waste Management coming in. She is down in Tucson now. They were trying to fight it. They were trying to get everybody in on it! Remember Harold Williams…he tried to get me in on it to fight it. I’m going to check in with a lawyer to see just what rights we do have out there with that school. That two room school is still there….but they have to go through us before they can do anything to that school. Right there….I think that is the only history of Mobile…that school.” 

Today, Mobile is part of the city of Goodyear, Arizona. It has a population of less than 100 people, who are mostly white. Besides the Butterfield Waste Management Facility, there is a private airport, Lufthansa, located to its north that is used for training pilots. 

Photo courtesy of the Maricopa Historical Society

Editor’s note:  Maricopa factoids are a regular feature on InMaricopa.com. They are provided by the Maricopa Historical Society, a branch of the Friends of the Maricopa Public Library. Most information comes from “Reflections of a Desert Town” by author and historical society chairperson Patricia Brock. 

Gift Cards are available for Brock’s the new book: “Images of America: Maricopa” along with a short story of Maricopa. Contact Brock at 480-821-0604 or [email protected] to purchase a gift card or to reserve a copy of the book.