41 Refugees from Mexico

Gross fraud in the 1910 Mexican presidential election led to revolution. For a number of years the government of Mexico stirred in turmoil. Several thousand Mormon colonists in northern Mexico, organized as the Juarez Stake, proved to be special targets because they were mostly Americans and their prosperity made them subject to demands by all the warring factions. In 1910–11 some of the colonists left Mexico and settled as a group in Binghampton, six miles northeast of Tucson, Arizona. In 1910 the California Mission president organized a branch there. Then in 1912, after serious threats by armed bands and on the advice of the Juarez Stake president, most of the Mormons remaining in Mexico fled; fifteen hundred traveled by train to El Paso.

The city of El Paso first housed the refugees in a lumberyard. The Red Cross gave aid, and the federal government provided transportation away from the border so the refugees could go to wherever they had family or wherever there might be work. The Church also aided with resettlement. For example, most of the refugees from the mountain village of Chuichupa (largely women and children) went to Thatcher, rather than El Paso, in 1912 and thus became the responsibility of Andrew’s stake.⁶⁵³ Hundreds of the refugees who came through El Paso also landed at least temporarily in the St. Joseph Stake.⁶⁵⁴

Mormon colonists in Mexico fled to the United States from the Mexican revolution in 1912.

For a time the U.S. cavalry stationed Second Lieutenant Cheney at Thatcher to look after refugees. Initially, he furnished tents and provided rations. He reported caring for 402 refugees. Of these, forty-eight received transportation; only thirty needed no help.⁶⁵⁵ By December 1912 three hundred refugees remained in the Gila Valley.⁶⁵⁶

Because its members and leaders scattered, the Church disorganized the Juarez Stake for a time in 1919. Eventually the Church units in El Paso, Columbus, and Hachita were formally transferred from the Juarez Stake to the St. Joseph Stake.⁶⁵⁷

After a time some of the colonists returned to Mexico, but things continued to be unsettled, so in 1915 there was another, smaller exodus from Mexico.⁶⁵⁸ By 1920 only 779 colonists remained in the few larger colonies that had not been totally abandoned.⁶⁵⁹ Most Mormons from these Mexican colonies resettled in the United States. Edward Eyring, for example, tried to establish himself as a partner in a New Mexico dairy and as an operator of a Safford livery stable before he took up farming in Pima in the Gila Valley, leaving behind a large ranch in Mexico. He served in Andrew’s high council in the early 1920s.⁶⁶⁰

Colonies on the Gila

A number of refugee families from Mexico sought a place to resettle together, so their families could have the benefits the Church organization. An investment group from Iowa, the Gila Ranch Company, owned five pieces of land on the upper Gila in an area then called Richmond, New Mexico, that they thought attractive for settlement. In 1915, twenty-one LDS families agreed to buy more than eight hundred acres of land for $50,000—$5,000 down and the balance to be paid off at $5,000 per year, plus 7 percent interest. The families drew lots for sixteen acres each of “bottom” land and nine acres of poorer “upland.” Most had to borrow for their share of the down payment. Then fields had to be cleared, canals constructed, houses built, and families fed, which in some cases made it nearly impossible for the owners to make the annual debt payments.⁶⁶¹ But they hung on. In 1915 these and other Mormon settlers in the area became the Virden Ward.⁶⁶²

In late 1921 Andrew was approached about a proposal to colonize with Mormon settlers three other properties on the upper Gila River at Red Rock (fifteen miles above Virden) and near Gila, New Mexico. After looking over the properties himself,⁶⁶³ he invited eight others to go with him to inspect the sites,⁶⁶⁴ but only he, Ed Eyring, and Oscar G. Layton pursued the matter.⁶⁶⁵ Andrew discussed the project with Heber J. Grant and Charles W. Penrose, members of the First Presidency, at conference time and they encouraged him.⁶⁶⁶

On April 24, 1922, a Mr. Foster, representing the owners, and the three LDS men (Kimball, Eyring, and Layton) worked out a purchase plan for all three properties. On May 25, 1922, Mr. Foster and the buyers came together to sign the papers, whereby small plots were sold to Church members on favorable terms.⁶⁶⁷ Andrew contracted for three forty-acre properties for his family.

The three men who did the planning and arranged the financing received 5 percent of the purchase price as brokers. The bank funded the project to aid the resettlement of the refugees from Mexico, not for speculation. The three men continued to be involved with the project, establishing branches of the Church and dealing with the bank.⁶⁶⁸

On December 31, 1923, at Gila, the settlers met with R. C. Lilly, president of the Minnesota bank that owned the property. None of the colonists could make the first payment due the next day and they stood to lose all the improvements they had made. The initial assumption had been that the first year’s crop would provide means for payment, but there had been little harvest the first fall, and farm prices generally fell ruinously low. Andrew pleaded for understanding:

I worked hard and was aided by the Good Spirit of the Lord and finally he [Mr. Lilly] was convinced that the condition under which we were working we had no control of and we could not help it. He finally called each one of the settlers in and after working all of them over, he finally called us all in and made the proposition to us as follows: That he would recommend that we have till next fall in which to make payments, and that they would lend us $500 each with which to build our houses, buy team or cows with.⁶⁶⁹

Andrew also petitioned the state for forgiveness of some taxes for the settlers, but while they might get an extension of time, the law required everyone to pay taxes, no matter how difficult the challenge.⁶⁷⁰

Soon afterward the bank officer wrote Andrew, “[We expect some will fail but] we want it understood that, in replacing settlers or selling the land of settlers, no higher price is to be asked for the land than the contract price.”⁶⁷¹ When Ed Eyring sold his property, Andrew persuaded the bank that he should be permitted to increase the price by the amount of improvement he had made to the property.⁶⁷² Eyring wrote, “I have sold to Ben Echols my equity and hope to come out about even. I appreciate your helping me get approval of the bank for the sale.”⁶⁷³ Eyring contracted for more land than he could handle, especially when he and his partner [Wixon] in a dairy venture “disagreed.” Andrew managed to reconcile them.⁶⁷⁴

Andrew himself bought land in the Gila settlement and Dell came from farming in Utah in June 1922 to develop the farm.⁶⁷⁵ Andrew called it “a splendid property” and noted that Dell had five teams and a tractor and did plowing for himself and others.”⁶⁷⁶