It was a lovely, early winter day - Thanksgiving Day - when I first visited the Lonely Dell Ranch. The land all around is desolate, scrub brush. I could sense the loneliness that the people who lived here must have felt.
In 1540, an expedition under Francisco Vázquez de Coronado on a quest to find the Seven Cities of Cibola, passed through this region naming it "El Desierto Pintado" - The Painted Desert. It's a land of petrified forests, dinosaurs fossils ...
The American desert southwest is a treasure trove of rock art. Tens of thousands of petroglyphs and pictographs have been discovered througout the region. The designs can be bold and prominently situated, or they can be tiny and concealed ...
Second Lieutenant George N. Bascom, sat stiff and upright in his tent. Across from him, still drinking his coffee, sat his guest, the greatest Apache leader of the day; Cochise. It was February 4th, 1861, at Apache Pass.