La Casa del High Jinks facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
|
La Casa del High Jinks
|
|
Location | High Jinks Rd., 8 mi. SE of Oracle and 2.5 mi. W of Mt. Lemmon Rd., Oracle, Arizona |
---|---|
Area | less than one acre |
Built | c. 1928 |
Built by | Lewis Claude Way |
Architectural style | Pueblo |
Website | [1] |
NRHP reference No. | 96001056 |
Added to NRHP | October 16, 1996 |
La Casa del High Jinks is a special old house located on High Jinks Ranch in Pinal County, Arizona. It's found southeast of a town called Oracle.
This ranch was started way back in 1912 by the famous Buffalo Bill Cody. He even tried to find gold there! After Buffalo Bill passed away, the ranch was sold to Lewis Claude Way. He built the unique house you see today, which was finished around 1928. It's built in a style called Pueblo style. This house is so important that it's listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
High Jinks Ranch is surrounded by the beautiful Coronado National Forest. It's also a starting point for the Arizona Trail, which is a super long path, about 800 miles (1,300 km) long, that goes all the way through Arizona from north to south. From the ranch, you can see amazing views of the Galiuro Mountains and Bassett Peak.
The closest town to the ranch is Oracle, which is about a 20-minute drive. Oracle is in the mountains and is famous for Biosphere 2. This is a huge building that has seven different ecosystems inside! Scientists once lived there for two years to learn about living in a closed environment, like for space colonization. Oracle is also a great place for stargazing. It was named an International Dark Sky Park in 2014 because it's far from city lights. This means you can see lots of stars and planets clearly there!
The ranch is also about an hour's drive from Tucson and Saguaro National Park. It's a bit further from other interesting places like Phoenix (two hours), Tombstone (2.5 hours), and Bisbee (3 hours).
Contents
History of High Jinks Ranch
How the Ranch Started
The area around the ranch was once known as Campo Bonito. Many people came here to dig for gold, silver, and other valuable rocks. Even today, you can find deposits of a black rock called diorite on the property.
On April 14, 1912, the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody and his foster son, Lewis Henry "Johnny" Baker, started High Jinks. It was both a gold mine and a ranch. Buffalo Bill visited a cabin at the ranch until he died in 1917. Sadly, the mine didn't produce much gold, and he didn't make money from it. The company that owned the mine didn't pay its taxes for several years. Because of this, Pinal County took over the property in 1921 and then sold it to the State of Arizona.
Building the House
Lewis Claude Way bought the property from the state in March 1922 for a small amount of money. Lewis Way was a veteran from the Spanish–American War and a U.S. forest ranger. He had even been in charge of famous places like Rocky Mountain National Park and Grand Canyon National Park. He was also a friend of Buffalo Bill Cody and Johnny Baker.
With help from his wife, Marie Burgess Way, and Mexican workers, Lewis built the two-story ranch house. It took several years to build, and it was finished around 1928. The Ways moved into their new home when it was done. Johnny Baker and his wife, Olive, lived with them for a while. After Johnny died in 1931, Olive only stayed at the house part-time. Lewis Way passed away in 1944, and Marie sold the property the next year. After that, the ranch had several different owners.
The first changes to the house were made in 1964 by an owner named Lester Nauman. He was a gold prospector and fixed electronics. He updated two bathrooms and covered some of the original wood walls and ceiling in the family room and master bedroom with new pine wood.
A writer named Harold Bell Wright wrote a book called The Mine with the Iron Door in 1923. In his book, he mentioned that Johnny Baker used old wood from nearby mines to create the juniper wood carvings at the ranch.
Protecting the Ranch
The house was officially added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 16, 1996. This means it's recognized as an important historical place.
For 30 years, until 2007, a journalist named E. Dean Prichard owned the ranch. He worked hard to keep it in good condition. He also helped start the Arizona Trail. During the 1980s, E. Dean Prichard built the archway that leads to the ranch. He also added other buildings like a carport, stables, and four small guest houses called casitas. Inside the main house, he added stairs to the third floor.
The house was empty for a few years until 2010. Then, Dan Blanco and his wife, Laurel Wilson, bought it. They continued to fix it up until Dan Blanco passed away in 2016.
About La Casa del High Jinks
House Features
La Casa del High Jinks is about 51 feet long, 31 feet wide, and 30 feet tall. The bottom part of the house, called the foundation, is made of strong granite and concrete walls.
House Style
La Casa del High Jinks is a great example of the Pueblo Revival style. This style was popular in the Southwest in the early 1900s. It was a new way of building that looked like the traditional homes of the Pueblo people. This style, along with Mexican-inspired styles, became very popular in the region.
The house is shaped like a two-story cube and was built using granite and wood. Both of these materials were found right on the ranch property. The house has very thick stone outer walls. You can also see wooden beams sticking out from the walls, which are called vigas. These are a classic part of the Pueblo style. Other Pueblo features include its flat roof and wooden pieces above the windows and doors, called lintels. Later owners added other modern buildings to the ranch, like a carport, stables, a pool, and four small guest houses.
High Jinks in Movies and More
La Casa del High Jinks was used as a filming location for a movie in 1924 called The Mine with the Iron Door. This movie was based on the book of the same name by American author Harold Bell Wright, published in 1923. The story is about a lost mine with an iron door hidden deep in the Santa Catalina mountains. People have been searching for this lost mine for hundreds of years, making it one of the most hunted lost mines in North America!
At the ranch, you can also see an old wagon from 1895. This wagon was used by famous actors Elizabeth Taylor and Tom Skerritt in a 1987 TV movie called Poker Alice. The movie is based on the true story of Alice Moffat, an English poker player who lived in the American West.
Since 2014, people living at the ranch have sometimes seen two wild donkeys, named Pancho and Crackers. They live in the forest around High Jinks Ranch.