b'Jews continued from page 39tremendous gold strike in California and Big Mike, by now married to a young Anglo-Jewish woman named Sarah Nathan, suggested they sail off to America and journey to California. They soon found out that they were not cut out to be prospectors, so they started a dry goods (general) store that soon went bankrupt. They tried again, and once more their business venture failed. But the Goldwater boys were still young and still quite ambitious. They swallowed their pride, and fortunately for them a Los Angeles Jewish businessman named Richard Cohn approached the brothers and offered them ownership of another dry goods store, this one across the Colorado River in a hot, dusty, creepy critter-ridden mining town called La Paz. It was quite a challenge for La Paz was "hot, mosquito-ridden, and chaotic and its inhabitants as described (in the language of the times) by the New York Herald were "greasers, Indians, Jews, outlawed white men and desperadoes" (Ibid.).Even more daunting for the brothers was the challenge of Jewish Museum of the American Westhauling across hundreds of miles of desert by mule and wagon trains the tons of merchandise shipped in from Southern California across rough and rocky roads, in very unpredictable conditions, and in constant danger of raids by hostile Indians and/or bandits. Sarah Nathan Goldwater decided early on that La Paz, or any place else in the sweltering, dust-blown Arizona Territory was not to her liking, so she and the children moved back to California, Michel Big Mike Goldwater at first to Los Angeles, and then, to the then-Tony digs of San Francisco (surprisingly the marriage remained intact despite some 18 years of separation). The brothers larger rich tapestry of American Jewish and Old Westthough, stuck it out through thick and thin, which included history their names and their stories, excepting a few folksdangerous Apache ambushes where Joe Goldwater was such as Levi Strauss, the Goldwaters, Josie Marcus Earp,seriously wounded (Howe, Irving and Libo, Kenneth, We and even Sol Star, who was immortalized by actor JohnLived There Too, St. Martin\'s Press, New York, 1984, p. 188) Hawkes in the recent "Deadwood" series remain prettyand later Big Mike as well.In the latter instance, there much unknown, overshadowed by much more famousremains in the Arizona State Archives an account attesting friends and contemporaries like Wyatt Earp, Seth Bullock,to another aspect of Big Mike\'s courage and willingness to Custer, and others. take risks.It is time to set the record straight, bring their storiesMichael Goldwater had one of the best teams of horses to light, and redress and correct a historical wrong, toin Arizona. He was on his way to Prescott when he was make known the unknown story of the contributions andwarned by a soldier that the Apache were a few miles ahead experiences of Jews in the Old West. So let\'s begin with a bitand that it would be dangerous for him to go down the of the Jewish experience in Arizona, the territory where inroad.He replied that the roads were built for the citizens of pre-statehood days a number of Jewish traders, financiers,Arizona and that no damn Apache could stop him.When and a certain young actress made their mark. he came to the Apache he whipped up his horses and drove through them, but then found he had acquired an arrow in THE GOLDWATERS his leg (Charles M. Wollenberg, Recollections of Arizona, Since the Goldwater name is a household name in Arizona,1876-1891).it is only fitting that this narrative begins with the story of Barry Goldwater\'s grandfather "Big Mike," his uncle, JosephThroughout it all, the brothers preserved and prospered aka "Little Joe," and his father, Barron. enough to buy out Mr. Cohn and establish their own store in a town further down the Colorado, a town that they "Of these far-western families the only name to achievenamed Ehrenberg in honor of their late friend and fellow national household familiarity - besides Strauss and histrader, Herman Ehrenberg (Ehrenberg is largely a ghost "Levis" - was Goldwater, an early political as well as atown now but it does still exist today). The Goldwater store mercantile dynasty. Although the best-known membersin Ehrenberg soon made their presence known and felt, of this clan are no longer Jews, these third and fourth- becoming the vital suppliers of all the individuals and the generation far westerners - have warm memories of theirfamilies in the Colorado River valley basin - the ranchers, Jewish antecedents. When campaigning for the Unitedfarmers, miners, their families, and even most of the States presidency in 1964, Senator Barry Goldwater, a first- military posts in the area (Rochlin and Rochlin, Pioneer generation Episcopalian regaled the American public withJews, p.130).stories of his Polish Jewish grandfather Michel ("Big Mike") Goldwater, his granduncle Joseph ("Little Joe") Goldwater,Known for their fair and honest ways (Big Mike was and their sons, all of whom were frontier merchants,affectionately known by the local Mexican and Indian freighters, and politicos in the roughhouse days of thepopulation as "Don Miguel" (Howe and Libo, We Lived Arizona Territory" (Rochlin, Harriet and Fred, Pioneer Jews:There Too p. 187), their willingness to go the distance, and A New Life in the Far West, Houghton-Mifflin Company,their quality, reasonably priced (for the times) merchandise, Boston, Massachusetts, 1984, pp. 128-129). the brothers, by the mid-1870s quite successful, branched out from their (at first) modest holdings along the ColoradoMay 2023Volume 10Issue 7FREE Issue 8FREEBoth Big Mike and Joseph were born to a poor family in theRiver to the established and booming town of Prescott,June 2023Volume 10little Polish Shtehl (ghetto) of Konin. Life was bad enoughthen the Arizona territory state capital - and to another hot, in the anti-Semitic atmosphere of Czarist Poland, but evendusty town about 60 miles south as the crow flies called more so for a family of 25 on the borders of poverty (bothPhoenix. Joe would move on further south, and partnering Big Mike and Joseph had 21 other siblings) struggling toup with a Mexican, opened the first department store in a make ends meet. The brothers realized early on that if theylittle, wild-and-woolly mining town called Tombstone. They were going to make it they would have to strike out onprospered, building up the chain of Goldwater\'s department their own. Big Mike went to Paris where he worked as astores which soon dotted the Southwest communal tailor, but after being involved on the losing side in France\'slandscape, and which would last for almost 140 years, into 1848 revolution he fled to London, where he was joined bythe first years of the 21st Century.his younger brother. Joseph brought with him word of a continued on page 43ArizonaRealCountry.com July 2023 41'