b'Swilling continued from page 52staggered around town enjoying himself the ChilenoMarch of 1868 and had sufficient water flowing to got a double-barreled shotgun and followed him inirrigate 600 acres, which were planted mostly with the shadows. Henry and others in town intervenedbarley, wheat, and corn.and the Chileno gave up his plot.Within a few months of Swillings success, several The Chileno was gone from Wickenburg throughoutother ditch companies were getting in on the action, the summer, reportedly spending the hot months uporganizing and filling water rights. Phoenix had at Weaver below Rich Hill, and then showed up againbeen born, but not yet named. By the end of 1868, in September. Swilling just happened to be on anothersome 100 people were living along the Swilling ditch drinking spree and was nearly as drunk as when theand in the settlement that had grown up between Chileno left months earlier. Jack was a little surprisedwhat is now 32nd Street and Thomas and 7th when a Portuguese friend came up to him in a saloonAvenue and Van Buren. During the next 10 years and told him to be on his guard as the Chileno waslegendary pioneers such as Charles B. Genung and saying he would kill Swilling before the day was out.William Kirkland bought into the now-irrigated Salt Jack started to hunt down and kill the Chileno rightRiver area. Kirkland started his own ditch company. then but some of his friends disarmed him. Adobe houses were built, a town site surveyed around the original settlement on Van Buren The next morning, Jack was in town again, drinkingTrinidad Escalante Swilling between 7th Avenue and 7th Street. Swilling and his heavily with some friends, and discussing thispartners opted to name it Phoenix, an appropriate Chileno who wanted to kill him. His friends loanedcompany, and restore one of these ancient canals toname considering they were building a new town him a shotgun and Jack went out into the street. Hebring water from the Salt River into neighboring flatfrom old ruins. Through all of this, Swilling is a hailed the Chileno who came into the street withlands for farming. driven and haunted man, a man carrying a bullet his shotgun. He didnt get a chance to use it. Jackin his side and a fractured skull received in battles opened up on him with both barrels, killing theSwilling was not a man to sit on his ideas veryhe was in before coming to Arizona Territory. The man instantly, and then jumped astraddle his bodylong. In November of 1867 Swilling and otherpain from both wounds haunted him constantly. and scalped him. Henry reported to The Miner instockholders he had recruited filed for water rightsTwo painkillers made it possible for him to function Wickenburg that the Mexicans in Wickenburg at theon the Salt. On November 16th in Wickenburg,and he was fast becoming addicted to both. The mix time did not seem to have much sympathy for thethe Swilling Irrigation and Canal Company wasof whiskey and morphine explains much of Jacks fate of the Chileno, pretty much taking the attitudeorganized. By December the stockholders haderratic, eccentric behavior and his mixed reputation.that they had told the Chileno this would be his fate. arrived along the Salt to begin the canal work. There were 16 of them in addition to Swilling. The firstBLACK CANYON & TRINIDADFOUNDING & NAMING PHOENIX digging was started across from where Tempe isSwilling knew the Bradshaws well and knew the While riding the express mail in these years, Jacknow located. Another followed a 500-year-old canalBlack Canyon and the Agua Fria that ran through it. had noticed the old canals of a long-lost civilizationnow known as the Montezuma Acequia. WorkingHe had a mine that he worked off and on in the late while passing through the Salt River Valley. Hewith hand tools and horse-drawn drags, the party60s known later as the Old Jack Swilling Mine that decided to round up some stockholders, form amanaged to finish the first portion of the canal bywas located above where Black Canyon City is today. PRIME RIBFRIDAY & SATURDAY54 October 2023'