by Steven Carlson, Curator
Welcome to another EFFIEgram tracing the art and life of Arizona’s earliest Impressionist desert landscape painter - Effie Anderson Smith (1869-1955).
Effie took great pride in creating a beautiful home for her family in the rough little Arizona mining camp at Pearce. She literally made the desert bloom. And I am reminded by Arizona historian Cindy Hayostek that Effie likely was able to create such a lush garden with the ample water supply flowing out of that hill behind her in the photo below. Water needed to be pumped out of the nearby Commonwealth Mine so the shafts did not flood and mining could continue. It was Effie’s husband - Andrew Young (AY) Smith - who managed the mine, and their home doubled as the Mine Manager’s House.
When the hottest days of summer came, we know from numerous newspaper blurbs - including the Pearce Pencilings column authored by Pauline in the Arizona Range News in Willcox, that the Smith’s were more likely to be found at higher, cooler elevations - in one of their favorite campsites in the nearby Chiricahua or Dragoon Mountains that define the eastern and western perimeters of the Sulphur Springs Valley.
In some years, the Smiths traveled farther afield - to the California coast as early as 1897, the year after they settled in Pearce - and the well developed seaside town of Redondo Beach was a particular favorite for Effie before she discovered Laguna Beach for her art studies, some years later. We know the Smiths also visited the San Francisco Bay Area in summer as well, and we even have a report that the Smiths went as far east as fashionable Atlantic City one summer to enjoy the balmy breezes along the famous boardwalk.
More typically, it was the nearby canyon known as Cochise Stronghold, with its verdant canopy of trees that the Smiths and other local friends would retreat to for a day of picnicing and socializing - and as a place to set up camp for days at a time. Arizona Governor Thomas Campbell and family, for instance, did not seem to mind making the long journey from Phoenix to the higher altitude valleys of Cochise County, and the Stronghold in particular, to meet with the Smiths and others gathered there in the shadow of the surrounding mountains, under the violet shade of the beautiful trees.
On some occasions there Effie was not averse to climbing above the trees to find a stunning vista that inspired a new painting, as was the case when she painted this view (in her early 60s) of what we believe to be the Sulphur Springs Valley from Cochise Stronghold. It’s a rare example of agave being featured in one of Effie’s paintings. So entranced was one of our Effie Museum board directors by this painting that she was inspired to drive up into Cochise Stronghold until she found the spot where Effie likely painted this scene.
On the other side of the Valley, in earlier times (c. 1903) Turkey Creek was another favorite spot for a quick Smith family retreat in the cool waters of the creek. We find it fairly easy to date these early photos of Effie with family and friends by the age of Effie’s son Lewis (b. 1898) who appears to be around 5 or so years of age here.
When the heat was really ‘on’ - for longer periods - the Smiths and others would ascend the rough and winding road up from the Sulphur Springs Valley to Rustler’s (Rustler) Park at approximately 8,400 feet in the Chiricahua Mountains, where cooler temps and spectacular vistas greeted you along the way. The journey from the west side now takes nearly three hours to cover just a few road miles in my Honda CRV. Most of the day would be required to make the steep ascent by wagon or horseback. One imagines that a regular delivery of food and supplies by wagon must have been necessary to provide for an extended stay at that remote location.
The Smiths were known to spend several weeks at a time here in summer. Even today many cabins remain in the area. Fires in recent years have destroyed many historic seasonal abodes that the Smiths and many others once called home during the warmest months, when they weren’t camping in tents. The old growth pines seen here are now charred, but a recent visit I made to Rustler’s Park in Spring 2023 revealed that nature is slowly but surely renewing itself. Wonderful to see!
The Smiths were also going up to Rustler’s Park, Apache Pass, and other locations high in the Chiricahuas to join friends from Pearce and other Cochise County communities they knew from church, social and civic clubs, and business associates. It was a place where the mining and ranching communities congregated and mingled. It’s still considered a right of passage by local families to take the youngsters up the road to the summit - either from the Sulphur Springs Valley side or the longer road from the Portal side, with its spectacular views down into the New Mexico and Arizona valleys below.
It seems Effie returned increasingly to the mountain ranges either side of her home - to sketch and paint - throughout the 1930s. And these locations inspired some of her most iconic works - including these Yuccas. Effie probably painted in the Chiricahuas prior to her husband Andrew’s death in 1931, but those visits were very social - involving her husband, his business and personal connections, their son and his friends. If she painted during those years, the canvases have not yet emerged. It’s possible they may have been lost in the 1929 fire that destroyed her home and studio. In the 1930s after the death of her husband, and with her son gone off to life of his own, Effie’s visits were more solitary, perhaps allowing much more time for reflection, for thoughtful contemplation, and several very accomplished paintings resulted. Cave Creek Canyon featured prominently.
A note that the name Cave Creek, of course, pops up across the west - and is known to Phoenix people as a popular spot to take your out of town guests, northeast of town.
The Cave Creek we refer to here is in a remote yet spectacularly beautiful area of Southeast Arizona, near the New Mexico border, with the Wonderland of Rocks in the Chiricahua National Monument.
Only a few images of the Smith Family’s life in their Pearce home have survived - some in an album Effie created around the time of her son’s fifth birthday in 1903, and less than a dozen other loose family photos that Effie’s son Lewis Anderson Smith (1898-1986) kept in a drawer during the last years of his life. But our most revealing looks into the Smith family’s life in photographs - the albums of photos Effie kept as a record of their family life - were incinerated and lost forever in the fire that consumed what we call ‘Smith House no 2’ in Pearce, that burned to the ground on September 17, 1929. Their photo albums and most of Effie’s early art legacy were lost that night.
And so, we are grateful when we receive word from time to time that someone has found in their family’s papers or albums a photo or two of Effie and Andrew Smith. More often, it’s one of Effie’s paintings that we get to re-discover. But once again we see how a long stored box of photos from the past can give us several new insights and glimpses of lives past. This is the world Effie and A.Y. Smith were leaving behind when they departed Pearce for a summer escape in the mountains, or to places beyond.
Effie Anderson Smith lived and painted in Pearce for 45 years - 1896-1941. It was in the house pictured above that she painted some of her earliest masterpieces - including the three paintings she called her Grand Canyon Suite that she took to most of her major exhibits across the Southwest and as far east as New York in 1931. This Grand Canyon painting below from 1929 is one of them.
We are grateful that these photos above have re-emerged from the shadows of time, and grateful to the descendants of the pioneer families who held them for so many years so they couuld eventually become part of our Archive where they will illuminate and give context to Effie’s life and art in Arizona.
We hope you’ve had a wonderful Independence Day 2024.
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Can you tell which is the Print and which is the Original? We can, but it isn’t easy!
Please let us know if you have an interest in an Effie Anderson Smith print. We will add your name and e-mail address to our Interest List and notify you when prints become available in early 2025. Contact us at Info@EffieAndersonSmith.org or through our website. Thank you! www.EffieAndersonSmith.org