Geological Survey Bulletin 613 Guidebook of the Western United States: Part C. The Santa Fe Route

South of Nevin is Volunteer Mountain, a very large pile of cinders including some hard layers which appear to have been mud flows and consist of cinders that evidently flowed out mixed with more or less water and are now cemented into a porous rock. There are other thick piles of cinders to the north and northwest of Nevin and Maine.

SHEET No. 19 (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)

From Bellemont westward at intervals to and beyond Maine (see sheet 19, p. 122) there are excellent views of Kendrick Peak, which is 12 miles north of Bellemont, and of Mount Sitgreaves, which is 8 miles northwest of Maine. These peaks are due to thick masses of lavas of the viscous type poured out during the second period of eruption and rising high above the plain of older basalt. The mass culminating in Mount Sitgreaves consists mainly of rhyolite; the principal rocks in Kendrick Peak are andesite and dacite. Mount Sitgreaves received its name from an Army officer who explored this country in order to find a suitable line for a road to the West. He crossed from Zuni by way of the San Francisco Mountains to the Colorado above Mohave River.

From Maine to Williams there are to the north and south many large cinder cones, mostly of red color. To the southwest rises Bill Williams Mountain, named for a noted trapper who was originally a Methodist preacher in Missouri. He lived with many Indian tribes and learned their language, an accomplishment which made him useful as a guide, and he was with Gen. Frémont in his expedition. He was finally killed by Indians, while trading with them.

Bill Williams Mountain is a huge isolated pile of andesite and dacite of the second stage of eruption, forming a prominent landmark for many miles in all directions. It is a short distance south of Williams and rises to an altitude of 9,642 feet. Some of the same kind of rock as that of which the mountain consists is exposed in the railway cut a short distance east of Williams.

Williams is a growing village sustained very largely by the lumber industry and numerous neighboring ranches. Several large mills cut into lumber logs brought from the west side of the Tusayan National Forest, a reservation covering the western part of the great forest beginning east of Flagstaff, of which the Coconino National Forest is the eastern part. The hotel at Williams, the Fray Marcos, was named from Marcos de Niza, who was the provincial father of the order of Franciscans in New Spain. He made an expedition into this unknown country in 1539, guided by the negro Estevan, who had accompanied Cabeza de Vaca in his earlier expedition from the Gulf of Mexico across what is now the southern border of the United States and who, on meeting the Spanish conquistadores in Sinaloa, aroused their interest in the exploration of this region. Estevan went ahead into Cibola (Zuni) and was slain, the Indians doubting his story that white men were following him, because he was black. On hearing of Estevan's fate Fray Marcos retreated to Mexico, but he returned the next year as guide and spiritual director of Coronado's expedition.

[The itinerary westward from Williams is continued on p. 131.]