W. H. Yancey, who lived for a decade in the Bradshaw Mountains near Prescott, Arizaona,recorded his story in an undated newspaper clipping on file in the Sharlot Hall Museum archives:

Yancey came to Arizona in 1875 from Kansas. "There were eight covered wagons in all," he wrote. "I drove to my wagon a yoke of oxen and a yoke of cows."

"I was one of the party that located near Antelope Springs, now Cordes Station. I hauled two wagon loads of supplies from Prescott out there with two yoke of oxen."

"Part of the way out there, there was only a dim road, but the county built the Black Canyon road the next year right over the same dim road. There was plenty of deer and antelope there then. I did not stay there long."

"A man came down from the mountains with several burros and moved us up to Turkey Creek, 35 miles south of Prescott. I took a yoke of oxen with me, packed the yoke and chains on burros. I secured a gentle pony for my wife to ride and carry the baby."

"When over there we made a truck, so I cut the logs and hauled them in to make the timbers for a quartz mill. Well, the quartz mill was a failure, did not get any pay, so in February, 1876, I moved over to Battle Flat about two miles south of Turkey Creek where myself and other parties started a whipsaw lumber camp."

Yancey was the "under sawyer" at the whipsaw lumber camp at Battle Flat. "Five or six shacks at the Peck mine were built from the lumber and shakes that I helped to get out," he wrote.

"While we were at Battle Flat more than three feet of snow fell. We had to shovel lots of snow to keep the tents from breaking down. In May, 1876, I moved to the Peck mines and started a little restaurant."

To make a long story short, Yancey was in the Bradshaw Mountains from 1875 to 1885. He ran boarding houses, butcher shops, pack trains, worked in the mines whipsawed lumber, raised cattle, sold milk and twice a week, for a
while, he carried the mail from the Peck Mine over the mountains to the Old Tiger Mine. Because he was so busy, he ran his mail route at night.

Yancey continued: "While I was in the Bradshaw mountains, I went through so many and saw so many thrills it would fill a book to write it all.