MR. BENITO GARCIA

Recorded by Romelia Gomez, Field Reporter

His father came to Bisbee in 1896 (the year Benito was born, in Willcox) and he built the first house in Tintown in 1904. The first three families in Tintown were the Garcia, Castillo, and Heyes. Mr. Garcia remembers as a small boy the pajaregos, or bird-catchers, who were among the first few inhabitants of the town. They made a living of catching wild birds, putting them in roughly-made cages and selling them. These pajareros consisted of five or six families and among other birds they caught were chiefly the mocking-birds.

At that time Lowell was uninhabited except for about three houses; Midway Park marked the starting of houses up into Bisbee.

Mr. Garcia scoffs at the idea that there were at any time a great many skunks around Tintown and doesn’t believe that the name “Zorillera” came from that source.

From 1914 to 1918 Mr. Garcia worked with the C & A Mining Company; from 1918 to 1921 with the Tovres Packing Co.; from 1921 to 1925 with the city and in 1923 he started working with the P.D. Corp.

While passing through Chandler, Ariz. this year Mr. Garcia stopped at a small gasoline station to get gas and oil for his car. He noticed the old attendant there kept staring at him. Finally the old man said he knew Mr. Garcia, who couldn’t place the old fellow. It finally turned out to be that this man had been a fellow-worker with Garcia in Bisbee years ago and had lived in Tintown when that town was just starting. The old-timer, says Mr. Garcia, must be about 75 or 80 years of age and has a “kid” of 50.

Copied from microfilm by Wilola Follett, transcribed by Vynette Sage, made available and maintained on the internet via Jean Walker.

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