Sheep herding for its wool and meat has been an Arizonan occupation since the mid-1800s and if the Native Americas are included, the date can be pushed back to the early 1600s when sheep were pilfered from the pueblos in New Mexico. Sheep was one of the many livestock breeds that Father Kino introduced into the Pimería Alta and he proceeded to teach the local southern Arizona Native Americans sheep husbandry in order that they would have a constant supply of wool and meat. But, this was a time of Apache raids and most of these sheep were pilfered for food leaving few if any of the stock for future generations. A few places in the southern portion of the state and on the northern Native American tribal lands, sheep were found and a weaving industry developed. In the 1850s sheep crisscrossed the state as men trailed them to California for food for the miners and later, back to New Mexico to replenish that state’s declining numbers. In the 1860s and 1870s, Arizona became the new breeding ground when drought hit California over a period of years. The number of flocks fluctuated over the next 100 plus years with economic declines alternating with prosperity periods. Where once over a million and a half sheep grazed on the summer mountain grasses in the northern and eastern forests and then were moved to the Salt River Valley to lamb and feed for the winter, there are less than 30,000 sheep currently who follow the traditional pattern of transhumance migration. At the height of the industry there were approximately 150 sheep owners, consisting of Basque, Americans, Mexicans and Canadians, etc, men and women who came as owners and some as sheep herders who eventually became owners themselves. Today, only two families, both interconnected by marriage, still graze sheep in the traditional method of moving the animals from the desert ranges to mountain pastures every year in the cyclical rhythm of the land. This is their story.
Geographically, Arizona was an ideal place for sheep ranching. The flocks could be wintered in the balmy deserts then driven up sheep trails to spend the spring and summers in the grassy meadows of the high country.
In Where Have All the Sheep Gone? Sheepherders and Ranchers in Arizona—A Disappearing Industry (Wheatmark, $19.95), Barbara G. Jaquay leaves no stone unturned in describing the long history of sheep ranching that began with the Spanish conquistadors in 1540 right up to the 21st century. During Arizona’s Territorial period, 1863-1912, it’s estimated that more than a million sheep inhabited the ranges.
Today, sheep ranching, which played such an important role in early Arizona is being swept away by the changing winds of time. Much of that change is the result of creeping suburbia, foreign competition, immigration restrictions and myriad government obstacles and regulations. Sadly, the business is going the way of the open range cowboy of yore. And, another piece of the American West will be lost.
— Marshall Trimble, author of Roadside History of Arizon
Historical geographer Barbara Jaquay hopes that her new book, Where Have All the Sheep Gone?, will pay tribute to and inform readers of a shrinking industry to which few are paying attention.
During her research and travels with local herders, Jaquay discovered very few sheep are left in the state, an issue that she sees across the United States.
“There are a lot of housing developments that have taken the farmland; there’s a lot of commercial buildings that have taken the farmland, especially here in the West Valley,” said Jaquay, of Buckeye.
“So, I thought, ‘OK, where did the sheep go?’ Some of them did move down to the Casa Grande area but most people got out of the business. And I went to one of the old sheep ranching families here in the state who lives out in the Buckeye area to get some information from her and that’s what led to the book.”
Where Have All the Sheep Gone?, which was released earlier this year, retails for $8.99 to $17.51 on Amazon. Jaquay also works for Arizona Humanities’ AZ Speaks and Speakers in the Schools program.
Changing business and land development have played a significant role in the decline of the sheep herding industry across Arizona. However, there is more to the story.
Government regulations that specified summer and winter grazing locations, as well as “driveways” to trail sheep on, have caused families extra expense to truck their sheep. While many of today’s workers come from Peru and Mexico, regulations have also made it more difficult to find local workers willing to commit the time and energy for such a demanding job.
But this is not only a local issue, as the sheep herding industry, which, at one point, had 55 million sheep in the United States, is now down to 5 million sheep. Despite this drastic decline in a once-large industry, Jaquay found little to be written on the subject.
“The more I looked into it, the more I realized that nothing has really been written about these families,” she said. “There are things here and there but nothing in regard to the families who were involved.”
“Most of the family members are up in their late 70s–some of them are approaching 90 even–and I wanted to preserve the history before all of them were gone,” she continued. “Most of their kids don’t know a lot of their own family history. That’s how this all came about.”
While cattle became the larger industry, sheep came to the state first, Jaquay said. Ultimately, sheep herding affected the state economy on a much smaller scale.
“The sheep were never as important as Arizona’s five C’s—copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate. But it certainly added to the economy, like Buckeye, Litchfield, Chandler and Mesa in the beginning.”
This decline in the industry has also caused trouble for sheepherding families, who sometimes don’t even profit off their business.
“Their biggest thing was that they certainly didn’t want to get out of the sheep business but they didn’t see any future in it,” Jaquay said. “There were some years that they didn’t make any money. The price of wool was down.”
While publishing a book was not Jaquay’s original motive, the issue quickly fascinated and inspired her to help preserve the industry.
“I wanted it to preserve the history of the sheep industry and tell the story of the families,” she explained. “The second reason for writing the book was to let people know about the plight of an industry that is across the country, that is disappearing, and a lot of it is because people don’t eat mutton or sheep meat.”
