Harmony
Harmony is a mining boom town along the Santa Cruz River, southeast of Tucson. The boom was short-lived and the town is now only a fraction of its peak size.
The Harmony Ranch
Before the war, the Harmony ranch was a small outfit. The Butterfield stage had an arrangement with the ranch and it served as a station, albeit one with only limited capabilities. The ranch was established in 1854, soon after the Treaty of Mesilla took effect, by Jacob T. and John R. Brantlee, two brothers from Alabama. Despite its size, the ranch was reasonably successful, with a steady supply of good water and decent grazing, and the proximity of Tucson provided a market for the beef. The brothers were liked and respected members of the ranching community, almost all of which had emigrated from southern states. When the war began, the residents of the southern Arizona and New Mexico Territories declared the formation of Confederate Arizona and Company A, Arizona Rangers was raised at Mesilla. At the end of February in 1862, this unit came west to occupy Tucson. As the passed the Harmony Ranch, the brothers Brantlee took up arms and joined the unit. As the Arizona Rangers were pushed out of the territories that year, they were mustered into Sibley's Brigade in the Confederate Army. Jacob Brantlee died of typhoid fever in February 1863. John Brantlee was reported killed on the 13th of April, 1863, in fighting on the Bayou Teche. The arrival of the California Column of Union soldiers in the spring of 1862 stripped the ranch of most of its cattle and all of its available fodder. The 1st California Cavalry Regiment was a well-disciplined outfit and they did not harm any of the residents or damage any of the buildings. This compounded the tragedy when, a few days after the last soldiers had left, one of the children tipped over a lantern and burned the house to the ground. The two wives took the five children to Tucson and then decided to travel to Texas, hoping to catch up with the brothers in San Antonio. There is no record of any of the seven after they left Tucson in mid-May and it's believed that all must have perished on the journey. For the remainder of the war, the ranch was unihabited.
Post-War
With the restoration of stage service in 1866, there was consideration given to establishing a new station in the area of the old ranch, but the well was reliable enough that the need was never pressing. The land was identified as abandoned in 1867 and ownership passed back to the Federal government. While there was some interest from buyers, the area suitable for grazing was small enough not to be worth the trouble for any of the large landowners and the cost of $6 per acre was considered excessive. In the early post-war years, the area was uninhabited. A few prospectors roamed the Rincon Mountains to the east, but few lasted more than a year or so before giving up on the inhospitable terrain.
Mining Boom
(For more information on the boom itself, see the Harmony Mine.)
In 1868, the discovery of gold and silver changed all of that, inspiring hundreds of fortune-seekers to rush to the mountains to begin searching. It also prompted Hugo Marsh, a well-situated Tucson lawyer, to purchase two square miles of land where the Harmony Ranch had once stood. This area was soon platted and Marsh began offering property. Within days, the first lots were snatched up and it took less that month for buildings to appear along Washington Street. By this time, people were experienced in the art of creating a mining boom town and things that might take years back east happened in months or even weeks.
Shortly after New Year's Day, 1871, the town of Harmony reached its peak population of roughly seven hundred people. More than two-thirds of these were men. Many were living in an encampment to the east of town, where nearly a hundred tents sprawled across the countryside. Many of the lots in town were occupied by pavillions, where eager merchants hawked their wares while waiting on their buildings to be constructed.
The population dropped over the next two years as wildcat prospectors moved on to new places. The start of 1873 dawned upon about 450 residents. The tents were almost entirely gone and the air had the taste of impending doom. When the mine was sold a few months later, a new exodus had begun and within a year more than half of the population had departed.
Present Day
Harmony has managed to avoid the fate of many mining towns, at least so far. Although many of the storefronts are vacant, there is still a healthy mix of businesses and enough residents to be viable. The combination of the stage station, the mine (and a handful of optimistic prospectors), and the local ranches keeps the town running.