St. Johns/San Juan Arizona - Cont'd

We continue the story of the founding and naming of St. Johns, Arizona. The following disputes the "official" history of St. Johns, contending that it was founded by Hispanic-Americans as they were the first to settle the area. We have exerpted this account from J. Baca Romero.

"They were Spanish speaking Americans; schools were taught in the Spanish language, politics, all exchanges were and continued to be in the Spanish language.

They came by wagons, from Belen, New Mexico USA, to settle in an area on the "Coloradito" the little Colorado River, there were about thirty Hispanic families already settled there.

Don Jose Maria Saavedra and his son were the founders and the first family to settle in this city.

The town was called San Juan by all, and the citizens wanted to make the name official. They had previously applied to the US Postal Service to officially name their town, however the applications were ignored numerous times.

The applications were submitted in the Spanish language, and the US post master chose to ignore the application because it was in the Spanish language. (this was reported in the Apache County newspaper).

After numerous attempts, the Spanish speaking settlers made application again to the United States Post Master for a mail route. The settlers wanted to name their city after Doña Maria de San Juan Baca and to dedicate the settlement to San Juan Bautista as its Patron Saint.

When the US postal authorities granted the application, they ordered that San Juan be called St. Johns.

An old newspaper clipping from Apache Country newspaper reads that the US Postmaster said: "We'll show those "Mexicans" which country they are in."

And so the town was called St. Johns instead of the proper name it should be "San Juan".

(Note: Hispanics who founded and settled the towns in this area were American (USA), solid outstanding Americans as history has shown. They were Spanish speaking Americans.

To this day the city is called San Juan by many in the White Mountain area and the Southwest.

Also to this day, San Juan Bautista Day is celebrated each year, with a parade in the San Juan area, this is celebrated on June 22nd of each year."

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When we talked to several life-long area residents, they were surprised to hear this story-- but doubtless it has some veracity. We plan to go up to St. Johns/San Juan next June for the annual festival De San Juan-- and maybe you should, too!