Living on the P-Bar Ranch was a “hard life, but a good life,” recalls Henry Pemberton, who acquired 33,000 of acres of cattle land in the early days of Arizona statehood.

In a living history reenactment that provides a sense of stepping back in time, Doug Waldo shared experiences of Pemberton and other P-Bar Ranch owners. The ranch significantly impacted the property on which the Fountain Hills and McDowell Mountain Regional Park would be developed.

Waldo will repeat his character portrayal at the River of Time’s “A Taste of the P-Bar Ranch” fundraising event on Aug. 18.

The knowledge of the P-Bar ranch can be separated into the years before 1935 and later.

“My claim to fame is my brand. I got a quit claim deed in 1917 for water rights in an area known as Cottonwood Springs, later called old Dixie Mining District. Word spread quickly that the ranch provided adequate water and dependable grass for cattle and sheep,” said Pemberton.

“I’d let area ranchers graze their castle on the land for a price. Cattlemen would bring their herds to the P-Bar to top off their weight in order to fetch top dollar at the stockyards.”

“Typically they would pay $1 per month per head, plus one cent a pound for watering and pasturing on the ranch.”

“Word soon got around that the Yavapai made some of the best good cowboys around while nearby Fort McDowell provided protection against Indian raids.”

Ranch ownership passed from Pemberton to Louis Pinkley (Pink) Cole in the early 1920s. Upon his death, he left the ranch to his son, former Tempe Mayor Bill Cole and rancher Clayton Whitehead. He sold the ranch to Lee Barkdoll in 1935 when he and his best friend, Dick Robbins, became owners.

“Lee Barkdoll and Dick Robbins were quintessential cowboys, loving the rodeo circuit, some said more than ranching.”

“Unfortunately Lee’s activity indirectly led to his death. One night returning home from a competition in Tucson, his horse trailer and truck stalled on railroad tracks and a speeding train was unable to stop. Lee was killed.”

His wife, Delsie, survived and would go on to marry Dick.

“Dick decided in the early 1940s that they needed another water supply south of the P-Bar ranch house. He drilled a well on the site of today’s high school, then purchased 10 acres of state land to build a one-room shack.”

“That location became the main ranch headquarters and living quarters around 1949. They called it the ‘Add’s Well’ house to distinguish it from the old P-Bar ranch.”

The property continued to change hands until 1968 when the Page Land & Cattle Company sold 11, 380 acres to McCulloch Oil Corporation for the development of Fountain Hills.

The rest of the P-Bar became the 21,000-acre McDowell Mountain Regional Park.

(Source information came from “Things I Remember” by Robert Calvin Lincoln, information compiled by David A. Roberts, and Bob Mason, author of “Verde Valley Lore,” a collection of columns printed in this newspaper.)