Here is the truth in the matter. This is not just locals blaming enviromentalists. Before may of 1967 the Tribal chairman of the white Mountain Apache tribe was very favorable
to Southwest Forest Industries. There was a 99 year lease on land use (logging contract ) with the White Mountain Apache Tribe.The begining of the railroad and Maverick in 1947. Then suddenly after may of 67 a new Tribal
Chairman "Ronnie Lupie" was voted new tribal chairman. He up and broke a 99 year lease over night saying the White Mountain Apache " wanted to go back to Nature
On the Reservation" Southwest Forest was forced off the Maverick unit and logging had to cease. Thus Maverick and the last Logging camp in Arizona was gone.
Many newspaper reports claimed on the Last Train to Maverick Article that it was Truck Logging that ended the twenty year history of the Railroad to Maverick and
the end of the town. The White Mountain Apache had the right to remove the White man from the Maverick area but it caused much carnage for many who had to reap
the fruits of what he did. Mc Nary is now gone forever as it was it is far more than a ghost town it is a depressed area with only tourism and gambling as a economic base.
Southwest practiced sustainability even before it was a word in sellective cutting rather than clear cutting. There were thousands of board feet of timber left in the Maverick
unit but the White man had to be off the Reservation completely in twenty years. The Mill complex Southwest owned in Mc Nary but the area around belonged to the WM Apache.
Thus slowly after the Mill had it final blow from past fires and rebuilding to snow fall colaspe , the final fire in December of 1979 gave a death blow to the mill. The band saws
were distroyed and thus because of is age Southwest decided not to rebuild this time and built a new modern mill in 1983 in Egar Arizona. Never the less the The WM Apache
distroyed something very neat , the company town of Mc Nary , the small old fashion town especially the largest general store west of the Missippi.The Mc nary Mill had
the largest molding plant in the US right up until the fire in 79. It also supported the paper mill in Snowflake which has disapeared and it was mainly due to not being able to
cut and process pulp wood. The convertion to newsprint scrap never worked out like the pulp wood processing. Thanks to a hatred of the Sierra Club for Mr. James Mc Nary
due to a spill of chemicals in to the little colorado in 1965 , the powerful Sierra Club got it's way. I believe there was a conspericy between Ronnie Lupie and the Sierra Club
to rid the forest of Southwest Forest.Many lost there way of life forever in the white mountains and that was a major crime in my estamitaion.
