Cave Creek was founded in 1870. It took the town’s post office ninety- two years to acquire the name Cave Creek Post Office. For most, this is a startling statement. Moreover, in the area from Cave Creek to the Phoenix Mine (today’s approximate entrance to the 2,154-acre Spur Cross Conservation Area), there were a total of five named post offices: Overton, Liscum, Edith, Cavecreek, and Cave Creek.
There were documented miners in the Cave Creek area since the early 1860s, General George Stoneman, Jr. came to the area we now call Rancho Manana Golf Resort on October 2, 1870 and rested for two to three hours in pursuit of a shortcut to Fort Whipple in Prescott. It was not until 1877 when Jeriah and Amanda Wood built the first adobe home near where Stoneman’s troops rested, Cave Creek Station was born. This was the true start of the town of Cave Creek and the first post office was created in the fall of 1880 with Jeriah Wood assuming the role of postmaster. The name of the first Cave Creek post office was Overton. Cave Creek historian, Francis C. Carlson, tells us the post office lasted about one year, closed in 1881, and the name was lost to
the ages.
In 1878, three fellows from Phoenix were doing some prospecting about three miles north of Cave Creek Station and found large specimens of gold. This was the beginning of the nationally-famous Phoenix Mine because in 1894 a 100-stamp mill was constructed. This was the largest stamp mill in Arizona and was regularly written about in New York and San Francisco papers. In 1881, a mining town developed, around the Phoenix Mine, called Marion with around one-hundred workers and families. By 1890, a school opened, along with saloons, a general store, and a post office. This post office was called the Cave Creek Post Office. This was the first Cave Creek post office.
Not far from Marion another prospector, Judson Todd, established a separate mining camp. The Tucson, Arizona Weekly Citizen, November 21, 1885, stated “…for about six months in 1888 his [Todd’s] camp has a post office under the name Edith.” That’s all we know about Mr. Todd and his mining camp.
By 1896, the Cave Creek post office closed and moved to Cave Creek Station. The new post office was known as The Cavecreek Post Office. Author Byrd Granger in her book, Arizona Names, tells us, “When the [Cave Creek] post office reopened at Cave Creek Station in 1896, its name was spelled as one word, “Cavecreek.” Possibly to get around the postal department’s rule against reopening post offices once they had
been discontinued….”
Meanwhile the hamlet (everything a town has except a church) of Marion shut-down and in 1897, Phoenix pioneer William Christy purchased the Phoenix Mine and renamed it Liscum. Yes, soon the Liscum Post Office opened.
In 1962, the town of Cave Creek changed the name of the post office from Cavecreek to Cave Creek and a ninety-two year journey came to an end.
