Bonnie Henry: Memories of Dad, Mount Lemmon

Some has been rebuilt after the disastrous 2003 Aspen Fire. Some remains untouched — as do the memories of a daughter whose father helped develop much of that hamlet.

Tony Zimmerman was his name, a larger-than-life character who spent close to half of his 104 years on the mountain.

"It's hard for me to include some of his flaws," acknowledges daughter Mary Ellen Barnes, who has penned a loving tribute to her father — and Mount Lemmon — in her book, "The Road to Mount Lemmon."

Born in 1892, Zimmerman, a schoolteacher, moved his wife, Sena, and family to Tucson in 1926. There, he taught at what was then Safford School.

To support his growing family — there would be five children — he supplemented his teacher's wages with everything from beekeeping to repairing houses.

He first visited Mount Lemmon in 1937. Three years later, he took his family up the mountain, where he fixed the roof of a teacher's home that also served as a summer school.

Along for the trip were Sena and the three youngest kids. "We stayed all summer. It was wonderful," says Barnes, now 80.

They drove up the only way they could — on the old Control Road, snaking up the backside of the Catalinas. It was dirt, seven miles, one-way traffic, with times posted for going up or down.

"It was the only road we knew," says Barnes, who a few years later would be among the first to zip up the new, paved General Hitchcock Highway.

That same summer of '40, Zimmerman wound up buying the schoolteacher's cabin, renaming it Catalina Lodge. "My dad named all the places up there," says Barnes.

Zimmerman also bought the general store and four small cabins, which he rented out.

"I don't know how he financed it," says Barnes, who sold canned goods and candy bars at the store.

Meanwhile, the family spent summers in the Catalina Lodge until Zimmerman sold it in 1942 and bought another cabin, the Neoli Lodge, which he quickly dubbed the Pine Tree Lodge.

This one had indoor plumbing, though electricity was still years away.

"We used coal oil lamps and a screened outdoor box for an icebox," says Barnes.

Here, at Pine Tree Lodge, Sena Zimmerman became known for her Sunday chicken dinners and homemade pies. "We could fit two or three tables in that living room," says Barnes.

In 1943, Zimmerman, who retired from teaching that same year, started up his sawmill. "Dad went to New Mexico to buy a used sawmill and had it hauled to Mount Lemmon."

Lumber from the mill was used to build a larger store next door to Zimmerman's old store. There, the post office went in, as well as a counter and grill for serving up burgers and hot dogs.

"We had big crowds on the weekends. Mother made tons of pies," says Barnes, who went off to college in California in the fall of 1946.

The one piece of mountain property Zimmerman lusted after but was never able to acquire was the old La Mariposa Hotel, later renamed the Mount Lemmon Lodge, which he leased for a year in 1940.

Eager for a community gathering spot, in 1948 he erected a temporary building on the north side of his store, where summertime dances, meetings and church services were held.

In 1950 — the same year Trico Electric Cooperative finally brought power to the mountain — Zimmerman built his Mount Lemmon Inn, featuring a dining room, a community hall and 12 rooms on the second floor.

Zimmerman helped build the furniture with wood from his sawmill, and Sena stitched each room's coverlets and drapes.

Come wintertime, the family lived in Tucson, where Zimmerman harvested and sold honey. "He had bees all over Tucson," says Barnes, who married and raised a family in California, returning to Tucson after her husband, Clyde, died in 1988.

In the 1970s, both the Mount Lemmon Lodge and the Mount Lemmon Inn perished in separate fires. "Fires loved to get in Mount Lemmon," says Barnes, adding that the Volunteer Fire Department's water tanker had been in Tucson for repairs the day the Mount Lemmon Inn burned down in 1977.

Her book is filled with colorful characters who chose to call Summerhaven home. But her best tale involves her father and how he invited recently defeated 1948 presidential candidate Thomas Dewey to Summerhaven after learning he was staying at El Conquistador Hotel.

To everyone's surprise but Zimmerman's, Dewey accepted, with Zimmerman serving him burgers and shooting the breeze.

Says Barnes with a slight sigh: "My father did love the limelight."

IF YOU GO

Mary Ellen Barnes will read from and sign her book, "The Road to Mount Lemmon," at 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Mount Lemmon Community Center in Summerhaven. The books will cost $17, including tax.

Copies also are available at Antigone Books, the University of Arizona Bookstore, Tohono Chul Park, the Arizona Historical Society and Singing Wind Bookshop in Benson.

For more information, call 621-3920.

DID YOU KNOW

Drivers using the old Control Road to Mount Lemmon were given one hour to make the trek. Those caught going the wrong way at the wrong time risked a $50 fine.