James D. Houck

He rode the boom and fell with the bust of the woollies

Houck was an experienced frontiersman when he opened the Cave Creek Station north of Phoenix in 1900.

The station included a store, saloon, post office and stage service, but the heart of the operation was a shearing shed for thousands of sheep brought down from the northern mountains for the winter.

Houck enjoyed success for about 10 years, until drought cut the herds and the government stepped in to stop overgrazing by limiting where both cattle and sheep could roam. He killed himself in 1921.