The Families Who Helped Build Payson The history of Payson was not created by one celebrated founder. It developed gradually through the work of families who opened stores, raised cattle, delivered mail, taught children, operated sawmills, organized rodeos, guided travelers, and preserved the stories of those who came before them. Some family names became attached to historic buildings, roads, ranches, and landmarks, while others survived through photographs, oral histories, and stories repeated around kitchen tables. No single article can recognize every family that contributed to Rim Country, and Payson’s story did not begin with its pioneer settlers. Apache and Yavapai people lived, traveled, hunted, gathered food, and raised families throughout the region long before the town existed, and Tonto Apache families remain an essential part of the community today. Among the later settlers, however, the Hise, Pieper, Chilson, Haught, Owens, Randall and Pyle families became especially connected to Payson’s development. Their combined stories show how an isolated mountain settlement slowly became a permanent town. Long before families named Hise, Pieper, Chilson, Haught, Owens, or Pyle entered Rim Country, Native families knew its springs, trails, plants, animals, hunting areas, and seasonal gathering places. The Dilzhe’e Apache called the Payson area Te-go-suk, commonly translated as “Place of the Yellow Water,” and Apache and Yavapai communities were connected through family relationships extending far beyond the boundaries of modern Payson. Military campaigns, forced removal, confinement on reservations, and the arrival of miners and ranchers disrupted those lives, but Native families did not disappear from the region’s history. Tonto Apache workers later became essential to Payson’s sawmill economy, while tribal families continued maintaining their cultural identity and connection to Rim Country despite generations of displacement, discrimination, and hardship. Any account of Payson’s prominent families must therefore recognize that pioneer settlement did not occur on empty land and that Native families contributed to the community before, during, and after Payson’s establishment. John and Lucy Hise were among the residents most closely associated with Payson’s earliest commercial development. When the settlement was still known as Union Park or Green Valley, the Hise family opened one of its first mercantile stores near the intersection of present-day Main Street and McLane Road. A frontier mercantile was much more than a place to purchase supplies. It sold food, tools, clothing, ammunition, household goods, and equipment required by ranchers, miners, and travelers, but it also served as a gathering place where residents conducted business, exchanged news, and learned who had recently arrived in the area. Because travel was slow and difficult, a local store could be the only dependable source of supplies for many miles. The Hise family became even more important to the settlement in 1884, when a post office was established inside the family store and John Hise became postmaster. Mail connected the isolated community to relatives, newspapers, businesses, government offices, and the rest of the Arizona Territory, but a settlement with a post office also needed an official name. Local tradition holds that the name Payson was adopted in recognition of Illinois Congressman Lewis Edwin Payson, who was associated with congressional work involving public lands and postal matters. The Hise store therefore became the place where the name “Payson” entered official use. Although the original business did not survive, the decision made there did. Every modern street sign, address, business, and government document carrying the word Payson preserves part of the Hise family’s contribution. August and Wilhelmina Pieper arrived during Payson’s earliest period and became closely connected to the development of Main Street. The family acquired property that included a small poured-mud house built by Henry Sidles in 1882. That unusual building became known as the Mud House and remains one of Payson’s oldest surviving structures. In 1893, the Piepers began building a larger residence nearby that became known as the Pieper Mansion. Its size and construction made it stand out in a settlement where many families still lived in small cabins, mud houses, or modest ranch buildings. Constructing such a substantial home represented more than personal success; it demonstrated that Payson was becoming a permanent community where families expected their children and grandchildren to remain. The Pieper property also occupied land connected to several periods of local history. Pieper Meadow extended south from Main Street toward American Gulch, an area where Tonto Apache families had previously cultivated crops near spring-fed water. The meadow later became associated with Payson’s early rodeo and eventually served as the location of the town’s major sawmill. The Pieper name is therefore connected to Native agriculture, pioneer settlement, historic architecture, ranching celebrations, and twentieth-century industrial development. The family also became joined to another prominent Payson family when Emma Pieper married Napoleon “Boss” Chilson in 1913, linking two of the best-known names in the town’s early history. Few family names are more closely tied to Payson’s cowboy heritage than Chilson. Members of the family worked cattle, rode the surrounding mountain country, operated businesses, competed in rodeos, and participated in community life across several generations. John Collins Chilson is identified in local histories as one of the organizers and contestants at Payson’s first rodeo in 1884. That early gathering took place in the Midtown Pasture, where cowboys competed in riding, racing, and roping events based directly upon the skills they used in daily ranch work. There were no permanent grandstands, professional announcers, or specialized livestock contractors. Spectators watched from wagons, horseback, fences, and the edges of the pasture as working cowboys tested their abilities against their neighbors. The memories preserved by the Chilson family later became important evidence supporting Payson’s claim that its rodeo began in 1884. Jesse Chilson was born in Payson on June 1 of that year, and family accounts state that his mother carried him to the first rodeo while his father participated. Decades later, Jesse and other old-time residents continued connecting the year of his birth with the rodeo’s beginning. The family’s involvement extended far beyond that first gathering as Chilsons remained active in ranching and rodeo while the August Doin’s moved from open pasture to Main Street and eventually into a formal arena. Today’s World’s Oldest Continuous Rodeo is a professional production with lights, grandstands, trained livestock, sponsors, and large crowds, but beneath the modern presentation remains the working heritage of ranching families such as the Chilsons. The Haught family became one of the most widely recognized ranching and hunting families in Rim Country. Members of the family traveled from Texas into the Tonto Basin during the 1880s, bringing large herds of cattle and initially settling near Rye before establishing themselves in places such as Walnut Creek and the country beneath the Mogollon Rim. Life there required endurance and self-reliance because families lived far from stores, doctors, schools, and government services. They raised cattle, hunted, cultivated food when conditions permitted, and depended upon horses for transportation. Henry and Sarah Haught, remembered as “Pappy” and “Mammy,” became central figures in the family’s pioneer story. A small cabin associated with them was constructed around 1904 on Roberts Mesa. Measuring approximately 10 by 18 feet, with a dirt floor and no windows, it provides a striking example of the limited conditions early families accepted as ordinary. The cabin was eventually relocated and preserved at the Rim Country Museum. The Haught family became nationally known through its association with Western author Zane Grey, who first visited Rim Country in 1918 and met Anderson Lee “Babe” Haught and other family members. Babe became Grey’s guide and introduced him to the country beneath the Rim, where the author was deeply impressed by both the landscape and the independent people who lived there. By 1921, Grey had constructed a hunting lodge near Tonto Creek and returned during the following years to hunt and write. Members of the Haught family influenced several of his characters and stories, helping him imagine families who survived in remote mountain country through practical knowledge, independence, and loyalty. Babe and his wife, Elma, also cared for Grey’s cabin after the author stopped returning to Arizona. Through Grey’s widely read books, elements of the Haught family’s world reached readers across the country and helped establish Payson’s public image as a place of forests, ranchers, hunters, and Western self-reliance. The Owens family helped lead Payson into the industrial period of the twentieth century. Horace Franklin “Frank” Owens worked as a logger and woodworker, while his wife, Ethel, became a longtime local teacher. Their sons, Kermeth and Keith, demonstrated an early ability to build, repair, and earn money through whatever opportunities were available. During the Depression, they cut firewood for local families, cleaned buildings, collected discarded bottles, and operated a small backyard sawmill. In 1935, the brothers established a portable mill near Diamond Point and reportedly supplied the lumber used for Payson’s first church building on Main Street. When the Diamond Point mill burned in 1951, the family chose to rebuild rather than abandon the business. They purchased property in the old Pieper Meadow and opened a more modern sawmill inside Payson in 1952. The Owens mill soon became one of the community’s largest employers, providing approximately 40 to 60 jobs and producing millions of board feet of lumber annually. Tonto Apache employees formed a large and essential part of its workforce, with several generations of Apache men working there, sometimes as fathers and sons. The Owens family also provided water and firewood to Native families living near the settlement then known as “the Camp.” The mill whistle became part of Payson’s daily routine, sounding at the beginning of work, at lunchtime, and when the shift ended. Tragedy struck in 1957 when Keith Owens was electrocuted at the mill. His widow sold the operation to Kaibab Industries the following year, although Kermeth remained as manager until retiring in 1971. The mill continued operating until 1993, and Sawmill Crossing now occupies much of the former industrial property. The machinery and log decks are gone, but the name, photographs, sawmill mural, and preserved whistle keep the Owens family’s contribution visible. The Pyle family represents another essential part of Payson history: the people who not only lived the ranching life but also preserved its stories. Members of the family rode the mountain country, worked cattle, hunted, managed ranches, and formed relationships with other pioneer families throughout northern Gila County. Myrtle Pyle entered local postal history while still a teenager. In 1899, when she was approximately 14 years old, Myrtle reportedly wrote to a member of Congress explaining that families around Ellison Creek needed a local post office. Her request was granted, and the resulting post office was named Myrtle in her honor. Later generations continued the family’s ranching traditions, with Floyd Pyle and his descendants preserving stories about cowboys, ranches, animals, hardships, and the humor that helped families endure difficult lives. Jinx Pyle became one of Payson’s most important local historians because he wrote about early residents as complete personalities rather than reducing them to names and dates. His stories described their horses, mistakes, jokes, rivalries, hunting trips, working methods, and personal relationships. Jinx and his wife, Jayne Peace Pyle, interviewed older residents and preserved oral accounts that might otherwise have disappeared. Their work became especially important to the history of Payson’s rodeo, since interviews with members of the Chilson family and other pioneers helped document the tradition that the first organized event occurred in 1884. The Pyles understood that history often survives because someone asks an elderly resident to tell a story one more time and then takes the time to record it. The Randall family’s contribution to Payson is most clearly represented by Julia Viola Randall, a pioneer teacher whose career influenced several generations of local children. Julia was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1899 to George and Rose Redding Randall. The family arrived in Gila County in 1901, initially settling near the Grand Prize Mine by the East Verde River, where George worked as the mine superintendent. After the mine failed, the Randalls lived for a time near what is now Sycamore Campground. Reaching Payson required crossing the Verde River seven times, and high water could leave the family completely isolated. Because the journey to school was too difficult, Julia’s mother taught her first-grade lessons at home. George Randall later served as postmaster at the Angora-Holder post office before moving the family to Payson in 1906. They initially rented a house on Main Street, and in 1909 George built the family home on what is now McLane Road. Julia lived in that historic house for the remainder of her life. Julia attended school in Payson before continuing her education at the Arizona State Normal School in Flagstaff, where she earned her teaching certificate. She taught in Star Valley, Pine, Miami, and Tonto Basin before returning to Payson in 1924. Known throughout the community as “Miss Julia,” she taught Payson children for 46 years and remained in the classroom until retiring in 1969. By that time, she had educated three generations of local families, including children whose parents and grandparents had also sat in her classroom. Her influence extended far beyond academic lessons. In a small and isolated community, a teacher often provided stability, discipline, encouragement, and personal attention that shaped a child’s entire future. Miss Julia never married, but family remained central to her life. When her twin grandnephews, Ron and Don Gibson, were young children, she took them into her home and helped raise them as her own, affectionately calling them “my boys.” She was also a charter member of the Payson Woman’s Club, served as its president three times, helped establish the Presbyterian Church, and taught Sunday school for many years. She became a charter member of the Daughters of the Gila County Pioneers and was named Pioneer Woman of the Year in 1988. In 1985, the historic Rock School campus was renamed Julia Randall Elementary School in recognition of her extraordinary service. Julia died in 1990 and was buried in the Payson Pioneer Cemetery, but her name remains above the entrance of a school where new generations continue to learn. While some prominent Payson families built ranches, stores, or mills, the Randall family helped build the community through education, faith, family care, and service to others. Payson’s historic families cannot be separated into individual chapters as neatly as a written article might suggest. They married one another, shared ranch work, attended the same schools, conducted business together, and gathered at the same stores, dances, rodeos, churches, weddings, and funerals. The Pieper and Chilson families became connected through marriage, while the Haughts interacted with ranchers, hunters, writers, postmasters, and neighboring families across Rim Country. The Owens mill employed members of the Tonto Apache community and supported numerous Payson businesses, and the Pyles preserved stories about people whose descendants still live in the area. Even families who disagreed with one another often remained dependent upon each other. When a rancher became injured or sick, neighbors helped care for the cattle. When a home burned, families provided clothing, food, tools, and materials. When someone died, the community cared for children, prepared meals, and completed unfinished work. Isolation made cooperation necessary, and survival frequently depended more upon the reliability of a neighbor than upon friendship or agreement. Traditional histories often emphasize the men who owned land, ranches, and businesses, but that emphasis can hide much of the work that allowed pioneer families to survive. Women gave birth far from medical assistance, raised children in small cabins, cooked over wood stoves, hauled water, planted gardens, preserved food, cared for livestock, and managed households during long absences. They also taught school, operated stores, served as postmasters, kept financial records, nursed injured neighbors, and preserved family memories. Lucy Hise helped establish a household and business in Payson’s earliest commercial center, while Wilhelmina Pieper helped create a permanent family presence on Main Street. Ethel Owens taught Payson children for decades as her family developed its logging operation, and Elma Haught cared for Zane Grey’s cabin after the author left Rim Country. Myrtle Pyle’s teenage letter helped bring postal service to an isolated area, while Jayne Peace Pyle interviewed longtime residents and helped transform oral memories into historical records. These women were not secondary characters in the stories of their families. Their work helped hold the entire community together. The phrase “pioneer family” can easily become too romantic. Early settlers endured cold, drought, injury, disease, isolation, economic failure, and the deaths of children and spouses. Their arrival also occurred during a period when Native people were being removed and restricted from their traditional homelands. Some settlers succeeded through courage, sacrifice, ingenuity, and hard work, but they also benefited from government policies that opened Native lands and resources to newcomers. Remembering both realities creates a more complete and honest account of Payson’s history. The families who helped establish Payson were not perfect people living in a simpler world. They were complicated individuals making difficult choices under harsh conditions. Their historical importance does not depend upon pretending they never failed or that every decision they made was right. It comes from recognizing how deeply their work, relationships, and choices shaped the community that followed. The families described here influenced Payson in different but connected ways. The Hises helped establish its commercial center, post office, and official identity. The Piepers gave Main Street a greater sense of permanence, while the Chilsons connected working ranch traditions to Payson’s continuing rodeo. The Haughts embodied life beneath the Mogollon Rim and helped inspire Zane Grey’s Western stories. The Owens family developed a sawmill that supported Payson and Tonto Apache families for generations, and the Pyles preserved the voices, humor, and experiences of Rim Country residents. Many other families deserve chapters of their own, including the Meadows, Callaghans, Sidles, Boardmans, Loveladys, Ellisons, Holders, Journigans, Bowmans, Randalls, and numerous others who created ranches, stores, schools, churches, and community organizations. Tonto Apache families whose names were too often excluded from written pioneer accounts deserve far greater recognition as well. Payson was not created by one heroic founder. It grew because families stayed through bad winters, droughts, fires, accidents, failed crops, changing industries, and long periods of isolation. Some descendants eventually moved away, while others remained. Buildings disappeared, ranches changed ownership, and certain family names faded from everyday conversation, but their influence can still be found in an old cabin at Green Valley Park, a historic house on Main Street, the sound of a preserved sawmill whistle, the opening of a rodeo gate, and a story recorded before the last person who remembered it was gone. Together, these families did more than settle Payson. They gave the town its identity and its memory. This original article draws from the Rim Country Museum’s historical collection, Discover Gila County’s collection of multigenerational family histories, the official history of the Payson Rodeo, and the museum’s history of the Owens family sawmill.