The wild tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan of the Apes, John Carter of Mars, Carson of Venus and other such adventure heroes, had roots in Arizona. As a young man, Burroughs served, briefly, with the 7th U.S. Cavalry at Fort Grant.
Starting Friday, the town of Willcox kicks off a weekend of festivities celebrating the author’s Arizona connection – and his 150th birthday – and the dedication of a new historical marker at the Southern Pacific Railroad Depot.
“It’s where Burroughs got off the train on May 22, 1896,” explains Frank Puncer, president of the Arizona chapter of the Burroughs Bibliophiles, by phone from his home in Nogales. “It’s set into a boulder in front of the old train station.”
Sponsored by the Burroughs Bibliophiles, the Sulphur Springs Historical Society and the Chiricahua Regional Museum, the Willcox Edgar Rice Burroughs Chain of Friendship Gathering kicks off Friday, September 26, and continues through Saturday, September 27. The centerpiece of the event will be the dedication of the marker on Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon, with the participation of local Buffalo Soldier reenactors. The dedication is free to attend.
The rest of the events, held at Elks Lodge #2131 in Willcox, will include a banquet Saturday evening with award presentations and speeches by both local and Burroughs dignitaries. Speakers will include author Jeffrey J. Mariotte, and two great-granddaughters of Edgar Rice Burroughs. There will also be movie screenings and a “huckster room” with memorabilia for sale.
“A lot of them are Burroughs fans,” says Puncer of these vendors, “authors who will be selling their books or early edition of Burroughs books, and collectables from the movies.”
Puncer will be among them. The Milwaukee native became a Burroughs nut, he says, when “I was a kid, and my mother brought home a half-dozen Tarzan books, ex-library copies. I also had a subscription to the Tarzan comics from Dell.”
The opening chapter of the first Burroughs yarn, Under the Moons of Mars, later renamed A Princess of Mars and filmed in 2012 as John Carter, is titled “On the Arizona Hills” and is set there, probably inspired by the author’s time at Fort Grant. According to Puncer, Burroughs had specifically requested to be sent to “the worst post in the United States” for his service, and Fort Grant is how the Army obliged him. His time here seems to have stuck with him.
“He made many, many references to Arizona throughout his writing,” Puncer notes.
The Holiday Inn & Suites Willcox is offering a special rate for attendees to group name “ECOF”; for reservations call 520-384-3333. For additional information on the event, call 520-281-1818 or email fwpuncer@gmail.com.
