(Editor's Note: The article below was first printed in a 1950's publication of the Arizona Water Well Association, a professional trade association of Arizona well drillers. It was given to John Parsons by Mr. Williams in the 1980's. The article should not be reused without first obtaining the permission of Mr. Williams or his family.)
Within two years folks in the Oak Creek Canyon-Sedona area, world famed for the splendor of its red rock scenery, were ready to build a monument to the arthritis that had brought Williams to Arizona. Getting around only with the aid of canes and crutches, Williams confounded qualified state geologists who had declared there was no appreciable water table in the area by bringing in excellent large volume wells.
His accomplishments are a dramatic demonstration of the importance of the contribution a driller who knows his business can make to any community, especially a semi-arid region like that around Sedona.
In 1945 Sedona was a tiny community on the banks of Oak Creek consisting mainly of a school, a ranger station and a combination general store-cafe-gas station-post office-ice house. A mile from town on US 89-A was an open area near red rock cliffs who magnificence defies description. It was an ideal building site.
The price quoted was $25 an acre "and you might get less if you paid with cash". Twenty-five hundred dollars was a relatively small price to pay for 100 acres of such beauty. There must be a hitch.
There was. Half a dozen people trying to dry farm the land, had starved out on it. The rainfall averages on 13 inches per year.
Then why didn't they sink a well? The gamble was too great in the opinion of the U.S. Forest ranger then stationed there. He was a geologist and as far as he knew there was no appreciable water. The only successful wells until then were seepage from the creek..
A member of the geology department of the University of Arizona and an expert on the geology of northern Arizona concurred. You might drill, like others elsewhere had done, 2,500 feet and end up with just a $20,000 dry hole.
Naturally the deal fell through. Today that 100 acres has been subdivided and lots are selling at prices which bring the per acre price close to $10,000. Carl E. Williams is the man responsible. After one summer in the desert heat of the Phoenix area, Williams two sons, Earl and Don, and his daughter, Jean, asked him why he didn't contract some work in the high cool mountains areas in northern Arizona for the summer months. "Sounds possible, said Williams. "Let's pray about it and see if it's the thing to do."
Two days later he had a phone call from Mrs. Fanny Gulick, owner of extensive acreage near Sedona. "Will you drill me some wells?" she asked.
"I don't know until I look the land over," replied Williams.
On his first trip into the area he encountered the same skepticism others had met. He was shown reports to prove there was no underground reservoir. Williams studied the reports. And he studied the land.
Then he told Mrs. Gulick he'd drill. A lot of people shook their heads; either he was out to take the lady's money, or he was a pretty dumb man in his profession.
But Williams was convinced he had found not only the error in those reports but, even before he had seen the reports, had positive assurance there was a good water table at about 500 feet. In the first place, there was Montezuma Well about 16 miles southwest of Sedona at an elevation some 500 feet lower. There two million gallon of water pour each day from the limestone rock formation into a natural pit. Prehistoric Indians had used it for a never failing source of irrigation water just as do modern ranchers.
Then, about eight miles west of Sedona and again at about 500 feet lower altitude, there are Page's Springs, high yield, never failing springs of the same temperature and hardness as Montezuma Well. The water at both of these outlets probably came from the same source, Williams reasoned, and that source had to be an underground reservoir. Where did the reservoir get its water? The reports shown him, Williams says, simply "followed the book." Precipitation, minus run-off, minus evaporation, minus transpiration equaled about zero for underground supply. That formula, if applied simply to the immediate area in question would prove that Montezuma Well and Page's Springs couldn't exist. Yet there they were.
Next Williams explored the Mogollon Rim, the high plateau which extends across northern Arizona and forms the northern boundary of the Oak Creek Canyon-Sedona-Verde Valley area. The Rim's elevation is about 7,000 feet, from 2,500 to 3,500 feet above the valley below. There snowfall is heavy in the winter, averaging over 61 inches a year. It constitutes a principal; water shed area for the great Salt River Valley irrigation district hundreds of miles away.
Yet the formula of precipitation, minus evaporation minus transpiration minus run-off there did not account for all the water. There was a balance left over sufficient to account not only for Montezuma Well and Page's Springs but for a sizable reservoir as well.
Still, there were no wells in the Mogollon Rim area close to Sedona to show the table was near the surface on the Rim. Nor could Williams find any water pouring out of the cliff faces. Thus he looked for and found evidences of deep fissures and faults etching the Rim. Water, he believed, was carried deep into the earth through these channels and was led into an underground reservoir that supplied Montezuma Well and Page's Springs and which would amply supply 500-ft. wells in the Sedona area.
He brought in the first well in 1947. It was an occasion of tremendous celebration for the whole area. Williams staged an open house picnic for all comers. Hundreds came. A pick-up was on the road most of the afternoon, replenishing supplies of hot dogs, hamburgers and fixings.
All afternoon, for six hours straight, Williams kept three men busy running the baler continuously in half-hour shifts. At the end of the day they measured the water. The level had risen three feet. The skeptics were convinced.
Since then, Williams and his son Earl, now his father's partner, have drilled more than 50 successful wells in the area. They have never had a dry hole--except for the one a customer insisted they drill where he wanted it, not where Williams said the water was. Now that man admits to his $10,000 error and wants Williams to drill where he first advised.
Williams keeps two Bucyrus-Erie 24-L rigs busy the year around. His drilling activities cover most of the state, for the fame of the man who brought water to Sedona is almost legendary. He himself has been honored with the presidency of the Oak Creek-Sedona Chamber of Commerce, a charter member in and the presidency of the Sedona Lions Club and many similar allocades. People stop him at every turn to order a well or simply to shake the hand of the man who lit the fuse that caused the big boom.
As for Williams himself, a deeply religious man, he sums it all up in a verse from the Bible: "All things work together for good to those that love God." (Romans 8:28) His arthritis brought him to Arizona where he was able to do immeasurable good for one large region; all three of his children have been happily married here and his business is wonderful.
And, best of all, he has thrown away his crutches and canes and has made an almost complete recovery.