Madam Drachman and the 1887 Arizona flood: Part 3. The Aftermath Legend
Half of this story is fake, but the gripping part is the other half that is not
By Mig Reyes-Mariano
In 1887, Arizona experienced two devastating natural disasters. In late spring, a strong earthquake in northern Mexico (estimated at 7.4-7.6) caused disastrous structural damage to buildings in Tucson (Noonan, 2013). Late in the summer, heavy rainfall caused severe flooding that damaged bridges and streets and washed away crops along the San Pedro River (National Weather Service, n.d.). These two natural disasters resulted in a historical record-breaking year for disasters in Arizona.
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Opening note: Months after the floodwaters receded from the Mojave Desert in 1887, Madam Minna Drachman found herself amidst the ruins of her past, haunted by shadows of her choices and the lingering presence of a storm that had changed everything.
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It is interesting how historians have ignored the legend of Madam Drachman, or simply Minna, who, according to rumors, was responsible for the monsoon rains that fell in late 1887 and completely devastated a town in Arizona. This legend also tells of the bad luck that befell that dusty desert town on the edge of southeastern Arizona's Mojave Desert, where clouds seemed afraid to come close, as if wary of getting dirty in the dry land. Then, Madam Minna Drachman, a woman considered elderly (at the time), and who always liked to wear a handmade palm hat passed down from her mother, caused the worst flooding in the history of Arizona.
Minna's build was lean and wiry from physical labor—strong arms from drawing water, steady hands from milking goats, and calloused fingers from stitching and skinning. She wore simple, durable clothing: a sun-bleached blouse, a blend of burgundy and mustard, tucked into a long earth-toned skirt, cinched at the waist with a handmade leather belt. A wide-brimmed palm hat shielded her face from the sun, and her boots, though worn, were always practical.
Rumors have it that she never took off her hat, not even to sleep. She had always been referred to as strong-willed, perhaps a trait she inherited from her father. From an early age, she probably learned from him that water in that region was “literally” like gold, and those who controlled it held power in the burgs bordering the Mojave Desert. So, when she inherited the dry fields from her immigrant parents, she vowed that one day the water would be hers. Her parents, descendants of Hebrews, arrived in Arizona during the gold rush and amassed a tiny fortune earned by working long hours as managers for the railroad.
After experiencing several failed ventures, they were blessed as farmers with a few good harvests, which provided them with enough money to pay for the land they farmed. They started with corn, then grew alfalfa, hard red wheat (for pasta), and pecans. During their farming years, they were lucky to have some successful harvests during prosperous times. However, they also faced the hardship of losing many crops to drought in the area. Through these challenging times, they learned to save during the good years to survive the hardships of the dark and dusty years.
The year 1866 was a tough one for Minna. Her parents died when they were only in their early fifties, leaving her responsible for the family farm at a young age. Both died from what later became known as "valley fever," caused by inhaling spores from specific fungi. These fungi are scientifically called Coccidioides immitis or Coccidioides posadasii (Malo, Luraschi-Monjagatta, et al., 2014). Those were not easy times for Madam Minna. Still, she had learned the family business early in life and also learned to make the best of difficult circumstances through sacrifices.
Furthermore, the land and climate seemed to work against her in late 1886. By mid-1887, the soil was cracking in the sun, and the crops were dying before they could sprout. Many other farmers abandoned their plots to try their luck in neighboring cities in California. Even so, Minna stayed and added most of the abandoned parcels to her land. She held on to the land and the memory of her parents' sacrifices, clutching it like a shipwreck survivor clings to the last floating plank of a sinking ship.
Madam Minna moved with quiet purpose, each gesture efficient and each step confident; her presence commanded attention. Yet, she only dreamed of rains that fell more than once a year (although one was better than none)—also, she dreamed of a tomorrow where her future children could be descendants of Semites or Westerners, free to practice their religion and cultivate their lands without scrutiny. She fervently dreamed of a world where a woman like her would no longer be seen as a curiosity but as a pillar.
This final aspiration may have contributed to the city's unlucky history. Today, from the legend, it is known that on a hot afternoon, when even the cactus seemed to seek shade, it was that fateful day when a stranger arrived in the small town after sunset. He was dressed in a shiny black suit reflecting the very last rays of the sun. He carried a small suitcase that, according to him, contained the secrets of the world. That was Don Divad or maybe just the ghosts of his deceased father, David.
In this sense, the tale adds that Minna was still wandering around the latest shack she was forced to build on the outskirts of the growing swamp, which resulted from the flooding. In that shack, the wooden floors sometimes floated over the waters reaching her property. The place was nearly completely submerged in mud, and the story goes that she could be heard murmuring or talking to herself. Moreover, one night, when she received her third visit from Don Divad, under a full moon that seemed to watch over everything, Minna heard a sound very different from the rain that had stopped—a faint, constant sound—a steady, persistent noise that grew louder: drip-drop, DRIP-DROP. D R I P - D R O P!
She followed the noise to what remained of her hut, where her rain barrels were kept. There, she saw something incredible: the water, the same stagnant, rotting water, was starting to overflow from the barrels on its own, rising as if defying gravity. Some drops even floated in the air, merging into small liquid spheres that danced around her.
Then a voice seemed to rise from the water itself. It was not Don Divad's or anyone else's. It was an echo that seemed to come from deep within the earth, too.
– The rain cannot ease your loneliness and pain!
Minna tried to run away, but the echo and floating spheres of water chased her, forming shapes: familiar faces of the peasants who had left the village and her own father, Don David, laughing without a mouth. The water seeped into her ears, eyes, and breath. Minna dropped to her knees, drowning in the unseen.
When she woke up—or so she thought (perhaps)—she was not in the hut anymore. She sat there in the middle of the Village Square, but everything looked just as dry as ever, like before the rain—no fancy house, no barrels, and no neighbors demanding their property. She saw how people walked past her as if nothing had ever happened. Some greeted her politely; others looked at her with pity, like you would for the village madwoman.
Yet even as she blinked at the familiar dust, her ears still rang with the echo of rain. The rhythm—drip-drop, DRIP-DROP—haunted her with every step. She reached the edge of the square, where the cracked earth stretched to a shimmering salt lake. For a moment, she froze: at the lake’s center, she thought she saw it—the faint glimmer of a tiny jar, blue as dawn, hovering just beneath the surface. She stumbled forward, heart pounding, but as quickly as she saw it, the vision fractured like sunlight on rippling water and was gone. Only dry wind brushed her face. No jar. No storm. No Don Divad. Just silence, heavy and merciless, like the desert itself laughing at her hunger.
Minna looked at her hands: they were empty. In her pockets, only dust. She stood up and walked toward what she thought was the land where her house once was (or at least resembled it). But there she only found a salty lake next to a barren, cracked, arid field.
She asked if anyone remembered the story of Don Divad. No one had ever heard of him. She wondered about the rains, the plagues, the water park that was being built, and the remains of her luxurious home. No one seemed to understand what she was talking about.
Maybe it was all just an illusion, a mirage caused by her thirst, a punishment from the earth for wanting to control it. Alternatively, perhaps the rain itself had possessed her, playing with her like the wind plays with dust, and now it had brought her back to a beginning without history in the blooming of a new, timeless town.
Since then, Minna has wandered through the village telling a story nobody believes, searching for a jar that may have never existed, and describing a storm very differently from how the city dwellers say it actually happened — and worst of all, there are no official records of anything. Besides, all the newcomers seem to have forgotten, or they do not know, not a single thing about the other city buried beneath the salty lake.
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Endnote: Alone in the desolate remnants of her once-thriving home, Minna’s sanity slips as she searches for the elusive jar that promised salvation. In the haunting stillness, the echoes of the past taunt her, and she begins to question her reality. Just as she loses hope, a shadowy figure appears at the edge of the swamp, drawing closer with each heartbeat. Is it Don Divad returning to collect his due, or has the flood awakened something far more sinister? All in all, given the current lack of material evidence, the truth about her fate hangs in the balance of how the readers may judge her, and perhaps a final revelation awaits in the depths of despair.
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References
Brumbaugh, D. S. (1998). Earthquakes: science and society. Prentice Hall. p. 151.
Burian, A. W. (2018). The creation of the American states. Morgan James Publishing.
Malo J, Luraschi-Monjagatta C, Wolk DM, Thompson R, Hage CA, Knox KS (February 2014). "Update on the diagnosis of pulmonary coccidioidomycosis". Annals of the American Thoracic Society. 11 (2): 243–53.
National Weather Service. (n.d.). Significant weather events in Arizona history. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. https://www.weather.gov/psr/WeatherEvent
Noonan, G. R. (2013). Massive storms & floods that cut arroyo along San Pedro River. SciHistory.info. https://www.scihistory.info/san-pedro-floods-1887
Preston, D. (1999). Cities of gold: A journey across the American Southwest. UNM Press.
Sherman, J. E.; Barbara H. Sherman (1969). "Charleston". Ghost Towns of Arizona (First ed.). University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 26–29.
