The Highway through Mohawk: Once a road stop and then a ghost town

by John Culea

It’s 1912 and statehood has come to Arizona. Former stagecoach driver, Joe “Whip” Adams, now a railroad detective, along with his Cocopah wife and son are part of an inauguration procession to the State capitol. A survivor of stagecoach massacres and train robberies, Joe’s adventures come from journals he began in 1859. Transcribed by modern day descendent, Rachel Adams, the journals were discovered hidden in the false bottom of a steamer trunk, revealing family members she never knew existed. The Highway through Mohawk is the final book in a trilogy, bringing first hand accounts of life and death at a roadside stop 50 miles east of Yuma. Included are stories of World War I and II, Japanese internment camps, the Korean War and the coming of an Interstate super highway that will doom Mohawk. The Highway through Mohawk introduces Rachel Adams to her grandmother, Constance who writes the family’s final chapter. The person who is in the middle of Mohawk’s end turns out to be Rachel’s late father. The clash of events finally explains why the journals were hidden and kept secret.

433 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2013

Reviews

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was as if the author had read my review on book number two before writing this one, as there were far more female voices in this final book in the trilogy. We hear a majority of the family saga from the voice of Constance, the wife of Willard. Her perspective is a hard one given the abuse she suffers from her husband. But his time in prison transforms him to be a better husband, father and son. This final book saw the end of the lives of many of the Adams family as the years pass and they get older. It also brings the end of the long awaited gas station and motel. I do wish Willard's son had been kinder at the end of the book. His relentless heckling of the ball player who had injured his father was malicious verbal assault. It seems he has his father's mean spirit which ended up bringing about the end of the Mohawk gas station. I would have preferred the gas station to catch fire in some other way and the remaining family see this as a sign to finally move on to a new life elsewhere. Overall, I enjoyed stepping back in time to a place that changed dramatically over the course of the many decades covered in the trilogy.