Our Group

    We are all part of an informal, growing group of heliograph enthusiasts resurrecting heliographic communications using instruments patterned after devices invented more than a century ago.  The US Army used these instruments, usually mounted on tripods or posts, in the Geronimo Campaign in 1886 in southern New Mexico and Arizona.  The Army erected 28 heliograph stations during the campaign at forts, mountain tops and mining camps along the American/Mexican border.  These stretched from Tubac near Nogales, Arizona, to Hillsboro near Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

    Our group has held numerous reenactments involving four most northwesterly of over fifty stations existing in 1890.  We have connected Fort Whipple near Prescott with Fort Verde in Camp Verde via two mountain tops 30 miles apart, Bald Mountain (Glassford Hill) and (Little) Squaw Peak.  Our group conducts talks and demonstrations primarily for historical societies, museums and radio amateur clubs.

    Thanks to one of our members, Tom Kosel, we now have six homemade 8" heliographs dubbed "Kosel Models" available to us in the Prescott, Arizona area.  Tom assisted me in making a 3" aluminum model we have dubbed the "RidKo".  These homemade models are patterned after the American "service" model.  A local museum, Sharlot Hall, obtained a Mance pattern heliograph through our efforts similar to one invented in the 1877 by Sir Henry Mance of Great Britain.  The museum allows us to use the instrument for events and practice.  I recently acquired my own, a H.E.C. 5" MkV Mance pattern.  Its tripod was made in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in 1941 by MIS-CAN-ADA., so maybe the heliograph is Canadian, too.

    Our efforts in heliography have created considerable interest including that of the Solar Energy Division of Arizona's Department of Commerce.  Its division head , Jim Alwood, recently directed a production of a video reenactment between Fort Whipple and the aforementioned mountains.  The Glassford photo was taken during the reenactment.

    Almost 150 folks are on our "mailing list" from South Wales in Britain to New South Wales in Australia.  Many are collectors and/or re-enactors, but most are folks just fascinated with the art and history of heliography.

    I have personally been involved with the history of the heliograph in the southwest since 1996.  Others have been involved with the instrument for as long as twenty years.   Tom Kosel helped Boy Scouts construct the original two instruments and tripods.   They operated these in obtaining their signaling merit badges.

    I first became interested in heliography while reading an "On This Day" article published in the local newspaper.  It quoted a May 1890 article about just completed heliograph maneuvers by the US Army which included a new long distance heliograph record of 123 miles (using an 8" mirror) between two stations in Arizona, Mt. Reno (now Mt. Ord) northeast of Phoenix and Mt. Graham southwest of Safford in southeastern Arizona.   The maneuvers involved most of the 1890 stations from Whipple Barracks to Fort Stanton, New Mexico.