Henry Clay Hooker’s Turkeys

Before he became a famous Arizona rancher one might refer to Henry Clay Hooker was a turkey boy. It all began when he came west from his native New Hampshire during California Gold Rush. He tried his hand at mining, then opened up a hardware store in Hangtown, later called Placerville high up in the Mother Lode country. A fire destroyed his store in 1864 leaving him nearly broke. A year later he purchased 500 turkeys from farms in the Sacramento Valley for a dollar-fifty a head, hired another tu