W. N. “Jack” & John Shawver
Jack Shawver circa 1965
Jack and John were always close. The two brothers went to San Diego to work for Consolidated Aircraft Company before the U.S. entered World War II. The war would separate them. Jack enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces and was a radio operator on a B-17. Upon his discharge, he returned to the family farm. He would marry Patricia Evans in July 1947. John went to work for Goodyear Aircraft in Litchfield Park, Arizona as a tool and die maker. It was at Goodyear that he met the love of his life, Wanda Williams. They were married in July 1944.
After the war, the brothers quickly formed Shawver Bros., farmed the home place and other acreage, and had a custom tillage and land leveling service. The tillage business gave the brothers the needed cash to invest in their own business ventures. An entrepreneur from childhood, Jack saw an opportunity for them to buy, refurbish and sell Army surplus heavy equipment, finding an eager market in the local farmers. They sponsored a men’s softball team in 1950-52 that enjoyed some success.
In 1949, Jack and John H. Evans formed Evans and Shawver. Jack negotiated an improvement lease on about 1,200 acres of the Salt River Indian Reservation. He leveled most of it, installed cement irrigation ditches, and raised cotton, alfalfa and beef cattle.
Harquahala Valley - Maricopa County
Inducted in 2021
Jack and John Shawver worked as a team with each using their expertise to run many agricultural endeavors.
W.N. “Jack” Shawver (1919-1982) and his brother John (1921-2011) were the youngest of four sons born to John E. And Ida Shawver. Their innate love of the land and ability to develop farmland and water resources may have stemmed from their ancestral heritage. The family farm was on the east side of 67th Avenue between Indian School and Thomas Roads. The mesquite-covered desert was the homestead of their grandfather, Clemen Vaughn Shawver, who transformed the desert to farmland growing barley, wheat, alfalfa, orchard fruit and grapes. Upon Clemen’s death, John E. continued to farm the land, a tradition sustained by youngest sons Jack and John into the 1960s. A June 1939 article in the Arizona Farmer touted the oat crop grown by John and son Jack, “…it is as level as a floor, that 55-acre field. Not a low spot on it.” Anticipating a yield of 3,000 pounds to the acre, the “stand of oats has few equals in these parts.”
John Shawver, circa 1993
In 1954-55, the brothers looked west to Harquahala Valley and assembled nearly 3,000 acres of land through desert land entries. They transformed the desert to grow cotton, alfalfa, wheat, safflower and plantago. They sold this farm in 1965, including 19.5 miles of cement-lined ditches; five irrigation wells, 800-1000 feet deep; six sumps with pumps; and a shop and assorted buildings. In 1965, the brothers were doing business as Shawver Farms and continued their farming pursuits in the West Valley.
In the 1970s, the brothers partnered with Gilbert (Shag) and Lee Roy Rogers to purchase the Rafter 6, A-Diamond and Battle Axe Ranches near Kearny in Pinal County. John used his expertise to clean-up and improve the ranchland using an innovative system of eight horizontally drilled water wells that tripled the cattle grazing capacity. John easily switched hats and became a cowboy. He loved riding on the back of a horse through the beautiful mountains and lived in a converted one room schoolhouse in Kelvin. A drop in cattle prizes made them switch gears again.
Jack and John undertook another agricultural development project at the Spot Interchange on Interstate 8 in Maricopa County in the 1980s. They purchased an elevating scraper and moved a million yards of dirt to bring 1,400 acres of desert land into agricultural production. On the 2,000-acre farm, John designed and implemented an efficient desert farm. The irrigation system he created using wells, short ditch runs and sumps helped to conserve our ever-precious water supply. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension even grew an experimental field of jojoba on the farm. Again, John made the desert bloom.
While farming in Harquahala, Jack saw the Central Arizona Project on the horizon, and worked with the State of Arizona and the U.S. Department of the Interior to list 40,000 acres of irrigable land and a total of some 60,000 total valley acres for irrigation. The Harquahala Valley Irrigation District was formed in 1964 with Jack serving as one of the three initial directors and then president.
As chairman of Arizona Communities for Progress Committee in 1960, Jack successfully advocated bringing what would become I-10 from Blythe, California to Phoenix via the “Brenda Cut-off,” a route that would positively impact Harquahala, Buckeye, Avondale-Goodyear, and the West Valley of Phoenix. His vision for what had been called the “Sunkist Highway” in earlier generations, guided his future acquisition of properties along freeway alignments with development potential.
Jack also quietly worked behind the scenes in Arizona politics, at local, county, state and congressional levels. He was appointed as a member of both the State Retirement Board Investment Advisory Committee (1973-1976) and the Arizona Water Commission (1974-1982).
In 1968, Jack participated in a trade mission to Central America seeking markets for Arizona agricultural and agribusiness. He also led three Arizona Agricultural Leaders People-to-People delegations to Europe and Australia in the late 1970s.
Jack died unexpectedly July 11, 1982. Following his death, Pat stepped into his role as a general partner in Shawver Farms. In June 1989, the assets of Shawver Farms were divided between the partners. John Shawver Farms was formed.
John always had farming in his blood since the day he was born on that hot August day in 1921. The youngest of four boys, he would tell stories about growing up on the farm located. From helping his mother with the flock of chickens, milking the cows twice a day, swimming in the dirt irrigation ditches or riding his horse home from Phoenix Union High School to work in the fields, farming became his passion in life.
John Shawver was a farmer’s farmer, honed by his love of farming, hard work and determination. He was widely known for his ability to transform an old farm or virgin desert land into a showplace. You would not see any weeds in John’s cotton or ditch bank, nor would the roads be rough. He would run an extra ditch to help with water delivery and knock down and distribute a sand hill to improve the soil. Cotton was to be planted by a designated date in March and the water turned off on September 1. His goal was to be among the first to bring in their cotton. Simple things, but things he learned over a lifetime of farming.
The final chapter in John’s life saw him farming in “God’s country” or as we know it, Yuma, Arizona. He loved everything about Yuma: the rich fertile soil, the abundant labor supply and the Colorado River water. John was able to put together over 1,000 acres that his family still actively own and manage today and hopefully will for generations to come. When he was in his eighties, John also grew 12 acres of Medjool dates that his family affectionately called his garden.
John passed away on December 5, 2011. In a message of condolence, Bobbi Stevenson-McDermott of Yuma commented, “He was a wonderful conservationist and role model for anyone who wanted to do things right. John was never satisfied with doing anything halfway.” John’s daughter, Patti Tucker, manages the farming operations on the Yuma property to this day.
John and Jack were a team. They both had an inherent love of the land, a vision of what it could become, and a deep trust in each other. John’s expertise was in developing and managing the farms, and he could do so because he was confident in Jack’s taking care of the business side of farming. It is remarkable that Jack and John’s partnership endured for 35 plus years. Surely there were disagreements, but they were able to put them aside and move on.
Affiliations
Harquahala Valley Irrigation District, initial director, 1964; president 1969
State Retirement Board Investment Advisory Committee 1973-1976
Arizona Water Commission 1974-1982
Central Arizona Project Association, director
Arizona Crop Improvement Association, director
Western Gateway-Goodyear/Avondale, board member
District Export Council, U.S. Department of Commerce, member
