Congress Arizona. Frog makes a splash in Congress, AZ

Frog makes a splash in Congress, AZ
Town adopts rock amphibian

Around these parts, Rose Mary Goodson has the dubious distinction of being known as "the lady who fell off the frog."

She chuckles about the incident now, but it must have been frightening at the time. Goodson fell more than 15 feet and landed on a rock pile. "But I didn't spill any of the paint," she said. "Not a drop." Obviously, we're not talking about an ordinary frog here.

No, indeedy, amphibian fans.

This one weighs probably 60 tons and stands (or squats) more than 16 feet tall.

And it's solid rock.

The frog is a Congress landmark. It had existed in its natural state from prehistoric times until about 1928, when it underwent a wondrous metamorphosis from rock to art.

Originally, it was nothing more than a huge boulder perched on a hillside amid several other large rocks. Then along came Sara Perkins, a homesteader's wife who observed that this particular rock, when viewed from the proper angle, resembled a frog.

She told her husband, Eli, about it, but he wasn't as much of a visionary as his wife, so the story goes. He was also very busy with his work as a newspaperman - at various times, he owned both The Phoenix Gazette and The Wickenburg Sun - and as a state legislator. But he did suggest that a paint job would make the rock look more like a frog. His wife and their two sons hauled three large cans of paint and a ladder up the steep incline, and within weeks:

Voila! A rock became a frog.

Sara Perkins and the boys gave the rock a coat of frog-green paint on top, then added a white underbelly, black spots and such other frog necessities as a mouth and eyes. It was an instant tourist attraction. In those days, U.S. 89 was the main route between Phoenix and Prescott, and the huge frog dominated the skyline as the road passed through the desert community of Congress.

Sara kept the frog brightly painted for years, and when she grew too old to take care of it, her son John took up the task. And when the Perkins family left the area, the townspeople became the unofficial Keepers of the Croaker.

Rose Mary Goodson was acting in that capacity in 1994 when she took the tumble that earned her a mild case of infamy.

"Oh, it was a terrible spill," she recalled during a recent trek up to the frog. "As you can see, you can't reach the top without a ladder, so I had to drag one up here. I fell off one evening and landed right here, on these rocks. But I only received a small scratch."

Goodson was 76 at the time. She had moved to Congress from South Dakota in 1980 to expand her career as an artist. In 1995, she also wrote and published The Story of Congress: Arizona's Premier Gold Camp, an 80-page booklet.

"Nobody else had ever written a history of Congress," she explained, "so I figured I'd better do it while I had the time."

The work has undergone two printings; Goodson says she has sold more than 5,000 copies.

In her account of the frog's origins, she notes that there are two graves nearby. William Miller, who lived in the area for many years, often asked to be buried near the site. His wish was fulfilled after his death on Jan. 19, 1940. The second grave is occupied by his dog. The townspeople thought it fitting that the two be buried next to each other. An unimposing white headstone marks their joint grave.

And now, there's a small metal plaque attached to the lower extremities of the frog. It reads, "Jerry (Frog) Owens 1995." Goodson said that Owens' ashes were scattered near the frog but that nobody in Congress knows why.

The frog has been painted twice since Goodson's tumble, both times by George and Mavis Carter, who retired to Congress from the Valley.

"We did it as a church project," George explained. "The Church of Latter-day Saints set aside a day for service hours. Everybody else went to Wickenburg to clean up the cemetery, but we decided to do something for Congress. That frog is important to us."

It's not an easy task, painting a 60-ton frog. First, there's the barbed-wire fence that has to be scaled, a feat made even more difficult when the scalers are lugging an extension ladder and several buckets of paint. Then it's a rugged climb up to the creature, and at the top, there are few places to anchor a ladder.

The Carters had to accomplish the feat twice. Their first effort was ruined by vandals who defaced the frog with spray paint. So they painted it all over again.

The frog is on the west side of U.S. 89 north of downtown Congress. It's about a hoot 'n' a holler across the road from the Arrowhead Cafe.
(This article was originally published Sept. 28, 1998.)

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