254 



THE IRBIGATION AGE. 



ARIZONA 



Health, Wealth, Recreation, Education 



By EDWARD F. BOHM 



On Wednesday evening, February 14, 1912, there oc- 

 curred upon the streets of Phoenix, Arizona, a dance which 

 was unique in history of latter day Anglo-Saxon America 

 and which might well be supposed to have had as a stage 

 setting the pictured adobe of some city of one of our 

 neighboring Latin-American Republics. The event marked 

 the culmination of a day of festivity throughout Arizona in 

 celebration of the achievement of that Statehood for which" 

 Arizona's sterling men and women had fought long and 

 arduously. The sturdy Americanism typical of this youngest 

 of States united with the efforts of the Commonwealth old- 

 est in cultivation and civilization, had wrested from a long 

 unwilling central government the prerogatives of full citizen- 

 ship. 



With the adoption 

 of its Constitution 

 an analysis of which 

 lack of space alone 

 prevents, with the 

 Legislature at date 

 of writing, in session, 

 the "Ship of State," 

 to borrow a time- 

 worn phrase, is in 

 full sail. 



Arizona ! There is 

 magic in the very 

 name. What transcon- 

 tinental traveler, jour- 

 neying through the 

 southwest, which one 

 of our railroad writ- 

 ers has so aptly 

 termed the "Land of 

 Enchantment," gifted 

 with a particle of the 

 imagination which is 

 presumed to dis- 

 tinguish man from 

 the anthropoid, does 

 not feel his blood 

 course faster at mere 

 mention of the name. 

 There is something 

 in the atmosphere, in 

 its wierd and magical 

 topography and nat- 

 ural architecture, in 

 its tremendous vistas of another era when the world was 

 young and creation, in another long out-lived phrase, in its 

 making; in its sublimity, grand colorings, in its health-giving 

 arid climate and its wide vistas which permit a breadth of 

 view that makes for sturdiness of fibre. It is no secret why 

 the aboriginal races of this country were at once brave and 

 warlike and gifted with poetry and imagination. The same 

 conditions that bred these qualities in the Indian are just 

 as vigorously asserting themselves today in the work of 

 evolving a race of superior men and women of a new civil- 

 ization. 



The entire state is a vast sanitarium for the afflicted, a 

 fertile field of operations for the vigorous, a playground of 

 inspiring proportions for the pleasure-seeker and the despair 

 of the sight-seer and artist. What traveler has not cast 

 longing eyes towards the wonderful region beyond the 

 "Atchison" in the north the vast Navajo Reservation with 

 its tremendous canons Del Muertp and De Chelly; its 

 grandly colored ciffs, like the Navajo Churches just across 

 the boundary ; the Hopi Reservation with its painted desert ; 

 its lonely Indian mesa dwellings; the Indians themselves with 

 their fantastic yet romantic ceremonial rites; the Grand 

 Canon unfolding a picture of sublimity which cannot be 

 matched this side of the hereafter; the wonderful and unex- 

 plored country north of it, the "Kaibab" and "Kanab" 



Country Home 



plateaus. South of this railroad, the Petrified Forests, on 

 both sides the superb Tusayan and Coconino National Forests 

 embracing the inspiring country about Flagstaff; the San 

 Francisco Mountains and the cliff dwellings, the Canon 

 Diablo, the Juniper Mountains and Metwrite Mountain. 

 About Prescott is a country of wonderful natural charm and 

 redolent with the wonders of nature and of antiquity Point 

 of Rocks Montezuma's Well and Cliff Dwellings. 



The Great National Forests further south and east of 

 Prescott, Sitgreaves, Tonto, Crook and Apache, embracing 

 the Apache and San Carlos Indian Reservations, offer op- 

 portunities for health-giving recreation in their mountain 

 areas. 



To the west of the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix lines, 

 lies a vast desert and open-range country, extending to the 

 Colorado river, a large part of which is destined, eventually, 

 to be converted into fertile agricultural lands with the ad- 

 vent of irrigation from the Colorado river. 



The broken mountain chains characteristic of the cen- 

 tral, western and southern part of the state are rich in min- 

 erals and their treasures are largely exploited, mining being 

 one of the chief industries of the state. 



Tributary to both 

 the Atchison, Tope- 

 ka & Santa Fe and 

 Southern Pacific sys- 

 tems is the Salt Riv- 

 er Valley, in itself a 

 scenic attraction of 

 rare value. 



Entering the state 

 from the east, via 

 New Orleans and El 

 Paso gateways, over 

 the Southern Pacific, 

 the eye is charmed 

 with a diversity of 

 scenery typical in it- 

 self, and in a degree 

 different from that of 

 the northern part of 

 the state. Here are 

 vistas of the inspiring 

 Chiricahua, White- 

 stone, Huachuea, Cor- 

 onado, Santa Rita 

 and Tucson moun- 

 tains, while to the 

 south of the railroad 

 and further west, 

 lies a great area of 

 open-range country, 

 diversified with de- 

 tached masses and 

 short chains of por- 

 phyry m o u n ta i n s, 



whose jagged outlines and sublime coloring have never been 

 adequately depicted. 



A branch of the Southern Pacific main line runs from 

 Bowie near the eastern boundary of the state, north and 

 west through the Gila Valley and a rich mining country, to 

 Phoenix. From Maricopa the Southern Pacific lines proceed 

 north to Phoenix and westward into California, leaving the 

 state at Yuma on the Colorado river, every mile of road 

 presenting a constant picture of enchantment. The Great 

 Casa Grande ruins (a natural monument) are reached from 

 the station of Casa Grande on the Southern Pacific main 

 line. This much for the tourist, be he health or pleasure 

 seeker. , 



The state embraces the tremendous area of 114,000 

 square miles. It is 340 miles wide by 390 miles long at its 

 extremities. It embraces altitudes ranging from 83 feet to 

 13,000 feet above sea level. 



The population in 1910 was 20,500, which figure has 

 probably been increased by 25,000 since that time. The 

 leading industry, as yet, is mining, live stock raising second, 

 and agriculture, a constantly increasing factor, ranking third. 

 Its system of educational and other institutions of a 

 public nature is excellent and liberally endowed with funds, 

 which, with a wise management of the great estate of lands, 

 with which endowed under the "Enabling Act," will be 



ear Phoenix, Arizon.i. 



