Arizona

“ Before me lay a land of mystery and romance, a land of health for body and soul; a land of desert and sage-bush, of cactus and strange vegetation; a land of antiquity unparalleled by any other in the world. Here at my feet lay New Mexico and beyond, Arizona, the two States that at the same time are the oldest and the youngest in America. ”

“ The gray sage turned at sun-down to lavender; mauve shadows lengthened on the desert floor; gorges of angry orange and red cliffs gave savage contrast to the delicate Alpine glow lighting white peaks; a cold, pastel sky framed a solitary star, and frosty air, thinned in its half-mile height to a stimulating sharpness, woke us keenly to life. We felt the enchantment that Arizona weaves from her gray cocoon toward sunset, and wondered at eyes which could look on it all, and see only sand and cactus. ”

“ Imagine all this spread out beneath the unflawed turquoise of the Arizona sky and washed in the liquid gold of the Arizona sunshine—and if you imagine hard enough and keep it up long enough you may begin, in the course of eight or ten years, to have a faint, a very faint and shadowy conception of this spot where the shamed scheme of creation is turned upside down and the very womb of the world is laid bare before our impious eyes. Then go to Arizona and see it all for yourself, and you will realize what an entirely inadequate and deficient thing the human imagination is. ”

“ The immensity of the Arizona country, especially at dusk when the mountains withdraw behind their veils and mystery flows into the bottomlands, has always a panoramic quality that throws small any human-sized activities. The ranch houses and their attendant trees look like toys; the bands of cattle and the men working them are as though viewed through the reverse lenses of a glass; and the very details of mesquite or sacatone flats, of alkali shallow or of oak grove are blended into broad washes of tone. ”

“ A green New England farm with running brooks and [Pg 68] blossoming orchards would have spelled Paradise to them, as this Persian pattern of desert did to us; beauty to the parched native of Arizona is an irrigation ditch, bordered by emerald cottonwoods.
If I tint these pages with too many sunsets, it is not from unawareness of my weakness, but because without them a description of Arizona does not describe. In the afternoon hours, between four and eight, the country wakes and glows, and has its moment, like a woman whose youth was plain but whom middle age has touched with charm and mystery. ”

“ Mules led, and the shouting man brought up the rear, clutching the white tail like a rudder, his feet sliding along through the stones. The country grew higher and rougher, and the peaks blazed in the hot sky; slate and sand and cactus below, gaping cracks and funnelled erosions above, rocks like monuments slanting up to the top pinnacles; supreme Arizona, stark and dead in space, like an extinct planet, flooded blind with eternal brightness. The perpetual dominating peaks caught Genesmere's attention. ”

“ Arizona mountains with its waxy green joints and pink spines, sometimes brownish white thorns, and bright golden satiny blooms shading into red and orange at their bases and yellow-green toward the margins, suffused with purple-brown, a lovely harmony of color splashing across the painted canvas of brilliant desert flowers. Appearing in loose golden clumps, one and one-half to three feet tall, with the spicules forming a dense pinkish gray fringe about the upper half of the areolas, this prickly pear roams the rocky, gravelly foothills and mountains here in southern Arizona and in Sonora. ”

“ The entire journey through Arizona offers one of the most unique experiences of a lifetime. Is this "The Country God Forgot"? The vast stretch of the plains offer effects as infinite as the sea. The vista includes only land and sky. The cloud forms and the atmospheric effects are singularly beautiful. As one flies on into Arizona this wonderful color effect in the air becomes more vivid. ”

“ That beauty, from the Grand Canyon in the north to the Saguaro National Monument in the south, will forever epitomize the scenic majesty of the American West. Because the pioneer spirit of the people of Arizona continues to epitomize the American spirit, it is most fitting that every American celebrate the 75th anniversary of Arizona statehood. ”

“ Arizona and New Mexico, you are the pearls of great price that no human being has ever yet valued at your true worth. When the day shall come that man can say of you, "I have seen you in all your moods and have discovered all your secrets," then this old earth will be a lifeless, soulless, aimless globe, its purpose fulfilled, its course completed.
A five mile descent through the scented pine-trees brought me to Raton, another half-Mexican, half-American town, small but modern and well-arranged. ”

“ I want the reader to understand that even though the process of evolution has taken a life-time, I cannot cease wondering at the marvelous development of the Territory and, later, State of Arizona. When I glance back over the vista of years and see the old, and then open my eyes to survey the new, it is almost as though a Verne or a Haggard sketch had come to life. ”

“ Arizona is a land of constant surprises. In its natural phenomena it is the paradise of the scientist, antiquarian, and tourist. Its deep cañons are the open book of geology; its vast prehistoric ruins alike stimulate and baffle the antiquarian, and its marvelous scenery, its flora, remnants of a strange people, and ancient architecture, will attract thousands of tourists.
The first portion of the United States to be settled by Europeans, it is the last developed of all our territories save Alaska.
Possessing the oldest civilization, it is just coming into contact with the new. ”

“ A stranger on first entering Arizona is impressed with the newness and wildness that surrounds him. Indeed, the change is so great that it seems like going to sleep and waking up in a new world. Everything that he sees is different from the familiar objects of his home, and he is filled with wonder and amazement at the many curious things that are brought to his notice. Judging the country by what is common back east, the average man is disappointed and prejudiced against what he sees; but, estimated on its merits, it is found to be a land of many attractions and great possibilities. ”

“ Arizona is all on a grand, vast scale. Mountain ranges stood up to the south and east. North loomed up the lofty, steep rim of the Mogollon Mesa, with its cliffs of yellow and red, and its black line of timber. Westward lay fold on fold of low cedar-covered hills. The valley appeared a kind of magnificent bowl, rough and wild, with the distance lost in blue haze. The vegetation was dense and rather low. I saw both prickly-pear and mescal cactus, cedars, manzanita brush, scrub oak, and juniper trees. ”

“ Now I can lay out a trip for you through California that will knock Arizona silly. There’s the Yosemite,—and the Big Trees,—and the climate,—grandest scenery in the world,—and San Francisco. After you reach Needles, you get good roads all the way,—nothing like these. My! To think you’d ’a wasted your time in Arizona if I hadn’t met you.”
“Yes, indeed. We can’t be grateful enough.”
The truth, with a little ingenuity, always serves. ”

“ But in the three-quarters of a century since then, the people of Arizona have shown again and again that they have never lost the tenacity and pioneer spirit that gained them statehood. Our Nation is much the better thereby.
Arizona has always presented challenges and frontiers to those who would settle there-Indians, missionaries, colonists, and pioneers alike. Today's Arizonans pioneer in high technology, medical research, space programs, astronomy, and many more fields of endeavor, and Americans continue to find opportunity in this beautiful State. ”

“ Arizona is settled chiefly by people from the great South and from New England, the Middle West being hardly represented; its citizens are of the best quality of our national life, and to unite them with those of New Mexico—a large proportion of whom can hardly speak or understand the English language even, to say nothing of their divergence in race, requirements, and habits from the population of Arizona—would be imposing upon them a century's delay in realizing the grand ideals of education, moral progress, and economic development now prevailing in Arizona. ”

“ It has a fascination that every one feels who crosses its border. Paradoxical as it may seem it is both the oldest and newest portion of our country--the oldest in ancient occupation and civilization and the newest in modern progress. In natural wonders it boasts of the Grand Canon of Arizona, the painted desert, petrified forest, meteorite mountain, natural bridge, Montezuma's well and many other marvels of nature. There are also ruins galore, the cave and cliff dwellings, crumbled pueblos, extensive acequias, painted rocks, the casa grande and old Spanish missions. ”

“ In winter all Southern Arizona is a paradise of loveliness. At this season the towns of Florence, Phœnix, Tucson, Yuma, and other points invite one to the balmy air, the luminous brilliant skies, and the nights, which are a glory of starry illumination. Northern Arizona has a perfection of summer climate, and the Grand Cañon is destined in the near future to become one of the great summer resorts of the world. With the splendid facilities for comfort offered by the arrangements, the traveller finds all his accustomed conveniences, and the cañon has literally all seasons for its own. ”

“ The Territorial Delegate now talked freely of Arizona’s frontier life. “It’s all dead,” he said, forgetting in his fluency what he had told me about Seven-Mile Mesquite and last October. “We have a community as high toned as any in the land. Our monumental activity—” And here he went off like a cuckoo clock, or the Boy Orator, reciting the glories of Phœnix and Salt River, and the future of silver, in that special dialect of platitudes which is spoken by our more talkative statesmen, and is not quite Latin, quite grammar, or quite falsehood. ”

“ At present Arizona is the happy hunting-ground of the unfortunate red man. There is, I am assured, no disposition on the part of the whites to intrude upon the reservations of the various tribes. I did not hear of any one who 14 had come in from the East to settle with the view of making his fortune by farming; but miners have flooded the cañons, and climbed the mountain-tops; and now they have settled down into a steady way of life without any big "booms," as the Americans say, but with prospects of pretty certain returns for their labour. ”

“ Arizona had the floor, so to speak. He was very fluent.
'Boys,' said Arizona, 'air we all in this?'
'To bee sure!' said Ben Wilkins, 'the man that ain't goes out with the muck next mucking-out, if I'm any authority on the doings in this ole packet!'
'Don't discourage any of us,' said Arizona. 'Ben, you're too fiery. I've known men that'd die sooner than be encouraged your way. Your talk inspires a sperrit of rebellion in the brave. Let us confine ourselves to the programme which is entitled as a drayma, "The Takin' Down of Bertie." ”

“ Loryea, of San Francisco, and Dr. Sawyer aver that Arizona is nature's Turkish bath, and that Yuma, that evil-looking place, contains the fountains of health.
Of such vast regions a small acquaintance acquired by passing rapidly twice over a line of railway does not entitle one to speak; but, if what we read and heard of Arizona be true, there is within its limits enormous mineral and agricultural wealth. There are carboniferous basins of great extent and richness. The mountains teem with ore. ”

“ Nevada, Wyoming, and Alaska are all behind Arizona in population. There are only 1.1 inhabitants per square mile. The foreign born constitute less than 20 per cent. of the population, and are mostly Mexican. The excess of males—a phenomenon common to the Western States—is marked, being more than 20,000; this is attributed to the mining and frontier character of the Territory. For the populations of Arizona by counties, see back of map. ”

“ American traders and explorers first penetrated Arizona in the first quarter of the 19th century. As a result of the Mexican War, New Mexico, which then included all Arizona north of the Gila, was ceded to the United States. California gold discoveries drew particular attention to the country south of the Gila, which was wanted also for a transcontinental railway route. ”

“ ARIZONA In his message of December, 1905, President Roosevelt advised that Arizona and New Mexico be admitted to the Union as one state. In Arizona the opposition to this “joint-statehood” measure was bitter and determined.
No beggar she in the mighty hall where her bay-crowned sisters wait,
No empty-handed pleader for the right of a free-born State;
No child, with a child’s insistance, demanding a gilded toy;
But a fair-browed, queenly woman, strong to create or destroy.
Wise for the need of the sons she has bred in the school where weaklings fail ”

“ Compared with States and other Territories, it ranks sixth in area and forty-ninth in population.
Topography. The extension northwestward of the Mexican Cordilleras, which rises beyond the Colorado River in the Sierra Nevada, divides Arizona diagonally into two regions—a southwestern part of low elevation, and a northeastern part consisting of an elevated plateau. The whole Territory, however, is moimtainous in the form of short, isolated ranges having a general northwest-southeast trend, which are abrupt, sterile, and gashed by deep canons and dry water-courses. ”