Flagstaff, Arizona

“ Walnut Canyon National Monument
Thirty cliff-dwellings cling to the sides of picturesque Walnut Canyon, eight miles from Flagstaff, Arizona. They are excellently preserved. The largest contains eight rooms. The canyon possesses unusual beauty because of the thickets of locust which fringe the trail down from the rim. One climbs down ladders to occasional ruins which otherwise are inaccessible. [Pg 384] Because of its nearness to Flagstaff several thousand persons visit this reservation yearly. ”

“ It is true that in the very homogeneous region about Flagstaff, Arizona, an average of 5 trees and even of 2 gave a valuable record corroborated by comparisons with larger numbers; but in these European groups the oldest trees are all from the Scandinavian peninsula, and probably the individual trees of which I have samples are representative of widely different localities in a rugged and mountainous country. ”

“ At either end the chain of ruins between the Tusayan towns and the Gila ruins was unbroken, but middle links were wanting. All conditions imply former habitations in this untrodden hiatus, the region between the Verde and the Tusayan series, ending near the present town of Flagstaff, Arizona; but southward from that town the country was broken and impassable, a land where the foot of the archeologist had not trodden. Remains of human habitations had, however, been reported by ranchmen, but these reports were vague and unsatisfactory. ”

“ In that year such a school was actually provided by law [29] and was to be formally known as the Reform School for juvenile offenders. A building for this purpose located at Flagstaff was commenced and at least $33,265 spent on the same. It was still unfinished in 1897, when it was given a special tax of 3 cents on the hundred for a building fund. But by this time the people of Flagstaff had come to the conclusion that a reform institution in their midst would be a drawback to their community ”

“ There are but three regions in the United States in which cavate lodges are known to occur in considerable numbers, viz, on San Juan river, near its mouth; on the western side of the Rio Grande near the pueblo of Santa Clara; and on the eastern slope of San Francisco mountain, near Flagstaff, Arizona. To these may now be added the middle Verde region, from the East Verde to a point north of Verde, Arizona. ”

“ These trips will use up seven or eight days’ time, and Dalky figures he will be through here in that time. Therefore, in order to take in the visits to the Painted Desert near Adamana, and the Petrified Forest, just across the borderline of Arizona, we might motor from Gallup, as we turn our backs upon New Mexico, and continue on our way to Flagstaff in automobiles, instead of on train. That will give us ample opportunity to see the wonderful sights along the route, and we can remain as long as we choose at each place. After reaching Flagstaff, the cars can be sent back to Gallup. ”

“ One of the most important watering places of northeastern Arizona is LeRoux Spring, seven miles northwest of Flagstaff on the southwestern slope of the San Francisco Mountains. This never-failing spring was a welcome spot to the pioneers who traveled the rocky road along the 35th parallel of latitude. San Francisco Spring (or Old Town Spring) at the present Flagstaff, was much less dependable and at the time of the construction of the Atlantic & Pacific railroad in 1881-2, water often was hauled to Flagstaff from the larger spring, at times sold for $1 a barrel. ”

“ The San Francisco Mountain lies in Northern Arizona, above Flagstaff, and its blue slopes and snowy summit entice the eye for a hundred miles across the desert. About its base lie the pine forests of the Navajos, where the great red-trunked trees live out their peaceful centuries in that sparkling air. The piñons and scrub begin only where the forest ends, where the country breaks into open, stony clearings and the surface of the earth cracks into deep canyons. The great pines stand at a considerable distance from each other. ”

“ Large and small pueblos of 1100-1300 and earlier pit-houses; several Anasazi sites as well as Sinagua—the frontier between these two cultures was not the Little Colorado, but lay some distance west into the Wupatki area, and varied from time to time. Still other cultural influences are observed. One unique feature is a masonry-walled ball-court beside Wupatki Pueblo and near the monument headquarters, fifteen miles east of U. S.-89 and forty-five miles from Flagstaff, Arizona. No museum. ”

“ But the greatest natural wonder of this region and, it is claimed by competent judges of the whole world, is the Grand Canon of Arizona, which is seventy-two miles north of Flagstaff. Thurber's stage line, when it was running, carried passengers through in one day, but after the railroad was built from Williams to Bright Angel the stage was abandoned. However it is an interesting trip and many people make it every summer by private conveyance who go for an outing and can travel leisurely. It is a good natural road and runs nearly the entire distance through an open pine forest. ”

“ The rate for round trip, Bright Angel to Grand View, is $2.50 to $5 each person, according to size of party. While Flagstaff is an interesting place to visit—with its near-by cliff and cave dwellings and San Francisco Peaks—and the trip thence to the Grand Canyon is a novel one, distance and time are such that most travelers prefer to go in by railroad from Williams.
Grand View Hotel is a large, rustic structure, built near the head of Berry’s Trail and about three miles from Hance’s Trail, in the midst of tall pines and overlooking the mighty bend of the Colorado. ”

“ The total property valuation of the plant was then $567,000, and it was determined to ask the next legislature for $110,000 per year.
From Flagstaff it was reported in 1905–6 that that school was still in need of an academic department, “so that such students as desire may be fitted for our Territorial university instead of having to go out of the Territory to secure the necessary instruction.” The enrollment during these years had remained low: 33 in 1899-1900; 40 in 1900–1901; 45 in 1902–3 and 1903–4; 59 in 1904–5; and 60 in 1905–6. The cost the first year (1899–1900) was $5,825.57 ”

“ The general administration of these schools is under the direction of two distinct but similar boards of three members each; the superintendent of public instruction is a member of each board. The other members of the Tempe Board are two citizens selected from that section by the governor, while those controlling the Flagstaff School come in the same way from that section. ”

“ Born in Shelbyville, Indiana, in 1848, he came to Arizona, by way of an hospital for incurables in New York, to die. Life in the open gave him a new hope, and at 72 he is still hale, hearty, vigorous and capable of more work than many a city-bred youth of 25. His life in Arizona has been a romance throughout, and in much of it I have either shared or been an interested spectator. My first meeting with Mr. Bass was at Flagstaff in 1888, under the following circumstances:
I had gone out to the Canyon, from Flagstaff, with the Rev. Stewart Conrad Wright, a Methodist minister, and several women. ”

“ Eight miles southwest from Flagstaff—reached by a pleasant drive along a level road through tall pines—is Walnut Canyon, a rent in the earth several hundred feet deep and three miles long, with steep terraced walls of limestone. Along the shelving terraces, under beetling projections of the strata, are scores of quaint cliff dwellings, the most famous group of its kind in this region. The larger abodes are divided into several compartments by cemented walls, many parts of which are still intact. ”

“ Hutter, and to the white-faced Flo, and Lolomi Lodge, and the murmuring waterfall, and the haunting loneliness of Oak Creek Canyon.
CHAPTER VIII
At Flagstaff, where Carley arrived a few minutes before train time, she was too busily engaged with tickets and baggage to think of herself or of the significance of leaving Arizona. But as she walked into the Pullman she overheard a passenger remark, “Regular old Arizona sunset,” and that shook her heart. Suddenly she realized she had come to love the colorful sunsets, to watch and wait for them. ”

“ Preamble.
⁠WHEREAS, there are located in Arizona, about 30 miles northeast of Flagstaff, two groups of prehistoric ruins built by the ancestors of a most picturesque tribe of Indians still surviving in the United States, the Hopi or People of Peace ”

“ In the very beginning of the work it was expected that only in large averages would a relationship be found between tree-growth and climate. Accordingly, something like 10,000 measures had been made on the pines of northern Arizona and the results all tabulated, when it occurred to the writer to compare the annual growth of Flagstaff trees directly with the 8 or 10 years of rainfall records taken at the United States Weather Bureau station recently established there. ”

“ Originally a stores depot on the early trail through the West, Flagstaff soon became a ranching centre and a kind of "Mecca" for cow-boys, globe-trotters, wasters, drifters, Indians, Mexicans, and, of late years, speculators and East-weary business men. Although boasting only a few thousand inhabitants, the town is growing fast, and naturally where towns grow fast—a thing known only in the west of America and the Colonies—the "real estate" agents flourish in their legions. ”

“ Flagstaff is the best present point of departure, because it has a small hotel, good supply stores, and a large livery-stable, made necessary by the business of the place and the objects of interest in the neighborhood, and because one reaches from there by the easiest road the finest scenery incomparably on the Colorado. The distance is seventy-six miles through a practically uninhabited country, much of it a desert, and with water very infrequent. No work has been done on the road ”

“ You'll find your way in, if you know how; and if you don't know how, no man can teach you. And at Adamana, don't forget to see the pictograph rocks. Then you'll appreciate why the scientists wonder whether the antiquity of the Orient is old as the antiquity of our own America.
Flagstaff, frankly, does not live up to its own opportunities. It is the gateway to many Aztec ruins—much more easily accessible to the public than the Frijoles cave dwellings of New Mexico. Only nine miles out by easy trail are cliff dwellings in Walnut Cañon. ”

“ This great woodland stretches away from the very base of the San Francisco mountains southward for a distance of nearly two hundred miles. We are taking a short cut through it and should reach Flagstaff in about an hour from now."
"Hurrah! We're going to see the Flagstaff in an hour," cried Stacy, his face wreathed in smiles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The pleasing uncertainty of life in Arizona may be realized from this danger of being suddenly drowned in the arid sands of a desert, and being confronted with a sudden Lodore that descends from the heavens on a midsummer noon. But, as one is constantly saying to himself, Arizona is the land of surprises. No known laws of meteorology, or of any other form of science, hold good here. The mountain peak transforms itself into the bottom of a sea, and the sea suddenly upheaves itself in air and figures as a mountain. Arizona is nature's kaleidoscope; it is the land of transformation. ”

“ Here is the awe-inspiring canon of the Colorado, the greatest and most marvelous cleft in the mountains of the world. You can see a petrified forest here, with the trees congealed into stone, rearing their rugged trunks fifty and seventy feet in the air. What else does man want than that which he can find in Arizona? It is rich in mines, in timber, grazing land, soil for fruit culture, the best climate to be found anywhere. The wealth of the territory is worth more than a hundred million dollars, and is increasing with wonderful rapidity as people are coming to know its limitless resources. ”