Tucson

“ Business and pleasure were waiting in Tucson, and friends whose ways and company had not been of late for him; but he frequented them this time, tasting no pleasure, yet finding the ways and company better than his own. After the desert's changeless unfathomed silence, in which nothing new came day or night to break the fettering spell his mind was falling under, the clink and knocking of bottles was good to hear, and he listened for more, craving any sound that might wake him from his looming doubt. Abstaining himself, he moved his chair near others who sat lively in saloons. ”

“ Here in Arizona, at Tucson, the "Mexican" is in the ascendant, for such is the name which this wonderful mixture of nationalities prefers to be called by. He is really a kind of hash, made up of all sorts of brown-skinnned odds and ends, an olla podrida. But he calls himself "Mexican," and Tucson is his ancient and honourable pueblo. It is a wretched-looking place from the train, with its slouching hybrid men, and multitudinous pariah dogs. Indians go about with the possessive air of those who know themselves to be at home ”

“ What could be simpler, or more conducive to cheerfulness? A day should have a motive, as well as a piece of music or a poem.
I am still at Tucson. Two mornings ago there was but one thing for me to do. I knew it before I rose. I must take the half-past seven horse-car, ride down town as far as Simpson Street, walk thence across the Santa Cruz Valley to the base of Tucson Mountain, and from there follow the narrow road that winds between the foot of the cliffs and the old canal, till I came to a certain bush. ”

“ There were not more than a dozen Americans in the pueblo of Tucson when we arrived, and they were not Methodist preachers. The town has grown with the country, and now contains a population of nearly ten thousand people, of many shades of color and many nationalities. ”

“ We travelled to Tucson in a Pullman car. It was hot and uninteresting. I had been at Tucson nine years before, for a few hours, but the place seemed unfamiliar. I looked for the old tavern; I saw only the railroad restaurant. We went in to take breakfast, before driving out to the post of Fort Lowell, seven miles away. ”

“ The boys and myself spent several hours in Tucson, looking about the town, and its many curiosities, being especially interested in several half-naked, dirty Apaches, which were lounging about, with large nuggets of gold tied up in their filthy rags.
Horse-racing, wrestling, gambling, drinking mescal, and shooting people, seemed to be the principal occupation of its inhabitants, who, as a whole, were about as villainous a looking set of cut-throats as could be found west of the Rio Grande. ”

“ That was the time when all Tucson turned out to do honor to the wearers of the buskin. If there was a man, woman, or child in the old pueblo who wasn’t seated on one of the cottonwood saplings which, braced upon other saplings, did duty as benches in the corral near the quartermaster’s, it was because that man, woman, or child was sick, or in jail. It is astonishing how much enjoyment can be gotten out of life when people set about the task in dead earnest. ”

“ The men crowding the platform wore the motley of a new country. In Tucson, the uniform of the male citizens, with the exception of those reckless ones who found inevitably that lotus is a liquid, was the wilted pretense of a gentle civilization; despondent ducks and khakis and limp collars. Imperial Junction marked the downfall of the collar. The rest of the composite costume was irregular, badly laundered and torn, faded and sunburned; the clothes of the desert soldier. Rickard saw buttonless shirts, faded overalls, shabby hats—the sombrero of Mexico. ”

“ And when word was brought me here, dining at Lowell Barracks, where I had imagined myself safe from justice, that this same attorney was waiting to see me, I rose and I played him a trick. Possibly I should not have done it but for the saloon-keeper in the afternoon and this sustained dining now; but I sent him word I should be with him directly—and I wandered into Tucson by myself. ”

“ He had been a great traveller in his early life, but now had built himself some sort of a house in one of the desolate mountains which rose out of these vast plains of Arizona, hoisted his sun-flag on the top, there to pass the rest of his days. People out there said he was a sun-worshipper. I do not know. "But when I am tired of life and people," I thought, "this will not be the place I shall choose."
Arriving at Tucson, after a hot and tiresome night in the stage, we went to an old hostelry. Tucson looked attractive. Ancient civilization is always interesting to me. ”

“ As mentioned above, we have but few data from Tucson and, therefore, at present we can scarcely make a comparison, but doubtless when a longer series of observation is at hand we shall discover that there are many days in Tucson showing a maximum as high or even higher than Manila, and an average of about the same. The fact is also observed that two days apparently equally clear will show marked differences between each other during corresponding hours, so that the proportion of the rays reaching the earth and lying between 550 and 291 varies from day to day. ”

“ FROM every street and corner in Tucson we see the mountains. ”

“ In the foreground you see lazy ox-wains, a prospector, perhaps, with his pots and kettles, and a mounted Mexican towing by a lariat a bull, which ducks its head in vain resistance. From a distance it is thoroughly foreign, and of attractive promise. There is something of the Dead Sea apple in the realization of this promise. If Ruskin be right in holding that a house should be of the general color of the soil on which it stands, Tucson may lay claim to great artistic merit. It is entirely of adobe brick of the natural mud-color. ”

“ Beyond, the route crosses the southwest corner of New Mexico and enters Arizona, passing amid the mountain ranges to Tucson, the chief town of the Territory, having six thousand people, a quaint and ancient Spanish settlement, which has considerable Mexican trade. It was originally an 436 appanage to the old Spanish mission of St. Xavier, nine miles southward, and it now thrives on its cattle trade, mining and magnificent climate, being also the location of the Territorial University. ”

“ His feet and pasterns were shapely and dainty as those of the señoritas (only for pastern read ankle) who so admired him on festa days at Tucson, and who won such stores of dulces from the scowling gallants who had with genuine Mexican pluck backed the Sonora horses at the races. ”

“ It is a good deal warmer in Tucson at all times than at Bisbee, for Tucson is 2,000 feet lower. Tucson is on the Southern Pacific Railroad, and is but a few miles from the line of Old Mexico.
Climatic conditions render it a most desirable place to live, but owing to Mexican labor competition wages are not as good as at Bisbee. In Tucson the laboring man receives but $2.50 per day for eight hours. ”

“ Tucson nodded, and opened his slow mouth to speak, but the nimbler Biron cut in.
“Oh, I been pretty bad some times. Any feller thirty years old or so, if he gits to thinkin’ all the fool things he’s done, he’s likely to kill himself laughin’.”
Tucson nodded gravely. “I reckon——”
“We uster to go down to the border, to them Mexican dances, to have fun with the Mexican girls. They have music an’ everthin’ an’ the greasers sit on one side of the [Pg 140] hall and the girls on the other. ”

“ The climate is exceedingly hot and dry. The principal industries of Tucson, besides stock-rearing, are connected with mining, as it is a supply point for mining districts in the neighbouring mountains and has several smelting works. The population, which in 1860 was 915, in 1870 3224, had grown by 1880 to 7007, and in 1887 was estimated to number nearly 10,000. About one-half are of foreign birth, a large proportion being Mexicans. Tucson is one of the oldest settlements in the United States, having been founded as a Jesuit mission by the Spaniards in the 17th century. ”

“ Its climate, characteristic of southern Arizona, attracts many invalids and winter visitors. Tucson is the seat of the university of Arizona (1891; non-sectarian, coeducational) , which is organized under the Morrill Acts; in 1909 it had 40 instructors and 201 students. At Tucson also are a desert botanical laboratory (owning a tract of some 1000 acres about 1 m. west of the city) established by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, St Joseph’s Academy (Roman Catholic) ”

“ Christ, Mahomet, Zoroaster, and Confucius all formulated their creeds in the desert. I gather that we are to expect from Arizona, at the proper time, some new prophet or sage, to sway again the destinies of men in their way.
The correspondent was satisfied, at any rate, that, with a public library, Tucson could shortly become another Alexandria of the desert, "a seat of learning and fountain-head of ideas, to be sought by students from Mexico, from the Pacific Islands, from China and Japan, and the mountains and valleys of the Rio Grande," and I for one shall be very glad to see it so. ”

“ A long time ago when the Indians were bad they had a soldiers’ post right here where this town stands, and they kept a lookout up on the Picket Post butte, where they could heliograph clear down to Tucson. Well, every time a bunch of Indians would go down out of the hills to raid some wagon-train on the trail this lookout would see them and signal Tucson and the soldiers would do the rest. It got so bymeby the Indians couldn’t do anything and at last Old Cochise got together about eight hundred Apaches and came over to wipe out the post. ”

“ Our conveyance was an old ambulance owned by Lord & Williams, who, as I have said, kept the only store and the post office in Tucson. The outfit was driven by "Old Bill" Sniffen, who will doubtless be remembered by many Arizona pioneers. We picked up on the way "Old [Pg 59] Man" Benedict, another familiar character, who kept the stage station and ranch at Sahuarita, where the Twin Buttes Railroad now has a station and branch to some mines, and where a smelter is located. We were paid ten dollars per day for our work and returned safely to Tucson. ”

“ The imminence of our trial was now heralded by the cook’s coming to Rocklin’s office punctual to his direction, and after her Pidcock almost immediately. It was not many minutes before the more important ones of us had gathered, and we proceeded to court, once again a Combination Extraordinary—a spectacle for Tucson. So much stir and prosperity had not blossomed in the town for many years, its chief source of life being the money that Lowell Barracks brought to it. But now its lodgings were crowded and its saloons and Mexican dens of entertainment waked to activity. ”

“ Mile-high in space circled a dark speck, a Mexican eagle, alone in the empty sky. He was looking down upon four hundred square miles of Arizona sand, called Repose Valley. He saw clots of cactus, thickets of mesquite, stunt oak bush, and white skeletons of cattle, but not a thing to eat. He also saw Aaron Tace, the shell-game man, in a Mexican hat. He saw also a man who, drifting lately to Tucson, had said his name was Belleville; but somebody in Tucson had pronounced this “Bellyful” ”

“ The lush green South eventually gave way to the Texas plains and then the dry highlands of New Mexico. There was something elemental and down home about New Mexico that was similar to Maine, Oliver found. The Indians were impressive—silent and aware, not unlike the Japanese in that respect. New Mexico wouldn't be a bad place to live.
Tucson was a small city in a basin rimmed by desert mountains. The University of Arizona was a modern oasis in the center. ”

“ Cattle-raising and farming are the leading industries of the surrounding district, which also has considerable mineral wealth. The industrial establishments of the city are for the most part connected with the mining industry. The water-works are owned by the municipality. Population, in 1890, 5150; in 1900, 7531.
Tucson was first permanently settled as a presidio by the Spaniards about 1776, though there had been previously a small Indian village, or rancheria (abandoned in 1763) , under the control of the Spanish authorities. ”

“ What was foretold in Judea is fulfilled in Arizona—the desert has blossomed like the rose.
I could hardly believe it, a month ago, when a Tucson business man, who in the kindness of his heart had turned the city upside down, almost, seeking to find a home for a man who was not a consumptive and did not wish to live in a hospital or a pest-house—I could hardly believe it, I repeat, when he said: “Oh, you mustn’t go back to Texas yet. You must stay and see the desert in bloom. ”

“ The welfare of the City of Tucson can evidently be promoted by increasing the agricultural productiveness of the land held by the Farms Company and the plans by which the Farms Company hopes to encourage settlement are well-devised, but it must be borne in mind that the Indians, who have lived at San Xavier for many generations, have the prior claim upon the water supply. ”

“ At the time of our first exploration (1854) there was virtually no civilized population in the recently acquired territory. The old pueblo of Tucson contained probably three hundred Mexicans, Indians, and half breeds. The Pima Indians on the Gila River numbered from seven to ten thousand, and were the only producing population. We could not explore the country north of the Gila River, because of the Apaches, who then numbered fully twenty thousand. For three hundred years they have killed Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans, which makes about the longest continuous war on record. ”