TAKING THE OFF-RAMP

From Courthouse to Museum

Built in 1898, the Navajo County Historical Courthouse in Holbrook held court until 1976. Now it's the home of the Old West Museum with collections ranging from petrified wood and ancient Indian pottery to a telephone switchboard. Old dishes, quilts and toys share space with a chuck box, Navajo rugs, saddles and a parlor organ. Paintings by local artist Garnett Franklin explain Holbrook's history, including gunfights, railroads, cattle companies and Navajo Indians. The jail is a special attraction. Costing $3,000, it was built in St. Louis when the courthouse was in the planning, shipped by rail, then installed during courthouse construction. Made of steel painted green, it features narrow bunks, gunports, catwalks and a drunk tank complete with prisoner's wall sketches. It's somber enough to deter a life of crime. During the weekday evenings of June and July, Navajo dancers perform outside the courthouse. Information: (928) 524-2459; www.ci.holbrook.az.us.

{taking the off-ramp} Speed Demons

The Arizona Republican supplied the trophy, the speedsters supplied the cars and the great race from Los Angeles to Phoenix began. Among the Cactus Derby entries leaving Los Angeles at midnight on November 7, 1908, were a Kissel Kar, an Elmore, a Franklin and a White Steamer. They fought off cattle and sand pits, and the cars lost or broke various parts. As winner, the White Steamer took the trophy with a time of slightly more than 30 hours. The driver, Col. E.C. Fenner, pronounced the passage between Mecca, California, and Buckeye, Arizona, as "the worst roads in the United States." Picking bugs off their teeth and sand out of their eyes, drivers made the race an annual event until the last running in 1914 (winning time: 23 hours). That trip can now be made in about six hours, but today nobody lines the streets and applauds when drivers barrel through their towns and cities. That would require, as it did before, nothing less than a White Steamer.

THIS MONTH IN ARIZONA

1853 In the first steamboat disaster on the Colorado River, the Uncle Sam sinks near Fort Yuma.

1871 Gen. George Crook takes command of the Army's Department of Arizona. He says Indians should be treated fairly, but kept under control.

1874 Chiricahua Apache chief Cochise dies in the Dragoon Mountains, his tribe's stronghold. The location of his burial was never disclosed to non-Apaches.

1879 An executive order establishes the Salt River Indian Reservation for the Pima and Maricopa Indians and defines its southern boundary as "up and along the middle of the river."

1881 Thirty thousand pounds of gunpowder explode in a powder magazine on the edge of Tucson, smashing windows and dishes and damaging buildings across town.

1894 The town of Flagstaff is incorporated.

Farmers' Market in the Plaza

There are farmers' markets, and then there are farmers' markets, but there are none classier than the Tucson Farmers' Market in St. Philip's Plaza. For nearly six years, leisurely Sunday morning shoppers have strolled through the market's elegant Spanish-adobe setting, choosing fresh fruits and vegetables to the accompaniment of music from local groups. Manish Shah, who runs Maya Tea Co., charges vendors $25 per table at the market and runs a tight ship. "The market offers products of the soil," he says. "Everything is food and plant related." He started with seven vendors the first year and now averages between 25 and 30, depending on the season. Displays include vine-ripened tomatoes, bags of flavored peanuts, goat's milk, green and yellow melons, farm-fresh eggs and more. On Sunday mornings, the Tucson Farmer's Market at St. Philip's Plaza is located across the street from St. Philip's in the Hills Church at River Road and Campbell Avenue. Information: (520) 793-8344.

Tempe Tea and Cake, Too

"Delicious Cakes, Pies, Rolls, Buns, Coffee Cake, and Doughnuts, like your mother used to make" proclaimed the signage in front of the 1888 Tempe Bakery that sold fresh baked goodies to Tempe's early residents. Located at 95 W. Fourth St., just west of Mill Avenue in downtown, this turn-of-the-last-century structure is known as Hackett House today and serves as headquarters for the nonprofit Tempe Sister Cities Corp. and its gift shop.

The building ranks as the oldest, fired-red-brick commercial building in Tempe. According to city of Tempe staff, it possesses the most original integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association of any Territorial commercial building in Maricopa County. It contains the original interior walls, bakery shelves, counters and display window. The bakery later became a residence for the Hacketts, and family members occupied the home until 1970. In 1974 the city of Tempe purchased the property as part of a redevelopment project, and that same year it was nominated for a place on the National Register of Historic Places. Hackett House was restored to its appearance at the time of Arizona's statehood in 1912, and Tempe Sister Cities was given use of the historic home as its headquarters in 1986.

Today the old bakery shop brims with activity, as home to an international cooking school, afternoon teas, children's programs and festivals, and it's available for free tours. Hackett House projects support the Tempe Sister Cities organization in promoting community interest in the people of other countries and cultures.

Information: (480) 350-8181 or www.tempe.gov/sister.

Quartzsite Vendor

The Yuma Examiner of January 3, 1910, mentioned that Anton Hagely told the story about a peddler who was required to fill out an application to do business in Quartzsite.

The gentleman in question was an entrepreneur who sold items from a pack on his back, and apparently didn't make a whole lot of money this way.

Here is what he wrote: Name: Michael Levinsky Born: Yes Business: Rotten

LIFE IN ARIZONA 1 9 20 s THE FROG MAN KEEPS SALOME HOPPING

Salome, a town on State Route 60 west of Phoenix, lies in an agricultural area. However, cows and pigs aren't the most important animals there. Frogs are the town's stock in trade.

A fictional frog that couldn't swim was a character in a story told by Dick Wick Hall, the mining promoter who also operated the Laughing Gas Station in Salome. (Chances are the frog in the story wasn't a frog, but rather a Colorado River toadfound in the area especially after rains.) Hall entertained hot, tired travelers in the days before air conditioning, when automobile travel was an extreme adventure, with his paper the Salome Sun, which he claimed was "Made With A Laugh On A Mimeograph."

His humor brought him the success that had previously eluded him, for it is said that one day the editor of The Saturday Evening Post, George Horace Lorimer, stopped by and was impressed by the funnyman-gas station proprietor, and that's how Hall started writing a column for the prestigious Post.

Although the Laughing Gas Station long ago rejoined the earth, Hall's influence remains in Salome. The high-school teams are named the Frogs, and frogs adorn several public places. Hall's grave and monument are surrounded by a fence on the north side of the railroad tracks.

In 1926 Hall literally and figuratively "went West," as they said about people who died in those days. He went to Los Angeles to have some dental work done, and while he was there it was discovered that he had Bright's Disease, and so he cashed in his chips in the City of the Angels.

Not much has changed in Salome since Hall lived there, except that the section of Interstate 10 between Blythe and Phoenix took away the throughtraffic into town. Summers are hot and good jobs are hard to find, but people stay on. Perhaps they remain because of the meaning of a sign that says: "SALOME IS HEAVEN TO US DON'T DRIVE LIKE HELL

Stout's, That Apple Place

Those who cannot remember the name just call it “That Apple Place in Arizona,” but they never forget the delicious deep-dish pies thick with 10 pounds of fresh apples. Ron and Corinne Stout, with their daughter Robin, manage their orchards of 10,000 apple trees representing 18 varieties. The family operates Stout's Cider Mill in Willcox, where they sell their homemade delights. In addition to apple pies and ciders, they also sell apricot, peach, pear and cherry preserves and gift merchandise. Best of all, their food contains no preservatives.

Every week the Stouts load their van and hit the road to offer their products throughout Arizona and New Mexico. To find out when they will be in your area, go to http://www.cidermill.com. Information: (520) 384-3696.

A Wall of World Friendship

The simple medium of clay has forged a strong friendship between Arizona and people from around the world. Tangible proof of that bond exists in the Friendship Wall in the ceramic studio on the campus of Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

Mounted on the Bendel Gallery walls are nearly 200 ceramic tiles, made by people in Japan and from other countries and states, too.

The Friendship Wall was the brainchild of Don Bendel, who taught ceramics at the university for more than 30 years. It started with a single tile, given to Bendel by Koichi Sawada of Himeji, Japan. (Himeji, coincidentally, is a sister city of Phoenix.) The tile is a reproduction of one from a castle that survived World War II. Painted on it is a butterfly, the symbol of a 16thcentury shogun. The tile had been in Sawada's garden for almost 40 years, but he gave it to Bendel, saying, “We're friends and I want you to have this.” That's when “it kind of dawned on me that I should do the wall,” Bendel said. He invited contributions from all over the world, including more from Japan and others from Estonia, Africa, Denmark and Russia. Some came from famous potters, others from young children. The only requirement was that each tile be 1-foot-square. Designs include leaping fish, trees, cups, a cat, a Volkswagen Beetle, faces, hands and poetry. And like true friendships, the wall is growing, with new tiles being added each year.

The ceramic studio and the gallery are located in the Tozan Educational Facility south of the NAU Skydome, on Lone Tree Road. Information: (928) 523-1027.

Question of the Month

What is one of the tiniest, yet fiercest predators in the state?

Arizona claims 36 different species of tiger beetle (family Cicindelidae). This tiny dynamo can grow to 25 millimeters comes in an array of styles from classic black to metallic green, brown, maroon, purple, sometimes even sporting stripes or spots.

Gifted with the ability to outrun its prey, the tiger beetle crushes the unlucky insect in its sicklelike jaws, shreds it, and then liquefies it with digestive juices from its mouth. The predigested insect is then rolled into a gooey meatball and consumed.

There's Still a Great Escape at Papago Park

No doubt the 25 German Navy officers who escaped from the World War II prisoner of war camp in Papago Park in Phoenix did what they had to do at the time-not that their U-boat experience did the POWs any good in the sandy riverbeds of Arizona's desert. Capture quickly followed the greatest prisoner of war escape on U.S. soil.

Today visitors escape to the 1,200-acre Papago Park, which is home to the Phoenix Zoo, a fire museum, fishing lagoons and a botanical garden. The park lures beginning to experienced hikers and bicyclists to its trails and to Hole-In-The-Rock, a natural geological formation in the terracotta-hued buttes located in the center of the Phoenix valley. If you'd rather picnic than clamber along the park's smooth hills, there are plenty of ramadas, tables and grills for those escaping exertion.

The 18-hole Papago Golf Course, Papago archery range and softball complex are nearby. You'll need an urban fishing license, though, if you plan to fish the lagoons for stocked trout in winter or catfish in summer.

Information: phoenix.gov/parks/hikepapa.html and www.arizonensis.org/sonoran/ places/papago.html.