Along the Way

Historic Apache Trail Runs the Gamut of Geographic Features

THE ESSENCE OF Arizona lies along State Route 88, the Apache Trail. All of the state's essential qualities are visible here -desert, mountains, water, sky, past, present and future-between Apache Junction, east of Phoenix, and Theodore Roosevelt Dam. The 37-mile trip takes about two and a quarter hours due to steep mountain grades, countless curves, brief stops and stretches of one-way traffic. The last 21 miles are unpaved. To begin, drive U.S. Route 60 eastward from Mesa to Apache Junction. Turn on the Idaho Road Exit 196 and drive north on State 88 into town about 2.2 miles, where 88 turns right. Mileage references begin at the border of the Tonto National Forest, which is marked with a sign. Set your odometer to zero. Because the dirt road is well maintained, passenger cars will have no clearance problems. Before there was an Apache Trail, which was designated as Arizona's first historic and scenic highway in 1988, there was the Salt River. Native cultures traveled the shoreline of the Salt River through the Mazatzal Mountains for a thousand years, and the fertile soil in the Salt River Valley enticed the first settlers to restore canals built by the ancient Hohokam people. Agriculture thrived and the population grew. By 1872, a thousand families lived in the Salt River Valley. The unpredictable hydrologic cycle of drought and flood kept the Salt uncontrollable. By 1889, the idea of reclamation gained political momentum nationally. Storing runoff for irrigation during dry times would sustain arid lands for agriculture. On June 17, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the National Reclamation Act. In a narrow gorge below the confluence of Tonto Creek and the Salt River, a three-man survey team selected the site for a stone-masonry dam that would rise 280 feet above bedrock and would eventually cost $10.3 million to construct. The first 6-ton stone was laid on September 20, 1906. Its namesake, former President Roosevelt, dedicated the dam on March 18, 1911. Before the first granite block could be laid, however, a road had to be built that could bring men, equipment, materials and supplies from Mesa and Phoenix to the dam site. Road construction began in 1904, and mule teams started hauling freight wagons a