EDITORIAL

APRIL, 1937 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 11 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

PUBLISHED IN THE INTEREST OF GOOD ROADS BY THE ARIZONA HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT BERT CAMPBELL, EDITOR CIVILIZATION FOLLOWS THE IMPROVED HIGHWAY

Vol. XIII APRIL, 1937 No. 4

R. C. STANFORD, GOVERNOR OF ARIZONA ARIZONA STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION SHELTON G. DOWELL, Chairman, Douglas J. W. ANGLE, Vice-Chairman, Tucson R. G. LANGMADE, Commissioner, Phoenix E. C. SEALE, Commissioner, Prescott JOHN M. SCOTT, Commissioner, Holbrook M. L. WHEELER, Secretary, Phoenix A. R. LYNCH, Assistant Attorney General, Special Counsel GENERAL OFFICE T. S. O'CONNELL, State Highway Engineer SID SMYTH, Deputy State Engineer C. W. GARDNER, Vehicle Superintendent R. A. HOFFMAN, Bridge Engineer E. V. MILLER, Engineer of Plans J. W. POWERS, Engineer of Materials COL. J. G. EAGER, Superintendent of Equipment SWAN A. ERICKSON, Engineer of Certification J. R. VAN HORN, Traffic and State-Wide Planning Engineer J. S. MILLS, Engineer of Estimates H. C. HATCHER, Statistical Engineer W. M. MURRAY, Superintendent of Stores THOMAS RUMANS, Patrol Superintendent JACK D. SHELEY, Right-of-Way Agent MORGAN G. PRATT, Purchasing Agent

FIELD ENGINEERS

GEORGE B. SHAFFER, District Engineer F. N. GRANT, District Engineer - R. C. PERKINS, District Engineer W. R. HUTCHINS, District Engineer - PERCY JONES, Chief Locating Engineer District No. 1 District No. 2 District No. 3 District No. 4

A FAMOUS AUTHOR WRITES ON ARIZONA

IN the March issue of Harpers Magazine J. B. Priestley, eminent English novelist and essayist, becomes lyric over the beauties of Arizona. Harpers has published excerpts from "Midnight on the Desert," an autobiographical account of the two winters spent by Mr. Priestley near Wickenburg. He writes: "I think our chosen district in Arizona near Wickenburg, between Phoenix and Prescott, and about 2,000 feet high, has the best winter climate in the world, which is notoriously short of good climate... I prophesy that as transport becomes quicker, cheaper, easier, the Wickenburg district will become increasingly important; for a winter climate as good as this will prove a better gold mine than the old Vulture,. In short, there's gold in them thar hills, but the best of it is the January sunshine.

"The air is enchanting, quite unlike any I have known before, being crystal clear and faintly but persistently aromatic. It is this air, strongly actinic, that gives the Arizona landscape its enduring charm. Seen close at hand there is nothing very attractive about these hills, so prickly with cactus, or the savage, rocky peaks behind them. There is no foreground prettiness here, as there is in California. The vast distances do the trick.

"This air seems to act like a powerful stereoscopic lens. Everything far away and you can see scores of miles is magically moulded and colored. The mountains, solidly threedimensional ranges and peaks, are an exquisite blue in the daytime and turn amethyst at sunset. Things near at hand are dusty green, grayish, brownish, rather drab; but everywhere toward the far horizon rise chunks of color, unbelievably sumptuous.

"And the nights are even more spacious than the days. No lid of darkness is clapped over you. The spaces are wider than ever, and are lit, night after night, with all the stars of the northern hemisphere, as precisely defined as the stars in a planetarium.

He voices his debt to Arizona as only one of the foremost living writers could describe it: "I felt a sudden warmth of gratitude for this strange new-old country that had lent me all this winter its sun, its crystalline spaces, its amethyst mountains, its scarlet and blue birds, its huge nights of stars. I am too restless to settle down here or anywhere else, but I can always summon up enough patience to write a book . . . and if I cannot be loyal, I can be grateful."

"I am not a son of the state," he writes (in fact he traveled 6,000 miles from London to Arizona and 6,000 miles back again), "have not ten cents invested in it, and am not being paid to boost it. Nevertheless I declare that Arizona really is a wonderland . . . filled with marvels. Wizardry has been at work here. In the north, where you are mile and a half high, there is the Grand Canyon, which is enough in itself to clear a whole continent from the charge of being dull. But you also have the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forests. The dinosaurs left their tracks in these parts. When the giant meteor decided to embed itself in the earth, it chose Arizona, and you may see the crater it made, near Winslow. There are great tracks of virgin forests as well as hundreds of miles(Continued on Page 22)

OUR COVER PICTURE

PHOTOGRAPHER Norman G. Wallace has caught some beautiful cloud and light effects in this study of Lake Mary.

This beautiful spot of northern Arizona is ten miles southeast of Flagstaff and should not be missed in a "See Arizona" trip.

ANTIQUE DEMONSTRATOR This job is a rare wormwood antique, vintage of 1925. It is suffering from rheumatism, hardening of the arteries, creeping paralysis and senile decay. Besides, the horsepower has the heaves. This relic will fall apart one of these days for it is living on borrowed time, on a long-term loan. Antiquated junk like this belongs, not on the highways, but in an automobile boneyard. It is a constant menace to the safety of the driver and the public generally, as our accident records prove.