TWO THOUSAND YEARS

OCTOBER, 1937 ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

the Sun is just one more thing under the sun that is not new. Centuries ago, just how many no one knows and scientific experts are not agreed in their guesses, a race of people who lived and passed on before the days of the aboriginies, who were found here when Columbus and his followers came, had built canals and houses of caliche earth, tamped and sun baked. Many ruins are found throughout Central and Southern Arizona, some have been excavated. The ruins and relics make an interesting study, but as Kipling was wont to say.. “that is another story.” The Pima Indians, and to a lesser extent some other Arizona Indians, were raising crops by irrigation when the first Spanish explorers came. The success of the Indians and the evident developments of the ancients were the inspiration for Spanish, Mexican and finally of American settlers to transform the desert into one of the most productive areas on the globe.

A large part of this farm land produces crops which are not competitive with those grown in the great midwestern and Atlantic slope farm areas. The long staple cotton grown here has for its chief competition, cotton from the Nile valley of Egypt. The middling upland cotton produced here is similar to that grown in a small area in the Delta of the Mississippi. Nearly 30,000 acres are devoted to growing citrus fruits which cannot be grown in the corn, wheat and most of the cotton states.

About 30,00 acres also are used in the production of winter head lettuce, which is produced at a time when most of the farm areas are covered with snow. Arizona is second among all states in acreage and production of head lettuce. Among all states Arizona has achieved the sixth place in production for market of all truck crops. A thousand acres in carrots, 10,000 in cantaloupes, several hundred in garden peas, and cauliflower help to make up a grand total of truck crops of 36,000 acres, worth more than six million dollars. Sixteen years ago the acreage of truck crops here was approximately 4,000 acres.

An increasing area is being planted each year to dates. There are only two states in the Union that can grow successfully the delicious dates similar to those grown in Arabia, except that in this country they may be marketed fresh, a rare food, richest of fruit and delicate as the choicest confections.

The home gardener finds something to plant each month of the year. The deciduous fruits, such as peaches, apricots and plums and small fruits, all help to make the home more attractive, lower the cost of living, and improve the health of the family.

Alfalfa is cut four to six times a year, and then furnishes some pasture. Grain sown in the fall is pastured in winter and makes grain in early summer, the land then being planted to corn or grain sorghum.

Nowhere else are home surroundings more conducive to a full enjoyment than here in the Valley of the Sun. The water that makes vegetation flourish produces electric energy that lights the farm homes, does the cooking, runs the radio and the refrigerator, cools the milk for the dairyman, and lightens the labor of the housewife.

Smooth paved highways lead from homes to church, to school, amusements, and modern stores. Country life in the Valley of the Sun is ideal, children thrive, the sick recover, and the healthy stay that way. To those who are in a position to retire from business or active work, there is a charm about this land of sunshine, where there are no blizzards, very little rain, fog or wind, where fields and trees are perpetually green, and the flowers bloom and the birds sing; that quiets the nerves and breeds contentment and happiness supreme. The perfect place to settle down and really enjoy life.

2000 Years-- In the Valley of the Sun

RECENTLY I talked with a man whom the world called "old," but whose vision, sharpened by the perspective of years, is as keen as that of the youngest college graduate. We talked of many things that have transpired in the years that have gone. He told me of men and affairs of the long ago, and I pride myself on being something of an old-timer myself. Then he leaned back, and with a twinkle in his eye and a half-smile said, "You know, I have lived here in this Valley for two thousand years." In that brief period before he continued, there flashed through my mind the question of whether this man, whose conversation convinced me that his mental faculties have not in any way been impaired by his years, had a queer quirk or haze, or is he a Thesophist and imagines that in some previous state he existed as a chief, perhaps, of that ancient people that once inhabitated this country, and of whose passing we know but little, and only comparatively little of the lives which they lived!

And then he said, "What I mean is this. Since 1868 when I first came into this country I have seen developments here in this valley which are greater, more advanced, showing higher type of civilization, than has been accomplished in Palestine in two thousand years." Later I could not help but reflect that the remarkable experience of this man, whose span of years was somewhat longer than that of the Palmist, has enabled him to experience such changes as have taken place, changes which in this particular part of the universe are more marked than perhaps in any other part of our nation.

When he came here the great Salt River Valley plain was so-called desert with the exception of a comparatively few acres which were being irrigated from the canal built the winter before.

He helped to harvest the first crop ever grown in this Valley in modern times.

He had earlier told me of the roads existing in the then young territory. I asked him about the road between two certain points and he said, "We did not build roads in those days; we found trails over which wagons could be hauled by perhaps moving a few rocks that we could not go around, or felling an occasional tree." Obstacles which included mountains they went around if possible; over, if necessary.

During his life-time here he has seen highways developed which are the marvel of the nation; highways which connect not only the important towns but lead to every little hamlet, and to points of scenic grandeur and natural wonder.

The automobile was then undreamed of, and only the wagons built of tough wood and hardest steel could stand up under the terrific strain to which they were put. He saw the railroads cross the territory.

He saw the mining industry develop from the pick and shovel prospector to the most modern of mining methods, the large mills, concentrators, smelters; saw Arizona gradually come to the front in the production of copper until it led all