THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DICK WICK HALL

That Salome Frog

I'M SEVEN Years Old and I Cannot Swim So Don't Blame Me for Looking Grim. When a Frog has to Carry a Big Canteen And Water his Back to Keep it Green And Prime Himself if he Wants to Cry When his Belly gets Burned with Alkali Where the Grass Grows Brown instead of Green A Frog Can't Help but Feeling Mean I'm an Old Bull Frog and Dang My Hide I Can't Swim Because I never Tried.

A spot on the desert, he made it his home, He liked it he boosted it, and named it Salome.

The voice in the wilderness that made millions laugh With his comic little sheet from a mimeograph.

DICK WICK HALL virtually created this little community of his own imagination, and through his activities there, he and his Salome became known throughout the world. From the day he began handing out the little mimeographed sheet to tourists passing through this desert hamlet, until the grim reaper snatched him from us almost without warning, Dick Wick Hall made millions chuckle and forget their troubles with his timely philosophy and refreshing humor. It seems a twist of fate that two of our greatest humorists, Will Rogers and Dick Wick Hall, should be lost to us at the peak of their fame but their works will live on to the end of time.

DeForest Hall was born in Creston, Iowa, in 1877, on “The coldest day in the history of the world.” The mercury read thirty-five below which caused him to remark that he received a cold reception into this world. His school days through high school were spent there after which he entered the University of Nebraska. Having a flare for nature he studied orniHERE once lived in a small town on an Arizona desert a man by the name of Dick Wick Hall, whose literary fame from humorous writings is becoming more widespread with each passing year. His story is of interest to all Arizonans.

thology along with his engineering course -in fact he made a trip to Florida to collect birds and other specimens for the University and the Smithsonian Institution. The call of the wild was too much for him. After one year he left college. “Much to my regret” as he put it later.

He attended Omaha's big fair and Indian congress in 1898. Representatives of nearly all of the tribes in the country were there. Indians fascinated him. Anxious to learn more about their ways he hired out as a guard at the Government building in order to be around them. After the fair he returned to Creston.

Some time later Arizona's Territorial Secretary, a friend of the Hall family, stopped of at Creston on his way east. He told of the fine western country and of the wonderful opportunities to be had in Arizona. Dick gave this suggestion more than passing thought; however, we next find him working on the railroad where he “fired a locomotive long enough to burn up most of the coal on the C. В. & Q.” His thoughts were on Arizona, the Indians, and the great West. A chance reading about the Snake Dances in the Hopi country Indians dancing with live rattlesnakes in their mouths, was too much for him. He left for the West. Everything was wide open then in Ari-zona Territory. The country was open-ing up and as Dick wrote, "I was young and curious, and the unrestrained exub-erance of youth led me blithely along through a post-graduate course of edu-cation not written down in books a hot melting pot of experiences which go to make up life."

His stay at the Hopi villages thrilled him. He donned native garb and learned their ways and customs and later was taken into the tribe, a rare distinction for anyone other than their own people. He remained for quite some time, "long enough to have a great respect for them, their religious dances and ceremonials-and their snakes."

Later, his interests centered in Phoenix, where he worked for a while in the office of the Territorial Secretary during a session of the legislature. He saw the need of an amusement park in the Capital City and transformed the old city dump into a beautiful park on the site of the present Riverside Park. The venture, however, was not a success, and after a time it was abandoned.

His acquaintance with a Gila county representative while working at the capitol resulted in a trip to Pleasant Valley, in the Tonto Basin country, scene of the notorious Graham Tewksbury cattle-sheep feud, where he spent two summers as he put it, "ranching the Tewksbury ranch where I raised the first real garden truck many of them had ever seen or tasted let my hair grow long in a youth-A rare genius, whose wit and mirth has immortalized an Arizona desert town, and whose writings have become known throughout the world."

DICK WICK HALL

Full ambition to look wild and fed, both sheep and cattle men alike. I often won-dered why someone didn't shoot me; but good gardeners were scarce and it would have been foolish to shoot a man down on his knees weeding onions."

Dick rode horseback from the Tonto Basin to Phoenix over the old Sun-flower Trail by way of historic Fort McDowell. His brother, Ernest, had gone to Phoenix in the meantime and both worked at the newly constructed capitol building. The Hall brothers seemed to be popular among the capitol-ites. A not-to-be-forgotten incident oc-curred there one day when someone wagered a five dollar bill that Dick could throw Ernest in a wrestling bout, the scuffle ending up with a broken ankle for Dick.

Wickenburg called them next new mines, prospecting, the thrill of adven-ture and visions of riches. In a short time they had started a newspaper. Dick edited the paper for two years. He boosted Wickenburg and the mines with great vigor. His political views and side-lights were of more than passing import-ance. After operating the paper, The Wickenburg News-Herald, for about a year, he found himself three thousand dollars in the red and made a plea through his editorials for support from the mining interests in return for the boosts he had given. His editorial con-cluded with the following lines which gained column editorials from such papers as the New York Sun and the Omaha Inter-Ocean: "The past ten months serve to remind us Editors don't stand a chance; The more we work we find behind us Bigger patches on our pants. (Continued on Page 25) In the days of Dick Wick Hall, when travel was slow and the desert was hot, wayfarers were greeted by this friendly sign as they approached Salome, welcoming them to share of his friendly hospitality at his service station.

FISHING FOR « SILT »

By H. G. FRANSE THERE'S gold in that thar river! Gold! The magic word electrified countless thousands of men and sent them scrambling into desolate regions seeking the elusive metal. But why get steamed up about gold in the silt-laden waters of the Colorado? There's gold in the sea too if you take the trouble to recover it, and it's a lot easier to get than the trace of flour gold in the Colorado. Wilbur T. Stuart, a young civil engineer who won his degree in the University of Colorado, is more interested in the silt of the river than he is in the gold. It pays him better too. As operator of the U. S. Geological Survey gaging station at the foot of Kaibab Trail in Grand Canyon National Park, it's his job to measure the volume of water and silt that flows ceaselessly into Lake Mead, the gigantic body of water impounded above Boulder Dam. From a million to twenty-million tons of silt pour into the great reservoir each twenty-four hours. The Geological peo-ple want to know how much of the earth's top soil is carried down the river and what can be done to control it. Several surveys of the problem have already been made. The ultimate control may consist of desilting dams in tributary streams to stop the soil before it reaches the river; supplemental dams in the Colorado proper, or both.

If the present volume of silt continues to reach the lake, engineers have figured that some 150 to 200 years hence if you happen to be around then in some form or other, you can probably roll up your pants and wade the lake that now has a depth of more than 400 feet.

When Damocles glanced up from the banquet table and spied a sword dangling over his head, suspended by a single hair, it probably gave him quite a wallop. But that historically famous "yes man" had it easy compared to Stuart. History credits Damocles with but one such experience. Stuart dallies with death five hours every day when he boards his tram and slides out above the turbulent stream to fish for silt samples and measure the flow of water. He's suspended by more than a hair, of course. In fact he rides in a car designed especially for Colorado River service in the Geological Survey headquarters at Tucson. The car, weighing 800 pounds, is supported by a plowsteel cable one inch in diameter, tested to carry a weight five times greater than the burden to which it is subjected. That's an ample margin of safety so Stuart doesn't waste his time worrying about it. Gagers are trained men and the Geological Survey isn't taking any chances of having one dunked in the river.

When everything functions according to design, all is well. "I have a personal interest in seeing that the equipment is in perfect condition," Stuart said when asked about safety inspections. "I watch for cracks in the anchorage, and compensate for variations in the cable tension due to changes in temperatures. The tramway is anchored above the highest water level established since the gaging station was installed in 1922. In 1884, however, a discharge of 250,000 cubic feet per second was recorded, a rise of ten times the normal volume. If it is true that history repeats itself, then One of these days some gager is scheduled for a lively experience.

So long as the discharge is 25,000 c. f. s., Stuart stands his trick alone and takes four silt samples daily, but when the volume exceeds that amount, a second gager is brought in and eight samples are taken. This usually occurs in the spring and in the fall.

A silt sample is taken by placing a pint milk bottle in a special carrier that is lowered to the river bottom and then by means of an adjustable cork a certain amount of water is allowed to enter as the bottle is raised to the top at an even rate of speed, thus taking water from all depths of the river.

The work requires a high degree of accuracy and the tolerance of error is not greater than 2%. Reports are compared with those of other stations, of which there are seven on the Colorado in Arizona, and any variation is checked to establish the cause. A 150-pound torpedo-like lead weight with a meter attached is lowered into the