ARIZONA GREETS A NEW GOVERNOR.

Arizona Greets a New Governor R. T. (Bob) JONES, business man, takes over duties of Chief Executive

THE inauguration of R. T. (Bob) Jones as governor brings to the Chief Executive's chair a man thoroughly familiar with the problems of the state and one eminently qualified to serve in that high office. His background and experience are not limited to any one section of the state. His outlook is that of a business man who has come into contact with thousands of Arizona's citizens, and from that contact has acquired a keen penetration into the needs and problems of the various groups and types of people that make up this commonwealth. Moreover, Governor Jones' career as State Senator from Pinal and Maricopa counties, a mining and cattle-raising county on one hand and an agricultural county on the other, equips him with knowledge and insight into the function of the state government that will prove a valuable accessory in giving leadership to a progressive people.

As he takes office, Bob Jones has the complete confidence, support and good will of the citizens of Arizona. His actions in the interim between his election and his inauguration have shown calm judgment, straight-forwardness of purpose, and rare statesmanship coupled with common sense. It is little wonder that the people accept him as their governor with such satisfaction.

The story of Bob Jones begins when America was young, and that portion of the country west of the Mississippi was the impenetrable frontier. His mother's people, the Leggs and the Pecks, were Virginians. The march of Empire west found them taking the frontiersman trail to east Tennessee. Her people were among the early settlers of that Southern state and with their axe and their rifle helped conquer the wilderness. In those days, Tennessee was part of North Carolina, that wild part that knew only the tread of the marauding Indian. Benjamin J. Peck, his mother's uncle, became one of the leading citizens of eastern Tennessee, and as such helped form the laws of a territory where no formal laws had penetrated.

Bob Jones' grandfather on his mother's side was Dr. Legg, a country doctor, who withstood the privations of early frontier life to minister to the sick and help a pioneer people build a great state.

BY RAYMOND CARLSON Editor, ARIZONA HIGHWAYS Bob Jones' father was a lumber-mill operator in eastern Tennessee. He, too, gave of his time and service for the public good, acting as a circuit judge and arbiter in a countryside too remote and sparsely settled for the formal influence of the law to hold sway. The elder Jones served as a Colonel of the Home Guards after the Civil War and contributed to the reestablishment of law and order after the War between the States.

The present governor of Arizona was born in Rutledge, Tennessee, near Knoxville, in the year 1884. He was christened Robert Taylor Jones. His people, in summation, were pioneer and frontier folk, who helped build what was then a frontier state, and played the part of good citizens in giving of their time and effort to help make the territory they pioneered better and fuller than they found it.

Bob Jones started out very early in life, in his late teens, at the very bottom of an engineering crew that was making a survey for the L. & N. Railroad company. His first gainful occupation was the making of stakes. He became quite adept at that before he graduated to the position of stake marker, but by dint of night study of engineering books and hard work he became by gradual ascent, rodman, transitman and finally was placed in charge of the party. This was considered a phenomenal raise for a boy in those days. He was equipped with a general primary education which was not the fortune of every boy in eastern Tennessee.

Today Governor Jones carries in his wallet a pass-card on the old "Hiwassee Route," for which railroad he helped build and plan a path through eastern Tennessee.

Equipped with the experience gained from the engineering crew on that railroad, Bob Jones went into business for himself as a small contractor. The world was big and there were big things happening; so he gave up his contracting business and went to Panama where he worked for a year during the construction of the Panama canal.

When he returned to this country after a year of hectic experience in Panama, he came first to Los Angeles. A railroad was being laid from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City, the Salt Lake Railroad, and in a short time he was again in the business, railroad building, now serving as resident engineer when iron rails were going through Beatty, Rhyolite to Goldfield, during the Nevada gold boom. The mining boom brought on a construction boom, and he went to work for the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Co., in construction of the mill and later worked in other phases of mining, even "mucking" underground.

When the mining boom died down, he turned again to railroad construction, this time in Mexico, where he was with the engineering crew that was building the railroad through Sonora to San Lorenzo and Mazatlan. Railroad building in Mexico in those days, with the Yaquis rambling about with blood in their eyes, had its venturesome moments, and required a staunch courage and a stout heart to master. In 1909, Bob Jones came to Arizona working first with the Globe and Gila Valley railroad, and then was in charge of the construction of the railroad from Kelvin to Ray Junction.

Arizona and our new governor have come a long way since that day in 1909 when Bob Jones followed his path of destiny into what was then the territory of Arizona. The 25-year-old youngster found Phoenix and Tucson struggling little villages with muddy streets in the rain and hot and dusty streets in the sun. The first development was beginning in the mining region around Miami. Good roads weren't even dreamed of by the most visionary and the great empire of agriculture and irrigation that is now in existence in this state was merely in conversational form among the citizens at Central and Washington in Phoenix. In 1909, the future of Arizona didn't (Turn to Page 27)