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Litchfield Park.

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The Goodyear Rubber Company's Desert Garden

Featured in the October 1940 Issue of Arizona Highways

The stagecoach symbolizes the spirit of western hospitality at the Wigwam, Goodyear's resort at Litchfield Park.
The stagecoach symbolizes the spirit of western hospitality at the Wigwam, Goodyear's resort at Litchfield Park.

Litchfield Park THE GOODYEAR RUBBER COMPANY, THROUGH ITS SUBSIDIARY, HAS CREATED A GARDEN SPOT, RICH AND PRODUCTIVE, IN THE ARIZONA DESERT.

LITCHFIELD PARK is a garden spot in the Arizona deserta fragrant and blooming creation representing the admixture of Arizona's soil and sunshine with water, wise management, vision and thoughtful investment.

Litchfield Park is an entire community in Maricopa county, owned and managed by a single organization the Southwest Cotton Company, a subsidiary of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Sixteen miles west of Phoenix a tall flagpole surmounted by the familiar blue and yellow banner of Goodyear marks the center of this model city in miniature where a patchwork of green fields surrounds a central cluster of palmshaded cottages, warehouses and office buildings.

Goodyear came to Arizona in 1916, when a world war was practically choking off the whole of America's supply of long-staple Egyptian cotton needed in the manufacture of automobile tires. Some remedy for the shortage had to be found quickly. It was believed that the soil and climatic conditions of the Salt River Valley might be suited to Once the desert . . .

the production of cotton comparable to that grown in the valley of the Nile.

While gangs of laborers and teams of mules cleared the desert of its stubborn growth and drillers sank wells into seemingly waterless sand, Kenneth B. McMicken, now manager of ranching operations on the Litchfield property, was in Egypt studying cultivation methods. Meanwhile, the tire factory at Akron, Ohio, was establishing three new Arizona outposts at Goodyear, Litchfield Park (named for Paul W. Litchfield, president of the corporation), and Marinette. Before the expansion of the firm's holdings ceased, 32,000 acres were planted with cotton, a large part of which was an entirely new variety a combination of American and Egyptian stock called Pima.

For a few years Arizona's cotton industry grew rapidly. Pima soon become a favorite variety among independent growers, who raised it for a ready market practically undisturbed by foreign competition.

After the war, when normal trans-ocean commerce was resumed, the production of cotton in Arizona declined. In the early twenties many farmers were turning to more profitable crops, and a few more years saw the Litchfield cotton acreage reduced from 17,000 to the present figure of 6,000, which remains fairly constant from year to year.

Arthur H. Zieske was sent from Akron with his family to take charge of the ranch. He and an accompanying office staff set out to make the Goodyear Company's hasty emergency investment continue to pay its way. Ranching activities were extended so that practically all of the idle land was soon converted into grain and alfalfa fields, orange, lemon, and grapefruit groves, and date palms. Pasture was provided for several thousand sheep and cattle.

Quality rather than quantity has become the keynote of cotton production on the ranch. Respite from the war's rush of business created the opportunity to experiment with different grades and types of plants and to improve the strain. Much of the present growing of cotton is experimental. One of the problems which have been met successfully is the need for a fibre which is not only tough and long, but also supple enough to stand the thousands of flexings undergone by modern low pressure tires in every mile of travel. With the increase in the use of motorized farm implements came another opportunity.

Genteel living-amid beautiful surroundings at Litchfield Park.

Tractors have gradually replaced mules on the Litchfield Ranch, until now not more than a dozen draft animals are used. The International Harvester Company uses the ranch as a proving ground for its machinery.

Heat and dryness are the greatest enemies of rubber tires in everyday operation. Goodyear officials realized this early in Litchfield Park's history, and sent the "Test Fleet" west to establish a permanent tire-testing base on the ranch. Directly or indirectly, the tires of virtually every vehicle used in ranching operations are being tested "on the side." A fleet of passenger cars, tractors, and trucks is maintained solely for test purposes. Tractors on the ranch are all pneumatic-tired, as are most of the farming implements, and the tires, engaged in productive farm work, are undergoing exacting tests at the same time.

The most spectacular phase of the Test Fleet's work is concerned with truck tires. Huge truck-trailer units "fourteen-wheelers"often are equipped with only half their normal component of tires, and these are so undersized as to give the lumbering vehicles a ridiculously top-heavy appearance. Tremendous overloads-sometimes as great as 200% are carried in order to strain the tires to the utmost. Payloads are never transported in test trucks; the weighting is accomplished with sandbags and hoppers filled with crushed stone. The entire truck is weighed on a scale made for the purpose. On the highways and the testing grounds auxiliary tires of small diameter are mounted, fully inflated, alongside those that are being tested. These do not touch the ground except after the larger tire has blown out, serving to help the driver keep his vehicle under control. In one typical test, a large truck, carrying a load far in excess of the normal capacity of the tires with which it is equipped, travels at high speed toward a mechanical "bruiser" -a device which is thrown up into the path of the rear tire after the front wheel has passed over it. The load is gradually increased and the test repeated again and again until the tortured fabric and rubber give away and the tube blows out. Then the tire is inspected to ascertain whatever weakness there may be, and the findings are sent in a report to the factory at Akron.

Near the Test Fleet's garage are motor-driven rollers on which tires mounted on wheels and axles turn constantly in the sun, andnearby are other tires with white sidewalls left baking in order to determine the causes of cracks in the white surfaces. By means of the experiments of the Test Fleet, the company is enabled to improve continually the traction and non-skid properties of its tires as well as their strength and durability.

From the air Litchfield Park is a well planned community in a patchwork of cultivated fields.

The mighty equipment of a small agricultural empire rolls on tires-whose performance It is tested by Goodyear engineers. Operation of the "test fleet" is an important mission at crop. Thus there is practically no waste. Alfalfa fields in which cattle have grazed are opened to sheep. Each year about 2000 head of cattle and 5000 lambs are sold on the market by the Southwest Cotton Co.

The modern scientific methods employed in raising cattle on the ranch bring their reward in the top prices paid for the beef in the Kansas City and Los Angeles markets. The steers are fattened on growing alfalfa and on hegari, a type of maize. Cut-over hegari stalks are used for silage, and surplus alfalfa is dried for hay. The cattle are turned loose to browse in picked-over cotton fields, where the leaves, stalks, and unopened bolls provide rich nourishment. The manure left by the herds fertilizes the ground for the next The hundreds of bales lined up beside the gin during the peak of the cotton season proclaim eloquently that the production of cotton on the ranch, though smaller than it was during the war, still is far from negligible. Like the other crops, the cotton is used efficiently, without waste. The seed that is not used for replanting is converted into cottonseed oil to be sold or into cottonseed meal for livestock. In addition to the Pima (long staple) cotton, short staple varieties are also grown. The rayon used in the new Rayotwist tires is made from cotton, not from wood pulp.

The town of Litchfield Park is a complete little city in itself. The five hundred-odd residents are served by a grocery store, a drug store, a cafe, a garage and service station, an airport, and a postoffice. There are modern grade and high schools, constructed in attractive Spanish style. A new mission-type community church supplements the Catholic chapel to proLitchfield Park, operated by the Southwest Cotton company, a subsidiary of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber company, is a self-supporting institution. Under wise management there is no wasted effort. "Tire testing" of equipment in use at the ranch gives Goodyear engineers a chance to view Goodyear products hard at work under all sorts of strain and stress.

Farming operations at Litchfield Park are extensive. Though War 1, Litchfield Park is now the scene of various agriculsands of cattle fed at the ranch, are sold for fancy prices each tural activities. The farm pays its way. year. Started as a cotton ranch by Goodyear during World vide places of worship for those of all faiths. ing a strong and hardy yet gentle and Estrella and Goodyear's oasis-outposts in Green lawns are everywhere; streets are tractable strain has been developed. the Arizona desert-truly one of the many lined with date palms and orange and cotIn addition to the corral and riding fafascinating show-places of the Salt River tonwood trees. At the eastern edge of the cilities, there is a golf course, swimming Valley. • town is the Wigwam-a famed winter repool, tennis courts, and meticulously caredsort built originally for Goodyear execufor putting and bowling greens, badminton tives, but now open to guests. and croquet courts, and shuffleboard decks. The Wigwam offers a unique combination The landscaped grounds, forty acres in exof old and new surroundings. The atmostent, are covered with a profusion of semiphere of the old West has been preserved tropic greenery. in its old stagecoach and its chuck wagons, Another oasis-somewhat detached from and in the ancient lore abounding in nearby the town, about a half-mile to the north-is mountains and desert. the private estate of Paul W. Litchfield. One of Arizona's finest saguaro forests "The Hills," as it is called, is covered with blankets the sloping desert at the base of trees, flower beds, lawns, rock gardens, and the White Tank Mountains; nowhere so rustic streams and pools. There are private near Phoenix does the giant cactus grow recreational facilities of all kinds, and sevin such great profusion and variety of eral beautiful residences. Tame peacocks, forms. Several of the specimens, which quail, turkeys, and pheasants wander at have never been measured accurately, are will through the grounds. From the top believed to be taller than the acknowledged of the observation tower, reached by a windworld's largest northeast of Phoenix. ing stairway, a broad vista of desert, mounOne of the finest stables in the Westtains, and cultivated land can be seen. To and certainly one of the largest is mainthe west are the White Tanks and the model tained by the Wigwam. The Wigwam dude farms of the Future Farmers of America. string has been bred on the ranch for sevTo the north, the white-tipped crest of the eral generations. The mounts are a comBradshaw Range; to the east, the blue pyrabination of Thoroughbred and Steeldust, mid of Camelback Mountain rising abruptly and by selective breeding and careful trainbeyond Phoenix; southward, the craggy Cotton, hegari, citrus-the good earth at Litchfield Park is fertile and productive. Farming methods are up-to-the-minute. Note the extensive use of pneumatic tires on farm equipment.