Along Highway Sixty

Synonym for Sunshine

Southern Arizona is a synonym for sunshine. When raucous winter arrives in less fortunate parts of this fair country of ours, the sun in Southern Arizona becomes delightfully mellow and assumes all the characteristics of an old friend who has come to stay awhile.

Sunshine, with its ever-delightful companion, climate, is our chief industry out here in the old west. Blessed, indeed, are those happy people who have the sun working overtime for them like a tried and true servant, never complaining, and always steadfast in taking the chill out of northern winds and in caressing the land with gentle touch.

Yes, it's the climate, and because of the climate thousands of people come from all over the United States and Canada each season to escape winter and enjoy life at its very best. Snowstorms, blizzards, icicles, icy streetshow far away and remote they seem to the person sunning himself in Southern Arizona winter's sunshine, dressed in light informal clothes and full of thoughts about such things as golf, tennis, swimming, and horseback riding. In this land of ours you can pick roses in December, and during midday in deepest winter you can seek refuge from the sun in the shade of a vibrant orange tree. That may sound like fanciful dreamland to folks up north who even now are cursing the cold wind whose icy fingers are jerking at buttons in heavy overcoats. But it's just Southern Arizona.

Now the term "Southern Arizona" should be slightly modified. When we speak of Southern Arizona as the winter playland we mean that vast area comprising southern and central Arizona and liberal portions of some of the northern counties. Some winters are so mild in this state that you would have to climb the lofty San Francisco Peaks to get the full impact of cold weather. In northern Arizona, in the valleys of lower altitude, the climate is surprisingly mild and some of our most delightful and popular guest ranches are found just a few miles away from snowy mountainsides.

Arizona's winter climate is invigorating, stimulating and mild. When you say that Arizona's winter climate is the best in the world, you merely repeat a bit of information scientifically arrived at, and never questioned by drum-beaters in other favored sections of the country. By the yardstick, Arizona has from 20 to 30 percent more sunshine than Florida, and without question Southern Arizona is the sunniest corner in all the land.

Sunshine means warmth and a deficiency of winter. The aridity of the area, generally described as desert, means that there is no dampness or undue moisture to make the atmosphere heavy and all-enveloping like a wet blanket. Further, the altitude never attains such extremes as to be severe. The area is a perfect composite of vast valley and desert stretches bounded by low-lying mountains. Those mountains act as a windbreak and they add a lightness and a tone to the atmosphere making it incomparably zestful.

In ARIZONA HIGHWAYS of April, 1938, that famous author and world traveler, Clarence Budington Kelland, wrote: "I could enlarge upon the subject of climate, comparing it with the many winters I spent in Florida, and the winters I have spent in the neighboring state of California. I could tell you that there is something in the air of Arizona that no other air seems to contain. I don't know what it is. I don't know why it makes you feel as it does make you feel, but it is there. It is the only air I know which takes the gleam and sparkle out of the sunshine and blows it into your veins. Which sounds silly, but probably isn't. "I am not sure whether it is the sunshine that makes the air do tricks, or whether it is the crisp, crackling air that makes the sunshine kick up its heels. But, working together, they are a team it would be hard to beat."

That, from an authority, just about describes the weather. In short, one famous wit said everybody talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.

In Southern Arizona, you can do better than that: you can enjoy it all winter long . . . R. C.

Gold in the Trees

You can tell cold weather is approaching in other parts of the land and that the winter season is beginning in Arizona. In Nogales, Bisbee, Douglas, Tucson, Phoenix, Wickenburg, Rim Rock, Skull Valley and in other places in this delightful land of the Sun you find automobiles from every state in the Union, from Canada and Hawaii. Trains and planes of the great transportation systems unload hundreds of visitors daily with baggage marks indicating they come from all parts of the north and east. Why do all these people come to Arizona each winter? Our centerpiece, "Winter in the Old West," may give you some idea.

Two years ago ARIZONA HIGHWAYS devoted considerable space to the Morenci mine development of the Phelps Dodge Corporation. The operation then had been in development less than a year. Today the results of the intense activity at Morenci are visible and the bystander has a definite idea of what the Morenci Open Pit Mine will be when full copper production starts in 1942. We have another article in this issue on this great mine development. Arizona has always been the leading copper producer of the country. There is no reason why Arizona should not always retain copper leadership.

In our Indian issue in June we neglected the interesting Pima Indians. Their home has always been the desert; their principal occupation is farming. Stephen Golembeski, one of our favorite artists, contributes a few sketches to this issue showing life among the Pimas. His sketches have a reality and vigor hard to attain in photographs.

Marshall Beauchamp and the Arizona Writers Project, with Ross Santee contributing another fine illustration, have prepared an interesting historical sketch of Florence, Arizona, under the rather melodious title of "Fair Florence." Historically, Florence is one of the most interesting cities in the state. And yet it does not live in a world of yesterday but is up with the times. The further growth of the Casa Grande Valley means further growth for Florence.

In preparing the article, "It Pays to Advertise," Joe Miller dug deep in old files of Arizona newspapers for material. From these dusty volumes he selected for photostatic reproduction a group of ads which will be of interest to all of us today! Ye old ad writers had a way with them! Many pioneers of our state will smile at the way territorial merchants announced their wares to tempt the territorial belle and beau.

Jonreed Lauritzen contributes another account of the Arizona Strip country, this time dealing with the great Vermilion Cliffs which divide Utah and Arizona. In these cliffs lived the gods of the Piutes, the Shivwits and the Uinkarets of olden times. Lauritzen can speak with authority on those cliffs. He lives in Short Creek, Arizona, over which the cliffs tower in brooding, colorful silence.

Of interest will be two sketches dealing with champions in two fields of endeavor. One sketch concerns the Arizona Ramblers, world's softball women's amateur champions, the other deals with a young Phoenician, who, competing in driving tests with the best young drivers in the nation, took second place honors and a valuable scholarship. Champions! It must be the Arizona climate.

We take our departure this grand month of November with the reminder that Arizona knows no winter, and if you are looking for the most delightful winter climate in the world, Arizona should be your destination R. C.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS

For november nineteen forty arizona highways calls your attention to the winter recreational and vacational possibilities of arizona in a picture essay:

"Winter in the Old West"

A story of where to go and what to do to escape winter of colder climes Centerpiece and several other items of interest about this surprising land of mountains, desert, and good roads Arizona: