Trucking in Arizona Today

OVER Arizona's vast three thousand six hundred mile network of fine surfaced highways, and extending out over an almost endless chain of auxiliary roads, a mighty fleet of motor trucks and transports, vans and busses are daily and nightly rolling with their precious cargoes, the bulk of which is vital materials of war or necessities of life pertinent to total war effort. Augmenting the tremendous bulk of intrastate operations are huge tonnages of cross-country and interstate shipments by motor transports. To illustrate the importance of trucking in this state, it is interesting to know the number of miles of all roads in the State of Arizona, how they are classified, and the source of funds provided for their construction. The state primary road system is perhaps better known as the Federal-Aid or 8% system and includes roads designated by the State Highway Commission and improved wholly or in part with federal funds, as provided for under the Federal High way Act or as amended and supplemented. This system embraces 2,303 miles of highway.

The remaining part of the state system is designated in a manner similar to that above except little outside aid is used in its improve ment. Some secondary federal funds were used and also much relief money during depression times. This aid matched with state money has improved to a high standard, as demanded by existing traffic needs, the 1376 miles found in this secondary state highway system and can be called the non-federal aid system. Combining both parts we have 3,678 miles of integrated roads designed to serve the traffic needs of the state as well as connecting main routes of bordering states which form the great national highway system.

The Federal-Aid county secondary system is authorized to provide counties with federal funds to develop their farm-to-market and mine-to-market roads. The designated routes must however connect mainly with the state highway system to form a balanced network. In addition to the above there are other road authorities having a major road interest in the state which are not included in the state system but are included in the county secondary federal aid system. A tabulation of all roads in Arizona is as follows: state highway system, federal aid, 2,303 miles; state highway system, non federal aid, 1,376 miles; county roads, in cluding secondary federal aid, 15,285 miles; national forest development roads, 3,363 miles; national park and monument roads, 269 miles; Indian reservation roads, 5,926 miles; national military reservation roads, 44 miles; state and municipal park roads, 72 miles; and city streets and alleys, 1,033 miles. The grand total for all roads within the state, and over every inch of which travel thousands of trucks and busses carrying on the commerce of the state, is 29,671 miles.

Livestock from the expansive grazing lands, metal from the great deposits in the mining districts, produce from the fertile irrigated val leys and lumber from the mighty forests; Arizona's tremendous wealth of resources are moving across the state in ever increasing tonnages. Also vast shipments of manufactured goods, products of the state's new industrial plants; great loads of vital war equipment move steadily to assembly plants in other sections of our land.

Trucking was born in the last war, reached its majority during peacetime, and in the present war is doing a tremendous job in the moving of strategic materials and supplies. The spectacular job the railroads have done and are doing in the war effort has been aided in marked degree by the auxiliary hauling by trucks. In Arizona, aside from the two great rail lines crossing the state east to west, the Santa Fe in the northern part and the Southern Pacific in the southern part, and from which a few comparatively short branch lines extend, the fifth largest state in the union in area is dependent almost entirely upon motor truck transportation. In some instances the difference in mileage and time is almost unbelievable. As an example the time consumed by hauling from one certain point in the state to another certain point would take five days by rail while a truck makes the same haul in four hours. When it is considered that over 250 widely scattered communities in Arizona involving over 60,000 people, or more than oneeighth of its entire population, are entirely dependent on motor vehicle transportation both of persons and commodities, the vital role played by motorized equipment in connection with the life and very existence of a major portion of the state can readily be appreciated. As a result of the important part played by the motor transport field in Arizona, communities developed because of these facilities, there being so few communities reached by any other medium. Highways were built and ex tended and the communities were enabled to exist and establish themselves in various lines of business as well as establish living conditions such as the state's two larger cities of Phoenix and Tucson enjoyed. Facilities brought in necessary luxuries that the people deserved and needed by creating keen competition in bringing these commodities into the communities. And for these reasons too, the cost of living in these communities was reduced considerably.

The evolution of Arizona's transportation history is most fascinating. "Geography plays an important part in transportation," says John R. Murdock in his volume "The Constitution of Arizona." "Arizona is drawn on a large scale and an irregular surface. Accordingly about every kind of transportation known to man has been tried here. So far as we are able to find out, prehistoric man in Arizona had no beasts of burden and consequently carried their loads on their own backs or heads. The early Spaniards introduced horses and burros into this region, and the burro has been used ever since to carry the white man's load in the mountain districts where no trails exist. The burro was not only the first transportation agency to be used in Arizona, but is still an important one where other means cannot be employed. To the burro belongs the credit of laying the foundation of this commonwealth."

To tell the story of Arizona's transportation history it is necessary to tie in the story of the early roads and trails blazed in this last great western wilderness, the youngest state in the union. The first wagon road across the state was started in 1846. Known as Cooke's Road, it followed the Gila river in the southern part. It was the desire of the government to break a road through to California for military purposes, and too, there was a group of Mormons also interested in the undertaking, being bent on reaching the Pacific Coast through this area. The job was a tremendous undertaking due to the rugged terrain and it was necessary for the road builders to hew through chasms of rock in places so narrow that their wagons could not pass. After the road was made, many immigrant trains crossed it through Indian infested country.

Another road, across the northern part of the territory, known as Beale's Road, was broken by the government some time later. It was on this northern road-opening expedition that camels were introduced as beasts of burden. The War Department and the Congress were convinced that a plan to use camels to haul freight across the desert was feasible. As a result, two ship loads of the beasts were brought from the Orient. According to a report by Edward F. Beale, who instigated the plan, the camels did right well on their first journey across the territory and back, carrying their loads with ease, and making the long treks between watering places without apparent harm, and they ate readily of the desert growth that mules and horses would not touch. Although the experiment was successful in the beginning, the rough terrain soon began to tell on the animals' feet which were cut and bruised so badly after a few trips that the animals soon were of little value for the purpose intended. The plan was abandoned and, according to legend, the camels were turned loose on the desert, left to their own fate.

The Mormon Road, running from Utah, south, and connecting with the Beale Road was another important link in early Arizona transportation lanes. The crossing of the Colorado river on this route resulted in the establishment of what was called Lee Ferry, after John D. Lee who operated the ferry there for years. This crossing was about six miles above the present highway crossing, Navajo Bridge.

Livestock trucks and trailers now move practically all cattle shipped in the state which in 1941 numbered 350,000 head, now greatly increased. (Wallace photo.) In early days cowboys herded cattle to railheads which caused much loss of weight. Now huge trucks haul fat cattle from ranch to market. (Above) Loading near Coolidge. (Photo by Joseph Miller.) (Below) Loading near Tucson. (Abbott photo.)

From Globe to Phoenix by way of the Apache Trail. A gentleman from Alabama named Horton came to Arizona and, with a model T Ford, entered the business of hauling the bag gage of these tourists who detoured at Globe for the Apache Trail sidetrip. This was the meager beginning of one of the largest present operations in the state, and which still operates under the trade name, "Alabam," after its founder. The company grew rapidly from the truck line between Phoenix and Globe to a line from Phoenix to Florence, then Phoenix to Ajo, followed by a route from Phoenix to Prescott which later was extended to Flagstaff. By this time the company owned about 40 units. While the net load was about 6,500 pounds for each truck, the trucks being rather small in these days, the volume of business was quite heavy when it is considered that loads hauled on some trips from Phoenix to the Globe-Miami mining district were equal to the capacity of six modern two-ton trucks. The Lightning Delivery Company had a meager beginning according to the present owners long before the days of the horseless carriage. The firm started in 1900 with a bicycle as the sole equipment, used in deliver ing packages in the then new town of Phoenix. The equipment was increased ten years later to three one-horse wagons and five two-horse flats. Later on, while Roosevelt Dam was under construction, the outfit hauled machinery from the rail terminal at Phoenix, over the rugged Apache Trail, to the dam site. Four teen-horse wagons were used and some pieces of machinery and equipment for the dam weighed as high as 25 tons. Some three and four days was required to make the 160-mile round trip, which today can be accomplished within a very few hours. The truckers had regular camping sites where they stopped over night before proceeding on to their destination. This also gave their horses a much needed and deserved rest. According to the owner of the firm, they owned a large string of very beau tiful horses, which incidentally were corralled at the time on Madison Street and between First and Second Avenue, Phoenix. Their warehouse was a 30 by 40 foot adobe at Jef ferson and Fourth Street. When the horse less carriage came in, the Lightning firm's first truck bore the trade name, "Little Giant," a two-cylinder job which had to be cranked from the side. The firm now is engaged in the warehouse and transfer business and is allied with a national chain of furniture movers.

Another pioneer firm is the Chambers Transfer and Storage Company which began business in Phoenix in 1912, the year Arizona was ad mitted to the union. This firm had three teams, wagon floats and an express wagon. One year later they purchased additional wagons and equipment from the Budweiser people in Los Angeles. In 1941, the carpenter with the outfit built truck beds on three Model T Fords and these were the first Ford trucks to operate over the streets of Phoenix. The firm used their nine teams of horses until 1922. By that time their equipment had been augmented by 24 motor truck units. In 1921, when the price of cotton was high and the government was sub sidizing the growing of cotton in the valleys in the Phoenix area, the Chambers company had over one-half million square feet of storage space filled with bales of cotton. During this period the company's trucks made numerous trips into Old Mexico and brought laborers into the valley to pick the great acreages of cotton. In many instances, entire families were trans ported to this area, as the crops were huge and shortage of pickers acute. The Chambers Trans fer Company converted from general trucking to the hauling of household goods exclusively in 1941. Operating on a state-wide basis, they also are agents for the Aero Mayflower Transit Company which operates in all 48 states and Canada.

Mary McReynolds Mowatt, connected with the trucking business for many years, wrote in the Arizona Stockman, "Every phase of the transportation industry is most interesting and vital. Every shipment handled has its own particular origin and destination creating in the minds of those in the industry a constant sense of change and movement, a sense that is so closely and keenly felt in the trucking division of transportation, that there is a saying "once a trucker, always a trucker." The whole industry wraps one's mind and interest up for itself.

"Close to the hearts of the men and women engaged in the livestock hauling business in the state of Arizona is the history of their own branch of transportation. The history began in 1922 when the Arizona Storage and Distrib uting Company, now the Arrow Van and Storage Company, sent its solid-tired, fourteen foot trucks with sixteen foot trailers up the Cave Creek-Camp Creek highway to load cattle ... to bring down to the Salt River Valley. Later that same year the company also trucked cattle from San Carlos, Arizona, then known as Rice, (from Globe, and points on the Super ior highway and the Apache Trail country). "The equipment used, the way the drivers handled the cattle, the speed with which the cattle reached the market caused much talk and speculation. It was estimated . . . that the company hauled 500 head that year."

"Each year thereafter there was a little more demand for trucks to get the cattle to the valley. In 1927 pneumatic tires were put on all equipment and the Arrow Storage bought a 22-foot trailer to be pulled by an eighteen -foot truck thereby placing into service a 40 -foot livestock rig. "Steadily the demand for equipment grew as more and more cattlemen turned to moving their stock by truck and in 1933 Dale Hopper came to Arizona with a 40-foot truck and trailer and soon after Arrow Van placed into service a 40-foot unit thereby making available to the shippers, in addition to the older equip ment, two forty-foot units. "Then in 1938 the real growth and expansion of the industry started. Dale Hooper placed one 46-foot diesel-powered unit into the field and shortly thereafter Arrow Van placed two of the same size. "Tucson Transfer Company then got three 46-foot diesel trucks and trailers, Paul Alley moved in from California with seven, Glen Walliman of Globe, who has since sold out to Roy Hitson, got one, Carl Muldner of Peoria, who is also an old timer in the business, got two, the Arrow Van added three more to their fleet and Dale Hooper two more and so it went in 1939 and 1940 with all of the above com panies with the exception of Paul Alley having small gasoline-powered equipment in their fleets as well as the large diesels. "Then in 1941 the industry welcomed into the field the Calhoun Brothers and their three 33-foot gasoline driven semis and Jesse Davis of Prescott with his 22-foot diesel trucks. "So as the demand grew so did the fleets grow and the field widened to other haulers than those first pioneers.."

Following are the estimates of the cattle hauled in 1941; from the Mexican border into Arizona, 75,000 head. From ranges to the feed pens of the state, 200,000. From the feed pens to the packing houses and markets both in Arizonaand California, 75.000 head. "A grand total of 350,000 cattle! Think of the 500 head moved in 1922!"

"There are other firms within the state who pioneered the industry such as the Tucson Warehouse and Transfer Company, in business over a half century, and the Citizens Transfer Company in Tucson, to name a few. But in each case, early day operations all were some what parallel, so the above selected incidents have been cited as examples of meager begin nings and rapid growth and expansions of an industry whose present proportions and volume, stagger the imagination.

Motor carriers form a vital link in our country's transportation system. They are daily performing herculean tasks in the move ment of war materials and supplies to and from military installations as well as war production plants; and they are doing this without failing, and at the same time are serv ing the thousands of communities and millions of persons throughout the nation who are totally dependent upon motor trucks for their transportation needs."

Speaking of the iricreasing demands made on the trucking industry and the strategic position played in moving materials and sup plies across the nation, the president of the American Trucking Association, Ted V. Rodgers, states that in 1942 trucking firms were moving 150,000 tons of materials per month on government bills of lading, while now the load has risen to 650,000 tons per month. This year there will be 7,500 new heavy-duty trucks built for private industry and 9,200 trailers. This is a small number indeed in comparison with trucks and trailers built before Pearl Harbor and before manu facture for private industry was dropped. But the need has been so great that limitations are being relaxed somewhat and as a result, the trucking industry sees some relief in sight in trucks, replacement parts, tires and fuel, that will enable them to continue to play their im portant part in the all-out war effort.

Motor transportation is of particular importance to the people of the State of Arizona. Truck transportation is a major factor in Ari zona's ability to supply the large quantities of vital foodstuffs, munitions and war materials which it is furnishing our armed forces. And today, substantially all of the petroleum pro ducts entering this state are moved by motor tankers; and trucks haul all of the livestock moving into Pacific Coast areas. As a matter of fact the trucking industry, in all of its phases, issues one out of every seven pay checks issued in the State of Arizona-some thing to think about.

Arizona's position in the war program stra tegy is unique, and the problems are so pe culiar to this area that motor transportation must be on the alert constantly to prevent a catastrophic collapse of transportation within the state, which would seriously affect the ef fectual movement of war materials throughout the 11 western states, especially keeping in mind the war-production, war-shipping, and war-training establishments.

Since Pearl Harbor the availability and the highly developed efficiency of motor transpor tation in Arizona was immediately recognized by the federal government both in the con struction of military establishments and then by the War and Navy departments and es pecially the Air Arm, and in that connection they were able to locate several bases in suitable areas not served by railroads. The industries that have located here since the war began were able to do so only because there was a highly developed transport industry in Arizona-vital war industries such as the Goodyear Aircraft, building flight decks, wings and tail assemblies for the great Coronado Flying Boats; the Aluminum Company of America's extrusion plant, and the new AiResearch Corporation, building high alti tude precision instruments, all in the Phoenix area, and the extension of the Consolidated Aircraft Company in Tucson. And too, the great air training fields in the Valley of the Sun-the Phoenix area-Luke Field, Williams Field, Thunderbird I and Thunderbird II, Fal con Field and Sky Harbor, where Americans, Chinese, British, South Americans and others are daily and nightly learning the fine art of attack from the skies. And in the Tucson area, Davis-Monthan Field, Marana Airbase, the Municipal Airport and others and desert training centers other than aircraft are entirely dependent on truck transportation for supplying of food supplies, post exchange supplies, and the transportation of passengers.

An Arizona Republic account states, “Arizona, marshaling every resource in the war effort, has discovered that overnight she stands at the threshold of a new industrial era. Great flying schools are turning out thousands of war pilots, gigantic manufacturing plants adaptable to peacetime service, huge agricultural projects being put into production—these and other tremendous projects have so developed in the span of one brief year as to change radically the entire Arizona industrial scene. Taken singly, each of these developments is a vital cog in the victory drive. This new Arizona has geared her man power, her war materials, her factories, her lumber mills, her mines, her foundaries, her cattle ranges, her orchards and her fields—even her skies—with a singleness of purpose to the one great aim of accomplishing victory.” According to figures issued by the Arizona Corporation Commission there are 474 freight carriers and 92 passenger carriers engaged in business inside the state. There are 210 freight and eight passenger lines operating on an interstate basis through Arizona. These lines operate either to the west, east or south, carrying the rich products of the state.

The automotive freight lines not only transport huge quantities of Arizona products out of the state but also engage in a large amount of intrastate hauling. This includes hauling of ores from mines to smelter, livestotck from ranches to market, farm products from farm to packing sheds and commodities from trade centers to rural areas. The intrastate carriers are subject to the Arizona Corporation Commission, while the interstate carriers operate under the regulations of the Interstate Commerce Commission, Washington, D. C.

The trucking industry in Arizona is officially represented by the Arizona Division of the American Trucking Association, Inc., with headquarters in Washington, D. C. The Arizona Division operates under the title of Arizona Motor Transport Association, skillfully guided by Robert Apitz, secretary-manager. The activity of the Association is to preserve and promote the motor transportation industry. Development of the industry to its present size and effectiveness is due in great part to representation this Association has made through its public relations program and legislative program through cooperation with regulatory authorities of the state and federal government. The Association is the “front” and their executives are the ones who guide the destiny and growth of the industry itself.

Private trucking operations conducted by the meat packing industry, hardware, lumber, grocery, bakery, dairy and other commodities, with production and distribution activities principally located in Phoenix and radiating to all points, augment the picture.

State authorities administering motor transportation in Arizona recognized the necessity of preserving and encouraging operators by being the first state in the union to relax certain regulations to permit speedy entrance (Continued on Page Forty)