Salome "Where she Danced"

There once lived in a small town on the 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. He virtually created this little community of his own imagination, and through his activities there, he and his Salome became known throughout the world. And so, as Hall put it, "I started Salome, in the middle of the desert, with a blind faith that some day it would lead to something-and after twenty years, Salome has accumulated a population of something more than twenty people; we have water, free air, a railroad and a mark on the map said to be an automobile road leading from Phoenix to Los Angeles or getting away from it."

Today, Salome still thrives still is a small desert town but with a sleek paved highway, replacing the ruts and bumps Dick Wick Hall panned to his heart's content in an effort to have a paved highway from Phoenix to Los Angeles. He didn't live to see his dream realized, but his efforts were not entirely in vain.

Hall's fame began to spread through the circulation of a little mimeographed sheet called the Salome Sun. He passed them out to his customers tourists "fighting" their way across the then rough and rugged desert road on their way to Los Angeles or Phoenix. "I get the Salome Sun out just for funto Keep from Talking to Myself and disturbing the Jack Rabbits when I get too Lonesome because there ain't no one much else to talk to Here, excepting Tourists and all they want to Talk about is: 'How Much is Gas?' 'Where is the Best Road?' "My Gawd! Ain't It Awful?'-and, "HOW DO YOU GET OUT OF HERE?" They all ask that. And so I get the Sun out and if you like it and want it, just drop me a line and say so, for yourself or any Friends you May have. No charges, It's Free but Some Times Some Folks who want to help me pay for the Ink, Paper, Sweat and Postage Stamps for Mailing it. Some of these Folks some times send me Checks, Money Orders, old worn out $ Bills, Bull Durham Tobacco and Camel Cigarettes and Once I got a Water Melon but It wasn't Ripe. It Don't Matter. You don't need to send me anything unless you want to. I don't Need the Money There's No Place Here to Spend It, and I've Got A Life Sentence and if I got too Much Money I might Get Foolish and Try to Get Away."

His humorous little mimeographed sheet was circulated the world over and made people laugh over the antics of his "Seven year old frog that never learned to swim, because he didn't want to;" his mythical Salome, after whom the town was named, the alluring sensuous miss with the shapely curves, whose prototype caused John the Baptist to lose his head over her terpsichorean wiggles, of whom Hall said, "All the curves are not on the road to Phoenix Some folks seem to think I'm the man that made Salome dance but this is all wrong. It wasn't my fault. I told her to keep her shoes on or the hot sand would burn her feet;" and his famed Greasewood Golf Lynx and the several desert personalities he had created, among them, "Chloride Kate" and the "Reptyle Kid," "Sheep Dip Jim," and the "Bald Barber."

"That Salome Frog"

I'm SEVEN Years Old and I Cannot SwimSo 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 Grass Grows Brown instead of Green A Frog can't Help but Feeling Mean. Even all the Water is "Extra Dry" And there ain't no Moisture in the Sky And Rain would be Something Entirely New Where never a Cloud shows up in the Blue And Folks Haul Water in Railroad Trains While I Sit and Dream of the Summer Rains. You can't Kid Me about this Desert Land Where Salome Danced on the Red Hot Sand; Nobody Knows how I Landed Here In Salome's Sun Burned Atmosphere Where I sit and Dream of the Old Days When They Say it Rained and it May AgainBut I'll Bet Ten Dollars that I will Fry Before any Water Comes out of the Sky. I'm an Old Bull Frog and Dang My Hide I Can't Swim Because I Never have Tried.

As time went on Hall began to get letters from people who had read his sheet. "Some folks Have to Laugh at the Way I use my Capital Letters, not knowing, of course, that the Typewriter I just learned to write on had lost a Lot of Its Teeth, it was so Old, and so many of the Little Letters gone, and I got so used to Hitting the Capitals where the Little ones were Gone I can't Get out of the Habit and I think it Looks Better anyway to have a few Capitals scattered around and break the Monotony of so many Little Letters. I would Use all Capital Letters if I thought it would make Folks Feel any Better."

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 later caused him to remark that he had received a cold reception into this world. As a young man he traveled around quite a bit, and ventured into various businesses and held numerous jobs. Once Arizona's Territorial Secretary, a friend of the Halls, stopped off at Creston on his way to the East. He told Hall of the fine western country and of the wonderful opportunities to be had in Arizona. Dick gave this suggestion more than passing thought, and after working on a railroad job where he "fired a locomotive long enough to burn up most of the coal on the C. B. & Q," a chance reading of the Snake Dances in the Hopi Indian country where they danced with live rattlesnakes in their mouths, proved too much for him. He left for the western country.

Everything was wide open then in Arizona Territory. The country was opening up and as Hall wrote, "I was young and curious, and the unrestrained exuberance of youth led me blithely along through a post-graduate course of education 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 a white man. He remained there for quite some time, "long enough to have a great respect for them, their religious dances and ceremonialsand their snakes."

The name DeForest never appealed to Hall. In fact he hadn't used it for some time. So a court order was obtained and the name was changed to Dick Wick Hall the Wick for Wickenburg.

In company with an eastern promotor, an inspection was made of the territory east of Wickenburg, Arizona just an expanse of barren country, but it fascinated Hall.

At Salome, Hall started a gasoline station, of which he said, "I started it on Nothing so I knew I couldn't lose nothing." He named it the "Laughing Gas Service Station." This was the beginning of a career that made Dick Wick Hall and Salome known the world over. He schemed, he planned. He sat around thinking up ideas. He painted numerous humorous signs and tacked them up on the front of his service station"The Softest Sweetest Air On Earth" "Free Hot Air" "Hell Can't Be Very Far Away, Mickey Said Today" "Howdy Do, Crawl Out And Walk In And See What's Here" "Smile, Smile, Smile, You Don't Have To Stay Here But We Do" "Tickle Lizzie's Carburetor With Our Laughing Gas" "Arizona Roads Are Like Arizona People, Good, Bad, And Worse", and many other catchy signs to cheer people along. "I knew the big bumps and chuck holes made folks cross and sore so I went down the road Twenty-five or thirty miles each way from the town, (Salome, I mean), and put up a lot of silly signs at some of the biggest bumps just anything to make travelers laugh and forget the bumps and their troubles; something to make them forget their grouch and remember Salome. About three

SALOME FOR SUN

Made WITH A LAUGH ON A MIMEOGRAPH BY A ROUGH NECK STAFF. A BIGGER UNPAID CIRCULATION THAN LYDIA PINKHAM'S ALMANAC

DEAR FRIEND:

I Thank You for the Kindly Feeling which Prompted You to write me Such a Nice Letter and I Want to Apologize for not being Able to write You a Warm Personal Letter Right Now, but So Many Folks have been sending me Postal Boquets or else Wanting to Know How Do I Get That Way that one Corner of the Laughing Gas Station is All Piled up Full of Unanswered Mail, and I can't Keep Up. I am a 100 Miles from Phoenis and 300 from Los Angeles and all the Good (looking) Stenographers are afraid to Come Hore to Work for me on account of the Un Temed Cow Boys or else they are just Jealous of the way Salome dances. I don't know What Else to Do, so I am grinding out this Temporary Expression of My Appreciation of your Writing me, which was good for Both of Us, as Flowers is Scarce Out Here and it is Always the Best Way to Send and to Get the Flowers Before the Funeral which Most of Us Never Do, and have to Wait until After we are Dead to Find Out What Falks thought about us. So I Thank You for the Verbal and Mental Flowers, including the Brick Bats and Boulders which sometimes come along with the Boquets, and Some of these days, as soon as I can Get Time, I will write you a Real Letter maybe this Year or Next which is Pretty Soon for this country, where some of the Mountains are Over a Million Years Old and Look Just the Same like they did when I first come here and Planted the Cactus in Arizona.

It Keeps me pretty Busy Watering the Frog and telling Bed Time Stories to my Family of Household Pets, which "Put has made some little Pictures here of for you to See, and in Between Times I peddle Laughing Gas and Gum and Bull Durham to Folks Going to or Coming From California by the Best & Shortest Route. All Tourists either Smoke the Bull or else they Peddle it and I Do Both for Over 30 Years and So Long now that I Feel All Undressed if I haven't Got a Sack of Bull Somewhere in my Clothes which is about All you need Clothes for Here in the Summer Time. Even My Frog is Part Bull. I have got to Quit Now. I hoar a Tourist Hollering Outside where Some of My Pets has made him Olimb a Cactus, which is just Their Way of Having a Little Fun, and I Don't to have Strangers Get Rough with My Cactus and Break the Thorns all Off. Yours, Until the Frog Learns to Swim.

ADIOS, AMIGO!

"That Salome Frog," "Salome Sun," and all quotations in Dick Wick Hall article are from copyrighted material, reprinted by special permission of the Saturday Evening Post.

Miles down the road I put up a sign, "CITY LIMITS" just to make sure they didn't get through here without knowing it." Hall also brought into being his famous frog who was seven years old and couldn't swim-"In Yuma county where it gets so dry that a frog can't hardly learn to cry, if they were here they'd soon find out, what water means when you do without." Of his frog, Hall says, "I raised him on the bottle, Shasta and Pluto water, mostly, and that is why he is a lively and Healthy Frog and even though he can't swim yet, it isn't his fault. He never had a chance but lives in hopes. Three years ago Fourth of July, Palo Verde Pete shot off a box of Dynamite and the Frog, thinking it was Thunder, chased the cloud of Smoke two miles down the road thinking it might rain. Once he went to sleep under the office, and while asleep it rained, and he woke up just in time to see it stop and to get his feet wet-but he is older and wiser now and getting like the rest of the natives. He just thinks he is having a Hell of a Time if the World looks Blue and Your Luck is Bad and You think You are having a Hell of a Time-why just stop and think of My Frog-Seven Years old and he Can't Swim." Hall didn't hesitate to let the world know of Salome's drawbacks, as well as its advantages, through his mimeographed sheets. He told of how "melons don't do very well here because the vines grow so fast they wear the melons out dragging them around the ground, and in dry years we sometimes have to plant onions in between the rows of potatoes and then scratch the onions to make the potatoes' eyes water enough to irrigate the rest of the garden." Hall created the famous Greasewood Golf Lynx, "Located At and around Salome, Arizona-"Where She Danced" and the folks who see it all Say Nobody Never Saw Nothing Like It Nowhere. The Course is Just a Little over Twenty Three (23) Miles Around and All Hazards and Bunkers are Natural -No Artificial Ones Needed. Some Eastern Folks Spend the Season Here a Purpose Just to Play Around it Once and Some Others who Have Been Here Several Seasons ain't ever Got Around it Yet. Players are Warned to Use Maps and Not to get off the Far A Ways between the Holes. Coyote and Rabbit Holes DON'T COUNT. Good Guides Who Know the Course can be Obtained at the BLUE ROCK INN, (the nineteenth hole), and Caddys and Horses and Canteens, also Tents and Camping Outfits can be Leased by the Week, Month or Season, Provided a Deposit is Put Up and ALL CADDYS AND HORSES LOST ON THE COURSE MUST BE PAID FOR.

One day a copy of the Salome Sun was shown to the editor of the Saturday Evening Post's newly created department, "Short Turns and Encores." The editor wrote to Hall inviting him to contribute. Dick Wick answered that he was too busy with his promoting. The editor replied that it wasn't customary to turn down an opportunity to write for their magazine. Letters continued back and forth, Hall claiming he just wrote for fun and besides was too darned busy and finally the editor wrote that if he was so darned busy just to bundle up some of the back numbers of the Salome Sun; they would copyright them and pick out the ones they wanted to use. With each succeeding installment his recognition as a humorist and philosopher became more eminent. His continued successes led to a series of feature articles and stories in the Post and Red Book. His Salome Sun was syndicated through several prominent newspapers. The Post then contracted for his entire literary output and just when fame was beckoning and fortune seemed assured, his untimely passing robbed the Nation of a great humorist who would no doubt have achieved a more enviable niche in the literary Hall of Fame along with other masters of basic American humor. Once while he was passing out his little free sheet, he was compared to Will Rogers by a passerby. Rogers at the time was being paid highly for his clever writings. In reply, Hall said, "The great difference between Will Rogers and me is that he peddles the Bull while I just smoke it."