Arizona, 1998

ARIZONA 1998 Vice President, First National Bank of Arizona

Properly to see what we might look like fifty years hence requires that we look back fifty years and examine ourselves as we were in 1898. A picture of the community-meaning. of course, the Territory of Arizona-as it then was can well provide the key to what we may expect in the years to come.

In the minds of many of our pioneers it probably “seems as though it were but yesterday” when, at the turn of the century and just before, census takers were able to count a lusty 122,931 people in the Territory. That was quite a population! One-sixth of them lived in Maricopa County whose population was 20,457-and of that number Phoenix boasted 5,544 residents It was a real big town! But Tucson and Prescott were bigger!

They were beginning to eye the Ponderosa pine with speculative interest up around the Flagstaff country in those days; and over to the west Seligman was synonymous with silver dollars for it was a great cattle-shipping point. Down in the southwest corner of the state was Yuma, situated practically at the mouth of the Colorado River and only a stone's throw (as distances are in our country) from the Gulf of Lower California, gateway to the Pacific Ocean, was still unaware of its destiny-but of that, more later.

In the northwest corner, turbulent since the beginning of Time, possessor of untapped power which then no one could foresee, the Colorado River began emergence from its canyons to commence its southward journey to the sea. To the north of Kingman it turned south from its westward flow, and slid through rocky gorges-a mute and terrible barrier to the trek of a people on the move; a long and reddish thread upon which the economy of a people eventually was to hang. And of that, too, more later.

Toward the southeast grew a special breed of men-great-shouldered, ham-handed, sharp-minded giants who. with foresight and that peculiar brand of courage known as “guts,” tore from the entrails of tortured earth the precious metals which have come to mean so much to the growth of Arizona. Presently the assayer became the most important man in town and Wells Fargo the vital life-line to points then reached by rails.

An empire was building. Behind the barriers of its eastern mountains, its northern plateau, the international boundary on the south, and the great Colorado River at the west, the Territory of Arizona was finding itself. Banks and bankers-final symbol of civilization as it seems-established their counting houses and multiplied (numerically at least) like rabbits. There was a time when an unofficial census gave evidence there was one bank for every 12,000 people in the Territory and this is undoubted evidence of the faith in each other that our pioneer fathers held! It is suspected, too, that much of that early day banking was of the hip-pocket variety; and for safe deposit, there was nothing better than the toe of a boot!

Does this seem far away? In point of accomplishment indeed it is; but in point of Time it is as yesterday for today there are people living and going about their business in numerous communities of the State who were part and parcel of its shaping.

There are those of philosophic turn of mind who wish to stop the clock. Progress, to them, brings woe; and they are loathe to learn the lesson history has taught there is no standing still. Progress or retrogression are the roads we have to follow. Thus, let us put nostalgia aside for awhile-the running horse, or cattle on the march, or new claims found after years of dogged search beneath the brilliant sun-all these had their place and without them we would not now be ready to consider the future of Arizona.

these had their place and without them we would not now be ready to consider the future of Arizona.

Our thought is of the future: happily there are many concerned with its planning who work with this injunction of Burnham ever in their minds: "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood . . . make big plans, aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency."

Indeed, even though they may have been guided by another than Burham, the planners of our future have made a good beginning. Let's look at it. The baby born today will be at the top of his creative powers in 1998. What will he find?

There will be fertile farms where once was desert; fine highways will traverse once trackless land; humming factories will be making more of the "things for better living" for a state whose population will have increased many-fold, if past growth is any yardstick. Air travel, already a vital factor in the state's economy, will be commonplace, and small communities will enjoy a growth and prosperity in keeping with the whole state because of accessibility by air. The far reaches of the earth will be our neighbors because we will have facilities for their ships. Abundant, low-cost power from sources which we know now; and from other means of which we know so little now, will bring the end of toil and drudgery and give new freedom to those who work. The railroads will branch out into new and hidden lodestones, to bring to a needful world new treasures from the earth. Their locomotion supplied by rockets, they will traverse the state in silent swiftness great enough to enable visitors to stay among us just a few days longer.

To consider Arizona-1998-objectively and to delete any flavor of Buck Rogers, it will be helpful to examine the present economy of the state.

What is that economy? Traditionally it has centered around three famous C's: Cattle; Copper; Cotton (meaning agriculture); There is a fourth ingredient, a C: Climate, visitors and vacationists, becoming the most important of all.

How has the cattle industry progressed this first 50 years: It has grown from about $5 millions (estimated) to $58 millions.

And mining, how has it done in this first half century: Well, at the beginning of 1900 it was estimated to be about $30 millions. And in 1946, including Copper, Gold, Silver, Lead and Zinc, the gross value of the metals produced in Arizona was $1142 millions.

Now for Cotton, the name for all agriculture. From an estimated production of all agricultural crops in 1900 of $5 millions, it totaled $111/2 millions, approximately, fifty years later.

On these industries we have some basis for judgment. However, on the fourth, Climate, there is slim foundation for fact, so let us generally assume that visitors, vacationists and tourists represent an income which very well may be on a par with the other three.

Only about 4% of the area of Arizona has been intensively prospected. Far from being "mined out" there is ample support for the belief that numerous ore bodies of great promise can be worked when conditions warrant. There are excellent reasons to expect that deposits of rare and vital minerals can be found within the borders of the state.

Whereas in the past the business of prospecting for metals has been a laborious affair, today with electronic devices operated from hovering helicopters, it is not unusual for surveys covering one hundred square miles to be completed in a single day. The presence of the sought-for minerals is accurately detached and minutely located.

In a time when atomic power is occupying the attention and thought of scientists, governments and the poor, bewildered man on the street, this ability quickly to detect the rare minerals needed for its production-and the possibility that large deposits are located within the boundaries of Arizona, is a matter of deep and informed speculation. It is known that explorations, whose overall function is to locate and estimate the size of certain deposits, are in Arizona now.

Thus the state will play a leading part in production of raw materials needed for atomic power.

Nor will future use of other minerals be handicapped through lack of production here. Gypsum, asbestos, feldspar, barite, mica, perlite and some forms of diatomaceous earth are under production. Others, some of which could have an affinity for those used in nuclear fission, are known and not used presently. There is little reason to expect them to be in short supply; thus the efforts of scientific discoverers will be wellsupported by securement of essential raw materials in Arizona and the contribution of the mining industry to the coming half-century will be an increasingly important one.

All else depends on water. Upon its silver stream hangs the survival of the community, or at least a major part of it. To obtain it-and then equitably to distribute it becomes a major problem of the time.

Public-spirited men have struggled with this problem for many years. Pacts and compacts have been made. The entire area has been divided into the Upper and the Lower Basin states, and they have agreed among themselves on specific withdrawals from the mighty Colorado River. Inevitably there were differences of interpretation of the agreements; and while all this was going on, the agricultural sections of Arizona expanded until the need for water became vitally necessary-or else the most fantastically fertile soil in the United States would need return to the alluvial desert it originally was.

The Central Arizona Project was formed by men interested in the survival of agriculture in that region. Its purpose was to so align public and official opinion that assurance of water to take care only of land presently under cultivation; not to include any new land-would be obtained. Their fight was a long and bitter one; but as these lines are written official approval in the form of a message of recommendation from the Secretary of the Interior at Washington indicates the matter will come before the next Congress as a bill. As time goes forward, other means will be found of adequately dividing the waters of the Colorado and, since the soil of Arizona needs only water to produce the most extraordinary vegetation, great and important contributions to the market baskets of the country will be made.

We need only to examine the current situation at Yuma, third largest city of Arizona, down in the southwest corner of the state. Located on the Colorado River, less than sixty miles from where it empties into the Gulf of Lower California, the Yuma district benefits greatly at this time through the availability of an adequate supply of water.

One of the largest of the nation's flax growing centers, Yuma area is a great dependency of the paint industry which obtains its linseed oil from Yuma flaxseed. Vegetables, melons. cattle-all these in enormous quantities and exceptional quality mark the southwestern corner of Arizona as one of the strongest supports of the Arizona of 1998-plus: There was a time in the past when a channel in the Colorado River between the Gulf of Lower California and the City of Yuma enabled seagoing ships to tie up at Yuma docks. The city became a distributing point for its immediate region. However, lack of land transportation and of population limited the distribution of these sea-borne goods; gradually the channel fell into disuse, the docks in disrepair and Yuma's status as a seaport became, for the time being, an historic curiosity.

With the example of other cities before us, there are those now who would aid in the reestablishment of Yuma as a seaport-and this time with every chance for success. Those who dream see a ship channel, lined, perhaps, with industrial establishments, and creating here a new industrial empire. They see, in 1998, a great inland port, streaming with the flags of all the world, bringing the raw materials which the factories of the area would turn into goods and these, in turn, will go out to every corner of the map. Since the calm waters at the head of the Californian Gulf would provide a road-stead of great proportions, the question of dockspace would take care of itself.

The advantages to the entire Southwest of such a logical development appear so manifest, and the project so breath-taking and imaginative, there appears little doubt that it will be accomplished long before our Arizona of 1998 comes into view.

Mexico will have a terrific impact on Arizona of tomor-row. The future of Arizona ties closely with that of the west coast states of our Sister Republic, which today are enjoying. great expansion. It does not require too much imagination to see the Nogales of the decades to come-a great, thriving city. many times its present population, the gateway of pleasure and business travel into an area of fabulous wealth and scenic beauty as yet untouched and undeveloped. The Mexican government is working on the highway from Nogales to Guadalarow. The future of Arizona ties closely with that of the west coast states of our Sister Republic, which today are enjoying. great expansion. It does not require too much imagination to see the Nogales of the decades to come-a great, thriving city. many times its present population, the gateway of pleasure and business travel into an area of fabulous wealth and scenic beauty as yet untouched and undeveloped. The Mexican government is working on the highway from Nogales to Guadalajara. in the state of Jalisco. With the completion of that How will that be in 1998? Well, electric lines will stretch farther and ever farther, and the modest little communities that we know, receiving the blessings of cheap power. will have grown. They will have welcomed small manu-facturers from other sections of the country anxious to enjoy the blessings of clear, constant sunshine, the healthful benefit of air not super-saturated. Those small manufacturers will find they have entered their chosen communities and not fractured the economy of the situation: on the contrary they have been absorbed into the lives of the towns. Out of those towns will be pouring streams of manufactured goods to benefit all the people, and Arizona products will be known from one end to the other of the country.

More than that, by 1998 other diversions will result in the reclamation of much land, idle now for lack only of water. Public works will plan great new series of dams and canals and prosperity will follow in the wake of their completion.

Known for its cattle, range problems in Arizona have been numerous and vexing. There will probably be some of the same in 1998, for we are not anticipating a millenium. But many of those which today beset the rancher will be gone and forgotten. Chief among these is the constant quest for range feed. A rain will produce a satisfactory crop today. Whether it will rain is the problem. Well, fifty years from now the rancher will make his own rain. Experiments originating with General Electric in New York State and furthered and refined here in Arizona are determining the feasibility of rain-making by means of carbon dioxide, or dry ice. Sowing pellets of the material in rain clouds of determined depth and density has resulted in known precipitation. Such rains are out of control so far as location is concerned, for winds move clouds rapidly, and the fall often occurs in unwanted areas. Other problems will appear as these experiments continue: by 1998 most will have been answered-but here a word of warning to him who suggests this method for the entire state to replace irrigation: Man can't make rain clouds.

On a crop like lettuce, where only three warm nights will ruin the entire pick, no grower would venture his whole season's effort on the possibility rainmakers would bring the water exactly when he needed it.

But on the range, when a day, or several days for that matter, make little or no difference, the causing of rain fall will be a highly valuable contribution to the beef-raising industry.

Artificially generated rains on the watersheds above the dams will assure full supplies of water in each of the regions supplied by the dams. It will end for all time the alternate periods of drought and plenty which have so long bedeviled farmers and ranchers.

Compare Arizona of today with Arizona of 1998. A person would have to be very unimaginative, indeed, not to draw from that comparison a glimpse of Arizona, 1998, and not to be thrilled at growth and progress promised. The story of Arizona in the years to come, as it has been in the past, can be told in one word: "Water!" In this, the heart of the arid West, water is scarce. It must be saved and used wisely. Water is our challenge. Here is the land the Nation will need to feed its growing population. Here is the water for the land. Here is the power that will come from the water if the water available is properly harnessed. Here is the challenge!