Yuma - City of the Future

BY SAM A. SICILIANO PHOTOGRAPHY BY EMIL EGER, JR.

Two years ago Mercedes and I sat in a library in a small South Dakota town and poured over copies of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS trying to find out everything we could about Yuma, Arizona.

We were moving there because the damp cold of the South Dakota winter and the Russian Thistle-filled South Dakota summer caused Mercedes asthma and hay fever, respectively.

Mercedes has found relief from both in Yuma. I have found work that I enjoy and opportunity. We both have found friends and happiness.

We often speak of those nights in that small town library. We often think of the many who could find what we have found in Yuma.

I decided to write of Yuma as I wish someone had written of her for us as we faced the complete change necessary when an unknown, 2,000 miles away, must be challenged.

The following then is Yuma as she is, the good and the bad, as we know her now and as we wished we knew her then.

To the newspaper reading and radio listening American public Yuma, Arizona, is where movie stars get married and all records for high temperatures are broken every summer.

To the ticker tape reading public Yuma, Arizona, is the capital of a multi-million dollar produce-growing empire with prospects for making its present economy seem small by comparison.

To the medical journal reading public Yuma, Arizona, is a proven source of health and longevity from which letters are received from patients sent there, twenty years ago, to live out their "at the most six months" of life.

And to the estimated 14,000 persons who call it home, Yuma, Arizona, is deserving of the complete but young loyalties possible only where seven of every ten persons you meet came from every state in the union except Arizona.

Yuma is a city of contrasts. It's a blustering city that dresses for comfort and can spot a four-flusher a mile away and will tell him so to his face.

But it's a friendly city and nowhere between the Rockies and the Pacific coast is western hospitality more at home. It has been said, and with truth, that you can't be in Yuma for fifteen minutes without having someone speak a friendly word to you.

It is a farm community that does its farming with the latest in farm tools and the most progressive ideas known to agricultural science.

But it is also a business city with more of its business done over a cup of coffee than it ever transacted over a desk.

Yumans complain loudly of the million and one things people always complain of about their city.

But Yuma's Chamber of Commerce is the largest anywhere in the world. It's made up of everyone who lives there and each of them has a store of advantages ready to counter any disadvantage brought forth by a stranger.

Yuma has a past it conveniently ignores, not because it is ashamed of it but because it spends all of its time living in its present and looking into its future.

The legendary Father Kino first saw the site upon which Yuma now stands in 1700 and named it San Dionisio.

Following settlement, however, the pioneers renamed it Colorado City, after the river that flowed at its side.

The flood of 1862 wiped out the community and the name went along with the debris. Emerging after the flood the reYuma, Arizona's city of the future, spreads out from the banks of the Colorado River in the southwestern corner of the state. Tides of history have swept over this vantage point in crossing the river. Today Yuma is on the verge of a vast agricultural expansion of a farming empire of which it is the growing center.

But Padre Garces lives in more than marble. He lives in the minds of the Yumans whose Old Ones tell the tales of their Old Ones before them. Stories of the good Padre whose cross carried him safely where armor failed many others. whose kindness and understanding are now legendary.

Three times Padre Garces stemmed the tide of revolt among the Indians against the "white soldiers from across the sea." But even their love for him wasn't enough to stave off the massacre of July 19, 1781. Padre Garces fell before a young warrior's axe while he was celebrating mass at Mission La Purisima Concepcion.

Photograph was taken with Grover 4 x 5 View Camera, with 71/2" Kodak wide-field Ektarlens, f.22 at one second, polaroid screen, Kodachrome (daylight type.) Photographer: Emil Eger. Jr.

YUMA-CITY OF THE FUTURE Continued from page eight.

Newly built town found itself with a new name-Arizona City. This name lasted long enough to furnish an excuse for present day Elks to hold a three-day western whingding called Arizona City Days.

It was on February 2, 1873, that the name Yuma was settled upon the city by the Territorial Legislature.

Actually the name, Yuma, is another of those mistaken Indian pronunciations that have been responsible for the naming of so many of America's cities.

The Spanish missionaries who worked among the Indians erroneously called them "Yah-may-o" Indians. This, through mispronunciations, became Yuma.

For the record Yuma's history is as filled with adventure and romance as any.

It starts with the Cocopah Indians, goes on through to the Apaches, who stayed to become the Yumas, and continues on to the first Europeans to see the granite bluff jutting into the Colorado river, members of the Coronado expedition of 1540, searching for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola.

From the unsuccessful quest for gold the history covers a space of some 300 years of missionary teachings and missionary massacring until the acquisition of the territory by the United States through the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ratified in 1848.

In 1858 gold was finally discovered along the Colorado and Gila rivers and the little community became a bustling terminal of shipping, trade and frontierism. A ferry was established to the California side and Arizona City, as Yuma was then called, settled down to become the mining and shipping headquarters on the Arizona side.

But a far richer lode was struck in the Reclamation Act of 1902. The Act provided for the building of the Laguna Dam, fourteen miles north, and the wealth-producing water started to pour through the sluice gates. Irrigation came to Yuma on a large scale and, through the construction of the dam, put an end to the shipping trade. But the Southern Pacific Railroad, coupled with the products of the irrigated land, showed the way to richness ahead.

Today Yuma sprawls over three square miles of both reclaimed and virgin desert. One hundred ninety-five miles to the northeast lies Phoenix, Arizona's capitol and largest city. Two hundred forty-four miles to the southeast lies Tucson, the state's second largest city. Yuma lays claim to the third largest title herself by virtue of several Chamber of Commerce sponsored reasons and several others that aren't remotely connected with the chamber: logical reasons that deal with increases in gas meters, telephones, vote registrations and a 1946 published city directory. Twenty miles south and west of Yuma the International border runs its mathematical course allowing the Yuman a half hour run to a foreign country and the growing Sonora town of San Luis.

Yuma considers itself ideally situated geographically for other reasons too. One hundred eighty-five miles west is San Diego with its excellent all-year good weather and its share of the Pacific Ocean and attendant water sports.

Then too, Los Angeles, Hollywood and all that goes with them are only three hundred miles, or a day's drive, away.

The car owner isn't the only one able to enjoy these proximities either. Both Greyhound and American Buslines send their air-conditioned coaches out of Yuma on 24-hour schedules. And the Southern Pacific services Yuma with fourteen passenger trains daily, including the well-advertised, extra-fare Golden State Limited, a superb luxury train.

Closer home are the participation sports. Catfish, bass, bluegill and others, can be legally fished in any of the waters in Yuma county. The Yuma angler usually motors 36 miles to Martinez or Ferguson Lakes where the finny fellows run free and (usually) in plenty.

For the hunter there are seasons when his gun can bring down duck, geese, white wing doves, mourning doves, cottontails and mule deer. And the really big game is only a license and a day's drive away.

Both hunting and fishing are regulated by national and state laws, of course, but the rod and gun enthusiast finds that he can pursue his sport just about as close to home as he likes.

And in the off seasons there are clubs for both the men and women where stories of the "big one that got away" are traded over the festive board of social gatherings.

As for the social picture, other than the sports groups, Yuma is known as the "joiningest town in Arizona."

All told there are fifty social, fraternal and civic organizations. In fact, one finds it easier to list those that aren't than those that are. It has been said that if any man, woman or child comes to Yuma with a membership in any organization he will find a branch of it here or can get enough others to form one without half trying. But all of Yuma's groups aren't concerned with the social, civic or fraternal aspects of life alone. Some of its finest buildings are those dedicated to its religious beliefs. Thirtyone faiths are represented in Yuma and practically all of them have their own churches. There is religious tolerance in Yuma of the kind dreamed of by the framers of those documents guaranteeing religious freedom. The Episcopal Parish House is used by all groups when they wish a place to gather and the proposed Catholic Playground will be open to children of all faiths when the planting and play equipment is completed on its acreage.

There are three downtown movie houses and a $130,000 drive-in theatre, recently completed. The community concert series, featuring four or five of the top musical artists in the country, is over-subscribed each year. For those who like their stage with a Broadway rather than a Carnegie Hall touch there is a like series that presents three or four legitimate theatre hits.

Yuma is also fortunate in her geographical location in that she plays host to some of the better carnivals and circuses each season. The "big ones" like to play Phoenix and San Diego. The jump between those two cities is too long so a one-nighter is usually reserved for the in-between stop-Yuma.

There are also night football games, basketball, baseball and, the main activity of the summer season, the hotly contested intra-city softball league-two nights a week under the lights at spacious Doan Field.

For the swimmer there is the new $68,000 swimming pool built in the swimming pool park so that if one doesn't like the water he can still enjoy the day in sitting and looking at the scantily clads. As for its political leanings, Yuma is predominately Democratic. But its Republican party is an extremely active group despite the fact that it is outnumbered ten to one.

Its city government, however, is non-partisan. It functions under the council system with the Mayor and four district councilmen comprising its main legislative and executive body.

On the weather front Yuma is constantly at war-in the summer, with the thermometer, and in the winter, with public information media trying to let as many people as possible know about her wonderful October through May.

Any Yuman will tell you his summers are hot. He takes a morbid pride in claiming the title "Hottest City in the United States" just about daily from June 8 to September 13 of every year.

Actually the old saw, "But it's a dry heat," is an established fact. Humidity readings of seventeen to twenty are common and they have dropped as low as four and five without causing the slightest stir of interest.

There are some high humidity readings, of course. These make the only really uncomfortable days in the area. Existence in the Yuma desert area is possible through the evaporation of moisture from the skin. When the humidity, or moisture content of the air, is low the hottest wind will cool the body as it dries perspiration. When the humidity is high, as it is during the latter part of August and the first part of September, Yuma suffers.

On the average the entire summer sees the mercury above one hundred every afternoon. The nights cool off slightly but not, as is true in most desert regions, enough to require blankets or even a sheet or two.

The highest recorded temperatures were two readings of one hundred twenty degrees in the seventy-eight years that records have been kept. But the records also show that record has almost been reached many times. It isn't difficult to see, then, why even so civic-minded a city as Yuma is willing to admit that "Yep, our summers are thermometer busters."

But the Yuman knows that he has the heat licked and thereby lies his easy admittance of his summer extremes.

Mr. and Mrs. Yuma have four ways to beat the heat. The first is to move someplace else. But that is merely an alternative and very seldom taken.

Of the other three, one is physical and two are mechanical. A quick weekend in the mountains, three hours away, or on the coast, five hours away, takes care of the former. The latter are handled by evaporative coolers and refrigeration.

Evaporative coolers draw air, by means of fans, through water-soaked pads of excelsior. These "coolers" are made in various sizes, the average five or six room house requiring a machine costing from $150 to $200.

Refrigeration overcomes the cooler's only fault-excessive moisture. It has a fault of its own, however. It's more expensive. The same house that could be serviced by an evaporative cooler in the $150-$200 price range would require an outlay of close to $2000 for refrigeration, plus an operational cost of about $20 per month.

A recent survey conducted by The Yuma Daily Sun among refrigeration dealers, however, brought forth the consensus that most Yuma buildings will be air conditioned by refrigeration within five years for they expect the cost to drop considerably. In fact, many of the stores and business houses have already installed refrigeration and the city leads the nation in per capita installations.

Yuma winters, to pass to the really sublime, are just that.

Thousands of travelers stop at border checking station on U. S. 80.

They aren't warm winters but they do follow the summers in one important respect-they are filled with sunshine. Heat is required in homes and buildings through the winter months, especially during the early morning and late evening hours. Most dwellings and business houses use gas heat which takes a flick of a switch to turn on and an equally unstrenuous effort to turn off. But, invariably, the period from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. between November 1 and April 1 is the time for shirt sleeves and lazing comfortably out-of-doors. There have been exceptions, of course. But they have to be hunted with such a degree of research that Beautiful Winters is a claim undisputed. Killing frosts are known, too, but there has been only one of those in the last four years and records of them through the years are infrequent. As for rain, to quote the usual answer to a request for annual precipitation-"There ain't any." Actually, Yuma does have rain but in such minute quantities that a rainfall rates a headlined story on page one of The Sun. There are places in the world that have seen more rainfall in a single year than Yuma has had in seventy-eight. The annual average is 3.39 inches. The heaviest was in 1905 when 11.41 inches fell and lowest was 0.47 inches in 1928. It hasn't been above four inches in the last eight years. Naturally Yuma's weather as everything else, is looked upon in the light of its relation to agriculture. In seventy-eight years Yuma has maintained an average of over 90% possible sunshine, more than any place else in the U. S., and an average of 341 growing days each year. In sixteen of those seventy-eight years every day in the year was a growing day. So, Yuma has its heat and its four wind storms a year, twice when the sand blows in from California and twice when it's blown back. But it also has its winters and its 'growin' time.

As a Yuman is wont to tell it, "We drip gallons in perspiration but we ship millions in lettuce."

Few people come to Yuma to look for work. They come, instead, to fill a job they got through correspondence. They have, undoubtedly, been told all by their prospective employer. They have also been told that there is a future for those who are willing to find one but that if there is the slightest doubt in their minds they shouldn't bother coming at all. Yuma has its housing shortage. However, unlike many cities without even the excuse of growing pains, she is fast doing things about it. Many of its people still have their evening paper delivered to Trailer No. So and So in Trailer Camp Such and Such. Others continue to receive their mail in emergency war housing communities which should have been declared surplus. Still others aren't there at all because they couldn't find housing to both taste and pocketbook. But an increasing number is busy with the innumerable tasks attendant upon settling in a new home and many who never dreamed they would are exercising the home-owners perogative of complaining about property taxes. Construction costs are quoted at between $8.25 and $9.00 per cubic foot for a home built to individual specifications. The average five room house, with bath and the right of the missus to say how many clothes closets she wants in the master bedroom, therefore, would set you back about $8,500. Houses in the subdivisions, where you get the same amount of space but friend wife has to arrange living by the master architectural plan, run to a $6,200 average. In the 134 home Stewart Subdivision, for instance, two-bedroom homes sold for $6,150 while the three-bedroom size was $6,800.

As for how much it costs to be a property owner the tax rate shapes up with a 1948 base city tax rate of $3.31 per $100 valuation. Add to this a county rate of $1.08 and school levis of $1.55 and one finds himself making out a check for $5.94 for each $100 value the assessor decides your property deserves, based on a 60% of actual worth figure. Rentals are at an average of $50 a month with hardly an individual rent coming close to the average. Depending upon depending district and size your landlord might collect anywhere from $25 to $100 each time he makes his first of the month call. For the majority the most important room in any house is the kitchen because of the table set in the corner on which the average American places 21.9% of his income. The Yuma