YOURS SINCERELY

Yours SINCERELY NO HOT DOG STANDS ENCOUNTERED:

Probably no reader of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS was more interested than I in the article in the June issue on the Blue River Country by Gaston Burridge and the accompanying photographs by the author, Wayne Davis and Roy Caples.

In late August thirty-nine years ago I made a solo trip from Clifton to Springerville through the Blue Canyon. As Territorial Entomologist I was making a survey of orchard pests and having finished my work in the Duncan-Clifton area my next scheduled stop-off was at St. Johns, about 100 miles north as the crow flies but some 650 miles through Phoenix, Ash Fork and Holbrook by rail and stage. After consulting with some of the best informed Cliftonians regarding roads and trails, and learning of no feasible alternate route, I decided to take the Blue Canyon short cut to Springerville on the deck of the only conveyance-one horse power-suitable for the purpose.

On my way north I visited for insect pest observations a splendid orchard a short distance above Clifton owned by Dell Potter, as I recall the name, a mining engineer or mining company official. Then, a few miles above, I examined a very fine apple orchard owned by Ira Harper. My first night out I spent with another apple grower, named Adams, I believe, whose place was a couple miles up the San Francisco River. The last two mentioned fruit growers, at my suggestion, sent some of their fruit to me at Phoenix which I exhibited for them at the State Fair. Their display plates of lead. ing commercial varieties were well decorated with first and second prize ribbons.

On the second day, back tracking a bit and entering the lower end of the Blue Canyon above the junction of the Blue and San Francisco, I spent the second night out of Clifton at the Blue Ranger Station, my third night some 25 miles further up at an abandoned ranch house, my fourth with a cattle rancher and family near the upper end of the canyon and my fifth with a rancher and his family at Alpine. At the time, the sole inhabitants of the 70 mile canyon consisted of three families, counting one (not Harper's) at or near the lower end, one at the Ranger Station and one living at a cattle house about 30 to 35 miles further up. Needless to say no hot dog stands or gas stations were en counteered.

Late in the afternoon of the fifth, as I approached Alpine, drenched to the skin with cold rain (which a few hours earlier had been welcomed by a travelling entomologist with an empty canteen) it was a cheerful sight, looking down across the mountain valley, to see a column of smoke arising from the chimney of a ranch house. It was getting dark rapidly when, a short time later, I pulled up alongside a man I had spotted from the edge of the clearing as he was rounding up a bunch of cattle. I was indeed a stranger and a weary traveller who needed a friend and I had found one. I was soon in dry underclothes from my pack and wrapped in a borrowed blanket in front of a huge roar ing fire with my wet clothes steaming as they dried nearby.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS' pictures bring back to me very vividly some of the wonderful Blue Canyon scenery. Austin W. Morrill Arcadia, Calif.

LARGEST LAKE:

In the April issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, page four, you make the statement "largest man-made lake in the world today." And again on page eleven under the picture of Lake Mead you again state, "largest artificial lake in the world has 600 mile shoreline." I am sure you thought you were right and being an Arizonan have perhaps never heard of Kentucky Lake. But being Kentuckians we are proud of Kentucky Lake being "the largest man-made lake in the world," with a shoreline of 2,300 miles. Mrs. E. H. Mammen Casa Grande, Arizona Kentucky Lake is a whopper: From the dam at Gilbertsville, the lake backs up along the old bed of the Tennessee River to Pickwick Dam-184 miles through Kentucky and Tennessee to the Alabama state line. Kentucky apparently has something else besides horses and whiskey to brag about.

NOTES FOR HAIRDRESSERS:

Your July number was one of the best Indian issues you have ever put out and I am glad to have had a part in it. The layout on my article, Southwestern Hair-does, was excellent. While I realize this was not an anthropological paper, several corrections should be made just for the record. I well realize that with so many sketches to handle, labelling was a problem. One point as a whole is that there is no mention of the hairdo being for man, woman or both. Also, several corrections should be made: On page 26, Basketmakers are the two left lower sketches, the first one on far left being woman and second being man. The third one from left is Pueblo II and Pueblo III woman. The next one, fourth from left, is Basketmaker man. The two hair knots on top of same page are only for men. Upper left hand corner is braid style for women. Sketches fourth and fifth from left, upper page, are not braids but double chongos. On page 28, third from left lower row, caption should read "Jemez, Laguna, Others." On page 29, chongo with bangs is woman style of the Pueblos, with exception of Acoma and Laguna. On page 30 eliminate double chongo for Pueblo corn dance and Zuni corn grinding. This should read ceremonial. Double chongo (same page) "Jacarilla women" should read "Jicarilla women." On page 33, substitute ceremonial for double chongo in Zuni Corn Maiden (bottom center of page). Paul Coze Pasadena, Calif.

HOPI JEWELRY:

Having just read your July issue we have become interested in how to obtain Hopi jewelry. Could you refer us to a dealer or the Hopi Silvercraft Guild, or someone who might have a pamphlet describing the jewelry and quoting prices Frank J. Brickwedel Klamath, Calif.

NORTH RIM

The sun has set. As yet no evening star Pricks through the sky. The lights of El Tovar Across the mighty chasm warmly gleam. Lost in the canyon's shadowed depths the stream Which wound its brown, dark ribbon through the day Far, far away. Now faint and high An owl calls in the Kaibab's towering pines, A white-tailed squirrel chatters, and the deer Cautiously crop the long grass lying near The pebbled road which wanders past the signs Marking this beauty, labeled for you and me. Lest we of pygmy stature should not see. Should miss this this majesty, turning our feet away. ELLA ELIZABETH PRESTON

THE LORD'S ROUND-UP

Came the Lord's riders out of the south, Came the Lord's round-up ending our droughtRiding herd on the high scattered clouds, Covering the desert with a dusty shroudFour hard-riding cowboys of our Lord. Angry wind, pelting rain, flash lightning and thunderous roarAs they stampeded thunder-heads of silvery grey. Into heaven's corral at the close of dayThen drew the Lord's iron from crimson sun, The "Rainbow" brand-twilight, stars, round-up done. RALPH A. FISHER, SR.

TO A YOUNG EASTERN GUEST

Here in the west: we hope enchantment Never dies within your eyes: That always there may be something of ecstasy. When your rememberings, sometime from now, Some future day: mark other happy things You found along the widespread western way. GRACE MEREDITH

THUNDER STORM

From gathering clouds The war-cry comes Of Storm Chief beating His thunder drums; While racing across Mesa and plain His scouts let fly Their arrows of rain. LESLIE SAVAGE CLARK

GHOST TOWN

Empty, open windows, Gaping at the road;. Doors askew on hinges, Pathways never hoed. Fences long unmended, Shingles fluttering down: Life at last has ended: Ghosts have come to town! CATHERINE M. HENSON

EPILOGUE

When writing in a guest book I always can retrieve All of my cleverest, wittiest thoughtsThe minute that I leave. THELMA IRELAND "MEETING AT EVENING" BY BILL SEARS. This picture was taken at the Crown "C" Ranch near Sonoita very late in the afternoon toward the end of last November. Bill says: "I had been taking Infra-red pictures of the hills there which are wonderfully interpreted in that medium-the depth and distance come through so well. As the shadows lengthened the color ing became so lovely that I couldn't resist taking this shot. It was made with a Busch Pressman using a six inch Ektar lens, exposing 1/10 at f 11. The long exposure was chanced since the horses were so far away that slight movement would probably not be perceptible. The film was given special high speed processing by Natracolor in Tucson." Here is Arizona at its best!