ARIZONA FLAGSTONE

Have you ever heard of building houses, patios and barbecue pits of stone from solidified sand dunes? The rock, known as flagstone, is quarried from ancient sand dunes located in north-central Arizona. There the fine grains of sand were joined together by some cementing agency under prehistoric seas in the age of dinosaurs. Few of the home owners who have the stone in use around their homes and gardens suspect its origin. They are satisfied that the stone is so beautiful and distinctive with its varied colors of red, white, rose, gold, pink, buff or green.

Today, Arizona flagstone is fast becoming one of the most popular building materials in the country. This fine-grained sandstone is considered among the more distinctive building materials, and is often combined with California redwood to attain the ultimate in southwestern appearance and atmosphere. When the stone was first quarried in the early nineteen-thirties, its beauty was slow in being recognized. But as it became apparent that the southwestern way of life with its easy, informal, patio-type of living was here to stay, the stone that was an integral part of this life soon grew in demand. The use of this colorful stone is not original with us. Our patios of huge slabs of flagstone and fireplaces of flagstone building rock are by no means new ideas. Some of the oldest structures in the southwest are made of slabs of sandstone. They are the homes of ancient Indian tribes. In canyons all over the central and north portions of the state can be found these structures. One of the most famous sandstone houses is that that of a people who occupied the area north and east of present-day Flagstaff. It is Wupatki, and is now a national monument. This house, once containing more than one hundred rooms and in places three stories high, was built of sandstone blocks held together by mud. It is situated on a spur of Moenkopi sandstone and overlooks the Painted Desert. Although Wupatki is over six hundred years old, much of the structure is still in an excellent state of pres-ervation.

These people were probably more interested in the fact that this red stone was conveniently at hand for use in their building than they were in its beauty. They were no doubt impressed with the easy way it split into uniform pieces, and made good level walls when laid between layers of mortar. Wupatki was a very logical place to settle. It had water, which is scarce in the area, building materials ready for use, and the land was the most fertile in northern Arizona.

Flagstone today is not quarried near this old Indian ruin. It is mostly a product of endeavor that takes place in the Drake-Ashfork-Williams region. Although some quar-rying is done elsewhere, probably no single area in the Southwest produces as many tons of flagstone as this part of Coconino and Yavapai counties.

Here the rock has been dug commercially for twenty years. Ledges of rock will become exhausted and men will immediately open new ones. Once they find a new deposit and decide to work it they loosen the top ground, or over-burden, with dynamite, and use bulldozers to clear the path for the men with mauls and wedges.

The hard, gruelling work begins when men bend to the task of splitting out the rock.

Finding seams in the exposed ledge of rock, they hammer a wedge into the rock at that point and immediately a small crack appears along the seam on each side of the wedge. When the first wedge has been driven in slightly, another is started in the same seam where the crack narrows. In this way the crack is widened until the slab of stone is completely free of the surrounding ledge. Next a bar is inserted under the rock to help the workers lift the sheet of flagstone on edge. When a sheet is split out and on end, they "walk" it to their stack of rock. These slabs of stone vary in size, many being longer and wider than a man is tall.

Most of the work in the quarries is paid for on a ton-nage basis. Men in good stone can work fast and make good money, while a man who starts digging in rock that is not bedded right can slave all day and not make enough to live on. Very little of this type of rock is worked. Although the altitude in the region of the quarries is relatively high, the sun is very warm. When the wind blows, many times it never reaches a man with its coolness because he is hidden by a ledge that completely blocks it out. The work is hot, heavy and tiring, but few men care to return to another type of labor once they get the knack of working the rock.

Roads in the quarry country are rough and dusty, or rough and muddy, but always rough. As one watches the trucks bouncing down the steep grades and making the sharp turns loaded with the large sheets of rock, one wonders how the stone keeps from shattering or jumping off the truck. But here again know-how is the keynote. When the slabs of sandstone are placed on their edges and slanted properly, they take the roughest roads with very little breakage.

When considering the truck and driver as they bounce and jog over the rough trip, little wonder is left for the stone. All attention is centered on the driver as he fights the wild load and the creaking, groaning truck. The trip down is not fast. It just seems so because of the road and load.

Shaping of the rock is done in many different places. Some of it is done at the quarry by the small operator, and some at the building site by the contractor. Much of the rock is bought by men who have small rock yards where they cut and ship stone. But the bulk of the rock is bought

and cut and shipped by a few large companies. These companies usually have huge machines weighing many tons that bite the rock into uniform shapes and sizes. This machine is called the guillotine. It is hydraulically operated, and has a large blade that bites or crushes the stone in two. Many smaller and sometimes home-built versions of these machines are owned by individual operators.

One of the larger companies that not only own quarries but also buys and ships rock is located at Drake. Individual quarrymen sell their flagstone to this company, and it is either shipped as flag or cut into building stone. The larger rock, sometimes ten inches thick, is broken into uniform widths by the guillotine. Other rock is handled in the splitting shed where it is first scored with a water-bathed saw in widths of predetermined size, then broken by a man with hammer and chisel along the line left by the saw.

The stone is then stacked on small platforms and later loaded in freight cars with a fork lift truck. As the cut stone is stacked and readied for transportation to distant points, it begins to take on some of the beauty it assumes when it is finished work in someone's garden wall, fireplace or other structure. Before the cutting, when it was in the quarries, it had a massive beauty, but now it has a more tailored look and to some more appeal. It is now in a form which makes it easy to build with, but by no means is its character of a oneness that so often robs a material of its individuality. The beauty of the stone is there, has been there for thousands or even millions of years, and will remain. It is up to the man who builds with it to mix colors and shapes of stone to make it a work of art.

Here is a stone that many amateur stone masons have used, and with which the most gratifying results have been obtained. A person's own imagination and ability to build are the only limits under which they work when using Arizona flagstone and cutstone.

Many home owners, architects and stone masons are finding the rough and rustic look that can be created with Arizona sandstone is more to their liking than the finely tailored finish that is often strived for. When this is the case, the mason takes hammer and chisel and, striking the stone a hard blow along the edges that are to be visible, he chips away the straight, smooth edges and leaves instead a rough-hewn appearance which actually is more in keeping with the true character of the stone. Different localities and different homes call for varying of finish, and it is simply a matter of individual taste that should govern the final appearance of the stone work.

Although the use of the building stone was once limited to that of walls and fireplaces, and the flagstone sheets to patios, it is now used for everything from book shelves to table tops.

People of imagination have used flagstone for making benches, living and playroom floors, and table tops for patio furniture, as well as porch furniture. The stone can be polished for floors and waxed so that the fine grains do not wear loose and scatter throughout the house. Of course, its main use is still in patios and walks.

Flagstone building rock has added much distinction to many residences that otherwise would have been nothing more than ordinary houses. The wedding of Arizona sandstone and California redwood has been one of the most successful of building material marriages. They are both expressions of immense, colorful and rugged lands where living comes first and convention and formality later.

Businessmen have come to recognize the value of dressing up their buildings, and the use of flagstone and cutstone, notably in Arizona and California, is one of their favorite materials. Bank, store and restaurant owners are especially fond of the individuality that is achieved with the Arizona sandstone. Not only is it used on the front of the buildings, but many times it holds the prominent part in the interior decorating scheme. One of the most widely used structures indoors, in homes as well as businesses, is the planter.

When looking at a planter or fireplace made of the stone, it is a little difficult to imagine the wonders that evolved before the stone was dug from the earth. Today, more and more of the quarrymen are becoming interested in the history of the rock from which they make their living. Many will talk of the way it is bedded, and of the footprints and other traces of a far distant life that they have uncovered. It is no wonder. Since school days people have been intrigued by the stories of dinosaurs, and here they find proof.

Millions of years ago all of the northern part of Arizona was a vast desert, with sand dunes unlike any that we know here today. The wind bedded the sand in layers in some places, and swirled the sand into ripples and fantastic, irregular patterns in others. Over the dunes crawled large and small reptiles and amphibians. Some left tracks, huge five-toed marks that measure more than a yard apart. Others were smaller. The period of dryness disappeared, and in its place came water. The dunes were buried under a sea, and the action of solidifying began.

With the sediment and pressure of the sea the sand was cemented, particle to particle, and eventually became the stone it is now. The tracks that remained were preserved by this cementing, later to be exposed by digging and erosion.

In the walls of the Grand Canyon one can find well marked locations along the trails showing the footprints of these ancient creatures. Here is the most spectacular place in the world to view the wonders of sandstone. From the top of the Grand Canyon to the bottom one can see the different formations that are pages in the geologic history of the world. One of these pages is best seen in the great layer of rock that rings both walls of this immense gorge. It is the Coconino sandstone, the band of white and buff rock that reaches heights of over 35 feet, and has been one of the most difficult of the formations for men to build trail through in their quest for the bottom of the Canyon.

After the sea receded for the last time, many things took place in the country of canyons and sandstone. The wind, rain and cold began their work of sculpturing the most weird, fantastic and beautiful shapes in the world. Monument Valley, Rainbow Bridge, Oak Creek Canyon, the Painted Desert and many other locations in Arizona show the effects of this erosion on sandstone. It did not happen in a few years or even a few centuries. It took hundreds of thousands of years to get these majestic works of art to the state in which we now know them. Nature employs powerful tools for her sculpturing, and when she unleashes a howling wind or torrential rain the results are awesome.

Much of this erosion did not take place where the flagstone quarries are located, at least not to the extent that it did elsewhere. The old sand dunes that now yield flagstone are covered with soil that grows piñon pines, juniper trees and cacti, and it is this covering covering that helps defeat erosion. The sandstone of the quarries and that of certain formations in the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly and other colorful parts of the canyon country are of the same geologic age. The delicate pastels of flagstone carry into the home some of the enchantment of these beautiful places.

Yours Sincerely OPPOSITE PAGE

CANYON STORY CONTINUED: I would say you have gone just a step or two too far in getting out the ARIZONA HIGHWAYS for March. Anything else you do will be anticlimax. You simply can't equal this number for art and literature. Just as the canyon itself cannot be described, so words fail me when I try to tell you how excellent the March ARIZONA HIGHWAYS really is. John B. Priestly, the English writer, has an excellent chapter on the Grand Canyon in his book, "Midnight on the Desert." (And he prefers Wickenburg to all places in Arizona!) I like this one: "I have heard rumors of visitors who were disappointed. These same people will be disappointed at the Day of Judgment. In fact the Grand Canyon is a sort of landscape Day of Judgment." Or this one: "The Colorado River made it, but you feel when you are there that God gave the Colorado River its instructions." I have always wondered that Padre Francisco Tomas Garces did not wax more enthusiastic over his first view of the Grand Canyon: "I traveled four leagues southeast, and south, and turning to the east; and halted at the sight of the most profound cañones which ever onward continue; and within these flows the Rio Colorado. There is seen a very great sierra, which in the distance looks blue; and there runs from southeast to northwest a pass open to the very base, as if the sierra were cut artificially to give entrance to the Rio Colorado into these lands." But probably if we had ridden a mule from San Xavier (in midsummer) to Yuma, to Fresno, California; to the Grand Canyon, to Oraibi, and back to San Xavier, maybe we wouldn't have been enthusiastic, either! I can't close without telling you this story. One summer a group of us tourists were sitting on the terrace of the hotel at the North Rim at sunset, watching God give a preview of Heaven, when somebody ventured an exclamation about its grandeur. An old fellow spat a stream of tobacco-juice in the Canyon and remarked: "Wall, ef you want to see scenery, you ought to see the Ozarks in Missoura!" Nothing happened, everybody seeming to be waiting for the other fellow to push him into the Canyon.

William Howard Taft as exclaiming upon his first viewing of the Grand Canyon: "Golly, what a gully!" It also would seem that this same magazine for September of 1947 contained a similar statement as fact. But on page 44 of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS for January, 1948, you quote pioneer Jack Tooker of Prescott, Arizona. This gentleman states that he was an eyewitness to the Taft visit to the Grand Canyon in 1907, twelve years before it became a national park; and that Mr. Taft definitely made no such remark. Quoting Mr. Tooker directly, he further states: "It was Irving S. Cobb who made that statement. There was a small gathering watching Cobb. When he walked up to the rim, he seemed to be struck dumb by its beauty and vastness. Then he turned and saw we were watching him. He knew that we expected some statement from him. He said, 'Golly, what a gully!'" I once saw and heard President Taft speak for an hour in an open air address in Waterloo, Iowa, in 1912. He there used very carefully chosen and cultured English of the highest polish and correct form. All his private as well as his public and official utterances whenever and wherever he has been quoted attest to his mastery in the use of English of superlative quality. He would not therefore have resorted to the use of such an undignified and inelegant vernacular expression as, "Golly, what a gully." On the other hand, consider the corrupt literary style of Mr. Cobb in most of his stories, in which he tries to imitate a type of unlettered, uncultured person with a Southern drawl. Let us correct this, Mr. Editor, please, so that no future biographer or historian can quote the supposedly staid, straight-laced and truth-loving intent of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS in regards to this erroneous occurrence.

Frank A. Waitman St. Paul, Minnesota

Rev. Victor R. Stoner Victoria, Texas

GOLLY, HOW WE GET THINGS MIXED UP:

Pardon me for attempting to put you right about an apparent discrepancy. In March, 1954, issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, Elizabeth F. McFarland in her article entitled, "This Is The Grand Canyon," (p. 12) quotes President "MARBLE CANYON," BY WILLIS PETERSON. For 164 miles, the length of the Colorado's Glen Canyon, omnipresent vermillion cliffs relentlessly hem in the "River Rat" as he bobs along, caught in the river's current. At this point, mile 2, nearing journey's end, the massive cliffs begin to give way and gradually descend. At mile o, Lee's Ferry, the canyon walls sudddenly break into the plain. But the mighty Colorado goes onward, only to plunge into a new series of canyons-Marble and then the Grand Canyon.

SUNSET IN ARIZONA

The gaunt and naked rocks looked golden In the setting sun, And down a winding mountain trail I saw a gold horse run. He passed a bush with gilded leaves And kicked a cloud of dust Which drifted like a golden mist Above the earth's bronze crust.

ELIZABETH REEVES HUMPHREYS

CANYON DE CHELLY

A single grain of sand, alone, Though it were blown by Heaven's mightiest gale, Must surely fail to leave a scratch to catch Man's eye, that he might trace its race Along these glowering walls of stone; Yet, wielded by the Master Sculptor's hand, Small grains of sand, combined, had power to hew This canyon through the sullen rough red stuff: Man, too, if only he could see, Like sand, cuts canyons through his land.

VADA F. CARLSON

YUCCA TAPERS

The candles of the Lord burn white upon their altar of green hills Their myriad bells, like muted voices from a distant hill, whisper a call to worship "Come, where the anthem is bird sung.. Where light and sun can warm the body as clouds lift the spirit heavenward Come, where inmost thoughts are prayers of faith in lupin-blue The candles of the Lord burn white upon their altar of the hills

LORRAINE BABBITT

BACK COVER

"VERDANT VISTA" BY MATT CULLEY. "I had just finished a day of photo-taking on the Suncrest Ranch around Pat Knoll in the White Mountains, south of Springerville, and was going back to town when I came out of the pines into this miniature valley," the photographer says. "There was something about it that arrested my attention the small groups of aspen with the irregular background of green pines all standing out against the backdrop of a perfect summer sky. My wife is responsible for the very appropriate title." Taken with a Speed Graphic Zeiss Tessar 6" coated lens with an exposure of 1/25 sec. @ f16 on Ektachrome. While on leave in Arizona last December,

LOST FILMS:

I lost a roll of exposed 35 mm color film. Perhaps your mentioning this on your "Yours Sincerely" page might get it back for me. On it were shots of the Rio Grande, an antelope, Cave Creek and the Wonderland of Rocks in the Chiricahua Mountains, and several of a tall, not unattractive, blonde girl-my wife. If someone did find this film and sends it back, I'll be most happy to send him a gift subscription to your uniformly excellent magazine.

John A. Magee Ist Lt. USAF Foster AFB, Texas