Phoenix — the City's Government

PHOENIX EARLY-DAY

"This is a smart town . . . When it has become the capital of the Territory, which it will, undoubtedly, at no very distant day, and when the 'iron horse' steams through our country on the Texas Pacific road, Salt River will be the garden of the Pacific slope, and Phoenix the most important inland town. The Indian is now a nuisance, and the Sonoranian a decided annoyance, but both of these are sure to disappear before civilization, 'as snow before the noonday sun.'" - From a report on Phoenix in the San Diego Union, March 5, 1872."The purity of the (Phoenix) atmosphere seems to prevent all malarial diseases . . ." - Tucson Citizen, April, 1872.

"We are a growing community. Several families came in during the last month, and the gentler sex is becoming well represented." - From a report on Phoenix in the Arizona Citizen in 1870."We have had no earthquakes, waterspouts, hurricanes or other physical phenomena that I could chronicle." - From a letter written by a Phoenician to the Arizona Miner in 1870.

"We have a county jail (which in this county is a good thing to have), and a very respectable building for a courthouse. We have a flourishing school, with an attendance of about twenty scholars." - From a report by a Phoenician to the Arizona Miner in 1872."On Salt River is a settlement of about three hundred people, engaged exclusively in agriculture. The whole neighborhood is entitled Phoenix... This body of land lies several miles from any mountains, and therefore is comparatively safe from Indian depredations." - From an article in the San Francisco Weekly Bulletin in 1870.

"The common belief has been that Irish potatoes would not flourish here, but experiments this year prove otherwise ." - From a Phoenix newsletter in a Prescott newspaper in 1870.

"East Phoenix is a very pretty little hamlet . . ." - From Hinton's "Handbook to Arizona," published in 1878.

"In Yavapai county, the passage of the 'Maricopa county' bill created much discussion, and some doubt was expressedas to the ability of the residents of the Salt River Valley to sustain a separate county government, without the aid of the settlements along the south side of the Gila River." - From "History of Arizona" by Thomas Edwin Farish.

"Phoenix is a rapidly growing city, and one of great possibilities Its people are moral and law-abiding (The) Indians show an eagerness to adopt civilized ways and habits and have ever been friendly to the whites." - From "The History of Arizona" by Sidney R. DeLong, published in 1905."

"In 1878 I visited Arizona and stopped over near Phoenix as a guest of a man named Hayden, who had a fine house and was building a big corral. Phoenix was then quite a town, and had a good hotel, several stores, and trees along one or more of its streets." - From a report by Major Ben Truman, special agent of the U.S. Postoffice Department, quoted in the Arizona Republican in 1910.

"The Prescott Miner for December 7, 1870, carried an advertisement which read: 'Great Sale of Lots at Phoenix, Arizona, on December 23 and 24.' A Prescott citizen, Judge Berry, bought the first lot in this great sale for $104. It was located (this is by hearsay) at what is now the intersection of Washington Street and Central Avenue in the heart of present-day downtown Phoenix. There were many who believed the judge was badly taken in at that 1870 sale. Most residents thought that anything over $25 for a city lot, where there was no city, was outrageous. "From "The Gila: River of the Southwest" by Edwin Corle.

"One of the richest, most fertile, exquisitely embowered, well-shaded, extra-well-watered cities of the world." - From "Arizona the Wonderland" by George Wharton James, published in 1917.

"A great race once dwelt here. And another great race will dwell here in the future. I prophesy that a new city will spring phoenix-like from the ruins and ashes of the old." - Prophesy spoken by Darrell Duppa, Arizona adventurer and pioneer, at the time of Phoenix' founding.

"The fame of the marvelous Salt River Valley is extending to every portion of the Union, and year by year advancement goes on at a rate that will soon make of this region the garden spot of the world." - From "A Historical and Biographical Record of the Territory of Arizona," published in 1896.

"The city is not as handsomely built up as could be desired, but it is, fortunately, fast passing the adobe age." - From "History of Arizona Territory," published in 1884.

"In no part of this vast tract (Arizona) can the rains of Heaven be relied upon to any extent for the cultivation of the soil." From It. Col. W. H. Emory's account of the Kearney expedition in 1846.

"The country is dry and dreary (and) produces a tarantula of very large size." - From a report by Franz Huning of Albuquerque on a trip through the Phoenix area in the latter 19th century.

"The Salt River Valley has reached its human saturation point. Paradise is closed. There is not, and never will be, enough water to irrigate more land. Future development of this valley, as in so many parts of the Southwest, depends upon people who bring incomes from other states." From "Our Southwest" by Erna Fergusson, published in 1940.