Tucson: They Said and Are Saying

COMPILED BY JOSEPH STOCKER "Tucson . . . has been a town of some importance for about a century. Seven-eighths of the population are Mexican, and the Spanish language is more spoken than the English."

-From "The Territory of Arizona-A Brief History and Summary," prepared by authorization of the territorial legislatare and published in 1874.

". . . a city of mud boxes, dingy and dilapidated, cracked and baked into a composite of dust and filth; littered about with broken corrals, sheds, bake ovens, carcasses of dead animals and broken pottery; barren of verdure, parched, naked and grimly desolate in the glare of a southern sun."

-From "Adventures in the Apache Country," by J. Ross Browne, published in 1868.

"[Tucson] was a place of resort for traders, speculators, gamblers, horse-thieves, murderers and vagrant politicians. Men who were no longer permitted to live in California found the climate of Tucson congenial to their health. If the world were searched over, I suppose there could not be found so degraded a set of villains as then formed the principal society of Tucson. Every man went armed to the teeth, and street fights and bloody affrays were of daily occurrence. It was literally a paradise of devils."

-From "A Tour Through Arizona," by the same author, published in 1864 "Tucson was just a little Mexican village of a few hundred souls out there on the desert, soo miles by stagecoach from San Diego to the west and El Paso to the east."

-From "Ridin' the Rainbow," Rosemary Taylor's novel about Tucson in the mid-19th century.

"Opposed as I am to gambling, no matter what prorean guise it may assume, I should do the gamblers of Tucson the justice to say that they were as progressive an element as the town had. They always had plank floors . . ."

From "On the Border with Crook," by Capt. John G. Bourke, 1891.

"It may be that not all will find this oasis town, lapped in the desert and girt about with low mountains, as much to their liking as I do, but I believe it possesses features worth going back on one's tracks to see; for it has a decided character of its own."

-From "Finding the Worthwhile in the Southwest," by Charles Francis Saunders, 1918.

"Tucson... is beginning, under the American ambition, to aspire to something more than one-story adobes."

From "Picturesque Arizona," by E. Coaklin, 1878.

"Tucson. . is the largest city of Arizona, with a population of 20,000."

From "Arizona," by F. M. Irish, 1907.

". . . the miserable little town of Tucson."

From "The Far Western Frontier, 1830-1860," by Ray Allen Billington.

"The town of Tucson is built up almost wholly of adobe (sunburned brick), and to one unaccustomed to that kind of material, it presents a quaint and curious appearance"

-From "Arizona As It Is, or The Coming Country," by Hiram C. Hodge, 1877.

". . . the only walled city that the United States has ever known."

-From "Cartoon Guide of Arizona," by Reg Manning.

". . . the winter weather is simply perfect."

From "Azizona Sketches;" by Joseph A. Munk, M.D., 1905.

"Tucson, early in the 19th century, was beginning to assume importance as a Spanish settlement. Its great-est problem was how best to repulse the periodic attacks of the Apaches."

From "Under Turquoise Skies," by Will H. Robinson, 1938.

"We wonder what Father De Niza [the Spanish priest and explorer] would say if he saw his honorable pueblo at the present day, its adobe walls, or what is left of them, shrinking in the glare of the electric light and crumbling to pieces with the mighty jar of railroad trains."

From "The New Arizona," published by the Southern Pacific railroad in 1897.

"Tucson . . . a miserable old place garrisoned by about one hundred men." -From the letters and journals of John E. Durivage, correspondent of the New Orleans Daily Picayune, 1849.

"Approached from the southwest, like Santa Fe, Tucson is not seen until very close by. Of course, its adobe houses are the same in appearance but inferior . It is a more populous village than I had supposed, containing about five hundred." -From Lt. Col. Philip St. George Cooke's journal, kept during the march of the Mormon Battalion, 1846-47.

"Tucson . a pearl set in a land of blazing sands." -From "Old Tucson," by Estelle M. Buehman, 1911.

"In 1864 it was said that there were two extraterritorial 'travel bureaus' that sent a great number of sightseers to Tucson. [They] were the California Vigilance Committee and the Texas Rangers." -From "The Gila-River of the Southwest," by Edwin Corle.

"The livest and most energetic things that we saw about Tucson were its innumerable blackbirds Tucson should emulate their intrepidity and zeal. She should shake off somewhat of the spirit of Rip Van Winkle, and remember she is under Yankee Government now, and in the latter half of the nineteenth century." -From "The Great West and the Pacific Coast," by Gen. James E. Rusling, 1867.

"The lands near Tucson are very rich, and were once extensively cultivated; but the encroachments of the Apaches compelled the people to abandon their ranches, and seek safety within the town. The miserable population, confined to such narrow limits, barely gains a subsistence, and could not exist a year but for the protection from the troops." -From "The Hand-Book to Arizona," by Richard J. Hinton, 1878.

"On one side of the plaza, the red Indian sells his beads, trinkets and pinon, and across the way the American boys play baseball. In one quarter of the city, oliveskinned, pig-tailed Chinamen launder, scour, scrub and market garden In the Mexican quarter the women, carrying their earthen pitchers of water on their shoulders, or bundles of hay on their backs, do duty as beasts of burden Tucson, the metropolis of our most modern and yet most ancient Territory, is a study, and is well worth coming west to see." -From "History of Arizona Territory," 1884.

"Now [Tucson] has paved streets, electric cars, three lines of railroads and a university and all the evidence of bustling prosperity." -From "Arizona, the Youngest State," by James H. McClintock, 1916.

"It is no fiction or exaggeration to say that Old Madrid is not more fascinating, romantic and dreaminspiring than Old Tucson. Nevertheless it is within the memory of those who do not regard themselves as old men that Tucson was the wildest, most uncombed, untamed, and reckless city on the frontier." -From "Arizona, the Wonderland," by George Wharton James, 1917.

"With the exception of the soldiers and teamsters in transit, there were not over a dozen [American] men in the town, and not one American woman." -From a report by John Spring, a soldier who visited Tucson in 1866.

"Tucson is now a real city She has paved her streets, erected handsome building structures, churches, schools, club houses, theaters, a fine public library and a hundred thousand dollar Y.M.C.A." -From "The Story of Arizona," by Will H. Robinson, 1919.

"There were no hotels [in 1857], but the 'Tucson bed' was famous all through the Southwest. The traveler made this bed by lying on his stomach and covering that with his back." -From "Pioneer Days in Arizona," by Frank C. Lockwood.

"In the graveyard at Tucson [in 1860] there were 47 graves of white men, and of that number only two had died natural deaths, all of the rest having been murdered in broils and barroom quarrels." -From a 19th century report by John C. Cremony, Boston newspaperman and interpreter for the Bartlett Boundary Commission.

"Tucson is perhaps the most livable town in Arizona. It boasts several good hotels, macadam boulevards, a railway station so attractively designed and placed it might be taken for a museum or library, an embryo subway, and a university. The last may account for an atmosphere of culture not perhaps remarkable in the west, yet not always found in a provincial town of the size" and more recently ". . . a gentled cowtown . . . a sedate boom town . . . an anomaly of anomalous Arizona . . . but, with all its contradictory flavors, a town whose subtle charm is compounded of its insistent sunshine and pervading sense of space." -Holiday.

". . . a curiously fascinating motley of old and new, rich in romantic tradition; a city where neons flicker on ancient wayside shrines, and troubadors in tattered serapes serenade tourists in tweeds and sables." -American Magazine.

Lucero statues

"This is the Sunshine City. The real reason for Tucson's prosperity is glaringly obvious during eighty-four out of every hundred daylight hours throughout the year." -Saturday Evening Post. "Tucson has geared its winter resort living to meet the demands of both the president of the company and his office boy." -Travel.

"Tucson is adding 1,000 to its population each month." -Time.

"Unlike its neighboring mining towns to the south, Tucson has a business that depends on pleasure. Nine months out of twelve it plays host." -From "The Southwest," by the editors of Look, in collaboration with Paul Horgan.

"Tucson's modern-day variation of the Trampas Walk or the gun duel fought Montana-style is performed on the football field. The town is sports crazy..." -From "We Went Thataway," by H. Allen Smith.

"A fast walker in Tucson is stared at with wonder." -From "Arizona, a State Guide" (WPA Guide Series). ... For all else it has to offer, bustling Tucson's most endearing charm comes in its citizenry, proud, solid folk from the far corners of the land who look upon 'sharpies' and racketeers the way early ranchers eyed hoss thieves. For hanging to the nearest tree." -Detroit Free Press.

"Word of [Tucson's] anti-litterbug war has traveled across the nation, and the city has much to be proud of." -Natural History.

"Rimmed by rugged mountains, Tucson, Ariz., is colorful and sunlighted under a clear desert sky." -Ladies' Home Journal.

"In Tucson you can buy a Cactus Sandwich. You eat it and pick your teeth at the same time." -From "The Wild West Joke Book," by Oren Arnold.

"[Tucson] offers a curious blending of metropolitan overtone and deeply rooted southwestern provincialism -it is at once a combination of Western town, college town, and health resort, with cross blendings of sombrero-shaded Mexicans smoking brown cigarettes and fat Papago Indian squaws wearing vividly colored blankets." -From "Desert Country," by Edwin Corle.

"Tucson, perhaps more than any other spot in the Southwest, and certainly more recently, has come the whole way from a wilderness of terrific hazards to a winter resort for pampered plutocrats." -From "Our Southwest," by Erna Fergusson.

The Wishing Shrine In old Tucson

"In Tucson, eight years ago, a new country club was organized out beyond the city. It acquired more property than it actually needed and, as an inducement to charter members, offered to throw in a couple of lots with each $5,000 membership. Today the lots are worth between $8,000 and $9,000 apiece." -Coronet.

"Tucson, which still retains a conquistador flavor and is called 'The Old Pueblo' by natives, now bills itself as the 'future electronics center of America." -Newsweek.

"The traveler who is unused to the Arizona desert will find here a charm that consists partly of amusement, for it will seem to him that the all-absorbing concern of the Tucsonian is the effort to make grass grow." -From "Trails Through the Golden West," by Robert Frothingham."

"Tucson is one of the American towns that has distinction. It possesses a character all its own." -From "Tucson-the Old Pueblo," by Frank C. Lockwood and Donald W. Page.

"In Tucson, the fact is that there are 3800 hours of sunshine yearly, an average of 11 hours a day, and you'll admit it's pretty hard to beat that." -Town and Country.

"... a crossroads of the world ..." -From "Pictorial America," by Paul W. Pollock.

"... an oasis in the desert ..." -Redbook.

"... a garden in the desert." -From "Westward, High, Low and Dry," by Dorothy Childs Hogner.

"... not too big or busy and always air-conditioned ..." -Milwaukee Journal.

"... a pleasant, bustling western town." -The Travel Agent.

"Sooner or later there won't be much left except the justly famous climate to distinguish Tucson from any other American city. Factories, automobiles, busy people hurrying home from work look much the same everywhere. And they get to feel much the same as well. For the present, however, there are still a good many good things left-including, first of all, that luxury which is becoming the scarcest on earth, namely, space." -Joseph Wood Krutch in Saturday Review.

YOURS SINCERELY TUCSON SUNSET

It has been my pleasure to read almost every issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS for a number of years. As a college professor, I see, read and "thumb through" quite a bevy of such pub lications; and I feel impelled to declare that the one over which you preside is the most col orful of them all.

We lived in Tucson five years at 1001 East Seneca Street, which afforded a fascinating, and at times captivating, view of the Santa Catalinas, Rincons and Tucsons. The Catalinas, fifteen miles north of our home, received the major portion of my attention.

My recollection of those gorgeous sunsets afford distinct pleasure, even now, when I have time to meditate on things esthetic. Moreover, it is refreshing to view occasionally, at the behest of George M. Avey, sunsets from carefully selected vantage points throughout the entire State. As indicated, the art work is superb.

I have said often that the beauty within the environs of Tucson defies words with which to describe it.

The day is done, and the darkness falls from the wing of night, As a feather wafted downward from an eagle in his flight.

Since having lived in Tucson for the chronological period mentioned above; and since, therefore, having witnessed some of the phenomena of nature in evidence there, I have thought often of what this distinguished author might have written had he lived in Southern Arizona instead of New England. Longfellow, presumably, was writing of a New England twilight. Gifted though he was, I am convinced that had he attempted to describe the com ing of night in Tucson, at this season especially, he merely would have stuttered as we did as in retrospection we contemplated the spectacle. The coppery sun withdraws protest ingly and the stage is lighted by the afterglow. It is obvious the scene contemplates the arrival of something, and all is expectancy, but no one has ever seen the night arrive, though when it has come it is ensconced with regal splendor. Longfellow's "wafted feather" simile is not precise for the coming of darkness in Southern Arizona, for night falls there not so swiftly. It is as gradual as the change of color on the lower and unwooded slopes of the Santa Catalinas, which runs the gamut of colors of purple shades, from white to gray, from gray to purple, from purple to blue-black, though to so state it implies a division or shift which is not aspectible to the untrained observer. One knows only that a moment ago the mountains were a lighter shade.

And the gifts that are brought in this argosy of night. Moisture comes from deep in the ground to rout the heat, especially in September, that has entrenched itself during the day; and a breeze comes in from the city's environs, reaching a crescendo of agreeableness in the early morning. The night finds the earth and its people somewhat weary and worn, but when the day has come again the darkness tiptoes out like a great physician who has restored his patient toward another day of recovery. Thus it was throughout the summer and fall, and it is little to be wondered that the night is so loved in that semi-arid region

OPPOSITE PAGE

"ARCHITECTURAL DETAIL-SAN XAVIER MISSION" BY ESTHER HENDER SON. 5x7 Deardorff view camera; Ektachrome; f.22 at 1/10th sec.; Eastman Ektar lens; last week in May, 1957; early morning about one hour after sunrise; Weston meter 400. San Xavier Mission is nine miles from Tucson. This view shows the north gate and entrance into the monastery quarters. Historic San Xavier is one of Tucson's most impor tant tourist attractions and is considered one of the finest missions built during the days of Colonial Spain's dominance over western America.

BACK COVER

"PLAY MAP OF TUCSON AND AREA" DRAWN BY GEORGE M. AVEY. Tucson, Sunshine City in the Desert, is located in the heart of Southern Arizona. A visitor to the community can find in a short drive, countless places of unusual scenic, historical and archeological interest. Saguaro National Monument is practically in Tucson's back yard, while Tumacacori National Monument and Chiricahua National Monument are less than a day's drive away. In creating this map, the art editor of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS has traced roads accurately and has dramatized in a whimsical way the more important points of interest.

COUNTRY ROADS

It's glad I am, oh, glad, indeed, (And wish them all a green "God-speed!") For roads with miles still left to go In willful wandering to and fro, Before they leave behind, for good, Their carefree days in field and wood.

It's glad I am, and grateful, too, For roads with growing-up to do, Before, (and, oh, how sad the thought) Sobered by lessons Time has taught, They settle down, (what a pity!) To being streets in a city.

MYSTIC MUSIC

Time may fill the pit of geologic years Man may yet transcend in space to claim the spheres, but even then, each cell beyond the reach of microscopes will still contain the mystic music of unending life's refrain.

OLD RUINS

These ruined walls held folk as real as we, Who lived and loved and hated too, perhaps, And fought against the awesome enemy Of cold and hunger, nature's handicaps To early progress. But, beneath these skies Of clearest blue, to them life must have seemed A goodly thing. And when the late moonrise Came pale and silent, they, too, must have dreamed.

DESERT STORM

Lightning is the spirit Of an Indian-Boy Zig-zagging sky With enchantment While the tom-tom Of thunder Beats the clouds To answer prayer For rain.