WINTER IS FUN IN THE SUN

About this time of the year, a strange migration begins to take place out our way here in the West. The sunseekers, seeing portents of ice and snow and slippery driveways in the daily forecasts of the weather man in colder climes back home, like the weather-wise birds seeking refuge in warmer lands, head for country over which the sun remains a benign winter monarch with little notice to the admonitions of the calendar. One such weather-blessed portion of the sun's domain in winter (and there are not too many of them on this planet that are livable) is the desert region of Central and Southern Arizona, a haven for the weather-weary and a goal for literally thousands upon thousands of winter visitors.

They come by plane, train, automobile, bus, truck, and, no doubt, some come on horseback and on foot. The number of those who come towing their own mobile homes is a staggering amount. If all of our winter visitors settled in one place, they would form a large city. Luckily for all concerned, there is a lot of sunshine and space in our desert country. The big, broad, sunshiny land seems to enfold them all comfortably in its embrace-and there is always room for more.

These sunseekers fill our resorts, guest ranches, hotels, motels, inns, rooming houses, apartment houses, boarding houses, and trailer courts. Arizona's accommodations industry has used inspired forethought in planning comforts and con"WINTER DAY IN THE DESERT" BY RAY MANLEY. 5x7 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f.22 at 1/30th sec.; 8½" Symmar lens; mid-January; bright sunlight (cross lighting). The foothills and desert areas surrounding Tucson are dotted with fine guest ranches where guests come each winter from all over to enjoy the desert sun and the relaxing activities that only can be found in such pleasant surroundings.

veniences for all these visitors. Here we have something designed for every need and whim, and something particularly suited for the demands of the purse-however large or small. Nor are these accommodations limited to any particular part of our sun country domain. You'll find what you want all the way from Yuma to Yarnell, from Willcox to Wickenburg.

And what do these winter visitors find here that pleases them so much and brings them back in increasing numbers year after year? Well, they find the sun and a warm, friendly, spacious land-and they find fun in the sun, and, by that, we use the word in its wholesome, healthy way, and not in the narrow sense of frivolity.

The sun, according to those who profess to know, is the great giver of life. Hence, it stands to reason, the more sun, the more life. Whether through the fortunes or the accidents of geography, our desert country is a protected country in winter, and the sun is free to function without obstacle or annoyance. Storms from the Pacific are stopped by high mountains; storms from the north beat their brains off in the mountains of Utah and Colorado. The occasions are rare, indeed, when our desert country feels the rigor of more tempestuous winters elsewhere for ours is a protected land.

"GUEST RANCH COOKOUT" BY RAY MANLEY. 5x7 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f.16 at ½ sec.; 8½" Symmar lens; dusk; one clear flash was used at fire and one blue flash was used high above camera. Arizona resorts and dude ranches, thriving oasis for thousands of visitors flocking out this way to seek respite from more inclement winter weather elsewhere, find fun and relaxation in the warm Arizona winter sun. This "cook-out" scene might be anywhere during the winter season in the central and southern parts of the state.

MIRACLE OF THE MINES Continued from page twenty-seven

In returns for a short while, every conceivable corner had to be cut-even if it cost men's lives. Obviously, too, it was much easier to capitalize falsely on the traditional glamour of gold than on the comparatively prosaic po tentials of copper. Thus copper was spared many of the promotional malpractices. The financing of copper properries, which were becoming increasingly more important economically, tended to be based more on reason and long-term planning than on enthusiasms of the moment. The constantly increasing industrialization of the United States made two things clear to forward thinking indus trialists: one, the fabulously rich surface ores of the bo nanza-type copper mines could not last forever; and, two, when those were gone, the country must have the means of using the vast reserves of low-grade copper ore profit ably.

Consequently, while gold promoters were bilking the public, men like Dr. Douglas, D. C. Jackling, Dr. L. D. Ricketts, James Colquhoun, H. Kenyon Burch and others were building a solid groundwork for what has become known as the miracle of the mines.

Dr. Douglas was busy at Bisbee exploring the seemingly endless complex of ore bodies in the vicinity of the Copper Queen and engaging in legal leapfrog for claims with the Superior and Western Copper Company and its successor, Calumet & Arizona. His tremendous talents as executive, mining engineer and metallurgist also were called on frequently by Phelps Dodge interests in Globe and Clifton-Morenci. One of his many notable contributions to mining in Arizona was his bringing about of the abrogation of extra-lateral rights in the Bisbee district. He succeeded in getting the multitude of owners of individual claimants to agree to the use of verrical side lines for their claims, instead of the traditional legal prerogative of side lines parallel to ore veins. This forestalled a maze of legal controversies similar to those that almost ruined Butte, Montans.

D. C. Jackling, before he became interested in the copper property at Ray, Arizona, had done extremely important work in Utah. His was the first really large scale thinking about the use of vast deposits of low-grade ore. He did not develop a new metallurgy; indeed, he relied on the work of Dr. L. D. Ricketts, James Colquhoun and others for his basic processes. His contribution was in thinking big-thinking in terms of big tonnages of ore run through big enough plants to process a profit able amount in a day's time. H. Kenyon Burch's skill as mechanical engineer and construction expert was used to build the plants and get them into successful operation.

It was the work of such men as these that made it possible to put into production many previously known but unprofitable copper properties in Arizona. And, just as important, it was this sort of brilliant thinking, combining science and economics, that extended the life of many other copper mines as the ore grade dropped progressively lower. For instance, what is today so valuable a property as Ajo would still be nothing but a few undesirable claims in the desert had these men not succeeded; and the open-pit mine at Morenci, largest producer in the state, second largest in the United States and one of the four largest in the world, would be just the caving remains of half a dozen bonanzas.

Indeed, every major copper producer in Arizona today-the combined production of which annually averages well over half a million tons of metal, greatest of any of the fifty United States-is mining ore and process-ing it by methods as radically different from those used at the turn of the century as modern automobile production is from the building of Conestoga wagons. The United States could not possibly have attained its present position of dominance industrially and militarily had it not been for these miracles in the mines. Nor have the miracles been confined exclusively to copper mines.

Nature was lavish in her endowment of Arizona with minerals. While gold, silver and copper have attracted the largest share of attention, lead, zinc, molybdenum, mercury, tungsten, asbestos, fluorspar, gypsum, barite, perlite, pumice and scoria, rhenium, sodium sulphate, tantalum, columbium, vanadium, and the atomic-age ore uranium all have been produced in important quantities by Arizona mines.

There is an historic pattern in Arizona mining. It started with the Civil War, when both the Union and the Confederacy needed gold and silver to replenish their treasuries. Arizona came through. Again in every subsequent national emergency-the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the continuing "Cold War"-Arizona miners have responded to the country's needs by finding and wresting from the earth more essential minerals than the average person realizes exist. It is only the vagaries of the law of supply and demand that prevent many of these mines from operating consistently.

Demand for one of the above metals, uranium, has increased steadily for some time. Prior to the end of World War II, even highly qualified mining and metallurgical engineers knew little about uranium except that it has the highest atomic weight of all natural elements and that it was used principally for coloring glass and as an alloying element in some special steels.

After the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, however, it was revealed as the base element for atomic bombs and for more peaceful applications of atomic power. It has been little publicized as such, but the search for uranium that followed was greater than any gold or silver rush in history. More individuals were involved, and more time and money were spent on it than on any other metal rush. And the state of Arizona, like many others, was combed even more thoroughly than it had been by the old-time prospectors and their more scientific successors put together. A few individual fortunes were made through a combination of good judgment, technical skill and good luck. A larger number of people located mines which became consistent small producers showing good profit. And, of course, the vast majority of uranium prospectors ended up with only strengthened leg muscles and depleted purses.

A Forty Niner would have been aghast at the paraphernalia used in this modern gold rush. It started with Geiger counters as standard equipment, replacing the oldtimer's uncanny canny eye and nose for ore. The burro was replaced with the jeep. Bulldozers moved more rock in an hour than one man with a shovel could move in ten years. And then came ground crews and crews in airplanes using science-fantasy instruments to peer down under the earth's surface like many an oldtimer longed so futilely to do.

THOSE GHOST CITY BLUES

A tourist visiting Arizona's famous Ghost City, Jerome, recently was heard to say, “My, mining companies must be heartless! They come in, deplete the natural resources, make a lot of money, then move on, leaving once great cities like this to die, leaving the poor people stranded high and dry.” And you should have heard the reply given by Jerome's own indomitable galloping ghosts. It went something like this: To make any big mine successful takes big money. Big money is best raised by many people-stockholders-pooling resources. Obviously they expect returns, dividends. And, obviously, they don't all live in one city or one state. But if it weren't for them, there'd be precious few mines offering employment to thousands of Arizonans.

Obviously, again, the metals the mines produce can't all be used here. They must be shipped all over the country to attain real value. But the money they bring goes first to the payroll in Arizona, and that is spent in Arizona. Another large part is reinvested in research, exploration and development programs which continue to produce new wealth for the state. It is questionable, for instance, whether Phelps Dodge would have risked the resources to complete its dramatically successful expansions at Morenci and Ajo had its United Verde at Jerome not produced a large share of the investments. It was simple business arithmetic: you make money or you go broke.

So far as the employees were concerned, anyone competent who wished was given a job at the expanded properties when the United Verde shut down. Those who elected, stayed on in Jerome or Clarkdale.

“We like it here,” they say. “It's the most beautiful place in the world.. A living?... Partner, we have a lot more living here than a lot of people will ever know Oh, money. Well, there are tourism, the new cement plant, and still some ore being taken from the old glory hole by Mark Gemmill and his boys in the Big Hole Mining Co.

“No, friend, don't sing those ghost city blues for us. Tomb-stone may be the town too tough to die; but Jerome's the city too tough even to think about it.” The result was that uranium deposits were located in practically every county and district in Arizona. However, the principal producing mines were located in the Four Corners area, in the northeastern section of the state where Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico meet. Many years ago the vanadium mines in this area produced as a by-product the uranium ore from which Madame Curie extracted the first radium. And it was from the same source that the uranium for the Nagasaki, Hiroshima and other early atomic bombs came.

In 1960 this is still one of the most important uranium producing areas in the country, with even greater potential for the future as technological advances work magic similar to that pioneered by the copper industry. Many of the deposits are on the Navajo Indian Reservation, originally considered nearly worthless land but now proving to be an economic bonanza for the tribe.

Other important uranium deposits have been found near Cameron in Coconino County, in north central Apache County, and north of Globe in Gila County. Upgrading plants were in successful operation by the mid-1950's and were making it possible to mine profitable increasingly leaner ore. At the end of 1957 the Atomic Energy Commission estimated that Arizona had resources of 1,400,000 tons of uranium ore having an average content of 6.4 pounds of uranium oxide (U308) per ton. However, it is a virtual certainty progress in technology will put many other uranium mines into profitable operation and thus increase the estimated $15,000,000 a year the state realizes now from the Atomic Age ore.

It will be a long, long time however before copper surrenders its rank as Arizona's number one mining product. Back in the 1930's, in the depths of the Great Depression, a lot of people with little technical knowledge and less faith were writing off such mines as the Phelps Dodge property at Morenci as has-beens. Yet men like the late Louis S. Cates, who became president of Phelps Dodge in 1930, had learned well from their pioneer predecessors. Cates initiated a tremendous program of developmental drilling and experimental milling at Morenci; the drilling proved a vast tonnage of low-grade ore, and the experimental milling showed that copper could be produced at a profit. That is, it could be mined profitably if the company were willing to undertake the staggering expense of moving some 40,000,000 tons of barren overburden to convert the operation to an open pit and of installing the huge facilities needed to extract the copper from the lean rock. Phelps Dodge made the investment, and a few years later the United States was very grateful.

By the end of 1941, overburden stripping was sufficiently complete to allow the mining of 25,000 tons of ore per day, a concentrating mill with that capacity was 90% complete, and a smelter to treat the concentrates was 75% finished. Then came Pearl Harbor, and the U. S. Defense Plant Corp. “ordered” Phelps Dodge to increase production at Morenci 90%! Working together, the two corporations accomplished the almost impossible, and by the end of 1943 production had risen to 45,000 tons of ore per day. By the late 1950's this figure had grown to nearly 55,000 tons per day and all this from a property so many people had written off as finished in the late '20's!

Similar stories can be told about the mines at Bisbee,

Ajo, Miami, Superior and Ray, stories of foresight, inventiveness, courage and capital combining to extend indefinitely the life of the mine when it seemed on the verge of dying. Yes, some properties have been closed as mined out, like the Old Dominion at Globe, The United Verde and United Verde Extension at Jerome, the Castle Dome and the original Miami. But their productions have been replaced by the new mines, and their former employees have moved on to the newer enterprises or have retired comfortably amidst familiar surroundings.

Despite the few mine closings, there has been a virtual mining boom in Arizona since World War II. The San Manuel Copper Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Magma Copper, took a new look at a group of old claims and actually discovered and developed more than 400,000,000 tons of low-grade but commercial ore. They built a new city in barren foothills, installed a tremendous concentrating mill and smelter, a special railroad and complete power facilities-an investment of more than $100,000,000 before the mine even began production! Yet the proved, promised life of the mine should return substantially more than this stupendous investment, and this increment will not be merely dollars traded between individuals or corporations; it will be new wealth wrested from Nature's storehouse for the eventual benefit of all.

There are many other mines that have come to life in Arizona since World War II. The Silver Bell, near Tucson, abandoned several times in the past recently has been transformed into a profitable copper producer by the American Smelting & Refining Co. The Copper Cities near Globe, known but idle for years, finally has been transformed into a profitable producer as a subsidiary of the Miami Copper Co. The Christmas Mine, near Winkelman was acquired by the Inspiration Consolidated Copper Co. and at long last is sufficiently well-financed and managed to promise good production. The New Mission Mine of AS&RCo near Tucson, the development of which followed a get-together between the Papago Indians and white capital, soon will be a heavy pro-ducer and earn sizable royalties for the Indians from land given them as worthless. The Banner Mining Co. operators south of Tucson, only spasmodically successful until recently, now is producing consistently important tonnages of copper. And finally, the Pima Mine, south of Tucson, was discovered in the last few years entirely by modern geophysical methods of prospecting, unknown until recently. The Bagdad Mining Co. at Bagdad is another young and vigorous producer of copper.

In addition to these enterprises which already have reached a measure of fruition, many more lie just around the corner. Bear Creek Mining Co., a subsidiary of Kennecott Copper Corp., and Phelps Dodge Corp. both have spent large sums acquiring extensive claims in the area between Safford and Morenci and conducting exploratory drilling programs to develop the still lower-grade copper potential. Cerro de Pasco Corp. has acquired extensive mineralized holdings in Mohave County with a view to the future, and other similar acquisitions not yet announced all are reliable signs of things to come in Arizona's mining future.

All of which explains why, in spite of the fact that more than eight billion dollars worth of mineral wealth already has been produced by Arizona, there today is more ore, in terms of net dollar value, positively known in the state than at any previous time in its history.

Yet, as Arizona celebrates this fiftieth anniversary of its supremacy among the nation's nonferrous metals producers, she and the entire United States mining industry is concerned over a grave and complex problem. The United States' efforts to stem the tide of Communism have centered, in large part, on economic and technological aid to other countries. Much of this aid has helped build in those countries thriving mining industries, which, because of cheap labor, can far undersell our domestic mines which are battling constantly rising costs. On the other hand, basic national security demands that this nation's mines must be kept operating; it is our only assurance of a metals supply in the event of war.

WEAPONS

How powerful are guns and spears! How strong the fluent tongue or pen! At times our gold can banish fears, Bring help and hope to troubled men; But all are feebler than the smile Of him who goes the second mile! -CHARLES MCAMMOND BECKSTED

RHYTHMS IN THE RAIN

Street lights tonight Are stars washed down And swimming o'er The sleeping town All the gleaming pavements shed Neon rhythms, eerie red, And a tree patrolman stands Waving frantic shadow-hands To me as my flying feet Sprint along the silver street.

-VILET

TRAVELER'S RETURN

Now has Autumn, sunburned brown, Come again to visit me. See, he's set his luggage down Underneath each empty tree.

-GEORGE L. KRESS

CONNOISSEUR

Some prefer a concert In the classic vein; I'm content with robins Singing in the rain.

-EMELINE ENNIS KOTULA

DROUGHT

Faint is the river And mad is the man And fierce is the final heat; Close are the crops, In the dusty earth, To living's last defeat. White is the sky And parched is the night Made thin with restive prayers; Out of the valley Climbs the earth Up ever crumbling stairs. Patience is death, In the patient sun, Bravery the final tree; How scorched are the fields, How listless the corn, How shameless disaster can be.

-REEVE SPENCER KELLEY

GHOST TOWNS

Sun-warped and weary, lonely and gray, Ghost towns remember a livelier day. Cobwebby windows that watch a dead street Listen in vain for long vanished feet Treading the boardwalk, drumming the ground. Time yields no echoes, silence no sound Wind leaves no shadow on crumbling walls; Owls own the title to once happy halls Ghost towns are memory's lone bivouac, Wistfully waiting for time to turn back.

-S. OMAR BARKER

YOURS SINCERELY LOWELL OBSERVATORY:

Since three and one-half years have elapsed between the writing and printing of the story "Mr. Mars" in your August issue, and because it is told in the present tense and without my access to a printer's proof, I find one regrettable inaccuracy suffered through a combination of these effects. For example, not I, but Dr. John S. Hall, formerly Director of the Equatorial Division of the U.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C., is now and has been Director of Lowell Observatory for nearly two years.

Of special interest in connection with vegetation on Mars, which was one of the high points in this personal story, Dr. William M. Sinton of the Observatory staff has made an important discovery since the story was written which signally evidences the existence of vegetation on the planet. He has observed in the infrared spectrum of Mars certain hydro-carbon bands, the same kind of bands that are similarly observed in terrestrial vegetation. Moreover, his observations revealed that these hydrocarbon bands of vegetation were observed only in the dark, blue-green region of Mars, but the bare desert regions revealed none.

Lest the excessive publicity received by Mars may tend to dwarf the broad, diversified program of research at the Observatory, of which it is only an integral part, it may be well to remark here that the scope of research at the Lowell Observatory embraces many fields of astronomical study, and these are constantly pursued year after year. Some idea of the diversity and success of its studies is indicated by "Star Dust" in the October, 1941, and "Voyagers in Space" in the October, 1947 issues of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. Naturally the scientific results of the Observatory's work are regularly reported in scientific and astronomical publications.

Dr. E. C. Slipher Lowell Observatory Flagstaff, Arizona

IN A CLASS ROOM:

Your magazine has more than helped me in the past year. In need of colorful and informational materials for my Fourth Grade and their study of the Navajo Indian and Arizona, I subscribed to your magazine. The interest shown in each issue was just amazing. The picture sections were of particular interest to them and helped clarify the ideas of the vastness of the Grand Canyon and the beauty of the land of the West. They eagerly look forward to the new issues and spent a great deal of time hunting for the things which we had discussed.

If teachers were able to obtain more magazines like yours they certainly would be helpful in teaching children of the wonderful country of ours.

Marjorie Hatt Danbury, Connecticut

YAVAPAI COUNTY:

On the night of June 25 I purchased a copy of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, May, 1960, at the newsstand in the Ginza Tokyo Hotel lobby. The first page I turned to showed a picture of Prescott, Arizona, by Matt Culley. Almost in the center of the picture is "my house" where I was born in 1914, and where my mother was also born. Contrary to the excellent article with the familiar names of Mrs. Pauline Henson, Why Prescott? "Prescott has grown from a frontier community to a modern city-only the pure air and delightful climate did not change;" the picture of Prescott and the others included with Mrs. Henson's article, is exactly as I remember Prescott as a boy. That to me is what I like most about the "city"-it never really changes and this is something different in this world of 1960.

As I write this note I can see and hear from my hotel window in Tokyo an enormous parade of Japanese coming down the Ginza-anti-American agitators to overthrow the present Japanese government.

John H. Russell Diablo, California

OPPOSITE PAGE

"STORMY DAY NEAR PEACH SPRINGS" BY ROBERT C. FRAMPTON. 4x5 Crown View camera; Ektachrome Type "B" old process; f.28 at 1/5th sec.; 135mm Zeiss Tessar lens: early April. Photo was taken in the rolling hill country west of Peach Springs on U.S. 66. A storm was moving in from the north, aftermath of a severe spring storm over Southern Utah. The bleakness of the terrain, the threatening sky, and the lonely fence which seemed to have no destination or direction, combined to form a scene which pleased the photographer.

BACK COVER

"AUTUMN ON ARAVAIPA CREEK" BY J. H. BURNETT. 4x5 Linhof Technika camera; E-3 Ektachrome; f.12.7 at 1/25th sec.; 5.6 Schneider Symmar 150mm lens; midNovember; clear with a few light clouds; Meter Reading 65 (ASA). Photo taken approximately seven miles downstream from the end of the road and the last ranch on the upper Aravaipa. Scene is looking downstream, about 3 P.M. Aravaipa Canyon, one of the state's least known, but picturesque canyons is in Pinal and Graham Counties. Pronounce Aravaipa-"Air-a-vie-pa."