Phoenix of the Golden West

TWENTY years ago it would have taken even more than the seventh son to have made most people believe that there was the nucleus of an economic empire amid the canyons and grandeurs of Arizona. Today, in writing a story of the Golden West, one does not hesitate to point to Arizona as a conspicuous example of beauty and charm, and to Phoenix and the Salt River Valley in particular as showing the change to great advantage. Arizona has not yet fully impressed itself upon the public's imagination. This is a state that includes mountains and plateaus no less than those large areas of reclaimed lands that once were deserts. It is to these reclaimed lands, of course, that Arizona owes much of her modern progress. Without them her growth would be less rapid. With them she is more prosperous. She can produce, for example, $1,089,000 worth of alfalfa seed and $1,650,000 of wheat each year. With them she recently showed a crop-year yield of 10.7 per cent above the average of ten years. There is no doubt but that the Salt River Project and the Roosevelt Dam, together with other water-power developments, will contribute enormously to the State's well-being. This development of agriculture has been an indirect aid to other important industries, mining and manufacturing. Naturally Phoenix and Salt River Valley in the center of this growing State reflects its prosperity. Phoenix mightbe called a rose among thorns if it were not that there are no thorns in Arizona! Its location is excellent. Phoenix is the capitol and chief city of Arizona, but it is more than that. It is a social, political and business center, all of which is summed up in the statement that when people want to see city life in one of its best phases they do not have to seek localities outside the state but can visit Phoenix. Phoenix is located like the hub of a wheel whose spokes radiate through the Salt River Valley. "All roads lead to Phoenix" is as true as when first said of the City of the Seven Hills. And most of the roads are good ones. They have to be in order to bear the produce of the farm inwards and the constant stream of manufactured products outwards. In the Salt River Valley two and sometimes three crops can be grown each year. There is almost no crop that will not thrive in this region which twenty-five years ago was but a barren waste. Agriculture is not, however, the only industry. Not every adult, but probably every school boy, as the writers love to say, could tell you that Arizona mines over 40 per cent of this country's copper production. Livestock raising is an industry in itself and lumbering is important. In addition, manufacturing is making considerable progress and is serving to round out her developments. As a matter of fact, it is Arizona's well rounded-out condition which probably makes the deepest impression on a visitor. Mining, farming and manufacturing give an almost perfect combination, but it is not with this meaning that the admirer says: "Why, you have everything here." He means that there is a climate to suit all tastes, with places in the northern part of the State recording temperatures of 30 de-

SKYLINE OF PHOENIX