U.S. Route 89—The Ramblin' Road

U.S. 89 – THE RAMBLIN' ROAD

U.S. Route 89, which bisects Arizona south to north from Mexico to the Utah line, is one of our vintage highways. It got its official number in 1925. Its paving was completed four decades ago. It is the southern anchor of a transnational highway that extends on northward through Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana to the Canadian border. (True, it tends nnowadays, here and there, to lose its identity in amongst the new interstate routes.) Some time ago, when motoring was an adventure undertaken in Hupmobiles, Pierce-Arrows, and Franklin air-cooleds, folks attached all manner of romantic appellations to good ol' 89. Its southern leg, reaching out from Nogales, was called the Old Spanish Trail, since that was roughly the route of the seventeenthand eighteenth-century Spaniards venturing northward from Mexico. From Tucson to Phoenix, it was part of the Dixie Overland Highway, which came in from the south via El Paso. North of Wickenburg, old-timers called the portion between Congress Junction and Prescott the Hassayampa Trail.

In those pre-interstate days, U.S. Route 89 was what you took to get from where you were to where you wanted to go-if you were traveling north or south in Arizona. From Flagstaff to the Utah border, it still is. There's nothing else up there-primarily because of the vast barrier of the Grand Canyon-to take people back and forth. But from Flagstaff south, of course, there are today the super trails, the "twoslabbers"-Interstate 17 to Phoenix, Interstate 10 to Tucson, Interstate 19 to Nogales.

Why, then, travel U.S. 89? To wander to and through some of the out-of-the-way places, interesting and often scenic nooks and crannies that help make up the endless variety of Arizona. You're not likely to see nearly as much from the interstates, which can get you from point A to point B very fast but sometimes contribute little in the way of esthetic fulfillment. By contrast, U.S. 89 offers a great deal (as do many other of our old-fashioned single-slab, two-way roads). The border-to-border span of Route 89-about 600 miles in all-does something else. It takes you from warm elevations as low as 1092-foot Phoenix to as high as frosty 7921-foot Jacob Lake, perched on the great green dome of the Kaibab National Forest north of the Grand Canyon.

No other highway in the state gives you that kind of vertical variation, and only one other travels higher-U.S. Route 666 (the vaunted Coronado Trail) as it hoists itself through the town of Alpine at 8030 feet.

Contrasts along Route 89? Yes, scads of them. Desert versus forest. Flatlands versus mountains. Warm versus cool (or hot versus cold). Urban versus rural. Incidentally, U.S. 89 touches base at most of the principal population centers of the state -Tucson, Mesa, Phoenix, Prescott, Flagstaff.

Parks and monuments? Grand Canyon, for one (the road to it takes off from U.S. 89 near Cameron). Seven national monuments. Four state parks.

So come with us for a pictorial sojourn up that venerable, historic piece of roadway, U.S. Route 89. And take it easy. Take time to see things, to enjoy the ride. That's what backcountry travel is about. And this is some of the most fascinating backcountry Arizona has to offer.

Selected Reading

Travel Arizona, by Joseph Stocker. Arizona Highways Books, Phoenix, 1983.

Roadside History of Arizona, by Marshall Trimble. Mountain Publishing, Missoula, Montana, 1986.

Both books are available (Travel Arizona for $8.95, and Roadside History of Arizona for $15.95, postage included) from Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009; telephone (602) 258-1000.

(LEFT) Traffic awaits an ambling herd of Navajo horses near Bitter Springs, where U.S. Route 89 divides, one leg heading for Lake Powell, the other-89A-for the verdant Kaibab Plateau.

(BELOW) December is the month when Tumacacori, the historic Spanish mission eighteen miles north of Nogales on Route 89, stages its annual festival.

You haven't really experienced Arizona until you've traveled this scenic old border-to-border highway...

(OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP) An unfailing eyecatcher as tourists travel Route 89 through Amado, between Tucson and Nogales, is this outsize longhorn skull framing a doorway. (FAR LEFT) At Tumacacori, visitors get a personal demonstration of a potter's exacting craft. (LEFT) Tubac, a few miles north of Tumacacori, packs hundreds of years of history, and a great deal of art as well, into its modest confines. It's the site of Arizona's first European settlement, dating back to the Spanish presidio days of the 1750s. Centerpiece of the art colony is the Tubac Center of the Arts, here graced by two gift shop volunteers, Ernestine Foster, left, and Frances Kinker. Tubac's annual arts festival in February attracts thousands to view the work of local painters, sculptors, jewelers, and other specialists.

(ABOVE: CLOCKWISE, FROM LEFT) There was big excitement in Florence, seventy miles north of Tucson, when Hollywood moved in a few years ago to make Murphy's Romance, starring James Garner and Sally Field. The vacant Spur Theater had its front spruced up, and on a corner of Main Street a long-abandoned brick storefront was converted into Murphy's Drug Store. There Garner presided at the soda fountain and pharmacy counter. Mike Tucker, former mayor (shown standing in front of the drug store), owns the building. After the moviemakers finished their labors, he leased it to Police Chief Tom Rankin to sell doughnuts, coffee, and Murphy's Tshirts to tourists. (RIGHT) The Tom Mix Monument stands seventeen miles south of Florence on the stretch of Route 89 known as the Pinal Pioneer Parkway. Mix, cowboy star of silent films and early talkies, was killed here in 1940 in an automobile accident. The poignant silhouette depicts his famous horse, Tony, standing with head down, reins trailing. bere Here for the mule-powered ride to the famous desert spa. In Wickenburg, a town proud of its gold-mining, cowpunching history, you might expect to find a life-size figure of a horse atop a saddlery shop. The stagecoach rests in front of the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, which a former Arizona governor called “one of the most outstanding museums I've seen in my lifetime.” A high-country corral occupies part of a meadow in Kaibab National Forest at Jacob Lake, nearly 8000 feet above sea level. (LEFT) One street with two names: it's the newly dubbed Old Railroad Street where the former Santa Fe depot recently was converted into the beadquarters of the Wickenburg Chamber of Commerce. But Frontier Street it had been, and Frontier Street it will continue to be if you prefer.