Roadside Rest

ROADSIDE REST Arizona Sometimes Charms Us into Exercising Our Considerable Bragging Rights

Awhile back, I was asked to give a talk to a group about Arizona's superlatives. Now, along with "unique" and "assume," "superlative" is a dangerous word for a nonfiction writer. So I crept up on the subject the way one learns to approach a poisonous Gila monster.

Sure, it is windy in Chicago, but it blows so hard at Winslow that at a sheltered spot along Interstate 40 outside of town there is a sign posted: Caution - Calm Air. True enough, Texans make outrageous brags, but none to equal Arizona's John Hance, whose grave is marked by a headstone and footstone exactly 12 feet apart.

Captain Hance crafted most of his tall tales about the Grand Canyon, certainly at 277 miles long an American superlative, but not as deep as Hell's Canyon on the Snake River of Idaho and Oregon, or as large as Cañon del Cobre in neighboring Mexico. With 4 million visitors a year, our Canyon is our state's most popular attraction. But what is an improbable rival?

More than 25 years ago, 10,276 blocks of stone were carefully numbered, taken apart, shipped from England to Arizona and reassembled at Lake Havasu City on the Colorado River. More than 1.5 million people annually marvel at the unexampled resurrection of London Bridge.

In a desert setting near Tucson dating to 1781, reposes San Xavier del Bac, deemed by many to be the most beautiful of the many missions founded by Padre Kino in a parish of 55,000 square miles.

Then, where else in the United States does evidence abound of an ancient civilization, such as the Salt River's Hohokam, that put thousands of acres of land under irrigation and supported large communities four miles from the river's bank?

Or places occupied continuously since the time of Christ by puebloans who today are named the Hopi people in northern Arizona. Surrounding them is America's most populous Indian tribe, 200,000 Navajos in a reservation the size of West Virginia. The Navajos and Hopis use a language so complex their Code Talkers during World War II openly transmitted front-line battle orders never understood by Japanese troops.

Probably Alaska in 1959 took the honors for the least population density of American states, but when Arizona entered the Union in 1912, there were only 123,000 citizens scattered over 114,000 square miles. Someone has calculated that if Manhattan today were so thinly populated, there would be only 15 New Yorkers living among all those skyscrapers. To this day, only 3,000 people dwell in Arizona's Our own outback, called The Arizona Strip, the nearly 8,000 square miles of plateau isolated north of the Grand Canyon. From The Arizona Strip's little town of Moccasin, it's a 276mile drive to the county seat.

Akin to such examples, the case can be made that Arizona's capital, Phoenix, has grown faster, from scratch, to major metropolitan status than any city of the globe. In 1870 in the original townsite, there was not one house or farm or shop. Today 2.3 million people inhabit the Salt River Valley and environs, and Phoenix is America's seventh-largest city.

Arizona is more like Motown West. Our state has more large vehicletesting grounds than anywhere else. Virtually all domestic and many foreign manufacturers are represented.

The dating of archaeological sites by the study of tree rings was perfected by University of Arizona scientists.

The planet Pluto was discovered from Lowell Observatory near Flagstaff. Arizona State University shelters the world's largest solar-energy library.

If one geologic oddity qualifies for the term "unique," it is Meteor Crater in northern Arizona. The metallic missile that slammed into the Earth 49,500 years ago did more than excavate a pit three miles in diameter and a half mile deep. In an instant, the meteor created an astronaut's training ground, a scientific Mecca, and a destination for 300,000 visitors a year.

The desert is not hostile, it is hopeful. Some saguaro cacti must go a year without a drink, then they soak up a ton of water from a single rainstorm. The desert tortoise can make a pint of water last a year. The spadefoot toad burrows into mud, sleeps 11 months, and emerges in a rain that will nurture its one-month breeding season. Now, that's hope.

For mind-boggling imagery within human scale, I know of no other geologic feature than the Great Unconformity, where rock formations are out of sequence. Halfway down Grand Canyon's Bright Angel Trail, you can cover 500 million years of the Earth's history with the palm of your hand.

Then finally, here's a test: which is America's biggest dam Hoover on Arizona's border with Nevada, or Glen Canyon shared with Utah? Sorry. Trick question. The largest dam in the United States is the New Cornelia, whose 205.6 million cubic feet of copper mine tailings lie athwart Ten Mile Wash in Southwestern Arizona.