Arizona Highways, March 1965

              HIGHI-UAVS
MARCH 1965
Fl FTY CENTS
THIS ISSUE:
I •
MANANA
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I . I
DRAWN FOR ·ARIZONA HIGHWAYS " f- r
BY GEORGE 1,4. AVEY
MON. TO '1RC0S
PE 11/IZA ••/S3'1
IEX I CO .
About The Author
Joseph Wood Krutch and his wife Marcelle have lived in Tucson since I 950. Nine of his more
than twenty books were written there, and three of them deal directly with Arizona - The Desert
Year, The Voice of the Desert, and Grand Canyon. Two others - The Great Chain of Life and The
Forgotten Peninsula - also deal with Nature, the second being devoted to his many exploratory jour,
neys in Baja California. More Lives than One is an autobiography; his most recent book If You Don't
Mind Saying So, a collection of essays. In I 954, The Measure of Man received the National Book
Award for non-fiction.
During the same Tucson years Mr. Krutch also published articles in magazines ranging from
The American Scholar to Playboy, and made two hour-long Color Specials for NBC of which the
first, "The Voice of the Desert," was broadcast in I 963 and the second, "Grand Canyon," is sched,
ukd for the present season. In I 964 he received from the Rockefeller Institute the Prentice Ettinger
Gold Medal for "Creative writing in the sciences."
Before coming to Arizona Mr. Krutch divided his time between New York City and near-by
Connecticut. He was for many years Drama Critic for the New York Nation and Professor of
Dramatic Literature at Columbia University. During those years he published books in the fields of
literary biography and criticism, philosophy, and social criticism - notably The Modern Temper and
Samuel Johnson: a Biography. Life in rural Connecticut revived an old interest in natural history and
inspired the first of his nature books, The T welve Seasons, which was followed by The Best of
T wo Worlds dealing with a life divided between the metropolis and the country.
Because of an increasing conviction that, as he put it, "city life pays diminishing returns," he
abruptly broke off his career in the East and settled in Arizona with which he and his wife had
fallen in love when they visited it first as tourists in I 9 3 8 and, in the course of several years, dis,
covered for themselves Monument Valley, Rainbow Bridge, and other, then somewhat inaccessible
regions.
Mr. Krutch said at the end of the first ten years of his Arizona residence that they had been the
happiest of his life and that he had never for a moment regretted having turned his back on his former
career. He has also, however, spoken frankly of his distress at the increasing urbanization of Arizona
and especially of the apparent lack of interest on the part of most of its inhabitants in the very things
which make it unique.
For a learned and appreciative look at our desert, it is our pleasure herewith to present excerpts
from The Desert Year and The Voice of the Desert, two books, incidentally, we earnestly recommend
to desert dwellers and to those who aspire sometime in the future to make the desert their home.
Living With The Desert
By JOSEPH WOOD KRUTCH
n 193 8 I got off the train at Lamy,
New Mexico and started in an auto­mobile
across the rolling semidesert
toward Albuquerque. Suddenly a
new, undreamed of world was re­vealed.
There was something so
unexpected in the combination of
brilliant sun and high, thin., dry air with a seemingly
limitless expanse of sky and earth that my first reaction
was delighted amusement. How far the ribbon of road
beckoned ahead! How endlessly much there seemed to
be of the majestically rolling expanse of bare earth dotted
with sagebrush! How monotonously repetitious in the
small details, how varied in shifting panorama! Unlike
either the Walrus or the Carpenter, I laughed to see such
quantities of sand.
Great passions, they say, are not always immediately
recognized as such by their predestined victims. The
great love which turns out to be only a passing fancy is
no doubt commoner than the passing fancy which turns
out to be a great love, but one phenomenon is not for
that reason any less significant than the other. And when
I try to remember my first delighted response to the
charms of this great proud, dry, and open land I think
not so much of Juliet recognizing her fate the first time
she laid eyes upon him but of a young cat I once intro­duced
to the joys of catnip.
He took only the preoccupied, casual, dutiful sniff
which was the routine response to any new object pre­sented
to his attention before he started to walk away.
Then he did what is called in the slang of the theater
"a double take." He stopped dead in his tracks; he
PAGE TWO Arizona Highways
turned incredulously back and inhaled a good noseful.
Incredulity was swallowed up in delight. Can such things
be? Indubitably they can. He flung himself down and
he wallowed.
For three successive years following my first experi,
ence I returned with the companion of my Connecticut
winters to the same general region, pulled irresistibly
across the twenty-five hundred miles between my own
home and this world which would have been alien had
it not almost seemed that I had known and loved it in
some previous existence. From all directions we criss,
crossed New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern Utah,
pushing as far south as the Mexican border, as far west
as the Mojave Desert in California. Guides led us into
the unfrequented parts of Monument Valley and to un,
explored cliff dwellings in a mesa canyon the very exis,
tence of which was nowhere officially recorded at the
time. We climbed the ten thousand foot peak of Navajo
Mountain to look for its summit across the vast unexplored
land of rocks which supported, .they said, not one inhabi,
tant, white or Indian. Then one day we were lost from
early morning to sunset when the tracks we were following
in the sand petered out to leave us alone in the desert
between Kayenta and the Canyon de Chelly.
To such jaunts the war put an end. For seven years
I saw no more of sand and sunshine and towering butte.
Meanwhile I lived happily as one could expect to live
in such years. The beautiful world of New England be,
came again my only world. I was not sure that I shouM
ever return to the new one I had discovered. Indeed it
receded until I was uncertain whether I had ever seen it
at all except in that previous existence some memory of
PAGE THREE Arizona Highways MARCH r965
which seemed to linger when, for the first time in this
one, I met it face to face. Now and then, on some snowy
night when the moon gleamed coldly on the snow, I
woke from a dream of sun and sand, and when I looked
from my window moon and snow were like the pale
ghosts of sand and sun.
At last, for the fifth time, I came again, verifying
the fact that remembered things did really exist. But I
was still only a traveler or even only the traveler's vulgar
brother, the tourist. No matter how often I looked at
something I did more than look. It was only a view or
a sight. It threatened to become familiar without being
really known and I realized that what I wanted was not
to look at but to live with this thing whose fascination I did
not understand. And so, a dozen years after I first looked,
I have come for the sixth time; but on this occasion to
live in a world which will, I hope, lose the charm of the
strange only to take on the more powerful charm of
the familiar.
Certainly I do not know yet what it is that this land,
together with the plants and animals who find its strange ,
nesses normal, has been trying to say to me for twelve
years, what kinship with me it is that they all so insis ­tently
claim. I know that many besides myself _h_ av_e felt
its charm, but I know also that not all who v!Slt 1t do,
that there are, indeed, some in whom it inspires at first
sight not love but fear, or even hatred. _Its a~peal is_ ?ot
the appeal of things universally attractive, like sm1lmg
fields, bubbling springs, and murmuring brooks. To some
it seems merely stricken, and even those of us who love
it merely recognize that its beauty is no easy one. It
suggests patience and struggle and endurance. It is coura­geous
and happy, not easy or luxurious. _In the br~ghtest
colors of its sandstone canyons, even m the brightest
colors of its brief spring flowers, there 1s something
austere.
Sociologists talk a great deal these days about "adjust­ment,"
which has always seemed to me a defeatist sort of
word suggesting dismal surrender to the just tolerable.
The road runner is not "adjusted" to his environment.
He is triumphant in it . The desert is his home and he
likes it . Other creatures, including many other birds,
elude and compromise. They cling to the mountains or
to the cottonwood-filled washes, especially in the hot
weather, or they go away somewhere else, like the not
entirely reconciled human inhabitants of this region. The
road runner, on the other hand, stays here all the time and
he prefers the areas where he is hottest and driest. The
casual visitor is most likely to see him crossing a road or
racing with a car. But one may see him also in the wildest
wilds, either on the desert flats or high up in the desert
canyons where he strides along over rocks and between
shrubs. Indeed, one may see him almost anywhere below
the level where desert gives way to pines or aspen.
He will come into your patio if you are discreet.
Taken young from the nest, he will make a pet, and one
writer describes a tame individual who for years roosted
on top of a wall clock in a living room, sleeping quietly
through evening parties unless a visitor chose to occupy
the chair just below his perch, in which case he would
wake up, descend upon the intruder, and drive him away.
But the road runner is not one who needs either the
human inhabitant or anything which human beings have
introduced. Not only his food but everything else he
wants is amply supplied in his chosen environment. He
usually builds his sketchy nest out of twigs from the most
abundant tree, the mesquite. He places it frequently in
a cholla, the wickedest of the cacti upon whose murder,
olis spines even snakes are sometimes found fatally
impaled . He feeds his young as he feeds himself, upon
the reptiles which inhabit the same areas which he does.
And because they are juicy, neither he nor his young are
as dependent upon the hard-to-find water as the seed,
eating birds who must sometimes make long trips to get it.
Yet all the road runner' s peculiarities represent things
learned, and learned rather recently as a biologist under,
stands "recent." He is not a creature who happened to
have certain characteristics and habits and who therefore
survived here. This is a region he moved into and he
was once very different. As a matter of fact, so the orni­thologists
tell us, he is actually a cuckoo, although no
one would ever guess it without studying his anatomy.
Outwardly, there is nothing to suggest the European
cuckoo of reprehensible domestic morals or, for that
matter, the American cuckoo or "rain crow" whose
mournful note is familiar over almost the entire United
States and part of Canada - not excluding the wooded
oases of Arizona itself. That cuckoo flies, perches, sings
and eats conventional bird food. He lives only where
conditions are suited to his habits. But one of his not too
distant relatives must have moved into the desert - slowly,
no doubt - and made himself so much at home there that
by now he is a cuckoo only to those who can read the
esoteric evidences of his anatomical structure.
PAGE FIVE
Despite all this, it must be confessed that not every,
body loves the road runner. Nothing is so likely to make
an animal unpopular as a tendency to eat things which _we
ourselves would like to eat. And the road runner is guilty
of just this wickedness. He is accu~ed, no doubt justly,
of varying his diet with an occasional egg of the Gambel's
quail, or even with an occasional baby quail itself. Sports­men
are afraid that this reduces somewhat the number
they will be able to kill in their own more efficient way
and so, naturally, they feel that the road runner should
be eliminated.
WILLIS PET E R S O N
To others it seems that a creature who so triumphantly
demonstrates how to live in the desert ought to be regarded
with sympathetic interest by those who are trying to do
the same thing. He and the quail have got along together
for quite a long time. Neither seems likely to eliminate
the other. Man, on the other hand, may very easily
eliminate both. It is the kind of thing he is best at.
Arizona Highways
The most materialistic of historians do not deny the
influence upon a people of the land on which they live.
When the y say, for instance, that the existence of a frontier
was a dominant factor in shaping the character of the
American people, they are not thinking only of a physical
fact. They mean also that the idea of a frontier, the realiza,
tion that space to be occupied lay beyond it, took its
place in the American imagination and sparked the sense
that there was "somewhere else to go" rather than that
the solution of every problem, practical or spiritual, had
to be found within the limits to which the man who
faced them was confined.
In the history of many other peoples the character of
their land, even the very look of the landscape itself, has
powerfully influenced how the y felt and what they thought
about. They were woodsmen or plainsmen or moun­taineers
not onl y economically but spiritually also. And
nothing, not even the sea, has seemed to affect men more
profoundly than the desert, or seemed to incline them so
powerfully toward great thoughts, perhaps because the
desert itself seems to brood and to encourage brooding.
To the Hebrews the desert spoke of God, and one of the
most powerful of all religions was born. To the Arabs
it spoke of the stars, and astronomy came into being.
PETE BALASTRERO
Perhaps no fact about the American people is more
important than the fact that the continent upon which they
live is large enough and varied enough to speak with many
different voices - of the mountains, of the plains, of the
valleys and of the seashore - all clear voices that are
distinct and strong. Because Americans listened to all
these voices, the national character has had many aspects
and developed in many different directions. But the voice
of the desert is the one which has been least often heard.
We came to it last, and when we did come, we came
principall y to exploit rather than to listen.
PAGE SIX
ANSEL ADAMS
To those who do listen, the desert speaks of things
with an emphasis quite different from that of th e shore,
the mountains, the valleys or the plains. Whereas they
invite action and sugges t limitless opportunity, exhaust,
less resources, the implications and the mood of the desert
are something different. For one thing the desert is con,
servative, not radical. It is more likely to provoke awe
than to invite conquest. It does not, like the plains, say,
" Only turn the sod and uncountable riches will spring
up." The heroism which it encourages is the heroism of
endurance, not that of conquest.
ANSEL ADAMS
Precisely what other things it says depends in part
upon the person listening. To the biologist it speaks first
of the remarkable flexibility of living things , of the pro ,
cesses of adaptation which are nowhere more remarkable
than in the strange devices by which plants and animals
have learned to conquer heat and dryness. To the prac,
tical,minded conservationist it speaks sternly of other
things, because in the desert the problems created by
erosion and overexploitation are plainer and more accurate
than anywhere else. But to the merely contemplative it
speaks of courage and endurance of a special kind.
Arizona Highways
Here the thought of the contemplative crosses the
thought of the conservationist, because the contemplative
realizes that the desert is "the last frontier" in more senses
than one. It is the last because it was the latest reached,
but it is the last also because it is, in many ways, a frontier
which cannot be crossed. It brings man up against his
limitations, turns him in upon himself and suggests values
which more indulgent regions minimize. Sometimes it
inclines to contemplation men who have never con,
templated before. And of all answers to the question
"What is a desert good for? " "Contemplation" is perhaps
the best.
ANSEL ADAMS
PAGE SEVEN Arizona Highways
The eighteenth century invented a useful distinction
which we have almost lost, the distinction between the
beautiful and the sublime. The first, even when it escapes
being merely the pretty, is easy and reassuring. The sub,
lime, on the other hand, is touched with something which
inspires awe. It is large and powerful; it carries with it the
suggestion that it might overwhelm us if it would. By
these definitions there is no doubt which is the right word
for the desert. In intimate details, as when its floor is
covered after a spring rain with the delicate little ephemeral
plants, it is pretty . But such embodiments of prettiness
seem to be only tolerated with affectionate contempt by
the region as a whole. As a whole the desert is, in the
original sense of the word, "awful." Perhaps one feels a
certain boldness in undertaking to live with it and a
certain pride when one discovers that one can.
I am not suggesting that everyone should listen to the
voice of the desert and listen to no other. For a nation
which believes, perhaps rightl y enough, that it has many
more conquests yet to make, that voice preaches a doctrine
too close to quietism. But I am suggesting that the voice
of the desert might well be heard occasionally among the
others. To go "up to the mountain" or "into the desert"
has become part of the symbolical language . If it is good
to make occasionally what the religious call a "retreat,"
there is no better place than the desert to make it. Here if
anywhere the most familiar realities recede and others
come into the foreground of the mind.
MARCH 1965
,.
"Serenade at Lunch" "Desert Outing"
PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAY MANLEY
"Happy Evening Hour - Tucson Guest Ranch"
"Desert Hobbies for Everyone"
"Tucson Pleasant Day in the Sun"
"Tucson - a Home in the Desert"
"Tucson - Nature is Your Neighbor"
"Tucson - Accommodations for All" ..,...,....,,...,,,,_...,.. ___ Prof[
ofa
Desert - .. >~it!'
o one knows when the first red,
skinned Tucsonians settled in what is
now Southern Arizona. It might have
been a thou sa nd years ago....:...it could
be two or three thousand. But at any
rate, they found the wide , mountain,
girt dese rt basin a good place to li ve.
People still do, and are coming in ever-increasing numbers.
The Indians called their community Stjuh.s hon, which
h as b ee n variou sly translated to mean " dark spring" or
"at th e foot of a black hill." Wh en th e Spaniards pushed
th eir New-World Empire northward from Mexico City
i n the l ate Seventeenth C entury, the y established a Catha,
lic mission at this little Papago Indian v illage and in 1769
built a church and walled presi dia nea rb y .
Named San Augustin de Tucson, the tin y, isolated
pueblo of so ldiers and their famili es was for many years
a remote outpost of Europ ea n ci viliza tion in a wild, bar­b
aric land. The fort withstood attacks by the savage
A p ac h es, and the garrison protect ed th e widely scattered
ranches and settlers a s b est it could. The flag s of Spain,
Mexico , th e Confederacy and the United States flew over
th e littl e walled town of Tucso n, and today the cit y is
still fon dl y r eferred to as " The Old Pueblo" in memory
of its va liant pa st .
The Gadsden Purchase of r 8 5 3 transferred Southern
Arizona from Mex ico to th e United States. However, the
change mad e little diff erenc e. When th e transcontin ental
railroad arr ive d in 188 1, Tucso n was still a sleepy Mex,
ican ap pear in g to w n of a few hundred inhabitants. But
b y th e turn of th e century th e form e r Old Pueblo had
become th e business and supply center for a large territor y,
and was rapidly gai nin g renown as a health re sort where
Easterners came to soak up th e d esert sunshine. A s early
as th e 1 89o's a Southern P ac ific Railway folder extolled
th e climate and anno un ced that " Tucso n rec eives the sick
and se nd s th em away every w hit whole."
With th ese ph ys ical and geographic advan ta ges th e
to w n stirre d into lif.e and be ga n to pro sper. B y 1 909 the
d escr iption of it in Ba edaeh.er' s Uni ted States guidebook
was quite impressive . " Tucso n ( pron. 'Too-sohn'; 2390
ft . )" we r ea d, "a qu aint old Spanish -looking place with
73 5 1 inh ab. is th e hrrgest city of Arizona and carries on
a considerable tr a de with M exico . Copper , cattle, and the
railroad shops are it s chief source s of wealth . Tucson con,
t ain s th e Univer sity of Ari zo na ( 2 1 5 students), an Indian
School, and an interes ting Desert Botanical Laboratory in
connection with th e Carn eg ie Institution. " Th e Old
Pu eblo had started on its upward course .
CONTINUED - PAGE 12
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In spite : b{the recently acquired metropolitan overtones, Tucson is
still a dese1:t city. The arching sky is big and blue, Nature presses close/ff/i
all sides, and the sharp, aromatic scent of creosote bush is in the f;,il,.;(
Although rapidly expanding in all directions, it is one of the few urban
centers in the country without suburbs and clustered satellite commu­nities
.. Fitr~~ermore, the nearest sizeable towns are more than fifty miles
. . tf,.i~!4:1il, ;clfS: ' a result, escape to the wide-open-spaces of desert, canyons
: {.;{/:J-.1'1:d;\ r1"',P.ff7!tairts is still only a maitqr: of a few minutes drive from the
Cliff Manor Lodge
For the next forty-odd years the city's growth was
healthy, but not remarkable. In 1940 the population was
32,506, rising to 45,453 a decade later. But during the
r 9 5 o's a human explosion hit Tucson which sent the count
to 2 r 2,892 in r 960. This is an increase of 367 per cent,
second greatest among the nation's cities of over r 00,000
population. The fantastic growth is continuing, and today
Tucson is estimated to have 295,000 inhabitants, with
another 50,000 in the area immediately surrounding it.
In other words, there are about r, 500 new residents
each month.
In fact, Tucson's principal appeal to visitors and resi,
dents are the many factors which make it different from
other American cities. Here a bright sun s.hines more than
seventy-five per cent of all daylight hours; outdoor sports
and activities are possible throughout the year; the sur,
roundings are colorful, stimulating and, in places, spec,
tacular; and living can be exciting and relaxing at the
same time.
Of course, Tucson has a variety of accommodations,
restaurants, entertainment and recreation, as well as fine
stores, shopping centers, and services superior to most
places of equal size. Cultural, artistic, religious and edu,
cational activities also flourish in abundance. But such
things are standard urban amenities that are today almost
world,wide. What is different about Tucson is an absence
of high-pressure tensions, a fresh, clean openness, and a
gracious way of life inherited from its Spanish beginnings
and suited to the Southwestern desert background. Here
is cosmopolitanism without protocol, and sophistication
without pretensions. All together, these distinctive qual,
ities attract people from every part of the country to live,
work and play in Arizona's second largest city.
Tucson's uniqueness begins with its location. Among
the vast stretches of arid, cactus-studded valleys and bar,
ren, rocky ranges of the Sonoran Desert, the Santa Cruz
River cuts northward from Mexico. Sixty miles from the
border its valley widens into a huge oval basin, thirty
PAGE TWELVE Arizona Highways
miles long and twenty miles across, which is almost com­pletely
ringed by mountains. The city spreads over the
gentle floor of the northern end, its edges ascending the
bordering slopes on three sides with foothill residential
areas. View lots are common in Tucson, and even the
downtown streets frame distant tawny mountains leaning
against the sky. All in all, few places have such an inspir,
ing setting, and it gives the city a stamp of identity and
an individualism which modern progress seems unable
to erase.
With such unrivalled climatic and scenic resources,
it is natural that Tucson's largest industry is providing for
the well-being and entertainment of visitors and part-time
residents. Internationally known as a leading recreation
center of the great Southwestern winter playground, the
area receives a goodly share of Arizona's annual half,bil,
lion-dollar tourist business. In addition, a surprisingly
large number of visitors become permanent Tucsonians.
Many of these are retired people with respectable incomes.
But young and middle-aged people like Tucson, too, and
establish new homes for one simple reason - they would
rather live here than any other place on earth.
This continuous influx of desirable residents is bene,
ficial to the city's basic stability and economic prosperity.
However, it poses problems, and the Old Pueblo is experi,
- encing severe growing pains. There is constant demand
for new schools; street paving, widening and lighting,
underpasses and freeways can barely keep pace with the
increasing traffic; low-rent housing is in short supply and
urban renewal is sorely needed to rejuvenate blighted
neighborhoods. Also a much talked-of municipal audi,
torium and expanded convention facilities would enhance
Tucson's reputation as a cordial host to the many national
organizations' meetings and conferences. These difficulties
are further compounded by extensive annexations, and the
city's area of some seventy-two square miles is almost
double that of five years ago.
But Tucson and Pima County are laboring valiantly
to provide adequate services for the rapidly expanding
community, and in general are succeeding admirably. But
a local newspaper's complaint column, "Action Please!,"
tells the inevitable story of civic inability to keep up with
the rapid development in all respects. A lag between need
and fulfillment is a price a city must pay for phenomenal
population growth.
Two more powerful stimulants to Tucson's economy
are Davis Monthan Air Force Base and the Hughes Air,
craft Company. The former is a $335,000,000 installa,
tion of r r ,ooo acres adjacent to the city limits on the
southeast edge of town. One of the largest and most
diversified air bases in the country, Davis Monthan is
headquarters for several of the Strategic Air Command's
combat and tactical units and has a military complement
of 6,800 and an additional civilian personnel of 1,200.
With their families, this huge post directly supports a total
of some r 7,000 people and pumps an incalculable stream
... an absence of high-pressure tensions., a fresh., clear open world.
RAY MANLEY
PAGE THIRTEEN Arizona Highways
PHOTOS - RAY MANLEY
of dollars into the city's commercial veins . Hughes is the
largest manufacturing plant in Arizona, and is capable
of employing 5,600. At present it is engaged in
research, development and construction of missiles on
government contract.
Copper, cattle and agriculture are three other eco,
nomic mainstays. Arizona is the nation's leading copper
producing state and two large recent i:nining developments
are in the Tucson area. San Manuel, fifty miles northeast,
is a multi-million -dollar project dating from 1957. It
includes an independent smelter and a built-to-order city
of 5,000 inhabitants. The other is an open pit operation
near Twin Buttes, twenty miles southwest. The Anaconda
Company is also engaged in exploratory work in this area
which may result in a major open-pit mine operation
within a few years.
Tucson, too, is surrounded by cattle country, with
some ranches big as Eastern counties, and the cowboy,
roundup and rodeo are part of its picturesque Western
traditions. Although a cattle shipping point of some
importance, little meat processing is done, so stockyards
and slaughterhouses are absent. This relieves Tucsonians
of coping with one type of air pollution which plagues
seve ral other Western cities. Agriculture in Pima County
is largely confined to irrigat ed bottomlands along the Santa
Cruz River. However, cotton, corn, cattle feed and veg,
etables are products that help swell the city's income.
But there is no denying th e fact that wage-earning
newcomers encounter considerable difficulty in finding
suitable work. The meteoric population growth tends to
outstrip job opportunities, and there is always keen compe­tition
for the openings that do exist. So it is a wise precau,
tion to have at least a year's financial backlog before
choosing Tucson as a permanent home. However, the
local situation is simply a microcosm of the world,wide
population explosion, which is fast becoming the most
serious threat we humans have ever faced.
Most business leaders believe that the solution in
Tucson ' s ca se is manufacturing. They maintain that a
steadily increasing source of industrial payrolls is the only
way to insure continued prosperity for a future city of a
million or more people. Acting on this theory, the Cham,
her of Commerce has set up a committee to attract industry
and initiated a publicity campaign which points out with
facts and figures Tucson's desirable features as a plant
location. These include, among many other advantages,
equable climate, superior health and living conditions,
year-round outdoor recreation, and availability of land
and labor. One executive summed it up: "People are
more cheerful in a sunny climate, and cheerful workers
are good workers."
But not even the most avid advocates of manufactur,
ing want the city to become a center of heavy industry.
Thus the appeal is aimed at concerns engaged in producing
electronic equipment, precision instruments, and the like.
It is too soon to say how successful Tucson's bid for new
industry will be, but some headway has already been
made in the direction of light manufacturing, particularly
in the production and sale of goods consumed locally.
PAGE FOURTEEN
Agriculture in rich bottomlands
Ranch south of Tucson
Cotton yields are high
Tucson International Airport
However, industrial progress has been slowed because
Tucson is a community of sharply divided opinions. There
is a large group which opposes concentrated industry as
the chief foundation of the future economy . This slow,
down,and,live faction is composed of a hard core of natives
and long-time Tucsonians with nostalgic memories and
those who were drawn to the Old Pueblo because of the
good life it offers. Neither wants Tucson's basic character
changed. They feel strongly that the city's greatest attrac,
tion is its individuality. This would be destroyed by
industry, light or heavy. There are many manufacturing
centers in America, but only one Tucson, and they see no
burning necessity why the city should become just another
sprawling, characterless megalopolis with its resultant
smog, slurbs, expressways, and "industrial parks." As one
of them put it : "The welcome mat is always out for new
residents. We like 'e m. But if people want industry there
are plenty of other places to go ."
What the outcome will be no one knows. But there
is little question that the tourist business is preeminent
today. Without it Tucson would only be another name
on the map. And in recent years the boom in retirement
living has added another golden bonanza. Large sums
have been expended in attractive senior-citizen subdivi,
sions and apartments, mobile home estates, and varied
recreational and cultural facilities suitable for older people.
These have not only been financed locally, but consider,
able outside capital has been invested. The biggest project
is Tucson Green Valley, a $100,000,000 non -profit
retirement community sponsored by the University of Ari,
zona and the New York State Teachers Retirement System.
Located on a particularly scenic site of several thou sa nd
acres, nineteen miles south of the city, Green Valley is a
completely self-contained residential development planned
for an eventual population of 22,000.
Tucson is also a leading Southwestern educational and
scientific center. Paced by the University of Arizona,
significant work is being done in many fields of know!,
edge. On the University campus is the Arizona State
Museum. Its exhibits give a fascinating close-up picture
of the prehistoric Southwest and graphically show the
high degree of culture attained by the various tribes of
Indians before the coming of the White Man. Then,
adjacent to the University, but not a part of it, is the hand,
some Spanish, Mexican style building of the Arizona
Pioneers' Historical Society. Here are housed relics and
mementos of Arizona's past, from the days of Coronado,
more than three centuries ago, to achievement of statehood
in I 9 r 2 . The Society's library contains 250,000 volumes,
as well as hundreds of pamphlets, maps, photographs,
microfilms and newspaper files.
These two institutions are limitless reservoirs of
research, and their priceless collections give an almost
complete story of Tucson's human background. But for
the living natural history of the area, there is the Arizona,
Sonora Desert Museum, one of Tucson's greatest attrac,
tions for both visitors and residents. Here, on a 60,acre
tract in the Tucson Mountains, fifteen miles west of town,
are displayed the wildlife, plants, rocks and minerals that
CONTINUED - PAGE 18
PAGE FIFTEEN
El Con Shopping Center fountain and mall
Silver B ell min e
RAY MANLEY
Tucson's popularity as a resort area, retire,
ment community, and convention center has
resulted not only from its unparalleled climate
but also from it s position as the hub of a vast
area containing many of the West's most signi,
ficant attractions. Perhaps no other city in the
world is surrounded b y such a collection of
interesting places to visit.
On a map of Arizona, draw a circle wi th a
circumference extending one hundred miles in
every direction from Tucson and within it you
will discover an almost unbelievable variety of
natural, hi storica l, and man-made attractions.
Portions of two great national forests thrive
in the area. Five national monuments and one
national memorial lure visitors. Six lakes of
varying size stan d within the one hundred mile
circle. More than two dozen famous guest
ranches dot the region. Two major military
establishments are ipcluded. At least a dozen
picturesque ghost to wns are accessible. P arts of
six Indian Reservations exist inside the circle.
Sonoran burros
JOE STACE Y
At least four spectacu lar, woo ded canyons, a
handful of notable mounta in peaks, and three
spectacular wa terfall s ( which Row erratically,
depending on th e season ) are located near Tuc­so
n . Historical sites are too numerous to allo w
enumeration.
If the hundred- mile circle were to be sliced
in four to represent points of the compass, each
of th e resulting regio ns would include its own
significa nt attractions .
Imm ediately west of Tucson stands Tucso n' s
"sister community" of Ajo, only other Pima
County municipality large enough to merit the
title "city." Near it is one of th e biggest open
pit copper mine s in Arizona. Also in the west­ern
sec tor lies Organ Pipe Cactus National
Arizona-Sonora D ese rt Museum
tory. A new museum is now open to visitors.
At the foot of Kitt Peak, Ajo Road allows
access to Mexican fishing areas on the coast of
the Gulf of California.
Beautiful Tucson Mountain Park provides a
border for the city on its western periphery.
There, amid Arizona's most vigorous forest of
Saguaro cacti , is located a seldom-visited
"annex" of the Saguaro National Monument.
Nearby is famed Arizona-Sonora Desert
Museum with its rare collection of desert Rora
and fauna, and Old Tucson, famous movie loca,
tion. "A" Mountain boasts a paved road allow,
ing a most spectacular view of modern Tucson
- especially at night.
South of Tucso n is San Xavier Mission, one
The
HUB of Southern Arizona
Monument . There , ju st about every variety of
Sonoran Desert growth thrives among virgin
mountain ranges. Adjacent stands the Papago
Indian Rese rvation , second largest tribal reserve
in Arizona. Within its two and one-half million
acres are eleven di stricts containing dozens of
small villages with a total population of more
than eight thou sa nd . In the sp ring , the rese rva,
tion is one of the state's most prolific producer s
of colorful wildflowers.
Atop a sacred Papago mountain, Kitt Peak,
stands one of man's largest astronomical centers.
A fine paved ro ad allows visitors to ascend to
see the world's biggest solar telescope and seven
other important stellar re search facilities that
are a part of the Kitt Peak National Observa,
Tumacacori Mission
of the most famous and intriguing of all Fran,
ciscan religious shrine s. Indians still attend
ma sses there, and visitors are welcome. Madera
Canyon, with it s vast and un spoiled recreation
area - teeming with significant varieties of birds
- is also so uth of Tucso n . Dense growths of
the Coronado National Forest cling to the can­yon,
and a _bright stream winds among the
tree s. Not far away is the famous ghost town
of Helvetia , where only a handful of buildings
but countless shafts and tunnels remind of the
era w hen the Santa Rita Mountains echoed to
t he miner's pick.
Tumacacori National Monument and Tubae ,
two of Arizona's most revered hi storical sites,
are along the main highway sou th of Tucson.
The rums of Tumacacori and the ol d church
at Tubae continue to attract more visitors each
year. Little Pena Blanca Lake is not far away.
Nogale s, quaint to w n di vide d by the interna,
tional border fence, is at the sou thern tip of th e
state sixty-s ix miles belo w Tucso n. That part
of Nogales across the border in Mexico is one
of Arizona's top attractions.
Some of the most beautiful ranch country in
Arizona is located in the Sonoita,Patagonia
regio n sou th of Tucso n . On its edge stands
Fort Huachuca, the nati on's large st electronic
proving ground. Pretty, new Parker Canyon
Lake is due so uth. Trout aboun d th ere. Close
by, on the Mexican border, st ands Coronado
National Memorial, an idyllic spo t deep in a
JOSEPH MUENCH
green canyon. A rugged road leads to the top
of a peak from where, the visitor can see "half
of Mexico and half of Arizona" while tracing
the route by which the Spanish first ventured
north out of Mexico City.
Driving east of Tucso n visitors can tour the
campus of the University of Arizona, now the
nation's twenty,eighth larges t educational insti­tution.
Old Fort Lowell, with its authentic his­toric
furni shings, is near at hand . If the season
is "wet, " a trip to Tanque Verde Falls is a must.
Located on private property deep in a can yo n
of the T anque Verde Wash, thi s waterfall often
s e nd s torrent s over a high cliff. Saguaro
National Monument, with its fine stand of b ig
Saguaro cactus "trees," and Colossal Cave, one
-~
Part of Kitt Peak National Ob servatory
of the world's driest, most colorful, and most
extensive caverns, can both be visited by driv,
ing a few miles east of Tucson.
Tombston e, " the town too tough to die," is
another famous attraction east of Tucson . The
highway wind s through huge Lavender Pit
Copper Mine, continuing on the rocky crags
of Cochise Stronghold, last hiding plac~ of the
outlaw Apache chief. Chiricahua National
Monument is also within the hundred-mile
circle. Its stra nge an d often grotesque rock for,
mations are worth a trip into th e region. Not
far away, in one of ten Coronado National
Forest regions surr ounding Tuc son, stands
handso me Mount Graham. On its top is beau,
tiful Riggs Flat Lake. At its foot is the town
Wonderland of Rocks
of Safford and a green checkerboard of culti,
vated fields.
North of Tucson are a similar number of
attractions. Sabino Canyon, one of the largest
and most beautiful in the Santa Catalina Moun,
tains; Mount Lemmon with its summer homes
and winter snow bowl , and the Pinal Pioneer
Parkway, featuring miles of desert growth
plainly marked with signs to introduce each
species to travellers. Along thi s route stands the
Tom Mix Memorial, marking the spot where
the famed cowboy movie star met death in a
highway tragedy.
Picacho Peak al so ri se s against the northern
sky near Tucson. The dark , graceful form ation
marks the location of Arizona' s only Civil War
Pena Blanca Lak e
battle. Farther along, Casa Grande National
Monument features the ruins of buildings
erected by a strange conglomeration of prehis,
toric men. Big copper mines are in evidence
at San Manuel, Superior , Globe, Miami, and
Christmas - all within one hundred miles of
th e Old Pueblo. Not far from Superior is the
Southwest Arboretum with its collection of
deser t plants.
Coolidge Dam containJ San Carlos Lake
which in turn contains recordlargemouth black
bass and channel catfish. The Superstition
Mountains and rough , but spectacular Apache ·
Trail road are all within the "Tucson circle,"
as are four Indian preserves , the Gila River,
Maricopa, San Carlos, and Fort Apache Reser,
vations. - Stan Jones
Rose Lake at Mount Lemmon
Guest ranch coffee break al fresco
Family picnic western style
PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAY MANLEY
make this desert unique in the world. The live exhibits
include many insects, reptiles, mammals and birds, and
an underground tunnel reveals the subterranean activities
of desert-dwelling animals and snakes. Nature trails tra,
verse the area among typical and rare regional plants and
cacti, all labelled for identification. Each year the Museum
adds to its exhibits and carries on active research and
educational programs. Of special interest to local home
owners are the recently installed displays of desert vegeta­tion
suitable for gardens and patios.
Tucson scored an outstanding educational and scienti-
. fie coup in r 9 5 8 when nearby Kitt Peak was chosen as the
location for America's most advanced astronomical observ,
atory. This epoch-making decision launched the city into
an important orbit in Space Age investigations. Perched
atop a 6,875-foot desert mountain, the $12,000,000
installation is the first government project of its kind, and
is operated by the American Association of Universities for
Research in Astronomy on a lease from the National
Science Foundation.
Kitt Peak's sky-piercing equipment consists of three
reflecting telescopes, the largest having an 80,inch mirror,
and the University of Arizona's 36-inch Steward Tele,
scope. But most remarkable is the revolutionary McMath
Solar Telescope, largest instrument for observing the sun
in existence. Plans are under way for a mammoth r 50-inch
reflector, and an eventual radio-controlled telescope in
space, 20,000 miles from the earth's surface. Kitt Peak
National Observatory is open to the public daily and is
accessible from Tucson by fifty-three miles of a paved
scenic highway. It is a busy place the year 'round with a
permanent personnel of 140, and the facilitie.s available
to qualified visiting scientists of all nationalities. A modern
headquarters building, containing offices, laboratories, and
workshops covers an entire block in the city adjacent to
the U niversitv campus.
Religion has always played a significant role in
Tucson's life, and the Old Pueblo's religious heritage dates
back to the intrepid Spanish missionary priests who
brought Christianity and European civilization to the
Indians. This continuing ecclesiastical vigor is attested by
the number of new religious structures rising in all parts
of the city. Today there are some 230 churches, syna­gogues,
chapels, missions and houses of prayer embracing
more than fifty denominations. Many of these operate
schools, community centers, and charitable organizations.
Tucson's church architecture is as wide ranging as the
creeds, and varies from the traditional to startling experi,
mental styles.
But it is not only in religion that the city exhibits this
rich diversity. There is also an exceptionally broad spec,
trum of cultural activities. Due to the unprecedented influx
of new residents, a large proportion of Tucsonians are
people from every part of the world. Although they
happily adapt themselves to the congenial pattern of
life in the desert Southwest, they have brought with them
some of the customs, habits and ways of their former
homes. For example, the large number of those of Mexican
extraction make Tucson, in part, a bilingual city, and
CONTINUED - PAG_E 32
PAGE EIGHTEEN Arizona Highways
"Tucson's Desert Garden - Saguaro National Monument" RAY MANLEY
"In Picturesque Sabino Canyon" DARWIN VAN CAMPEN
\J "Tucson Golf is a Year-round Sport" MICKEY PRIM
"A Country Club ;•n D eser t F oo-t hi. ll s» MICKEY PRIM
"Fair Day in the Fair Land" WESTERN WAYS
"Tucson Arizona Boys Choir in Colossal Cave" RAY MANLEY
"Old Tucson - Reminder of the Old West" RAY MANLEY
"U. of A. Homecoming Parade"
MICKEY PRIM
" Festival of the Cowboys" TED OFFRET
"Tucson­Annual
Livestock
Show"
"Tucson's International Airport" RAY MANLEY
"Historic Display - Pioneers' Society" RAY MANLEY
"St. Phillips in the Hills" RAY MANLEY
"A Shopping Area in Tucson" RAY MANLEY
"U.S. Veterans' Hospital" WESTERN WAYS
"Pima County
Courthouse"
RAY MANLEY
"Benedictine Chapel in Tucson" WESTERN WAYS
"St. Joseph's Hospital - Tucson" RAY MANLEY
l
!
J'
"AM . umcipal Swimming Pool - Tucso n" PETE BALESTRERo --
t . ---- ---- Jl
The Indians are
Coming ! The
Cleveland
Indians"
RAY MANLEY
"Tucson's r\
Square 1/
Dance
Festival"
RAY MANLEY
"State Trap Shoot" R AY MANLEY
,~- ~ FJ· 453
"In Tucso~ Mountain Park" RICHARD JEPPERSON
"Tunnel Display - Arizona,Sonora Desert Museum" RAY MANLEY '.~-=~..------..--~.,..,,~...-c:--- =---...,..,,..=:--.... Summer In Tucson
Some people think it is necessary to shun
the desert in the summer. After the pulse and
excitement of the high season, the entertaining
of visitors, the Old Pueblo sort of settles down
to peace and quiet - the quiet of the great out,
of,doors. You see and greet friends you have
missed when the crowds were here.
Gentle fingers of real warmth creep over the
land . By the end of April, if we have had a
good year, the desert blooms. Now is the time
to drive out the road toward Florence and see
the lupine and desert mallow that line the high,
way. Palo verde trees are great yellow bou,
quets, and by May the saguaro begins to wear
its crown of waxy white blossoms. Toward Ajo
the sand verbena spreads tendrils of lavender
over the brown earth. Folks picnic in Tucson
Mountain Park and spend the evening strolling
the paths of the Arizona-Sonora Living Desert
Museum - then watch the sunset over Avra
Valley.
Out at the other end of town groups are
grilling steaks in Sabino Canyon and life is
good.
No one activity comes to a grinding halt
out our way. Seasons just seem to flow one into
another. True, the pace may become a little
slower as befits a community that has just enter,
tained thousands of visitors. During May the
Sunday Evening Forum still continues. Other,
wise it's the time to dress casually, to visit fav,
orite old haunts - the cool quiet of the Arizona
State Museum with its story of this land and
the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society's con,
stantly changing exhibits of° the history of the
region.
As the nights become balmy we open wide
the windows of the entire house to let the
wonderfully dry air permeate each room. It's
time for western hearty salads and good green
vegetables fresh from the ground. When eve,
nings grow slowly warmer there are parties
around the swimming pool and al fresco meals
after refreshing dips in the pleasantly cool water.
The stars are bright and the sunrises and sun,
sets gorgeous.
Then thunderheads begin to roll up in the
sky. Soon it is time to turn the coolers on or
sit in the shelter and see the sky sluice water
down on the land in a real Gotterdammerung
fashion that shakes the soul. Too hot? Well,
let's fix up a picnic basket or pack a few steaks
and the fixin's and drive up to Mt. Lemmon,
6 o o o or more feet a hove our shimmering
desert. Here the wind whispers in the pine trees
and before nightfall we'll need a sweater.
Tucsonians are real fortunate , for within easy
driving we have wonderful high places to visit
come summer's real heat. Coronado National
Forest extends "from the saguaros to the tall
timber" and has twelve separate units scattered
over the southern half of the state rather than
being one continuous area as are many national
forests. Two are nearer than the rest - the Mt.
Lemmon area before mentioned, and the fast
developing, easily reached Madera Canyon
region to the south.
If you don't like mountain driving Madera
Canyon is your bet. Straight south on U.S. 89
( Nogales highway) to the canyon turnoff is
a fast 26 mile run. The slightly more than 1 2
mile climb from the valley elevation of ~500
feet to the 5000 foot level is very gradual,
drawing closer and closer to Mt. Wrightson
( Old Baldy), one of the highest peaks in
Southern Arizona. Tucked in Madera Can,
yon, almost at its top is Santa Rita Lodge with
excellent food and as attractive deluxe motel
rooms as one would find on a major highway
- big picture windows that open to a burbling
mountain stream and corner Danish wood,
burning fireplaces . There are pine paneled cab,
ins to rent if you want to spend a day or a week .
The U. S. Forest Service maintains camp­ing,
picnicking and trailer sites. If you aren't a
hiker or mountain climber the Audubon Society
rates Madera Canyon as one of the finest bird
watching areas in the country. It lies athwart
the great southwest flyway, and more than 200
species of birds make their home here, in addi,
tion to the variety of wildlife that investigates
cabin and campsite come evening, including the
rolling sailor-gaited coati mundi.
Yes, the living is good - if the heat gets you
just climb up out of it and refresh yourself -
a few thousand feet do the trick.
- Roanna H. Winsor
WESTERN WAYS
Spanish as well as English is spoken in the extensive
Mexican sections and in most downtown stores. This has
created a zestful social and cultural amalgam of the old
and the new, the regional and the international. The cake
remains, but a multi-flavored frosting has been added.
Naturally, the best known and most widely supported
endeavors in music, drama, the graphic arts and intellec,
tual pursuits are those indigenous activities which
originated before the human flood . Some of these are
inheritances from the Old Pueblo's Indian, Spanish and
Territorial past.
The city has a symphony orchestra, the famed Tucson
Arizona Boys Chorus, a Civic Chorus, Boys Band and
many groups devoted to all types of music. Fall, winter,
and spring concert goers are treated to performances by
noted visiting orchestras and great personalities of the
musical world. Also well known actors and actresses are
seen in road-show productions of Broadway hits, and
several local little theatres present ligitimate stage fare
of considerable Bair and professionalism. Among them
are the Arizona Corral Theatre's performances "in the
round," and the U. of A.'s Drama Department's plays,
ranging from Shakespeare to contemporary, produced in
its own modern, well-equipped theatre. The world's lead,
ing speakers and lecturers are brought to Tucson by the
Sunday Evening Forum held each week during the sea,
son in the University Auditorium. Given free to the
public, this popular series is supported by subscription,
and is reputed to be the largest community project of its
kind in the country. Besides the city's fourteen radio
broadcasting stations and three television channels of
the major networks, the University maintains a non,
commercial TV station which features educational and
artistic programs.
Painters, sculptors and other workers in the creative
arts and crafts find a vital stimulus in Southern Arizona.
Writers and photographers, too, are in their element.
There is a ready market for Southwestern artistic and liter,
ary material. One Tucson author recently said, "Around
PAGE THIRTY-TWO
here you run across a painter, writer or shutter-snapper
behind nearly every cactus." Encouragement to local art,
ists is given by the Tucson Art Center which maintains
studios and gallery, and a dozen other groups exhibit the
work of regional artists in oils, water colors, prints, sculp­ture,
ceramics, fabric design and jewelry. The University
Fine Arts Center houses the excellent Kress Collection of
Renaissance Painting and the Gallagher Memorial
Collection of Modern Art.
But the most thoroughly distinctive cultural venture,
and certainly the most ambitious, is the annual Tucson
Festival week. Held in April, this gala occasion for the
entire city highlights the many artistic elements of the
region. The events bring together the Indian, Spanish,
Mexican and Territorial backgrounds, and blends them
with the modern into a typically Tucsonian melange.
Packed into six lively days, the Tucson Festival Society
presents the Indian San Xavier Mission Fiesta and His,
torical Pageant, a Mexican street fair with music and
dancing, an Arts and Crafts Show, a children's costume
parade, a Pioneer Jubilee, and as a grande finale, the
glittering· Silver and Turquoise Ball.
In Arizona, rodeos are a cultural expression, an his­torical
heritage, a sporting event, a spectacle, and a social
gathering rolled into one. Called La Fiesta de Los
Vaqueros, Tucson's rodeo is one of the best. For four days
in February the spirit of the Old West invades the city,
and an informal cow-town atmosphere prevails. In antici,
pation of the event everybody dresses Western, beards
sprout magically, and old-time dances, barbecues, parties
and customs are revived. Top professional performers
furnish thrilling competition at the Rodeo Grounds, and
a colorful motorless parade traverses the downtown streets
on opening day. Quieter and more serious, but equally
important, is the Pima County Fair held each October
at the large, well-equipped Fairgrounds at the southern
edge of the city.
Another reminder of the historic Wild West is Old
Tucson. Originally built as a movie set, this is supposed
to be a reproduction of the town in the 186o's. Here
one can ride a stagecoach, take a loop on a narrow-guage
railroad, wander boardwalk streets, visit lively conces­sions,
and witness assorted examples of mock gun-play in
which the "good guys" always win.
Newcomers are most surprised at this desert city's
enthusiasm for boating and fishing. They find it difficult
to believe that Arizona has the highest percentage of
registered boat owners in relation to population of all the
fifty states. Each weekend hundreds of Tucsonians tow
their craft on trailers to the deep-sea-fishing grounds in
the Gulf of California or to the numerous artificial fresh,
water lakes throughout the state. But one needn't be a
boat owner to enjoy fishing or water sports. Boats and
equipment may be rented at lakeside marinas, and fishing
parties can By down to the Mexican Gulf resorts in a
couple of hours.
But most popular are the Santa Catalina Mountains.
Culminating in Mount Lemmon, 9,185 feet elevation,
they form a lofty and rugged backdrop directly to the
north, which can be seen from every part of the city.
Within Coronado National Forest, this superlative sum,
mer and winter playground in the sky is reached in less
CONTINUED - PAGE 34
Arizona Highways MARCH r965
RAY MANLEY
Sunshine & Horses
The average Tucson,area guest ranch ( the
word " dude" is seldom used ) can accept thirty
to forty vacationers. It is most crowded during
the months of February through March, but
guest ranch owners are working hard to acquaint
visitors with the advantages of the early fall and
late spring seasons. Most of the ranches open in
October and close in May, and although busi,
ness seldom booms in those first and last months
it is a fact that the Southern Arizona climate is
at its best during those times.
Guest ranch operators expect the current sea,
son to be a banner one, perhaps approximating
" the big year" of I 9 5 8, when for some as yet
unaccountable reason, visitors were at an all,
time high. But, unlike guests of other years who
disembarked from trains or rattled across cattle
guards in the family automobile, more than
ninety per cent of this season's visitors will
RAY MAN LEY
arrive on jet planes landing at Tucson Interna­tional
Airport. Most of the guests will be mar,
ried couples. Many will be returning to Tucson
to enjoy relaxation that they have experienced
before. Ranch owners estimate that at least sixty
per cent of their customers are " repeaters." The
owners welcome such business but are aware
that continued success depends upon new visi­tors.
Future advertising plans will include pro­motions
aimed at reaching new and younger
customers who will in turn become the repeaters
of the years ahead.
Visitors who are experiencing their first ranch
vacations often come to Tucson armed with
heavy golf bags and other paraphernalia brought
to ensure pl enty of outdoor activity. But
repeaters have learned that guest ranches offer
every conceivable kind of facility and activity,
including planned tours of the numerous attrac,
tions in the Tucson region. Most guests are
content to enjoy the sun, the horses, and the
suggestions of their hosts, find ing in them a ded,
icated loyalty to both Old Sol and Old Paint.
Ranchers invariably believe that a horse is
the best thing a man can be around. That per,
haps is best illustrated by one guest ranch oper,
ator's vow that " . .. no matter whether they
come here to ride a horse or not, one way or
another we get them into a saddle. And once
we get them aboard, we can't keep them away
from the riding trails ."
Another member of the Southern Arizona
Dude Ranchers Association states flatly that
" the outside of a horse is good for the inside of
a man." And although his fine guest ranch
boasts a large swimming pool, a Mexican style
cantina ( cocktail lounge ), and all the comforts
of home away from home in a rolling foothill
PAGE THIRTY-THREE Arizona Highways
setting, he prides himse lf on his abi lity to con,
vince guests that his horses are the best part of
it all.
Members of the association strive to treat visi,
tors as guests in their homes. But each owner
offers "something special" in the form of a
heated swimming pool, thick steaks in a pleas­ant
dining room, moonlight and breakfast horse,
back rides, planned tours of area attractions, and
anythin g else that will resu lt in fun for guests.
Compared with other forms of vacation tri ps,
the guest ranch life is not expensive.
"You can live for several weeks at a fine
guest ranch for no more than it would cost to
travel by car and spend every night of a similar
period in a modern motel," one guest ranch
owner points out.
Association members regret that the "expen­sive"
label has often been erroneously applied
to all guest ranch operations because of pub,
licity accorded famous movie stars or politically
and socially prominent Americans who regu,
uarly so journ at a few especially ornate and
admittedly expensive " ranches" that are actu,
ally resorts restricted to the wealthy.
"Through the years we have managed to
firmly establish the idea that Tucson-area guest
ranches feature fun in the sun - and horses,"
says a past president of the association. "Our
next goal will be to convince people that such
fun is not really expensive and that our guests
represent a cross section of Americans with
varying earning capacities.
"Even if we wanted to create super ranches
with super fac ilities that would make them out,
landishly expensive we would be foolish to do
so . How can you improve on the enjoyment
that is to be had from sunshine and horses?"
- Stan Jones
than an hour by paved highway, and is managed by the
United States Forest Service under its multiple-use policy.
But recreation takes first place and the Santa Catalinas had
r,200,000 visitors in 1963. Amid the summit pines,
firs and aspens, in a climate similar to southern Canada,
are summer cabin colonies, youth organization camps,
campgrounds and picnic areas, a rustic resort village, hik,
ing and riding trails, trout fishing, and the Mount Lemmon
Snow Bowl, southernmost developed winter sports center
in continental United States. The surburban Sabino and
Bear Canyon recreational areas at the base of the Santa
Catalinas are also maintained by the Forest Service with
the cooperation of Pima County. Furthermore, the
County has two areas of its own: the 6625,acre Tucson
Mountain Park, west of the city, and Colossal Cave, a
sizeable limestone cavern, a few miles east.
So in winter it's possible to play a round of golf in
the morning and ski before dark, and to picnic among
the cool pine forests in summer and have al fresco Thanks,
giving or Christmas dinner in the desert. In fact, every
day of the year offers exceptional opportunities for recrea,
tion and a variety of sports, for both active participants and
spectators. The Tucson Open Golf Tournament in Febru,
ary draws the best pros from all parts of the country, and
in the fall thousands jam the University Stadium to watch
the home games of the U. of A. Wildcats. The Old
Pueblo is spring training headquarters for the American
League Cleveland Indians, and their exhibition baseb;ill
games are well attended, while the bullfights at Nogales,
Sonora, draw enthusiastic Sunday afternoon crowds from
north of the border. There is thoroughbred and quarter,
horse racing from November to May, and greyhound
races are held during the winter at two courses. Tennis,
swimming, horseback riding, and motor exploring are
favorite year-round pastimes, while just plain loafing
in the sun is rated highly. Then, on Tucson's calen,
dar of events are frequent horse shows, dog shows, cat
shows, bird shows, home shows, Mexican fiestas and
Indian ceremonials.
Tucson's birth and reason for being was because of a
strategic location at the crossroads of major routes of travel.
From Indian trails to jet planes is a big jump in two cen,
turies, but the city still maintains its importance as a
transportation center. Transcontinental and north-south
U. S. highways meet, and the new Interstate r o passes
through. The latter is well on its way to being a completely
divided, controlled access east,west freeway across
Arizona. Tucson is on the Southern Pacific Railway's
through route from Chicago and New Orleans to Los
Angeles, and is served by national and local bus lines.
The city's International Airport is used by six airlines with
regularly scheduled cross-continent flights and direct serv,
ice to Mexico City. The new airport building, completed
last year at a cost of $3,500,000, is one of the most
efficient, modern and attractive in the United States.
It has added another touch of cosmopolitanism to the
Old Pueblo.
So, all in all, Tucson is a vital and progressive city,
with a quickened pulse beat the year round. No longer
do Tucsonians lead a seasonable double life - energetic in
winter and easygoing in summer. Stores, office buildings,
theatres and restaurants are now artificially cooled, and
air-conditioned homes and automobiles have extracted the
sting from desert heat. The peaceful and quiet summer
siesta is a thing of the past.
But the feel and tempo of the enduring desert still
dominates, and the city spreads across the floor of the
basin and into the mountain foothills with an open,air
spaciousness that hasn't yet crowded nature out. With
room to spare Tucson is a horizontal one, and two-story
community which has been immune to the high-rise epi­demic
now sweeping through the world's cities. But, with
the rapid increase in population, perhaps Tucson's person,
ality will eventually be lost in the standardized mold of
modern urbanization. During the past year a seventeen,
story luxury apartment house was added to the city's
skyline and a twenty-story bank and office building is now
rising in the downtown area. Zoning for high-rise construe,
tion has also been approved for outlying business centers.
But no matter what the future brings, people will
always be drawn to this city to play, work and live in the
desert sunshine. For, after all, there is only one Tucson.
Fall & Winter
In The Old Pueblo
Maybe it is the opening of the University, the zing of student
cars, the babble of excited y outh - whatever it is, Tucson seems
to shake itself come fall and gets ready for winter an d the " high
season." There is a great flurr y of gardening, cle aning up flower
beds, readying for bulb planting. Crisp geraniums and perky
bedding plants appear at nurseries. Seems like it all comes with
such a rush - the tingle in the air, the sharp evenings when we
first pull up the blanket. Just yesterday we were almost too lazy
to move.
When it comes to climate, Tucson is hard to
beat. Its environment is the result of a rare
combination of altitude, strategically, placed
mountain ranges, elevated winds, and absorbent
soil.
At 2,390 feet, the city is high enough to
escape exceedingly hot summer temperatures
that often broil desert communities lying at
lower altitudes . Yet it is low enough to avoid
most of the bitter winter weather that regularly
paralyzes many cities in higher regions.
Completely surrounded by high mountains
that tend to deflect winds, Tucson has relatively
fe w days of extreme air activity. Yet , that very
fact causes much movement of air high above
the city. As a result, cloud cover is discouraged
and the sun is allowed to shine a maximum
number of hours, creating an arid climate. Even
when it rains in Tucson the porous nature of
the terrain quickly absorbs most of the water.
Humidity remains at a minimum except during
rare periods of prolonged precipitation.
Tucson's climate was admired by prehistoric
men who congregated in the region in large
numbers at least ten thousand years ago. Later,
the climate was directly responsible for at least
two major developments peculiar to the early
Indian population. Unlike neighbors in North,
em Arizona who left vast ruins as evidence of
their ability to build, the Tucson-area aborigipe
fashioned only huts of brush and mud. A com,
paratively mild climate demanded no better
abode. But the preponderantly warm climate
allowed the latter to become an accomplished
farmer, contrary to his northern counterpart
who grubbed for berries, nut s and roots when
the hunting was poor.
PAGE THIRTY-FIVE
The wine in the air stirs the blood. Football season starts .
There is horse racing, dog racing and in Nogales, south of the
border - bullfights. The much anticipated evening lectures
and concert series begin. Merchants step up their advertising.
Before we know it Hallowe'en has come and gone. The moon
in the sky is enormous. The long evenings have shortened and
soon it's Thanksgiving. And those la st four weeks before Christ,
mas-well I guess it's just the same everywhere, rush, rush, rush.
Christmas time in the deep southwest is not reminiscent of
jingle bells, boots and mittens. But ra.ther like that first Christmas
so long ago - bright stars in a quiet desert night. Music floating
on the air as school children sing ancient carols as they enact
Los Posados, begging from house to house for lodging for the
night.
Then comes gala New Year's Eve with balls and parties.
Then the .first trickle of refugees from cold arrives. The Old
Pueblo gets up steam as hotels, motels and guest ranches start
trying to fit people in for the high season. Everybody and every,
thing goes into high gear, for soon, for almost four months it will
be "fun in the sun" with something doing every day and evening.
You can travel far but it's always wonderful to come back
to Arizona and Tucson. For year around living, it's hard to beat .
Roanna H. Winsor
Tucson
Toda y's weather bureau records tell an
equally interesting story that emphasizes the
importance of the peculiar combination of ele,
ments composing the Tucson environment.
Among thirty-eight major cities in Arizona,
twenty-four are considerabl y higher than
Tucson's 2,400,foot elevation. Eleven are
significantly lower. Only two - Safford and
Wickenburg - occupy a n elevation approxi,
mating that of Tucso n.
ZS
Climate
'
Arizona Highways
Thirteen of those thirty-eight towns have
average maximum temperatures higher than
Tucson's 8 r .6 ° . Twenty have average maxi,
mum temperatures that are lower. Four -
Benson, Clifton, Safford , and Wickenburg -
compare with the Old Pueblo.
Tucson's average minimum temperature is
53.2 ° . Four other major Arizona cities have
temperatures exceeding that figure. Twenty,
seven have lower average minimum tempera,
tures. Six are similar to Tucson.
Precipitation in Tucson avera ges 10.9 r
inches annually. Twenty Arizona cities have
much more rain and snowfa ll. Fifteen cities
have le ss precipitation. Only Kingman and
Wickenburg compare with Tucson.
These figures are not offered in a sense of
competition. They are set forth here to provide
a basis for the fact that, because of its unique
location in a favorable corner of the Sonoran
Desert, the city of Tucson h as a significant
environment that is responsible in largt: measure
for its fantastic growth.
Like Arizona, Tucson is many things. But
most of all, Tucson is Climate!
- Stan Jones
MARCH 1965
Tucson
and
Retirement
Until recently, Tucson had been known
primarily as a health resort and winter vacation
spa. But several significant factors have com,
bined to slowly but surely modify that image.
Today Tucson is a "year,around city" of some
300,000 permanent residents. And although
health seekers and vacationers are still impor,
tant to its economy, it is luring increased num,
hers of retired persons.
Several large communities have been built
in and near Tucson for the exclusive use of
retired people. Operators of such places claim
that the separate retirement community has
several advantages appealing to a large percent,
age of the growing American retired population.
For one thing, residents of the separate com,
munity can do much to control . their own tax
structure. Often they avoid establishment of
schools unnecessary in a community where chi!,
dren are not accepted as residents. For another,
mass production of apartments and homes for
the specific use of persons on fixed incomes
allows savings in construction costs that can be
passed along to the customer in the form of
reasonable purchase prices, inexpensive mort,
gages, and low rental fees. In addition, many
retired persons have common interests such as
golf, Bower culture, handiwork, photography,
and planned excursions. Those interests are
often enhanced by group participation. Most
retirement communities in the Tucson area have
extensive golf courses, gardens, hobby shops,
and organized tours.
The growth of retirement living in the Tue,
son area is especially apparent in an overwhelm,
ing number of trailer courts and mobile home
sites. The Tucson telephone directory lists 1 z 3
such facilities. While all are not devoted exclu,
sively to retired people, it is a fact that trailers
are most often occupied by retirees, and the
mobile home population of Tucson is largely
composed of that group.
There was a time when "trailer towns" were
not always exemplary places in which to live.
Dramatic changes have taken place in recent
years - especially in Tucson. Some of the most
beautiful landscapes in the city grace the mobile
home areas. Several of the large, newer courts
look like country clubs, and indeed are operated
along club principles. Many are so large and
attractive as to unquestionably constitute the
finest facility in the immediate vicinity. Some
mobile homes are so handsome that they com,
pare favorably with the finer permanent homes
in the same region. A number of courts have
beautiful community facilities including swim,
ming pools, hobby shops, and stores. They are
completely self-contained villages designed for
the mobile home owner, and often they cater
particularly to the retfred citizen. Many such
places rent space to the mobile home owner.
Others sell land especially designed for occu,
pancy by the trailerite. Some operate to capacity
the year around. Others limit their facilities to
use by the winter visitor.
But the retired population of Tucson is not
confined to retirement communities and mobile
home sites. There are thousands of private
homes in the city where retired people live
just like other Tucson residents throughout the
year. In almost any block of the constantly
expanding city can be found at least one per,
son or couple who has completed a lifetime of
service and now enjoys the "twilight years" in
the sunshine city.
What has made Tucson the target of so many
retired people? Many reasons are responsible,
but most influential of all has been sunshine. It
was responsible for Tucson's popularity as a
health and winter resort area. And, basically, it
has been responsible for the fantastic growth that
in fourteen years has changed Tucson from a
sleepy town of 46,000 people to a sprawling
metropolis of 300,000. That growth in popu,
lation also influenced the retirement picture. As
new families moved to Tucson, soon,to,retire
relatives in other parts of the nation were
encouraged to consider The Old Pueblo as a
future home.
For the resident of a state other than Arizona,
Tucson offers relatively inexpensive housing.
The man who has lived most of his working
life in, say, Chicago or Detroit usually finds
that he can sell his midwestern home for cash,
buy another perhaps smaller but nevertheless
attractive and practical home in Tucson, pay
cash for the latter, and still place a substantial
amount of his midwestern equity in the local
bank. By so doing, such a man - or couple -
can live in the climate preferred, occupy a
comfortable home or apartment in which invest,
ment value is retained, and enjoy the knowledge
that fixed income is not subject to house pay,
ments, and that such income is strengthened by
a cash reserve.
Tucson's importance as a military training
site is another factor that has encouraged a
retirement population. Many former soldiers
who were stationed at huge Davis,Monthan
Air Force Base or at nearby Fort Huachuca are
returning to Tucson to spend retirement years.
Because many of the latter group retire at a
comparatively young age, Tucson's work force
contains a significant number of part,time em,
ployees who draw military pensions as well as
paychecks.
Tucson's retirement population is not all
the result of emigration. There is a local con,
dition that is influencing the situation. Civil
Service employes, most of whom have good
retirement plans, have increased at an amazing
rate in Arizona during the past fifteen years.
The number of federal employes has doubled
in that time. Residents employed by state and
local governments have almost tripled their
ranks. The majority of those people remain in
Arizona upon retirement. And a certain and
gradually increasing number of them are retiring
every day.
Will Tucson continue to be a popular retire,
ment center? Undoubtedly! One Tucson retire,
ment community developer has invested one
hundred million dollars in what seems destined
to become the largest community of its kind in
the West - if not in the United States. Other
areas of the nation which for years had a
monopoly on the retirement business - notably
California and Florida - have bred or fallen
victim to unfortunate conditions which seem to
have adversely affected their appeal. Hurricanes,
smog, traffic tangles, tax burdens, mosquitos -
all have had an effect. To date none of those
negative aspects exists in Tucson to any appre,
ciable degree. - Stan Jones
If you are in Tucson during February, March or April you're
in luck. With cold weather and snow flying in the north and east
you'll be basking in the sun and letting the kinks iron out, then
having early dinners so you can attend the many evening activities.
Our biggest drawing card at the beginning of the season is
our rodeo. Feb. 25th at 9: 30 a.m. La Fiesta de los Vaqueros
begins the parade, all Boats horse drawn, not a mechanized unit in
the whole affair - bands, color guards, local and visiting eques,
trian units, covered wagons, Indian dancers and the contestants
themselves - riders and ropers from all over the West. In the
afternoon the first spine-tingling performance starts off a four,
day competition between man and animal that will certainly
rivet your attention. If you miss our big one you can see a rodeo
at Chandler, Douglas, Phoenix, San Carlos Indian Reservation
or Willcox during the season. Just ask the Chamber of Commerce
for the dates.
For evening entertainment there are the University of Ari,
zona Artist Series and the Sunday Evening Forum events in the
University Auditorium: Chicago Opera Ballet (Feb. 1 8, 1 9),
John Goddard's "Adventures in the Far East" (Feb. 21 ), "My
Fair Lady" (Mar. 10,13), "Trekking the Tibetan Border"
with Earl Brink (Mar. 14), Krashanovich Chorus (Mar. 15,
1 6), Robert Davis's "Belgium" (Mar. 2 1 ) , "Six Gateways to
the Caribbean" with Eric Pavel (Mar. 28) and Dick Reddy's
film on Russia (Apr. 4).
For the music minded there will be Varel & Bailly "Paris
Sounds" ( Feb. 20), Peter Nero, pianist ( Mar. 4), Gilbert and
Sullivan plays ( Mar. zz,z 7) arid Laurindo Almeida, guitarist
( Mar. 29) at the Tucson Music Center and the Tucson Sym,
phony - Jennie Toure!, soprano (Mar. 23), the Folklanders
Concert (Mar. 26,27), Orchesis Concert (Apr. i-2), Annual
Easter Choralogue (Apr. 11) and the Tucson Symphony­Charles
Treger, violinist ( Apr. 20) at the University Audi,
torium.
For those baseball fans the Cleveland Indians begin spring
training in February with exhibition games early in March.
March 24,28 is the Pima County Fair and Southern Arizona
Livestock Show. Out here we take our fairs seriously. Last year
this one drew over 100,000 spectators!
For art devotees there are many galleries and all will be
scheduling special shows. There is just so much going on it is
hard to list it all. During Holy Week one of the oldest and most
primitive celebrations takes place at Pasqua Village, home of the
Yaqui Indians. It is a combination 17th century Spanish and
ancient primitive Yaqui rites that enact the Easter Pageant,
ending with the battle of the Bowers - good against evil. In
addition to Easter services at all denominational churches a
special service at the Salvation Army Temple, celebrating the
1 ooth anniversary of that organization will be conducted by
Commissioner Glen Ryan. Territorial Commander of the I 3
western states.
But I do beg of you be here for the windup of this very
festive time, April zz,27 Festival Week. April 23 is the San
Xavier Fiesta commemorating Father Kino's founding of San
Xavier Mission. April 24,25 is La Fiesta de la Placita in this
bi,cultural city. Here in downtown modern Tucson, at the "old
square" you step back in history as you watch the Parada de los
Ninos, with the breaking of the "pifiata," buy dulces at the
puestos and have a real south,of,the,border memory to take home.
And be sure to take in the St. John's Indian School Dancers the
evening of April 25 at the University Auditorium and the Pioneer
Jubilee re-enactment of historical events at Ft. Lowell April 26.
Then you will have seen the Old Pueblo at its very best.
Roanna H. Winsor
BY
CARLE
HODGE
ne day last summer, a University of
Arizona zoologist greeted a fellow
faculty member for the first time. Had
it occured amid the palm -canopied
campus at Tucson, where enrollment
now exceeds eighteen thousand stu,
dents, th eir introduction would have
b ee n commonplace, of course. But they met in Paris. A
coll eag ue was a t the moment, moreover, busil y deter,
mining the magnetic direction of rocks in Japan, while
another had returned from Fiji on an ethnographic mi ssion.
Still others from the sa me institution could have been
observed at the ornate Hotel Ukraine in Moscow. Within
a few weeks, two anthropologists and a tree-ring re ,
searcher, all of whom had flown from Spain, appeared
in the Soviet capital, along with an atmospheric physici st.
A young graduate student, m ea nwhile, prepared to depart
the States for Antarctica to look into the incredible diving
prowess of Weddell seals, and Dr. Gerard Peter Kuiper
PHOTOGR APHS - RAY MA NLEY
hurried triumphantly to an international astronomical
gathering in Germany . He carried the freshly-printed
photogra phs made of the moon by Ranger VII.
Although our travelogue follows merely a fraction of
the pere grinations of the season, it does not suggest that
no on e was left to mind ma tt ers at the University in
Tucson . No fewer than four-hundred and fifty separate
scientific endeavors were underway at home, in fact.
They were as disparate in concept as the banding of
bats, a crea ture whose migratory patterns are of concern
to public health officials , and the devising of detectors
th at will sniff out and identify gases in the tenuous atmos­pheres
of other planets.
What the summer's odysseys did reflect, to employ
a term the sc hol ars themselves would abhor, was status.
Among th e measures of success in science is the frequency
with which participants are summoned elsewhere to fur ,
th er their investigations, to confer with people in their
fi elds or to report at learned meetings .
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4 2
"U. of A. Library"
"Fine Arts Building"
PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAY MANLEY
"Student Union Building"
Business and Public Administration Building
"Museum at University"
"U. of A.'s Art Gallery"
"Science Building, U. of A."
By these or any other touchstones, the University of
Arizona has become, with some suddenness, a beehive of
scientific bustle. Federal agencies, foundations and in­dustry
invested nearly $9,000,000 in its research last
year alone. Such outside support in grants, gifts and
contracts ( which paid for the aforementioned travel,
incidentally ) amounted to a ten-fold increase over what
it had been seven years earlier. Even the burgeoning
enrollment seemed snail-like by comparison.
A romanticist, or a person historically oriented might
regard this rise in research in another context: the Uni,
versity was established while Arizona itself remained a
raw, uncertain territory. Now, three-quarters of a century
later, it provides a crucial outpost on a new and endless
frontier. The unknown and the unexplored beckon as
they always have and, here, modern-day frontiersmen
map the moon and reach for the stars.
They build better farm machinery, hark to what rocks
and trees can tell of the earth's past and pry at the
infinitesimal, innermost secrets of life. Some of them pursue
disciplines that were, or are, so pioneering that words had
to be coined to describe what they do. An example is
selenography, the geography of the moon.
Few men know the moon as Gerard Kuiper does.
Because of perhaps fortuitous circumstances, the U of A
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory director also has heralded
widely the scientific eminence attained by the school.
Residents in other regions, according to a legend per,
petuated by undergraduates, have tended in the past to
dismiss this largest of Arizona's seats of learning as simply
a cow-country college or else as a "country club" to
which wealthy Easterners consign their young. Neither
viewpoint, to be truthful, completely lacks substance.
Understandably, the University takes pride in an
affinity for the livestock business and for agriculture in
general. Before the first classes began, in 189 1, its scien,
tists already were sampling soils and water supplies around
the state. They still are.
Methods grew more sophisticated, and the subject
broader, but agriculture continues to be a focus for inquiry
and experimentation. Only recently, a study was set forth
to see what steers eat on the range. The answer was less
obvious than a city man might suppose. By emptying
their rumens ( first stomachs ) , it was found that the
animals sometimes will bypass stands of perfectly good
grass to browse on fallen cacti. The scientists had cactus
spines to prove it.
Climate can be credited partly with the second -
or clubby - notion. The salubriousness of local weather,
a prime asset, certainly is one lure that attracts so many
out-of-state students, not all of whom are poor. In the
snobbish or non-working sense, nonetheless, it would be
wrong to characterize the campus as a "country club."
Registration represents an economic cross-section and aca,
demic standards are impressive. Science aside, curricula
and quality of instruction are outstanding in the fine arts,
the humanities and an assortment of others.
At any rate, if any visions persisted of the place as a
redoubt for cowboys and rich coeds, they must have
vanished last August. It was then that Kuiper became
familiar on network television, in press conferences and
before Congressional committees. This scarcely was a
role for which the astronomer, a big, no-nonsense man
with a residue of his native Netherlands in his speech,
would have volunteered. ,
But he is "principal experimenter," that is, the chief
scientific adviser, for the Ranger series of lunar flights, a
responsibility entrusted by the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration (NASA) . As such, he was expected
to elaborate on the results - once the six-eyed spacecraft
televised back across a quarter of a million miles the first
closeups of the moon. Whether Kuiper liked it or not,
he was a front-page figure for days, and his Arizona affilia,
tion seldom was overlooked.
He had acquired a global reputation long before
becoming an Arizonan, it should be pointed out. But
finally he was drawn, as numerous men in his profession
have been, by the clarity of Southwestern air, and hence
the "good seeing." When Kuiper moved nearly five years
ago from the University of Chicago, where he directed
the Yerkes Observatory, he brought with him eleven tons
of scientific books and paraphernalia ( the day he arrived,
the elevator was out of order ) and a squad of associates
PAGE FORTY-TWO Arizona Highways MARCH 1965
In Medical Technology Laboratory
PAGE FORTY-THREE
that included English-born Ewen Whitaker, another of
the five Ranger experimenters.
Both the staff and the problems it addresses have
multiplied manyfold since then. Until an astronaut actually
alights on the pock-marked lunar face - and quite con,
ceivably thereafter - the Lunar and Planetary Labora,
tory will remain an all but unequalled source of knowl,
edge about the planet that once was a twin to our own.
The credentials for this authority include the stack of
lunar atlases which "LPL," as it refers to itself, has pub,
lished under Air Force auspices.
Mysterious though the moon may be, and as challeng,
ing, it is not the limit of Lunar Lab work. LPL is blue,
printing an orbiting observatory and attempting to define
with more precision the extent of the Milky Way. Also
being readied, to single out an additional project, is a
balloon-borne bundle of instruments for analyzing the
light from stars and planets. The balloon, bloated with
helium, will be sent soaring virtually one hundred and
twenty thousand feet above Glen Canyon.
Tools are prerequisite to all this, naturally, and Kuiper
has dotted the Santa Catalina Mountains, the range rim,
ming Tucson to the north, with four telescopes. The
fourth, installed early this year, was an innovation. De,
signed expressly for inspection of the infrared portions
of spectra, it should prove particularly valuable in detail,
ing the glow given off by planets.
Farther afield, a fifth mirror will be mounted on the
island of Hawaii, atop the extinct volcano Mauna Kea.
That site posed a note of irony for Alika Herring, an
LPL scientist who helped select it. Although his mother
was born in the islands, and he speaks Hawaiian himself,
Herring had never been there before.
The extraterrestial fever appears to be contagious.
An extra floor, being built onto the University's Steward
Observatory, will harbor a graduate program in optics,
only the second of the sort in the country. The program
is to be a special province of Dr. Aden B. Meinel, the
Observatory director and an acknowledged expert in
optics. Across Cherry Avenue, to continue the tour, a
four-floor Space Sciences Building has taken steely shape.
By the construction timetable, it should open for
occupancy this autumn. A glance at the floor plans, how,
ever, would convince the most earth-bound of skeptics
why NASA Administrator James Webb has said that the
U of A and "its nearby area is growing into a world
center of astronomy and space science," and why his
agency allotted the funds for the building.
Astronomers are only a part of the picture. Room is
reserved for aerospace engineers, for psychologists con,
cerned with the human factors in astral exploration and,
among others, the astrogeologists who probe the rocky
composition of planets. Besides LPL, segments of six
departments are to become tenants. There will be an
analog computer to simulate space flights and, for research
on the reduction of noise, a "zero-noise room" perfectly
insulated against outside sounds.
Out of purely logistic consideration, though, one
dramatic astronomical aid will not be moved into the
new center. It is a recently purchased atom-smasher, and
Arizona Highways MARCH 1965
a tale apart. To begin, one might assume from the attention
devoted to it that starlight must contain clues of some
importance. It does. Any element emits colors that are
unique . Therefore, its resulting wave length pattern should
be as identifiable as fingerprints. A pinch of ordinary table
salt flicked into a fire, for instance, shows up through a
spectroscope as a pair of bright yellow lines - un,
mistakably meaning sodium.
So, scientists usually can ascertain what elements -
helium, hydrogen and the like - make up a heavenly
body by breaking down spectroscopically the rays ema,
nated by the body. The trouble is, the spectral lines that
astronomers detect have by no means all been tied to
specific elements.
A physicist at the University, a bow-tied New Yorker
named Stanley Bashkin, may have an answer. He has
duplicated in his lab light that previously had been noted
only in the spectra of exploding stars . His trick is to shoot
supercharged atoms ( at three thousand miles a second)
through a thin foil inside a particle accelerator. The light,
or radiation, results as electrons snap back into orbit.
If other researchers are right, and the technique has
stirred considerable excitement, Dr. Bashkin could hold
the pieces to a number of puzzles, not the least of them
the ingredients which went into the creation of all matter.
Consequently, the school was pleased to buy Bashkin,
who had been borrowing one back East, an atom-smasher
of his own and deposit it in a Physics Building basement.
The machine was set up behind a door on which someone
has stuck a strip of plastic tape, of the type used to mark
luggage and the like. The legend on the tape reads:
" Stanley's Steamer."
That something can be learned about the enormity
of the universe from the tiniest of its components - the
atom - will astonish no scientist, for atomic research has
led its practitioners down all manner of paths . Two men
in the same building as the "steamer" prove the point.
Japanese -born Dr. Carl Tomizuka centers his attention
on the places in such solids as metals where atoms aren't,
while Dr. Alvar Wilska, who comes from Finland,
perfects a device that may make history.
To say that atoms are small is not to exaggerate . A
million of them could be lined up on a pinhead, with
space to spare . Not surprisingly, one never has been seen.
Wilska expects to correct this deficiency through further
refinement of his electron microscope. Soon, he believes,
he will be able literally to look at atoms - and also
make it possible to read the genetic code which is packed
into all li vi ng cells. He has come increasingly close.
Even at its present stage of development, the machine
resolves detail down to a twenty-fifth of a millionth of an
inch. The onetime ph ys iology professor, trained as a
physician, prefers to be known as "an inventor." As a
World War II weapons expert in his homeland, he cow
trived the detonator for the legendary Molotov cocktail.
In electron microscopes, beams of electrons act as a
radiation source, rather than the visual light of conven ,
tional optical micro sco pes. A Wilska contribution was to
establish that lower voltages slow down the electrons
and allow th em to interact with biological specimens. Not
Saline Conversion Plant - Rocky Point
long ago, he finished a new filter lens which he says
"eliminates fog and improves contrast." He fashioned
and discarded, before getting the one he wanted, nine,
hundred and ninety lenses.
T omisuka, on the other hand, has gained fame among
his conferers in solid-state physics for what, one might
say, he knows about " nothing. " He specializes in the
invisible vacancies that exist in solids where atoms are
missing. These defects are worth knowing about because
they affect the way atoms whirl around within a solid
and, in turn, the way metals must be processed. Tomizuka
diagnoses their behavior by adding to metals, and then
tracking, materials that hold radioactive tracers, an
approach that requires pressures equivalent to the force
of seven pounds of TNT. Brought in the lab to a gaseous
head the energy is concentrated in sheets of steel, behind
sand. As Tomizuka explains with a smile, "we're all
hypochondriacs. "
An international aura, plus a not inconsiderable intel,
lectual stimulus, has accrued from the recruitment of
scientists such as Tomizuka and Wilska, Kuiper and
Whitaker, all native to other nations. The list is lengthy
and varied, though it could be typified by a chemist from
Ceylon, Quintus Fernando. Dr. Fernando concocts atom,
ically claw-like compounds that, among other potentials,
might trip up the wildfire dispersion of cancer cells.
Chemistry at the University is, like astronomy, an
old field with a fresh and lively step. Consider the labo,
ratory of Dr. Carl S. ( Speed ) Marvel, a veritable assembly
line for new polymers. Polymers are substances in which
two or more molecules of the same sort are combined to
form larger, heavier molecules .
Or as Marvel has delineated it, "we hook little
molecules into larger ones and zip them chemically into
long chains." Plastics are born by polymerization; so are
synthetic rubber and ersatz fabrics. Since Marvel came
to Arizona four years ago, he and the dozen PhDs over
whom he presi des have announced a " non-me tallic metal"
and a space-age glue - both of which withstand tem,
peratures of a thousand degrees or more - besides a
turpentine -derived alcohol. The alcohol may be good
for the manufacture of synthetic rubber for tires. More
will follow from the team, operating on outside funds
that total more than $100,000 a year. The latest of these
PAGE FORTY•FOUR Arizona Highways
In Lab - College of Agriculture
sizable grants was reported by a local newspaper a few
months back beneath a noticeably oversimplified headline.
It read: " Professor Gets Job. "
As adequately as anyone, Marvel also symbolizes an
important component of the new scientific frontier. He
had retired in 1961 after a distinguished forty-five-yea r
teaching career at the University of Illinois. As the human
lifespan expands, numerous men find themselves in the
predicament he did, put to pasture and yet capable of
many more productive years. Arizona, an enthusiastic
beneficiary of this geriatric bonus, has enlisted some of
them.
No roster of foremost American scientists could over,
look biochemist Reuben Gustavson, nuclear researcher
Norman Hilberry, geologist and Antarctic explorer Laur,
ence Gould or biophysicst Ralph W. G. Wyckoff. Each
must be accorded summit rank in his own calling. Each has
" r etired" to Tucson, and is as active as ever. Gould,
formerly president of Carleton College in Minnesota,
now is president of the august American Association for
the Advancement of Science.
Wyckoff was one of the earliest experimenters to
venture into the wide-ranging world of the electron-micro ,
scope and, with that periscope into the most minute of
objects, became in the 194o's the first person ever to
see the shape of a virus. He still relies on the instrument
for investigations that include the microscopic structures
of cotton and teeth. Only last year, he came upon proteins
in the fossilized bones of prehistoric beasts. "Like everyone
else," he reflected later, "we had taken it for granted that
_these highly complicated things had disintegrated. "
His revelation that they had not long ago fallen apart
presages an opportunity to unravel more of the m ystery
from the story of evolution . As happens often , the finding
was a byproduct of. something quite different. W yckoff
was scrutinizing the dentitions of extinct animals when,
on a hunch, he decided to poke around for proteins.
Electron microscopy, as he and Wilska improve
upon it. enhances almost fantastically the ability of a
variety of scientific sleuths to watch where they are going.
It has enabled Drs. Albert Siegel and Milton Zaitlin,
agricultural biochemists, to examine more or less leisurely
the " naked, " or incomplete, viruses they created b y chem,
ically stripping the protein coats from normal tobacco,
mosaic viruses . Since the deformed, man -ma de viruses
resemble others that occur naturally, and which circum­stantial
evidence has connected with cancer, the y have
elicited a great deal of interest.
Exercises along this tack are known as basic, as
opposed to applied, research, meaning that there is no
immediate utilitarian goal. The only objective is to add
to the sum of knowledge . If the data he ha s assembled
help, in the course of events, control tumors, no one
would be happier than Al Siegel. All he is striving to
achieve, albeit, is to enlarge upon what man knows about
viruses in particular and genetics in general.
Neither kind of research is without merit, and at the
University they roughly are divided equally. Half or
thereabouts of the projects are applied, or developmental.
These are the better-mousetrap builders, as illustrated by
the "hybrid," or combined digital-analog, computer Dr.
Granino Korn has put together and which promises to
be the world's speediest solver of differential equations.
Two-hundred of the lettuce -p icking machines invented
by Dr. Kenneth B arnes and Billie Harriott should be
able to harves t every head of lettuce in the United States,
and advances of the same sort are legion. Engineers have
pinned down improvements for space re -e ntry vehicles,
and are busy on long -lived nuclear power plants that
would stay in space. Mining men hope to take fuel s
from the ground by converting them to gas and then
recovering them as liquids.
In no area more thpn agriculture is the institution's
tradition of useful science more entrenched. Farming, and
not coincidentally the Arizona economy, have been revo­lutionized
b y the long-staple cottons bred by Drs. Walker
Bryan and Elias Hardin Pressley.
And profound changes were wrought on dentistry,
young teeth and television by a mild woman named
Margaret Camack Smith. It was Dr. Smith, a nutrition
chemist, who figured out in 193 o that fluorine mottles
the enamel on teeth.
More recently, a high- yie lding aphid-resistant alfalfa
has been tailored to the somewhat severe requirements of
arid-lands crops. There are current efforts to reseed ranges,
to improve blood lines and heat tolerance of cattle and to
capture and conserve more water. In particular, water ( or
th e lack of it) always has been a target for the Tucson
researcher s . Some of them are engaged in the compilation
for the Army of an encyclopaedic inventory of everything
science knows, or needs to know, about the world's deserts
as environments .
The school's Institute of Atmospheric Phys ics wound
up, a few seasons ago, five summers of seeding with
silver-iodide smoke the clouds which accumulate over
nearby mountains, the idea being to see whether rainfall
could be wrung out. It wasn't. When the returns were in,
it was concluded, ironically, that more rain fell on the
days when the clouds were not doctored. Had the reverse
been true, Arizonan s would have read the news with
more reli sh. Regardless, the physicists concerned, Drs.
Louis J. Battan and A. Richard Kassander, were content .
They had embarked to resolve some of the enigmas of
weather, and in thi s they succeeded.
PAGE FORTY•FIVE Arizona Highways MARCH 1965
This, again, was basic or pure science. In the same
category would be the work of the U of A electrical engi,
neers who measured the size and took the temperature of
lightning ( it was slimmer and hotter than had been sup,
posed ) and the diving-s eal studies of Gerald Kooyman.
Among the uninformed, investigations like these are
a frequent butt for jokes, and a usual question is, "What
good is it? " To a Congressman skeptical of the value of
the seal project, zoologist Albert Mead replied that it
could "contribute to man' s mastery of underwater naviga,
tion." No rationalination should be required for any re,
search, beyond the obvious fact that any new knowledge
is good.
Science often leads into the totally unexpected, for
one thing. Dr. Andrew Ellicott Douglass, a wispy little
New Englander who went to the University as an astron,
omer in 1906, became beguiled by the annual growth
rings in trees because he thought he could correlate them
with sunspot cycles. He never did, although he tried for
decades to document a relationship.
But Douglass did give breath and a name - dendro,
chronology - to an entirely separa te specialty . Tree,ring
research opened vistas for prehistorians as well as foresters,
permitting the former to date ancient ruins by the wood
found in them. The l aboratory that Douglass created
continues and, among other feats, it declared th e bristle,
cone pines which grow in mountainous eastern California
to be th e oldest living things on earth. Stunted pines th at
still cling to the slopes there were teenagers four-thousand
and more years ago.
Dendrochronology, geochronology ( th e dating of
past events) and archaeology are tightly interwoven and,
at the University, all strong. A fleck of charcoal from a
campfire kindled by aboriginal hunters was extricated b y
the archaelologists from a floor in Ventana Cave on the
Papago Indian ,Reservation. Carbon-dated by the geo ,
chronologists, the charred wood was shown to be more
than eleven-thousand years old.
Dr. Emil Haury, who excavated the cave, now is
unearthing the remnants of Snaketown, a Hohokam vil,
lage that thrived besid e the Gila River when Christ was
born. Haury is looking not simply for potsherds but for
information on one of the most significant events in human
history, the transition from food -gathering to food -g row,
ing cultures.
Plants the Indians once cultivated for medicinal rea,
sons, or still do, also are of interest for a far different
purpose . Dr. Mary Caldwell is extracting from them, and
other Southwestern plants, substances that are screened as
possible anti-cancer drugs. The shy, gray-haired pharma,
cologist came out of retirement to do this after her husband
died of the disease. By the end of this decade, the U of A
will have a medical school, the first in the state . It will
fit, though, into a framework of health , related research
already well grounded. Rheumatoid tissue and, for com,
parison, normal tissue are cultured in one laboratory,
and th ere are many others. ·
A writer can hope only to distill the essence of
research at a facility as large and diverse as the University
of Arizona, and perhaps entrap its restive spirit. No single
Dr. Richard A. Harvill - President
report really summarizes it. The center is abrim with
unsung investigators, and always will be. Yet, the adven,
ture of science is such that tomorrow's great discovery
might be made not by a Kuiper or a Marvel but by an
apprentice now unknown outside his own department.
A milepost to this possibility obtrudes from a sandy
Mexican beach on the Gulf of California. At the little
Sonoran fishing village of Puerto Pefiasco, the Institute
of Atmospheric Physics is realizing a dream as old as
civilization - the wresting of fresh water from the ocean.
The pilot plant, erected in cooperation with the University
of Sonora, is a solar still. It harnesses energy from the sun
to evaporate potable water.
The process is this . Seawater heats up as it flows
slowly through long, shallow plastic -sheeted heating bays.
From the trough-like bays, it is pumped into twin fifty,
foot towers . There, about a tenth of it evaporates, con,
denses and finally can be collected. The salty sludge
that is left swirls back into the sea.
Without doubt the sys tem works; the question is
whether it operates with sufficient economy. When pro,
jected to a larg er scale, the plant should produce drinkable
water at a cost in the order of seventy-odd cents a thousand
gallons. No other method has desalted water so cheaply,
and the sum seems preposterously minor to the people of
Puerto Pefiasco. They must pay up to ten times that
amount for water trucked from inland wells, their sole
source of supply.
But to be practical except in special situations, the
cost, ideally, should be cut. Carl N. Hodges, the wiry
red-head who conceived and carried out the scheme, con,
tinually tinkers and modifies, hopeful that he may effect
savings .
Government grants, not awarded lightly, are paying
for his seaside experiments. Hodges first had to t est his
theories in Tucson with a smaller model. He fabricated it
at one end of what used to be the U of A polo field, mainly
with make-do materials he begged or borrowed.
There was some problem at the outset with curious
neighborhood dogs, until he fenced in the contraption.
The dogs would go up to sniff at the heating bays, and
th eir paws broke through the thin plastic covers.
Hodges, who is twenty-eight, is a home grown scien,
tist, from Phoenix. And at the time he came up with his
calculations for desalting, which could change the course
of a thirsty world, he was still a graduate student.
PAGE FORTY-SIX Arizona H ighways MARCH 1965
The UNIVERSITY OF
ARIZONA PRESS
BY ELIZABETH SHAW
THE BIRDS OF ARIZONA, released
early in December, r 964, highlighted the
beginning of the sixth year of the University
of Arizona Press, now a member of the Asso,
ciation of University Presses, and a major pub,
lisher in the Southwestern United States. In
1959, the University's 75th anniversary year,
President Richard A. Harvi!I gained permission
from the Board of Regents to establish a univer,
sity press for di sse mination of the scholarly
works of faculty members.
Like other such academic publishers, the
five,year,old Pre ss is indeed an effective show,
case for the researchers and writers on the
faculty. But more than that, it is a primary
means of relating the activities within the uni,
versity to what goes on outside - not only in
Arizona , but across the country and around the
world. Although many of its publications are
technical of necessity, such a Press doe s not
publish esoteric books for non-existent readers .
The sale of works on many subjects, not only
to college libraries and teachers , but to readers
throughout the U. S. and abroad, is making it
increasingly clear that scholarly heights today
are anything but th~ ivory towers of legend.
They ma y be eminences of intellectual far,
sightedness, but they are equally busy commu,
nication centers engaged in supp lying informa,
tion and inspiration to people who read books.
Since its birth in the fall of r 9 5 9, the Press's
yearly output ha s swelled from 7 to about 30
books. Its li st of subjects not only ha s total
alphabetical s pread from anthropology to
zoology, but ranges through astronomy, bota ny ,
paleontology, geolog y, literary and art criticism,
social engineering, political science , Oriental
histor y, administration of state water problems,
and reference data for tree , ring dating.
The phys ical format of Press publica tions ha s
varied too, from photographic maps of the
moon in atlases as large as small tables, to
pocket,size essays in book form , to vinyl pack,
aging of the state's geologic and mineralogic
maps, even to excerpts from American literature
on an LP record. In between these di stinctive
forms, of course, are paperbacks and solidly
bound books of permanent character, loaded
w ith informa ti on that often cannot be found
anywhere else, and often beautified with pho,
tography or illustration by such artists of the
Southwest as Mac Schweitzer or Ted de Grazia.
As one would expect, the authors publishing
with the Pre ss have a simi,larly wide range:
cultural anthropologists of renown such as
Edward H. Spicer, authorities on space such
as Gerard Kuiper, poets of the little magazine s,
engineers absorbed in civil defense planning ,
paly nological lexicographers of intensive Euro,
pean training, faculty members involved in
working politics, like Conrad Joyner ( member
SH!iHY
f@~
$H W!Y!l
NAPASKVIK
Anlla"-Ea..oa..-.nr1y ... _.DI:.,, __
of Governor Fannin's advisory board ), and the
far,flung ( from Boston to Singapore ) Orien,
tali st s who are authors of the Monographs and
Papers of the A ss ociation for Asian Studies,
now being published for that organization by
the University of Arizona Press.
' The persistence of variety demonstrates the
breadth of the University's program, and
reminds one of the remark by the philo sop her
Karl Jaspers that a university is in truth, "a
universe." Incidentall y this distinguished mod,
em philosopher has permitted his monumental
work on Nietzsche, published in German 30
yea rs ago, to be tran slated into English for the
first time by two U. of A . scholars, F. C.
Wallraff, head of the philosophy department,
and F. J. Schmitz, head of the German depart,
men t. The book will be published early in
February.
Contrary to an impress ion that many people
ha ve, the University of Arizona Press is not a
printing plant and this, in fact, is the case with
the majority of university publishers. With the
exception of a few minor administrative items
or multilithed pamphle:s, none of the printing
is done on the campus. A large proportion is
done in the state of Arizona, howeve r, by
printers both in the Phoenix and Tucso n areas,
and most of the books are bound in Phoenix.
A certain percentage of the work is done out,
si d e the sta te , especially where highly techni,
cal or specialized m aterial makes special ser,
vices or equipment necessa ry , or where state
prices are relatively high. All of the Press's con,
tract s for typesetting, printing, a nd binding are
awarded on the regular bid system used by the
universi ty in other kinds of purchasing.
Dr. Jack L. Cross
Director of the Press since June, r 960, has
been Dr. Jack L. Cross, a former Texan whose
University of Chicago studies in history , re,
sea rch analysis for CIA, travels abroad in
vVorld War II, and independent publishing of
a se ries of academic reprints have supplied him
with the broad geographical and topical per,
spec tives that are import ant to good univer sit y
publishing. Dr. Cross and his staff of four edi,
torial and production persons have been an
increasingly cohesive working team si nce the
first year of the Press's existence. This group is
responsible also for such administrative publi,
cations as th e unive rsity biennial catalogue and
for a large portion of other intra,institutional
printing and publishing.
The Press from September, 1 959, until
December, 1 964 was hou se d in the Marshall
Building at North Palm and East Second
Street, ju st north of the campu s wall. With the
letting of bid s for the new Busi ne ss and Public
Administration building, the University had to
pull down the Press's home. Publishing and
editorial offices have been moved to 903 Ea st
Third Street, upstairs in the office building of
the Marshall Foundation, for an interval during
which construction of other facilities will take
place on the campus proper. The inventory of
Press books, now numbering about 80 titles, is
housed and distributed from the shipping offices
of the Pres s in the mailing bureau on the west
side of the University stadium.
While expanding its communication beyond
the campus and th e state, the Pres s has been
pleased to have its books reviewed in news,
papers in almost every state , in the London
Times and in periodicals on the continent and
in the Orient. In the U. S. , Press books have
often been reviewed in such periodicals as
Science, the Saturday R eview, and Booh
Weeh. Eight separate books from the Press
since r 9 5 9 have been singled out for awards
from such distinguished competitions as the
Rounce and Coffin ( Western Books ), South,
em Books , the American Library Association,
and the Association of State and Local History.