Arizona Highways, November 1953

              ORIZONO HIGHWAYS
VoL. XXIX No. 1 1 NOVEMBER 1953
RAYMOND CARLSON, Editor
GEORGE M. A VEY, Art Editor
LEGEND
"THE OASIS" . FRONT C OVER
A NOTED ARTIST REMEMBERS SCENE
FROM HIS CHILDHOOD ON A RANCH,
GuNMASTER . 2
T m1. STORY OF JOHN BROWNING, WHO
CHANGED WORLD WITH HIS WEAPONS,
" JOURNEY TO W INTER" • 6
SUMMER IS ETERNAL IN THE DESERT
BUT SNOW IS DEEP IN THE MOUNTAINS,
SALAD BowL 10
ARIZONA llOES ON PARADE IN GALA
WAY TO START NEW YEAlt PROPERLY,
A SOUTHWESTERN H ERITAGE • 14
T HE ARTIST PETER HURD DISCUSSES
ROLE OF PAINTER IN WESTERN SCENE.
T HE FIRST H UNDRED YEARS 28
A VIEW OF ACCOMPLISHMENT CENTURY
AFTER GADSDEN PURCHASE BY u .S.A.
YOURS SINCERELY • 36
READERS COMMENT ON VARIOUS THINGS
WHICH APPEAR IN THIS PUBLICATION.
HOWARD PYLE
Governor of Arizona
ARIZONA HIGHWAY COMMISSION
C. A. Calhoun, Chairman . . Mesa
John M. Scott, Vice-Chairman . Show Low
Fred D. Schemmer, Member Prescott
Frnnk E. Moore, Member . Douglas
Grover J. Duff, Member . . Tucson
Patrick J. Downey, Secretary Phoenix
R. C. Perkins, State Hwy. Engr. Phoenix
T had G. 3aker, Special Counsel Phoenix
AmzoNA H IGHWAYS is published monthly by the
Arizona Highway Department a few miles north
of t he confluence of the Gila and Salt in Ari­zona.
Address: ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, Phoenix,
Arizona. $3 .00 per year in U.S. and possessions;
$3.50 elsewhere; 35 cents each. Entered as sec­ond-
class matter Nov. 5, 1941 at Post Office in
Phoenix, under Act of March 3, 1879. Copy­righted,
1953, by Arizona Highway Department.
Allow five weeks for change of addresses. Be
sure to send in the old as well as new address.
~11&
FRONT COVER
"THE OASIS" BY PETER HURD. 41"x45"
Egg Tempera, from the collection of the Ros­well
Museum. T he artist says: "The subj ect
is out of my own childhood when, like many
another Southwestern boy, I learned to swim
in a stock tank."
OPPOSITE PAGE
"DRY RIVER" BY PET ER HURD. 42"x48"
Egg T empera, from the collection of the Ros­well
Museum, gift of Daniel Longwell, Esq.
This was painted in Ruidoso Valley, near Mr.
Hurd's ranch. T he rider, Don Epaminondas
Gonzales, luckily rode by on a white horse in
July when the artist was making his sketches.
Peter Hurd
The western scene has never lacked for artists to capture its
life, color, scenic beauty , rornance and mystery on canvas or
paper. The subject is a big one, so big in fact mere phases of it
have occupied the talents and time of inspired craftsmen. In these
pages in the past we have presented such artists as Remington,
Russell, Leigh, Delano, Swinnerton, F echin, DeGrazia, Bartlett,
Dixon, Coze, Strang, Elwell, Peirce, Bohl, Santee, Burr, Datus,
Pescheret, Kabotie and other Indians, all of whom, through
various media, have recorded in their own masterful ways the
West as they have seen it. \Ne add to our Jist of artists this month
another distinguished person, Peter Hurd of San Patricio, New
Mexico, whose name and fame in the world of art have gone
far beyond the pleasant little valley where he has his ranch. We
feel that the reproductions -we have this month of his works speak
for themselves. They deal with simple things, people, scenes,
moods. He has recorded every-day living around him with love
and understanding, a life that he has known not as an interested
spectator but a life of which he has been a part since his birth.
He depicts for us his beloved New Mexico, but what we sec
might be Arizona, Nevada, Texas or any other western state
where the population is sparse and folks find ranch living the best
way of life.
And, because we know many of our readers will be interested,
a complete portfolio of paintings shown herein, beautifully re­produced
on fine art paper, one side only, with generous borders
making them suitable for framing is available at the Roswell Mu­seum,
Roswell, New Mexico. The portfolio is priced at $6.50, or
individual prints at $ 1. 50.
CALENDAR: November reminders-6-15,
Arizona State Fair at Phoenix; 7-8, Colorado
River Roundup, Parker; 28-29, 25th Annual
Junior Parada, Florence; 28-29, Tucson
"Daze," Tucson.
December events: 4-5 , Feast of Saint Fran­cis
Xavier, Papago religious rites at San
Xavier Mission, T ucson; Christmas festivals
in various communities in the state, among
the most colorful of which are those at Ajo,
Phoenix and T ucson.
January events: 1 , Salad Bowl and Ari­zona
on Parade, Phoenix. Practically a state­wide
celebration (story this issue). 6-ro, 6th
Annual Arizona National Livestock Show,
o"e of the major cattle shows in the coun­try.
9, Ski Carnival, Flagstaff. 21-25, Phoenix
Open Golf Tournament, wherein big names
of golf vie for big prize money.
As anyone can readily see, fall and winter
months will offer Arizona visitors much to
see, much to do.
BOOK IN THE SON: Scribner's has just
published Ross Santce's new book, "Lost
Pony T racks." It sells for $3.50 and can be
purchased at book stores everywhere. "Lost
Pony Tracks" is a volume of stories about
men and horses on the range, which Ross
gathered when he was a wrangler for a big
spread in Gila County some years ago. Ross
writes plainly and honestly, without fancy
frills, just the way he does his drawings
which we have been privileged to run from
time to time in these pages. W e recommend
this new book most enthusiastically.
CHRISTMAS NOTE: The December is•
sue of ARIZONA H LGHW AYS is now rolling
merrily off the press. This, we fe el, will be
the most colorful Christmas issue we have
ever put out, a perfect Christmas card for
the discriminating, a very nice issue with
which to start a Christmas gift subscription.
From cover to cover, there will be repro­ductions
of color photographs throughout
(44 pages), with subj ect matter running
from rainbows to cactus flowers. vVe hope
you will like it.
This photograph shows Jo hn M. Brorwning ·with
the first model of his automatic shotgun. This
rwas his favo rite, the sporting shotgun. On its
invention he spent more time than on any other
single one of his numy guns. Photograph rwas
taken in the latter years of a lo ng and busy life.
n the early 19oo's the little city of Ogden,
Utah, in the shadow of the Wasa tch range,
still had an occasional reminder of its
primitive days. I recall gazing in awe at
the fearsome carcass of a black bear shot
in the mountai ns near town and hung
head down from a meat hook in front of
the butch er shop on the main street. This was about the
time , ve stood and gaped at a bulletin pasted on the w in­dow
of t he newspaper office, proclaiming: EARTHQUAKE
LEVEL S SAN FRANCI SCO.
Y et as close as across the street in a small brick build­ing
the mak ings of another news story of far-reaching inter­est
had lain fallow for years. More incredible still, eleven
additional years would pass before the American public was
eve n partly informed about th e quiet and unassuming man
w ho, in a workshop on this O gden street, had forge d tools
to help sh ape the future of a nation.
T hi s man was John M . Browning , discoverer of the
principle of gas operation of automatic arms, inventor of
the automatic pi stol and machine gun, and acknowl edged
th e greatest innovator in American gun history .
A s wondering Ogden folk regarded the California
d isa ster bulletin on th at April day in 1906, the achievements
o f their own John Browning already had b een heard 'round
t he w orld. In Cuba his n ewl y invented machine gun had
h elped forces under T heodore Roosevelt win the battle of
Santiago in the Spanish-American War. In Peking, U.S.
Marines had quelled the Boxer uprisinrr w ith the aid of this . b
au tomatic marvel of r apid fire. In w es tern America every
man who had pulled t h e trigger of a Winchester m ad e
since 188 6 w as almost certain to h a ve fired a g un designed
by J ohn M. Browning. And now , in the spring of 1906, the
two hundr ed and fifty t housand th Br owning- invented auto­matic
pistol had just b een turned out by the factory.
BY CHESTER NEWTON HESS
PHOTOGRAPHS BY COURTESY BROWNING ARi\IS CO.
Yet the name John M. Browning w as st ill unknown to
all but relatively few Americans.
Though recognition of the Ogden inventor might well
have been established long before 1906 it sh ould h ave
come the previous year, w hen the Franklin Institute of
Philadelphia bestowed on Browning the John Scott Legacy
Medal for his inventi on of the automatic pistol. But not
even this opportunity for b ringing long- overdue attenti o n
to bear on twentiet h century America's ou tstanding arms
genius was reali ze d.
In 1911 the United States O rdnance D epartme nt offi­ciall
y adopted the Browning Colt-manufa c ture d .45 auto­matic
pistol as regulation side arm for the Army , N avy and
National Guard. It still is today for a ll the U .S. Armed
Forces. Not until 1915 , however, did a magazine in t his
country take any considerable notice of the man who was
th e master gun designer of modern times-with the four
largest arms-producing companies here and one of the
bigges t in E urope turning out products of hi s inventio n.
There is more. Much more. The achievement rec ord
of the wizard of O g den prior to the belated general recogni­tion
h e received could have filled a book. We hav e m en­tioned
the enormously success ful Browning Winchesters­of
w hich the '94 Model lever-action repeating r ifl e and
carbine were far and away the most popular g u ns of their
t y pe ever sold. Hand in h a nd, t h e '94 Model Winchester
carbine and the Colt sing le- action six shooter w ere the
standard firearms in the latter days of t he frontier West.
Today the '94 Model W inchester carbine is still the gun
most like ly to be found in western saddle scabbards.
Admiral Pear y c arried a '92 Model carbine on hi s fin al
su ccessful expedition to the North Pole in 1909. A '9 5
Model Winc h est er .405 box-mag az ine rifle was the favorite
of Theodore Roosevelt on his African and South Amer ican
big game hunting trips. A ll were guns designed by J ohn
PACE TWO ., A R IZO NA HJGHWAYS • N OV E M BE R 19 53
J\l. Drow ning, the g r eat gunsmith of Ogden, Utah.
B y 1912 Brow ning's automatic p istol had broken all
records for the production of small arms. O ne mi llion h ad
been made at the Fabrique d 'Armes de Guerre o f Liege,
Belgium, where manufacture of the U tahn's invention h ad
begun in 1900. T h e gun had been made contin uous ly fro m
t h e original design, w ith no c hanges in bas ic p arts. In
ho nor of the occasion, King Albert conferred on Bro\\· n ing
the title of "Chevalier de l'Order de Leopold." T hencefor th
he was entitled, at l east in that country , to be addressed
"Sir John M. Browning."
There is no reas on to believ e he could n ot have orig­in
a ll y stipulated that the name Browning be stamped on
every arm of his des ign or inventi on r egardle ss of the ma n u­fac
t urer. But this w as never done exce pt for his aut omatic
p istols made in Be lg ium, on each o f which was stam p ed
"Browning's Patent."
\ Ne must g o back to 183 1, five y ea rs be fore S amue l
Colt estab l is hed hi s fi r st revolver fac tory in P a ters on, N e\\'
Je rsey, to und ersta nd John M . Browning's heri t ag e of gun­making
from his father. Jona t han Browning, born 1805 in
T e nnessee, mov ed to the Kentuck y mountain co untry wh ile
a boy. This was the day of the Kentuck y long rifle and t he
These are the W inc hester rifies an d car bines w hic h
'were d esip;n ed by J o lm M . Br ow ning. A t t op i s
Bro1.rnin g' s first com mer cial r ifie ( o f w !Jich he made
600 b e fore sellin g one) . It is a sin g le-shot. F ollow­ing,
do 1.rn, are the '86 rifie, '90 .22 c alibre ri fie , '92
c ar bi11e , '92 rifie, ' 94 carbine, an d t h e famed ' 94 r i fi e .
best way t o acquire one was to make it yourse lf . vV hi le still
in his 'teens young J onathan had his ow n g uns hop and w as
w ell on the way toward proficiency in the craft of his c hoice.
H e made his first rifl e in 183 1.
M oving w ith the w est w ard tide of t he times, J onath an
B row ning established a m odest g unsmit hi ng business in
N auvoo, Illinois. But h e soon p ushed on to K anesvill e,
Iow a, near Council Bluffs, setting u p shop sh ortly befo re
g old was discovered in C ali fornia. T here with the aid of a
foot - power lathe J onathan produced , among ot her guns ,
t wo repeating rifl es. T h e fi rst f eatured a "five-shot m agazine
consisting of a rectang ular b ar of iron w ith holes to accom­modate
t h e hand loads, the bar sliding through an aperture
at t he breech from right t o left and being man ually oper­ated."
T h e second rifl e emplo y ed a six-sho t rev olving
c ylinder ro tated b y the ac tio n of cocking t he h am mer. T his
was the principle involved in Samuel Colt's in vention of the
fi r st su ccessful revolver. Colt h ad also ma de rev olving c yl in­der
rifles in 18 36.
A fter two years in K anesville the Brow ning fam ily
emba rke d ag ai n on the t rail w est , this t ime w ith J onath an
as captain of a wagon train b ound for th e l\tl o r rnon settle­ments
in U t ah . Safely there, he se t up a g unsh op in Ogden
Th e B rowning Brothers gun fa ctory and sto re in
Ogden is show n h ere as it appea r ed in 188 1. T his
is the st ore f or which the brothers and help ers
m ade, by ha n d, 600 B rowning single- shot rifies
for t he fi r st stock. No t on e of the gu11S rw as sold
u ntil all 600 had b een fi n ish ed. J olm i\11 . Br M v11i11 g
is at left, sta n ding in do orw ay . B eside him , o n
the right , is his brother , M atth e1.v S. B rorw11ing .
S ho wn ab ove is origi n al
m o d el of automatic p i stol.
J olm M. Bro'w11 i77g' s s h o p
is shown h ere as it ·w as
in 1911 , over spo rting
goo ds store in O gden .
Th e B rori.r77i77g Su p er­p
osed d ouble-barrel sh ot­g
u n, 077e barre l over ot h­er,
ri..Va s inve77tor' s las t
g u n. It i s comid ered
fin est sp orting sh otgu n .
in 185 1. In the li ving qu arters in connection w ith the shop,
J ohn Moses Bro w ning was born Janu ary 23, 1855.
The boy John quickl y reveal ed an aptitude for the
a rt of arms-making far beyond influenc e of an y h e r e ditary
t alent or hi s environm e nt. A t fourteen he h ad fa shioned his
fir st rifl e, followed b y another made es pecially for his
broth er i\llatthew, four y ears hi s junior.
When he was twenty -four, John was iss u ed his fir st
"Letters P a t e nt," based 011 the uniqu e feature s of a single­shot,
leve r- action rifle. Thi s becam e the fam o us '7 9 Model
Winches t e r Singl e-Sho t. Produced in a numb er of calibres ,
it proved wid ely popular and e stablish ed the in ve ntor's long
ass ocia tion w ith the Winchester Repea ting Arms C ompany .
J o nath an Browning died in 18 79, about the tim e y oung
John took out hi s first patent. Respon sibilit y for the famil y
no w r es ted on the tw o brothers, John and Matthew. Guns
we re prime necess iti es o f ·western life, and the se young men
who had been clos ely ass ociated w ith fir earm s all th eir
li ves b elie ve d they should est ablish a small fact or y and
store devo ted to the arms tr ad e.
A ccordingly in 188 1 this w as done , with John in
ch a rg e o f producti o n and anything else r e lating to mech an­ic
s. Ma tt , as he w as alwa _vs c all ed , w as in charge of the busi­n
ess end - an arrangem ent th at was to prove a happy one.
They had de t ermined on an ambitiou s und ertaking to start
off the n ew company : th ey w ould manufacture 600 of the
' 79 singl e- shot rifle s for th e store stock, and n o ne w o uld be
sold until the di spla y rack s held th a t number.
T o acco mplish this b y the slow, t ediou s process of
handwork was a monum e ntal ta sk. With the principal
assi st ance of their half-brothers, Ed and Sam Bro w ning, the
entre preneurs doggedly stuck to the project, though there
were undoubtedl y many times when t he y would have liked
to accept the offers to buy that came during the nearly
three y ea r s of work that the difficult task requi re d.
A t length the g oal of 600 rifles was r eached. And n ow
came an unfor eseen opportunity they cou l d not aff ord t o le t
pa ss. The Winchester compan y , which had be en foll owing
J ohn Brow ning' s progress w ith interest, offered t o purchas e
all 600 guns and the patent, with full manufacturing r igh ts .
J o hn and Matt accepted. Thus another link in a bu si ness
connection that was to las t for many years w as w roug ht.
Next move w as the purchase in 1885 of a two-st o ry
structure not far from t he old location. R emo delin g co n­verted
th e lo wer floor into a c omplete sporting goods store,
including popular fir earms makes. Machinery, t ools and
equipment fro m the old shop were set up on the second
fl oo r. H ere the steadil y developing prime m over in his art
continued work on a rifl e action for w hi c h he had se cured
a pat ent the previous y ear.
This also w a s sold to Winchest er and became the ce le­brated
'8 6 Model lever-a c tion repeat er that in a fe w yea rs
do minat ed th e market for repeating rifles. Paten ta ble f ea­ture
and important improvement in this gun was th e sliding
vertical lock perfe ctly sea ling th e joint b etween bree ch and
b arre l w ith the simplicit y of oper ation and econo my o f
parts th a t were becoming the hallmark of J o hn M. Brow ning
creations .
At thi s time the .22 rim-fire cartridge was comina in to
fa vor for va rmint and small game shooting . The ::,Win­ches
ter people asked Brow nmg to design a repeating rifle
chamb ered for this calibre. So far no pos iti ve m e th od o f
handling the sm all .2 2 case had been de vised for a r e peatino-
. b act10n.
Ere long the inventor sent to the fact or y hi s own draw­ings
of a pump-action rifl e he w as certain w ould do the job.
Surprisingl y, the plant technici a ns did not agree w ith him.
It won't w o rk, said they in eff ect. Brow ning seldom had use
PAG E FO U R • A R IZ O NA HI G HW A YS • N OV EMBE R 1953
for blueprints. He could usually tool a new gun faster
than he could dnn.v it om. After considerable hard work and
whistling he had turned out the pilot model from the
original drawings. "This is the gun I showed in my plans,"
he ,.vrote. "You said it ·wouldn't work, but it seems to shoot
pretty fair to me."
The '90 Model vVinchester .22 went into production
soon afterward. It outsold for many years all other makes
of .2 2 rifl e s combined, and is still popular. This ·was my
first gun, bought from the Browning Brothers Store a good
mam· vears after it was introduced, but while John Brown­ing
still worked and whistled in his shop upstairs.
J o hn M. Browning was six feet three, with a close­clipped
white mustache then and shor t-trimmed hair show­ing
beneath a hat worn much of his waking time, I susp ect,
with the bald man's instincti ve self-consciousness. A theory
supported by the fact that he almost never permitted hin1-
self photographed hatless. John M. Browning, whose some­times
severe, almost stern expression was but a mask cover­ing
an innate reserve.
His discovery of the automatic principle by gas opera­tion
dates from the fall of 1892, when he was hunting in
the marshes near Great Salt Lake. He became aware for
the fii·st time of the significant movement of the surround­ing
rushes right after each blast of the gun. "After giving
this incident some thought," a company publication relates,
"he decided that it must be caused by the expanding powder
gases following the bullet. Such a discovery intrigued his
mechanical mind and he immediately returne d to his shop
and began to experiment.
"The first step in this experiment," the account con­tinues,
"was to take a piece of iron almost 4 inches square,
weighing about 5 pounds, and drill a hole in it large
enough to permit the bullet to pass through . He then adjust­ed
this piece of metal in front of the gun and pulled the
trigger. As he had anticipated, the gas pressure that followed
the bullet blew this piece of iron some distance from the
muzzle of the gun."
That was enough for John Browning. He knew he had
something. Next step was to make an experimental model.
For this he fitted a concave cap with a hole in the center
dircctl~r before a rifle muzzle allowing the gas following
th e bullet to force this cap forward. A rod was then rigged
to connect the cap with the gun's action. When the arm ·was
fired the gas-impelled cap pulled the rod forward, actuating
a lever mechanism with the same result as in the hand­operated
repeater.
Experimenting further the inventor found that a small
hole drilled through the underside of the barrel permitted
the gas pressure to operate a small piston linked with the
actuating mechanism. This was a more efficient m e chaniza­tion
for achieving automatic action and led, together with
a great deal more experiment and work, to refinements
resulting in the world' s first practical and successful gas­operated
automatic firearm.
Because of the urgent need for effective weapons in
the Spanish-American ,var, Browning applied his automatic
principle to a gas-operated machine gun. This revolutionary
n e w gun, firing ten shots per second, was licensed to and
produced by Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Com­pany
of Hartford, Connecticut, makers also of many other
Bn1,n1ing guns-notably his automatic pistols. The Brown­ing
automatic was the only machine gun used by the Army
and N avy in the Spanish-Ame rican conflict, r eplacing the
cumbersome, heavy piece operated by turning a crank.
The Ogden inventor also perfected a machine gun
that was recoil-ope:rated and water-cooled, with a hand­driven
circulating unit. This gun, patented in 1901 and
produced by Colt's, was revived in 1914 with improvements.
The U.S. military, however, used the gas-operated Browning
machine gun from 1897 to 1914.
And now the hour approached for John Browning's
emergence from almost legendary obscurity to a place beside
other notable American inventors in some degree of public
consciousness. World War I had begun. The enemy had
great numbers of the Maxim type machine gun, tho ugh its
durability depended on excessive weight. Superior weapons
for this country 's forces were clearly indicated. Accordingly
the call went out to arms suppliers and May, 1917, was se t
for competitive tests.
To these trials John M. Browning brought two new
guns. One was a greatly improved model of the earlier
recoil-operated and water-cooled machine gun. The ne,v
version fired 40,000 rounds without failure-twice as many
as required for the test-and was adopted as regulation for
the military. The other gun was the Browning Machine
Rifle, a weapon that w as destined to go through both
World War I and II with U .S. forces, then on into the vVar
in Korea. Now known as the "B.A.R." (Browning Auto­matic
Rifle), the arm was an outstanding success at the 191 7
tests, firing 600 rounds per minute full automatic, or one
shot at a time, by moving a small lever. It too was accepted
forthwith. Browning's engineering for these pilot model s
had been such that tooling could begin immediately. H e
also adapted the new machine gun to use on fighter air­planes,
synchronized to fire between the propeller blades,
and for ground anti-aircraft fire. A Browning 37 mm. rapid­firing
cannon was brought out a short time later.
With the end of World War I, John Browning turned
his hand again to an old labor of love, the creation of fine
sporting shotguns. Over the years he had spent more time
on these-his automatic shotgun in particular-than on
an> ' other single arm. His first shotgun had been a lever­action
"scatter gun" for Winchester, followed b y the slid e
action '9 7 Model. In 1904 he had been issued a patent fo r
the first hammerless repeating take-down shotgun, the No.
.Po Stevens. Refinement of his solid breech pump-action
shotgun had resulted in the 191 5 streamlined Remington
Model 1 7 20-gauge, weighing only 5 ½ pounds. His crown­ing
achievement in this field was the Browning automatic
or autoloading shotgun, a triumph of clean design an d
workability , requiring full expression of his inventive genius.
It was now 192 3. The Browning Arms Company ha d
b ee n formed and offered the inventor's automatic shotg·un
for sale in this country and abroad. To this product ~vas
added John Browning's latest creation, the Superposed­a
superbly fashioned and finished sporting shotgun taking
its name from having one barrel vertically over the other.
These were the guns to carry on the family tradition.
Arrangement had been made for the new Superposed
to be made at the Fabrique Nationale in Belgium. The
death of Matthew Browning had come almost coincident
with John's finishing of the Superposed. Now, in 1926, the
old gunmaster again went to Liege, this time for the star t
of production on the gun closest to his affections.
Thus was a first love also to be his last. He was still in
Belgium when stricken by a heart attack. And then Joh n
Moses Browning was dead.
SAlff [) BOWl
BY TOM RIPPEY
J ust a little more than a year ago a sober­sided
group of Phoenix businessmen sat
in a small conference room and pondered
the latest of perennial catastrophes t.o
strike their favorite enterprise: the annual
Salad Bow I New Year's Day festival in
Arizona's capital city.
T he state Board of Regents, governing body over policy
at the University of Arizona and the two state colleges, had
just ru led that no team under their jurisdiction could take
part in a post-season football game.
It was a major blow. The Salad Bowl, unlike any other
post-season football game with the exception of San Fran­cisco's
East-West classic, is staged purely for charitable pur­poses.
No professional promotion men are involved. There's
no 100,000 seat stadium available. It's a game staged with
the vo lunteer help of Phoenix businessmen, and its pro­ceeds
go to help the underprivileged and handicapped chil­dren
throughout the state.
The regents' decision had serious connotat10ns When
net profits are devoted to charity, expenses must be at a
minimum. Selection of an Anzona team as one of the con­testants
had meant an irreducible expense for transporta­tion
and lodging.
This newest adversity proved no more difficult of solu­t
ion than the problems in the five preceding years The men
in the conference room- officers of the Phoenix, Valley of
the Sun, Camelback and Encanto Kiwanis Clubs-mentally
thumbed their noses at the Board of Regents, turned their
backs, and proceeded with the business of putting together
one of the best post-season games of New Year's, 1953.
Tom Edens, insurance agent and chairman of the team
selection committee, scoured newspapers for team records.
He wrote dozens of letters, traveled by plane to California
and the Midwest. By the first of December he and his com­mittee
had made their proposa l: The San Diego Naval
Training Center vs. the Camp Breckenridge, Ky., Screaming
Eagles
The selection paid off. Both team rosters were studded
with former college and professional football stars. The
Navy's travel expenses were low, since they had to travel but
400 miles World-famous resorts in the Valley of the Snn
helped by cutting to the bone their charges for team meals
and lodging.
The N avy whipped the tar out of the Eagles, 8 1 to 20,
but everybody agreed they'd seen the best football in Ari­zona
in years. And the game returned the second-greatest
net profit in its history
Initial plans for the annual game are drawn the pre­ceding
May. Through the summer, advertising is sold for
the program, most steady profitmaker of any of the festival's
events. Committees are named and work begins for the
myriad tasks connected with such an enterprise-ticket
sales, stJdmm ~eating, between halves entertainment, obtain­ing
Salad Bowl Princesses from the state's high schools to
compete for the title of Queen. These and dozens of other
tasks are apportioned among the clubs' members.
It 's a monumental task, rewarded only by the saris-faction
of helping others, in this case needy youngsters.
The idea of a Salad Bowl game originated with Her­bert
A. Askins, short, wiry, and decisive, who looks more
like a retired welterweight than he does a highly successful
businessman w ho became an assistant secretary of the navy
under President Harry Truman.
It came to him during a meeting in 1940 of the
Phoenix Kiwanis Club. A youngster by the name of Johnny,
little and scared, was introduced to the club. He had to be
carried before the group of men, because he had a club foot
and couldn't walk. It was a scene full of pathos, and the club
adopted Johnny as its project- today, he wa lks, tall and
straight, because the club financed the operations necessary
to remake his feet to the normalcy most of us enjoy.
At the time, H erb Askins reasoned that what might be
done on a small scale co uld be done big-time with the proper
promotion. He conferred with others and the Salad Bowl
idea was born.
Thirty high school bands entertain 19 p Salad BMvl crowd.
His idea wasn't due for realization yet, though. World
War II brought a stop to it. Askins tucked it in the recesses
of his mind, and turned the mental key that kept it securely
in place for the day when it might become an actuality.
Most servicemen had barely returned to their homes
in 1947 when Askins corraled Martin Wist, a forceful,
straig ht-talking Phoenix businessman and fellow member
of the Phoenix Kiwanis Club. They sold their fellow club­members
on the idea and started to work promoting the
first Salad Bowl.
It was decided that the festival would be different.
Kids ,vere to benefit from it, hence it seemed proper that
Arizona youngsters should stage the affair. Most professional
promoters would have scoffed at their ideas: The festival
would be promoted on a "straight" basis. Since high school
youngsters were to provide the background, leg art would
be at a minimum. There would be a Queen each year, yes,
but she'd be chosen for true grace, not just the ability to
expose herse lf to a photographer's camera. One thing was
paramount, the Salad Bowl game was to produce the best
football avai lable.
Askins and Wist descended on newsrooms and cor­nered
radio station executives. They harangued and har­assed
every possible publicity outlet. They talked to other
service clubs and to business organizations. They were
pioneering, and they threw all their energies into the task.
The first Salad Bowl program was held on January r,
1948. The first year's event, as many predicted, resulted in a
$5 ,ooo loss, but the sponsors overcame pessimism, made up
the shortage from their own pockets, and immediately began
plans for future activity.
For the 1949 affair, Askins and Wist talked their fellow
sponsors into a "bigger and better than ever" production.
Arizona on Parade was added, a morning event that attracted
Approximately a quarter million jam the
streets of Phoenix 011 New Year's Day to
see the Salad Bo.-wl's "A rizona on Parade."
The 1952 Quern of A rizo11a's Salad Bo·w l
is crO'i.rne d by th e comel y Queen of 19s z.
bands and floats from 34 schools representing 26 Arizona
communiti es. They served n ot only to a dvertise their com­munities
, but t h e Sa lad Bowl as well. A n ati onal publicity
program for the first t ime was beginning to take sh ape.
The ga me t h at year saw D rake U ni versity of Des
Moines, Iowa, barely nose out t h e U ni versity of Arizona
14-1 3. But, more importan t, it rea li zed a net pro fit of
$ 1 5 ,ooo . Of that amo unt $4,000 went to the Phoeni x club
to reimburse its loss the preceding year. The rema inder was
a llocated to c lu bs t h roughout t he state to promote their
aid - to-y outh programs.
T hus was born the Arizona Kiwanis Foundation for
H:rnd ica pped C hil d ren. Today, profi ts from th e festiva l a re
divided about 50 per cent to Kiwani s C lu bs for t heir pro­g
rams throughout the state, an d about 50 per cent to the
Foundation, w hi ch hopes eventua ll y to provide physical
faci lities for some as-yet- unnamed youth aid program.
T he actu a l division can best be ill ustrated b y the profits
from t he 19 5 1 ga me. T her e was a ne t gain of $ 26,500 from
a ll eve nts. This was divid ed about $ , 6,000 to the Kiwanis
Foundation itse lf , a nd about $ 10,500 to t h e individual c lubs
for use as they saw fit .
Ju st where do t h e indi vid ual clubs w hich split the
Sal:id Bowl m e l on spend t h eir money? ·
T he money ha s been spent for c hil dren who n eeded
p sychi atric help, for youngsters with c left palates and c lub
fee t, the hard of h ea rin g, for those w hose jaws were m al­for
med bec a use \>f tooth mi sali g nment. It has b ee n spent
in towns, ham lets and cities all t he way from F l agstaff to
Prescott and Douglas, from Yuma to P hoenix and G lendale.
High schools fro7'/l all over Ariz o11a seud
o ne candidate to vie fo r Q ueen hon o r s.
Looking through t h e minutes of various club meetings,
there's a poignant story anyone can find. The story alway s
is told tersely, but here's an example :
"It was moved and seconded that t h e Club underw rite
hospitalization for an operation on ----, age eight.
After a va liant try by coast physicians, she still is blind. The
ey es are now quite pai nful, and the time has come to remove
both of h er eyes to give her the advantage of artificial eyes.
The father ha s been dead for a number of years, a nd the
moth_er is working as a maid at - --- Hospital. There
are either three or four c hildren in the famil y and t h ere­fo
re , t he family is unable to p ay for h ospital or ;11edical
bills."
. E ac h y ear teams visit t h e Ari z ona Home for Crippled
C hildren . . There_'s .always a sm a ll cere mony during w hich t he
pla ye rs gi ve mm1at ure football s to t he y oungste r s t here,
w ho are suffering everythin g from cripplin g burns to bone
structure abn ormalities.
Lou Ca narozz_i, captain of th e U ni ver sit y of Dayton
team t hat p layed 111 t h e 1952 game, is a case in point. A
burly, yet pleasa ,~t rna nn_ered,. guard, Ca narozzi spent two
hours at the hospital, g 1vmg hi s autograph to kids in casts,
and f~u nd one nine-y~a r-o l d y oungster to bis special liking.
They d bot h lost their front t eeth th e month previous.
A lway~ good, Ca narozzi outdid him se lf t h e n ext d ay.
A lthoug h his t ea m lost to a hustling Un iver sity of H ous ton
outfit, 26- 2 ,, Lou spent most of t he afternoon in t he Houston
backfie ld. It was a bruising and bloody g am e, but again it
produced a profit for th e Foundation.
It was inevitable that t h e festi val sh ould be a success.
Bac k of its pl anning and execution w e re some of t h e c a n­nies
t bra in s in the n ati on's fastest-growing state.
Take, for instance, the year 195 r, when t he N ationa l
Collegiate Athletic Association ruled t hat any t,\·o of its
member school s taki ng part in a p ost- season game wou ld
h:n- e to di vide 7 5 per cent of the receipts.
I t was a puzzling situation. Most promoters of t he
hug e, 100,000 attendance post- seas on ex travaga nzas wou ld
be ha ppy to retain their 2 5 per c ent. But not so fo r t he
Pho e nix Salad Bow l. Its promoters w ere m o ney - hungry
busi nessmen who acted solely on an unse lfish motive. T hey
,1 a nted dough and lo ts of ·it. ·
The situation wasn ' t entirely fair. Many of the schools
p lay in g for the Salad Bowl had accepted a minimum c ha rge
fo r th eir share, realizi ng the nature of the e nterprise. More­o\
·e r, it seemed right t hat a c ha ri t y game, played for unfo r­tuna
te kids, sho uld be gi ven some sort of special d is pensa­tion.
But Kiwanis business brains prevailed. T h e prob le m
was licked b y a shrewd maneuver. Tickets selling for $6
were marked t husl y - "$3 gift to p rogram. $ 1 t a x. $ 2 admis­sion
." The 7 5 per cent of the receip ts marked fo r the
schools t hus came from the $ 2. T he p ro gram was a money­maker,
any wav, and it was understandab le that the g·ame's
ama teur pi·omo t ers wer e proud of t heir $ I 4 ,000 net pt·ofit­\\
·it ho ut a twinge of conscience.
Not that the term "amateur" can b e applied t oo stric t!_\ '
to these businessmen . One year, for instance, they p laced a
huge mobile cem ent mixer on Pier ce Street right next to
C entra l Avenue in Phoenix.
All o ne d ay , the mixer chewed up Arizon a's priz e let­tuce,
w ith tomatoes, celery and ot he r sa lad ingredients.
Tho usands visited the publicity gimmick to have t heir fi ll
of a tasty noon luncheon. Pictures o f t he affair were p la ced
in ne,\·spapers ranging from New York to San F rancisco,
from P ortland, Me., even to Miami, Fla.!
O n another occasion- a nd you c ount o n Texas to p ro­vide
this kind of p romotion - M ayor Oscar H olcombe of
H ouston annou nced he had m ade t he e ntire 60-p iece band
of North Phoenix H ig h Scho ol officia l c itizens of t he state
of Texas . Simply because t he b and was to repr esent t h e
city's university at. t he annua l game.
Bands just naturally seem t o gravitate to the Sala d Bowl.
O f course, betw een 200,000 and 25 0,000 per so ns each N ew
Year's D ay w atch t he parade that draw s more than 30 h ig h
school outfits fr om t he state. That's a great incentive t o any
of the sma ll schools in this state. But o t her s co me, t oo. T he
1953 gam e drew th e San D iego Navy band t ha t is toute d by
many a s the finest service o utfit in t he nation.
T h ey had a Jubilee program at Nlontgom ery Stadium
in P hoenix for those who wanted to watc h t he parade with­out
having t o stand. T he e ntertainment program t here was
more than su fficient to satisf y the cu st o mers who paid a
slight admission fee to sit in t he stadium until Arizona on
Par ade arri ve d . T he p rocession always passe s o nce around
the stadium track before disbanding.
E ac h y ear t hey w er e realizing profits ranging from
$14 ,000 to $26,000 - all of it t o be spent on w orthy, handi­cap
ped youngsters who nee ded nothing but care or surgery
for a normal fu ture life . A nd t he youngsters are considered
o n ly from need, not K iwan is c onnections.
· T h e f estiv a l and the game itself have c aptured the
fancy of all Arizona . P erhaps this feeling was best exp r essed
b y the taxi d river in P ho enix who was asked \\·hat hi s
expen ses w ere for transporting S ala d Bowl Queen candi­d
ates from o ne p art of P hoenix t o another:
" You don't owe me nothing," he said . "If t hi s town's
big shots can w ork as hard as they do, I can too. This thing
belo ngs t o all of us. "
M aybe that's why there will a lways be a Salad Bowl.
T he Salad B Mv l c ro·-..r d is serenaded befo re the ga me.
PORTHAIT HY JOH :-/ S. C l :-S lll'l..-lRIO
The artist, Petei- Hurd
mong the first things I remember as a child
in New Mexico was the sound of the old
Eclipse windmill on my father's farm. Its
metallic cough and the rhythmic tug of
rods and pipes were a sort of lullaby fa­miliar
to any plains-born child of that
period. I can remember watching it by the
hour through a window from where I lay in my iron bed;
its wooden slatted wheel was occasionally still but more
often it made a spinning blur against the brill iant sky. And
later w hen my brother and I were old enough to have the
run of the farm we would shut off the mi ll, using the wind­lass
be low, and climb up the big wooden tower to perch on
the pl atform forty feet above the ground. From this height
a new and wonderful world spread out on al l sides below us.
T o the north lay the town of Roswell, which was alm ost
hi dden in th e summer by the dense foliage of the cotton­woods
th at lin ed its streets. In certain lights there was visible
the silver gleam of one or more of the three spring-fed
rivers that meander ed serenely to the Pecos ten miles east­ward.
T hey looked like pale /ibbons in a formalized pattern
of curves as they crossed an irrigated farming co untry before
becoming lost in th e t hick cottonwood bosque of the Pecos.
Across the Pecos, pink and lavender blu ffs rose abru ptly
from the river and beyond these a great prairie land
stretched to the Caprock and on to the Texas line. And in
CENTER PANEL
"T he Sheepherder"
Egg T empera- 30" by 20"
llection- J\fr. and Mrs. J.P. W hite
A
Soufhweafe/'n
Hetifsge
BY PETER HURD
COPYRIGHT, 1953, BY PETER H U RD
LITHOGRAPH FROM THE COLLECTION OF PAUL HORGAN
the other directions also lay the plains, flat and limitless,
broken only by the looming cobalt blue face of Capitan
Mountain to the west. Five miles to the south we could see
the South Spring ranch where J ohn Chisum had built his
headguarters fifty years earli er and set up a practically
boundless cattle domain. T o the north above the tree tops
were the yellow brick towers and walls of New Mexico
Military Institute. Beyond the town and the adjacent farm
land ,ve could see in the middle distance a dozen or more
ranch houses each surmounted by a windmill which, with
its accompanying water tanks, gave assurance of survival
to the inhabitants and to a few forlorn trees.
So it seemed to us as we gazed out fr om our windmill
tower that our farm lay at the exact center of a fabulous and
exciting world; and though there were river s and bosq ues
and farm land and di stant sierras it was primarily a world of
plains, for the plains were the dominating fea ture, extend­ing
in all directions to form a complete rim with the sky or
be lost in the shimmering in fi nity of a mirage.
Later, I think it must have been in about 19 r 3, we were
given burros and then, after conguering in part at least the
perversity and deep resentment of our mounts, we set out
to explore some of the world of whi ch we had dreamed
from the windmill tower and occasiona.Jly glimpsed from
the back seat of a mountain hack. This now long-forgotten
vehicle served the family for years. It was drawn by a
OPPOSITE PAGE
"Texas Star"
PA G 1,: F OU I{ TEEN • ARIZO N A HIGHWAYS • N O VE MB E R 19 5 3 Watercolor-17'' by 2 2"
Coll ection-Miss Pat McNally
"The Ropers" Water-color 28" x 21" Owned by the artist "Gerald Marr" Egg Tempera 30" x 24" Collection of Thomas Fortune Ryan, III
"River at Dusk" Water-color 28" x 22" Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Clark Fleehart
"The Gate and Beyond" Egg Tempera 91" x 47" Collection of Mrs. 0. H. Davenport
Preceding Panel: "The Shepherder" Egg Tempera 30" x 20" Collection of Mr. and Mrs. J. P. White
"The Bonfire" Egg Tempera 47" x 34" Collection: Roswell Museum
"The Red Pickup" Egg Tempera 48" x 28" Collection of Major General and Mrs. Hugh M. Milton
"Dust Haze" Water-color 28" x 22" Owned by the artist
Egg Tempera 46" x 31" Collection of First National Bank of Artesia, New Mexico
"Bob Crosby" Egg Tempera 36" x 30" Collection of Mrs. Bob Crosby
dappled grey mare named Sigrid and a nervous sorrel with
wild rolling eyes ·whose name was Teddy Roosevelt. Though
driving in the hack was fun it couldn't compare to the
thrill of exploring on our own burros. We made friends
with l)Oys on neighboring ranches and we, like all of them,
seemed to know from an early age how to swim. I can't
remember who taught us, if anyone, but I know it was in
stock tanks that we learned. vVe were all of us avid amphibi­ans.
The only sports that could rival swimming were racing
our burros or ponies across the prairie and frequent wild
attempts to ride the neighbor's calves. All through the sum­mer,
·whenever chores didn't keep us at home, we would
gather at some neighborhood tank for loud, interminable
water games.
Our tank on the farm was not nearly so desirable as
the ones on the neighboring ranches for it was rather shal­low
and had a bottom of thick bad-smelling mud. But it
did have one great advantage: it was shaded on two sides
by enormous weeping ·willmvs whose long brancT1es extend­ed
to the water's surface. This circumstance led to an occur­rence
one day which, though ludicrous in its outcome, almost
caused the breaking up of the swimming gang. It was one
of our summer time jobs on the farm to irrigate the alfalfa.
As this was a fairly continuous process we became adept at
it and learned to "set" the water in such a way that a
twenty-minute swim would result in no harm. The only
trouble with this was that if Andreas, the farm hand, would
catch us we would be punished. But we learned how not to
get caught. By tying a hollowed-out bamboo stick to the
willow branches where they met the water and allowing the
other end to extend downward we could sit down on the
bottom of the tank completely hidden by the turgid water
and using clothespins on our noses breathe through our
mouths into the bamboo tubes for practically any length of
time. The alarm was always given by the creak and slam
of a gate leading into the corral where the tank was. One
day in the midst of aquatic high jinks in our tank with
some neighbor boys we heard the gate slam. As often before
we took at once to the water and our breathing tubes. But
this time two disastrous things happened: first, we had
abandoned our clothes in plain sight; second, it was our
cook, an elderly and dignified Mexican woman from Zaca­tecas,
who had come looking for us. Unknown to us she had
arrived in time to glimpse a small naked boy disappear into
the water. She waited on the bank for us to make our
appearance until at length in a sudden, agonizing realiza­tion
of elapsed time she leapt into the water and flounced
around until she stumbled on one of us. Doria Abrana, her
clothing and white hair dripping with mud and water
yelled "pendejitos" at us in a fit of mixed rage and relief
while we four naked brats arising from a watery grave stood
in silence.
A couple of years later as we outgrew our burros a
friend of father's presented us each with a pony. With
these our horizon widened again, for when school vacation
began we were allowed to drive each year a string of
twenty-some saddle horses belonging to Roswell people up
to their summer cabins in the Sierra Blanca. This was a
seventy-five-mile trip and took two full days. But we happily
undertook it with the indulgence of our earents, and escort-
ed the horses at fifty cents per head, following the dusty
and unpaved road across the parched plains into the shad­owed
foothills of the Hondo Valley, up the Ruidoso, until
happily we arrived in the high cool forest country. Saddle
horses were always a part of our life in those days and
were a common means of conveyance to and from school.
Thoroughbreds and quarter horses were unknown to us,
though · any trim-legged pony with a show of blood was
invariably claimed by its owner to have a "dab of 'Steeldust'
in him." If old "Steeldust" sired a fraction of the get attrib­uted
to him he'd be the most prepotent horse of all time.
II
In telling these experiences I have tried to give a
glimpse into the background which has been so important
to me as a painter. Certainly at an early age I realized there
was for me something very special about this land where I
was born. Although I had at the time little by which to
make comparison, I knew somehow that in the country west
of the Pecos there existed a certain magic. Here the dis­tances
reached out in new dimensions and the light fell
with a constant and amazing variety of effect. Here too the
earth seemed to reveal its own anatomy in an ever-fascinat­ing
statement of geologic history. Driving around the coun­tryside
in our shining new Model-T (the mountain hack
was gone forever by then), my father would point out evi­dences
of upheaval and inundation that had occurred in the
dim past before all was set and irrevocable; and he would
explain how the eroding forces of rain and frost and wind
were continuing to alter the earth's face. On these trips we
would all help in the search for new material for his collec­tion
of fossils, mineral specimens and Indian artifacts. In
those days my father's idea of the best of vacations \\ as ro
take hip boots, a fly rod and camp outfit and head for the
white, riffled water of some remote mountain stream. \Ve
probably covered a large part of the state, follm, ing
unmarked roads whose deep ruts, filled most of the time
with a fine dust would become chocolate-colored quagmires
in the rainy season. Somehow, the delight in fishing escaped
me but I was dedicated to exploring and these expeditions
were always full of high excitement for me.
Drawing and painting were very little a part of rny
life at that time although I went through periods of inten­sive
reading and still have treasured on my shelves three
childhood volumes of the Scribner's series illustrated by
N. C. Wyeth-prized gifts of Eastern relatives. We ,,·er·e
far too busy living new adventures to be concerned with
art of any sort except on those rare days when illness or
weather kept us indoors and the bedroom floor would be
strewn with our lurid watercolors. It certainly never occurred
to me that I would one day settle on painting as my life 's
work. I thought of myself at times as becoming a rancher;
again, somewhat impractically, as a research scientist but
most consistently I planned to be a soldier. That, I thought,
was the life for me: adventure, travel, finally perhaps glory
and even renown. This was the period of the Mexican Revo­lutions
with their resultant border troubles and for a time
the romance of the military enslaved my imagination. From
those days when my brother and I commanded an arm_,. of
PAGE T,VENTY-FOUR • ARTZONA HTGH"' AYS • NOVEMBER IQ')',
neighborhood youngsters in long stockings and knee
breeches it seemed no time until I found myself with a
Senatorial appointment, headed for West Point.
III
Life at West Point was deeply engrossing, highly ordered,
austere and dedicated. It was an experience that did me
enormous benefit. The fervent esprit of the Cadet Corps,
the complete devotion to their motto "Duty, Honor, Coun­try"
made a profound impression on me. Of all the schools
I attended I was most influenced by and am still most
devoted to West Point. This even though I did not graduate.
I found the curriculum extremely difficult, for at seventeen
I was lading in the mental maturity to keep abreast of
mathematics, which has ever been a wilderness to me. More­over,
a new and compelling interest had entered my life:
I had bought a box of oil colors and now practically all my
spare time was spent working away at painting. Free hand
drawing and painting had long since been dropped from
the curriculum but in my color box was a booklet on paint­ing.
In it the anonymous author gave hints on the proper
way to paint trees and stones, water, houses, etc., even sug­gesting
mixtures for the representing of the full moon
(flake white with a dash of naples yellow); the night sky
(indigo blue plus vandyke brown plus some white). To say
that the resulting labors were crude and without distinction
would be a great understatement-but I was ensnared-my
enthusiasm was unbounded and from that time to this,
painting has been my life.
In June of 192 3 after two full years at the Military
..
Academy I resigned to begin seriously the study of painting.
I had received the reluctant consent of my father, who,
most understandably, was amazed and disturbed at my
sudden decision to abandon a career I had apparently set
my heart on in order to take up one for which I had shown
not the least aptitude or talent.
As I write this I am sitting on a grassy, willow-shaded
river bank at our ranch neat San Patricio. It is again June
but thirty years have flown by since I stood my last parade
at West Point. Much of what happened to me during these
intervening years is due, I know now, to a lucky incident:
this, and it happened by the sheerest luck, was my meeting
with the late N. C. Wyeth a few months after leaving West
Point. Mr. Wyeth, soon after we met, generously allowed
me to become his private pupil. His influence oi1 me was
immediate and has remained continuous. As he was a very
demanding, extremely serious teacher so also he was a most
understanding one. Beside the actual instruction in painting
at his studio in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, with his guidance
I came to know many of the great works of literature and
music as well as of painting. It was a wonderfully produc­tive,
happy existence and for six years I lived in Chadds
Ford working under his direction.
I worked at landscape and still life painting in oil,
figure study and imaginative compositions in charcoal. In
later years I moved from oil technique to egg tempera and
water color. Egg tempera, the medium of the Renaissance
painters, as collectors and artists know, consists of egg,
usually the yolk alone, ground with artists' pigments and
applied with water as a diluent to a chalk and glue coated
panel. Once a ·week the tiny composition glass of three or
four members would gather in the great studio on a hillside
overlooking the Brandywine valley for an evening of the
most inspiring criticism and discussion I have ever known.
For the N. C. Wyeth who created the colorful romantic
illustrations and murals was a very different man from the
one known by his few intimates. To casual acquaintances
he was buoyant, extremely articulate and possessed of a
broad and often ribald sense of humor. But there were rich
depths to his nature and he pondered constantly the phi­losophy
of art and out of his musings produced original and
nonconformist ideas to toss around among his pupils or
apply in his personal painting. He realized that in art
truth is a growing, changing factor as man progresses.
There was always a yeasty atmosphere wherever his influence
penetrated for he was never above deep self-probing and
self-questioning. Although the demands of hi s clients were
continuous he was an incessant worker and managed to
keep his personal works constantly in progress. These had
little in common with his popular and excellent illustra­tions;
often as not they would be executed in some experi­mental
style for above all else h e wanted to grow and con­tinue
to grow as long as he li ved.
Mr. and Mrs. Wyeth and their five children were a
happy and resolutely industrious family w ho received me
with unquestioning affection as one of themselves. Mrs.
Wyeth, who presided over their house with the deft effi­ciency
and gracious good taste of her Pennsy lvania Dutch
ancestry, saw to it that I never la cked for nourishing food
through indifference or absorption in my work. My quar­ters
were in a big white-washed barn on a farm less than
a mile from the Wyeths'. A part of the barn had been
turned into a studio by Mr. Wyeth twenty- five years before
when he was painting his memorable illustrations for Treas­ure
Island. Here I slept, cooked my . meals and worked.
Work began early in the day . The custom was for Mr.
vVyeth to stop in each morning about 8: 30 as he went to
the village to get the mail. He would review my progress
and critici ze my work, sometimes staying to give what he
called a "working criticism" which consisted of his actually
working on my canvas. These occasional "working criti­cisms"
were not only most iHtensive and valuable instruc­tion
as such but we1:e a v ital part of my economy for my
only means of livelihood at the time was taking the over­flow
of illu strative commissions which Mr. W yeth could not
do hims elf. The client was told by Mr. W yeth that he had a
pupil who would produce a professional result under his
direction and the fee went to me for my living necessities.
I woulcl discuss the suhject and composition w ith Mr.
Wyeth before beginning it, then carry out his daily criti­ci
sm until finally we felt an impa sse had been r eached and
he would take over for a last magical transformation when
all my nrnddling steps would disappear und er his brush.
A ll t h e time I studied with him h e n ever allowed any of
his pupil s to pay a penny of tuition.
IV
One of his other students was his o wn brilliant
d au ghter Henriette, whom I married in 1929. _Our careers
have d eveloped side by side and throughout we have relied
o n each other for stimulat ion and c ri t ic ism in our work.
Her gifts in portraiture a nd still life pain ti ng are supported
by a rich general culture, and h e r h onesty as a crit ic is given
authority b y une rring taste and inst in ct in matters of art.
Almost daily we review each other's works in progress
and this practice we have found enormously valuable
through the years.
Until our return to New Mexico in the thirties we
lived in a farm house near Chadds Ford. Of our three chil­dren,
Peter and Carol were born in Pennsylvania and spent
most of their early years there. Michael, the youngest, was
born here. -
Implicit in the first part of this article are the causes
for my return to the Southwest so when the depression
years reduced my E astern market it see med as good a t ime
as any to m ake the change. Moreover, I had been given m _',­first
mural commission ,\·hich was a frieze in fresco-secco
in a recently completed building at the New Mexico Mili­tary
Institute. The transition was slow and difficult re quir­ing
long separations from my famil y . The small ranch I
had found and bought needed an enormous amount of work
for neither of its two old adobe houses was more than barelv
h abitable w hen I bought it in 193 4- It was not until 19 39,
with the arrival of a big furniture van containing all our
household goods, that the entire family was finally settled
permanently in New Mexico.
Since then the changes have been stead y and consider­able.
The ranch house has been expanded to enclose a p atio,
and Henriette and I each have a studio. The ranch itself
consists of some fi ve hundred acres of range land w hich w e
own and seven hundred more which w e use b y an agreeme nt
w ith a neighbor. In a ddition to this t he re are t w enty -five
acres of cultivated lan d. This is irrigated b y the R io Ruido­so
and is dev oted to permanent pas ture and com mercial
orchard. We run our small herd of Angu s cattle on t he
range land during the dormant season and keep them and
our saddle horses on the permanent p asture during th e five
months of growing season.
No artist is inw ardl y sa tisfied or happy except perhaps
d uring those rare an d exalted moments w hen in a state of
temporary equilibrium he consi ders w ith pleasure some
work he has lat ely completed. Neither contentment nor
satisfaction belongs to us for there are constantly stirring
within u s forebodings born of a realization of the passing of
time, of the inevitable falling short of a self-se t mark. In
times of despa ir we feel the h arass ing dread of attain ing
fina ll y only to the mediocre. In times o f confidence as when
a w ork in progress seems to be moving w ell there is a
wonderful excitement attend ant upon t he effort and unex­plored
horizons w ide n before us. T o acquire any t aint o f
complacency or t o look upon success as anything but fo r­tuitous
would seem to me to surrender all hope of g rowth.
I am constantly asked w ha t I think of contemporary
trends in art, p articularly the abstract in pa inting. A r t ists
hav e always mirro red their times and though confusion and
doub ts have existed in past epochs- n ev er u ntil now has
the en tire world known such a period of universa l uncer­t
ainty and c onfusion of ideals. It see ms to me no wonder
that many painters of today have t urned to strange new
symb olisms in which t h e ob ject ive w orld is ignored t o
express these besetting and perplexing times. But even in
the most confused p erio d s there must be those artis t s who
b y temper ament and special interests are d raw n t o an
objective approac h t o order and ser e nity.
For me, with my t raining and back ground of inter ests
it w ould be futile as w ell as false to myself to vent ure into
abstract painting. I know that for me t he sources of painting
must ever be shad ow and li ght, textures, space, the cross­play
of r efl ections on forms in m ovement. It is her e in t he
Sout hw es t that I fin d in greatest abundance and variet y
t hese sources. T he trends an d vog ues in art m ean next to
nothing to me for I am deeply c on vin ced that a painter
is either a man of imag ination and orig inality w ith some­thing
valid to impart or he is n ot. The school to w hich he
belongs or the style of p ai nting he em ploys is com pletely
irrelevant to his stature as an ar t ist.
THE unORf O YEARS
he year 1953 marks the one-hundredth
birthday of the Gadsden Purchase, com­prising
all or part of eight southern 'Ari­zona
counties and six counties in south­western
N ew Mexico. The event will un­doubtedly
pass with little more than a
few-day flush of activity occa~joned by
loca l celebrations and a gleam in the eyes of a few thoutand
stamp coll ectors over owning a sheet of the commemorative
stamps printed to mark the centennial.
ActualJ_\·, this second of the two largest real estate deals
U ncle Sam has negotiated within his borders with foreign
po,1·ers ( the first was the Louisiana Purchase) deserves
more attention th an it will receive for two reasons. The
first is that the Gadsden Purchase holds a unique position
in the history of Uncle Sam's real estate transactions in
that so many Americans know so many "only half truths"
about it. For example, it is "common knowledge" that the
G adsden Purchase cost the United States $10,000,000;
BY SAMUEL A. SICILIANO
,JAP BY NORTON ALLEN
that it was negotiated to settle boundary differences between
the United States and Mexico; that it was done by a fellow
named Gadsden who lived somewhere in Texas; and that he
·,.
OPPOSITE PAGE
"ALONG THE APACHE TRAIL" BY TEX LUND. Ansco Auto­matic
Reflex Camera, f.3.5 lens, Ansco Natural Color film (day li g ht)
1/25th second, f.1 1. The exposure was made from the Apache Trail,
between Canyon Lake and Torti lla Flats, in February, 1952, two days
after a heavy rain; so the air was was hed clean and clear. This made
for ideal picture taking, in this beautiful seen ic area of Arizona.
P AGE T\VE N TY-EIGIIT • ARIZONA HIGH\VAYS • N OV EM l :J-: 1( I 9 5 3
really shou ldn't hav e bothered because it " didn ' t mean v ery
much to us anyway."
T he w hole truth o f the matter is t hat t h e $ 10,000,000
involv ed in the Gad sd en Purchase wasn't onl y for ~h e
land we received; it was don e n ot only t o settle a bound ary
but, primarily , to gi ve us l and on which t o build a trans ­continental
railroad; th e m an w ho did it was from Sout h
Ca rol in a; and w e g ained 45 , 53 5 square miles of territory
w hich has already returned over four billion d ollars in
reven ue from i ts mini ng properties alon e.
A nd, to further convert semi- fictio n in to fact, 19 53
doesn't really m ark t he o ne- h undredt h birthda y of the
Ga ds de n Purchase. True, it was signed D ecember 30, 185 3.
But it was n' t ratified an d proclaimed "the law of the land"
until June 30, 1854-
Reason num ber t w o for m ore o f t he limeli ght of inter­est
being shed upon the Gadsden P urch ase is th at it m ight
never have b ecome a reality if it h ad n't been for one o f
t hose (]Ui rks of fa t e w hi c h become what we kn ow as the
signposts of hi story an d w hi c h change t he ways of nations
and t he li ves of its peo pl e. Just about the time the " E ast"
d ecided to forget the Mex ican W ar a nd a place called
"Texas or something," gold was disco vered in California.
Easter n eyes turn ed w es t w it h a reawakened start and the
need for tra nscontinen rn l transportation became apparent.
T he R ock y Mountains str et c h ed high and practically impass­ab
le for 2,000 miles fro m Canada so uth to the Gila R iv er,
b ut w here t he Rockies met the G ila they d w ind led into the
plains of the Southw es t , ideal for railr oa d bui lding. It was
there th at the Eastern eyes centered, two of w hi ch belo nge d
to J ames Gadsden, p resident of the South Caroli na R ai lroad,
·with h ea dquarters in C h arleston. G adsden saw n o reason
wh y h e couldn't b uild a r ailroad over t h ose pl ains and
a chieve two ends wi th a dual track purpose- p rovide
transpo rtatio n between the gold fields of the West and the
supply centers of the East and al so p artak e of the C hina
t rade to enri c h t he South in its competition ·wit h t he N orth .
U pon investig at io n, however, G adsd en found a reaso n
why h e co uldn't. T hat reason was a many-paged documen t
c alled t h e Treaty of Guadalu pe H idalgo, the instrument
which end ed the ]Vlex ic an War in 1848. Article V of tha t
treaty se t the boundary ·line betw een the two countries as
"beginn in g in the Gulf of Mexico, three lea gues oppo site
the mou th of the R io Grande, u p the middl e of that riv er
to a point w h ere it st r ikes the boundary of N ew Mexico
(which runs n orth of t h e town called Paso) to its western
terminatio n, t hence north ward a long t h e western line of
New Mexico u ntil it intersects the first b ran ch of t he riv er
Gila ." A ll of ·which was d iplomatic termino logy for t h e
fact t h at the plains area belonged to Mexico .
However, "wh ere t h e re's a w ill, there's a way" and by
th e sam e token, where t h ere's a will, one can usu ally fin d a
fl aw. Such a flaw was found in Arti cle V of t h e T i·e aty of
Guada lu pe H idalgo. T h e bou ndary desig nat ions in tha t
arti cle were base d on outlines in " Map of the United
Mexica n States" b y J. Disturnell. I n vesti gati on proved that
OPPOSITE PAGE
" CANAL SCE N E" BY DANIEL S. ZUDE LL. 4x5 G raphic V iew
Camera; moun te d on a n Otto Tripod ; 13 5 m m f-4-5 ; R apax Shutter
w ith lens b oa rd extensi on to fit openi ng for ca mera; East ma n K odak
Ektachrom e fi lm t ype B, 4 ½ seconds at f .32. Scen e: Arizona Canal
near Central Avenue, Phoenix. To the eas t and in the distance is
the w est part of Squaw Peak. W hile this scene is not within the
G ad sden Purchase, it dramatizes t he desert und er irrigation .
Disturnell's map co ntain ed n umerous errors, one of w hich
had to d o w ith th e c o urse o f t h e Ri o G rande in the vicin ity
of the "tow n called P aso." If the United States was correct
in its ass um ptio n of error w e righ tfull y o,n 1ed en ough
plains land on "v hich to build a rai l r oad.
Mexico , h o wever, disputed our cla im . It w asn ' t that
she didn't w ant us to ha v e th e rai lroad right - of-way but, if
she allow ed the claim , she w ould lose the ri c h Santa R ita
copper deposits and the Messil a Vi llage s is o ne of the few
really prod uct ive va lley s in th e area.
T empers flared again on the border and the Mexicans
t ook armed possession of the disputed territory, justifying
t h eir acti on w ith the term s o f Article 1 1 of the Treaty of
G uadalupe Hidalgo wh ic h obligated th e United States to
restrain the Indians on our sid e of the bor d er from raiding
into Mexico. The Mexican government w ent even further
and claimed the United S ta tes ow ed her 15 mi llions of
dollar s for damages c au sed by marauding Indians.
Pr esi dent Frankli n P i erce n ow turned to h is Secretary
of War, Jeff erson D avi s, for a dv ice. D avis, who enjoyed more
of the P r esident's co nfidence t han any other m ember of the
offi cial fam il y , suggested the negoti;tio n of a new treaty
with Mexico' s president, Santa Anna. " T his," h e said, "will
so lve all facet s of this probl em. We can av oi d another war,
gai n an all -American route fo r a r ailroad right - of-way, settle
1\llexico's da m age claims and, at the same t ime, protect the
n ational pride of both c ou n tries c oncerned."
D avis even knew just the man to n egotia t e the treaty,­his
g ood friend J ames G ads den.
" But, " we can imagine President Pierce asking, ":vill
Santa Ann a agree to a new treaty and is t his G adsden
qualifi ed to deal with hi m ?"
D avis, anticipating the questions, had rea d y ans w er s
for them . H is Intelli gence Service r eported th at Santa A nna
needed money t o pay his army and was really l ooking for a
way, wit h hon o r, o f w ithdra-w ing t he troo ps occupying th e
di sputed area . As fo r G adsde n, he had served with d istinc­t
ion in th e War of 181 2 as ai de-de-c amp to General A ndrew
J acks on an d was at t he hea d of one of t h e South' s most
prosperou s rai lroads . And , as F eder al Co mmi ssioner of the
S outhern D i vision in 1832 , he had nego tiated treaties with
the Se minole I ndi ans in F l or ida.
P ierce was convinced . He sent G ad sden's n omi nation
as Minister to Mexico to t he Sen ate a nd ordered him to
leave f~r preli m inary treaty meetings in J\ilexico at his earliest
c onvernence.
G adsden carried on negoti ation s for six mon ths, fir st
wit h Santa A nna hi mself, t hen with a commiss ion appoint­ed
by the M e xican pres id ent. H e worked u nder several
handicaps , paramount among them being th e t ime elem ent.
R evo lution was in the ai r and G adsd en had to c omplete
the treaty before the Santa A nna governmen t was over­thrown
, wh ic h would necessitate redoing all o f th e work
already accomplished w ith a new g o ve rnment. Also, oppo­sition
to h is w ork w a s increa sing in Congress on the part of
Northern m embers. T h e_v fea red the addition of any t erri­tory
which might be turned into slave - holding states.
D espite all h andicaps, however, G adsden reached
agreement w it h the Mexican Commissi o n o n Decem ber 30,
18 5 3 and started for home to present the treat y t o President
P ierce. The President sent the treaty to t he Senate on
F ebruary 10 , 1854. T hen began al most five m on t hs of heated
Senator ial d eba te. The t enor of t ha t de bate can be judged
b y c omments w hich appeare d on the editori al pages of the
PAGE THIRTY-ONE • AR I Z ONA HIGHWAYS • NOV EMBER 19 5 3
nation, ranging from the Mobile Register's " ... the most
important treaty ever negotiated by the United States" to
the New York H erald's charge that the treaty was negoti­ated
for the benefit of Jefferson Davis, who, the newspaper
claimed, owned land near the new boundaries which would
quadruple in value as railroad rights-of-way.
But, despite the charges and counter charges, the
t reaty was accepted by the Senate and signed by President
Pierce 0,1 June 19, 1854- The following day the President
proclaimed it "the law of the land." It was a different
treaty in certain respects than that which Gadsden brought
home with him. The Senate had reduced the land we could
have gotten by some 8,000 square miles; it didn't contain
provisions for the Gulf of California port which the Presi­dent
,vanted; and it didn't make friends of the majority
of the Mexican people. But it did add 45,535 square miles
of territory to the United States, it cost us only $ ro,000,000,
it settled M:;:xico's damage claims against us, and it gave
us an easily· traveled transcontinental route wholly within
our borders.
How very fortunate we are that the proponents of
the basic treaty won out can be proved by looking at the
Gadsden Purchase at the time of its rooth birthday.
Actually the Gadsden Purchase has become, in its one
hundred years, an empire of the four "C's" -Copper, Cattle,
Cotton and Climate. We bought, at a fraction over 34¢ an
acre, an inestimable wealth of mineral, livestock, agricul­ture
and tourist benefits staggering to contemplate.
Wire which carries power to and allows communica­tion
between communities in the near and far corners of
the world finds its beginning, many times, in the awe­inspiring
pits, laced with the "color" of co-pper, which rest
within the confines of the Gadsden Purchase. And the
metal scratched from those pits helps turn the wheels on
which we measure progress in factories around the globe,
The boundaries of the Gadsdrn Purchase enc01npass a
'wealth in minerals, agriculture, indwtry, scenery, climate,
education and ntany prop;ressive cmmnunities, the largest
being Tucson, shown in the air ·view, at left. The acres of
seemingly valueless land acquired in the Purchase have been
of such great value as to far exceed wishes of the sponsors.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY WESTERN WAYS
and makes possible the operation of the products of man's
inventive genius which allow for an easier, better life in
the homes of the world.
The rangelands of the Gadsden Purchase abound with
the sleek, fat meat animals which provide fare for uncount­able
tables bringing health and wealth to the nation.
As for the white fluffs of wealth blanketing the cotton
fields by the thousands of acres within the Gadsden Pur­chase,
we have but to look at onlv one fact to realize the
magnitude of return on that 34¢ per acre investment-
3 1,535 square miles of the Gadsden Purchase are in the
state of Arizona and Arizona, with most of its cotton pro­duction
in the Purchase area, is the only state in the Union
which produces more bales of cotton than it has people.
The fourth in the quartette of "C's" is a commodity an
area has or it hasn't-the climate which attracts the tourist
dollar. The Gadsden Purchase area has it and in abundance.
This 2 8 % of the state of Arizona and 1 1 % of the state of
New Mexico enjoys over 90% possible sunshine annually
and while its summer temperatures are among the highest
in the continental United States its winters make it a
tourist mecca.
Of course the monetary return from the tourist trade
PHOTOGRAPHS BY WESTERN WAYS
is dwarfed by that other result of climate, agriculture. The
Reclamation Service brought water to the desert waste of
the Gadsden Purchase shortly after the Purchase's fiftieth
birthday and teamed with the climate to establish a source
of uncountable profit from our $ rn,000,000 investment.
Alfalfa, citrus fruits, vegetables, dates, pecans, melons and
barley are just a few of the farm products which join
cotton in reaching out from the Gadsden Purchase to cap- .
ture dollars from the markets of the world and return them
as interest on the 34¢ per acre real estate venture.
Naturally, it would be impossible to measure the fu ll
return. Figures just aren't available from every endeavor
made possible by the four "C's" and the branches of com­merce
they foster. For example, there is the railroad which
was finally built within the Gadsden Purchase to connect
the West with the East, the Southern Pacific. The payroll of
this enterprise in just one city, Tucson, Arizona, each year
exceeds the $ rn,000,000 we paid Mexico. And who among
us could presume to place a dollar value on the added years
of life health-seekers have found in the beneficial climate?
Or the value to knowledge gained through the study of the
historical and archeological treasures found, and still being
found, within the limits of the Gadsden Purchase?
And the future looks even more prom1smg than the
first hundred years. The area is flexing its commercial mus­cles
with the attraction of industry through expansion of
transportation and power facilities. Its agriculture is attain­ing
new horizons through reclamation of more sandy
wasteland, the latest effort along this line being the Wellton­Mohawk
Project near Yuma, Arizona which will add 75,000
acres of agricultural productive capacity. And the economy
is being swelled through defense spending, the armed
forces finding the climate offering greater opportunity for
training and testing projects than that found in any other
section of the countrv.
It follows then ., that the area should be enjoying a
growth population-wise too. And it is. There are now more
than 350,000 people in the Gadsden Purchase and statistics
prove that it is the fastest growing area in the nation.
All of this is why the Gadsden Purchase centennial
deserves more note than it will receive. But, by the same
token, all of this is why it will not receive more. It has been
said that "The future is work, the past reflection. The
worker cannot afford the luxury of the latter." When you
are meeting with investors, when you are trying to influ­ence
congressional delegations, when you are searching for
PAGE THIRTY-FOUR • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • NOVEMBER 1953
ways and means to maintain the grmvth of community
services at the pace of the growth of the community, you
have little time to plan and execute celebrations in observ­ance
of the birthday of an event which occurred a hundred
years ago-even if that event made possible your being
where you are.
As for the students of history, they will have to accept
their disappointment at the lack of "adequa-te celebration."
After all, disappointment was the lot of James Gadsden
himself. He never lived to see even the beginning of the
great awakening of the area he was responsible for bringing
into the American fold. He didn't even see the initial
plans for his railroad come into being for it waited until
after the Civil War, and death came to James Gadsden on
Christmas Day in 1858.
However, if the history students will allow themselves
the luxury of imagination, might they not picture l\fr. Gads­den
looking upon lush green fields and smiling with the
thought that, if history were to recognize only one of each
man's accomplishments, perhaps it will set aside this empire
as his monument-not of short-lived stone and metal and
the sculptor's art; but, instead, the long-lived combination
of people, their well-being and the fruits of their labors.
Yours s1ilcerely
• THE ARIZONA:
Today I received my September issue of
ARIZONA HIGHWAYS. Turning through the pages
I found one of the greatest stories ever told:
that of the Battleship Arizona. From where I
am sitting in the superstructure of the York­town
writing this letter, I can see the Stars and
Stripes as they wave in the cool aftemoon
breeze on the short mast erected atop the Ari­zona.
This time tomorrow I will no longer be able
to see her as for the third time I am headed
toward the Far East. But each time that I have
entered into Pearl Harbor, and passed the Ari­zona,
I have seen men stand at attention, then
bow their heads in silent prayer. Each knows
the agony and pain suffered by the crew of the
proud ship Arizona, and all respect her.
Many, who knew her in her sailing days,
knew the pride in which she sailed. ~ow all
who have seen her since her defeat feel the
pride in which the Stars and Stripes flutter
above her.
Though no longer sailing, she is the pride of
the memorials. ·
C. L. Kip Miller, LI-2
U.S.S. Yorktown CVA-10
Pearl Harbor, T. H.
• Anyone can be great in victory. T be Ari­zona
was great in def eat.
a GOOD MEDICINE:
... The August issue of AmzoNA HIGHWAYS
came today. This number is of great personal
interest for I knew Charles M. Russell during
my high school days in Great Falls, Montana.
One of my treasured books is "Good Medi­cine,"
a compilation of many of Russell's let­ters,
with his sketches and paintings in color.
"Good Medicine" was published in 1929 by
Garden City Publishing Company. The book­"
is lovingly dedicated to the West and to Char­lie's
friends," by Nancy C. Russell, his wife.
Will Rogers wrote the introduction. His
closing tribute to Russell is : "I think that every­one
of us that had the pleasure of knowing him
is just a little better by having done so- he not
only left us great living pictures of what our
West was, but he left us an example of how to
live in friendship with all mankind."
Some of these letters are written to friends
of my girlhood years. Among them are several
to Miss Josephine Trigg, our young high school
music teacher. One of them, written on Los An­geles
Hotel Biltmore stationery, has a colorful
drawing below the letterhead. This letter is
dated March 27, 1924. He writes: "Dear 1\tliss
Josephine: Thank you for the birthday card.
Old Dad Time trades little that men want. He
has traded me wrinkles for teeth, stiff legs for
limber ones, but cards like yours tell me that
he has left me my friends and for that great
kindness I forgive him. Good fri ends make the
roughest trail easy. The above sketch is before
California was taken by the Iowans. Your
friend, C. M. Russell."
During later years, I taught kindergarten in
the Browning, Montana, public schools on the
Blackfeet Reservation near Glacier National
Park. Here again, in that region Charlie Rus­sell
knew so well, the home of the Blackfeet,
the Bloods, the Piegans, and the Crows, I met
many of his old time friends.
I wish to thank Mr. Homer E. Britzman for
his fine authentic and ·-sympathetic Story of
Charles M. Russell. It has brought me real en­joyment
and the renewal of many happy memo­ries.
Mrs. Arthur R. Rutherford
Seattle, Washington
• Tbe more one learns of Charlie Russell, tbe
more one appreciates bis great capacity for
friendsbip.
• A LONG TRAIL:
... To one who has spent many years of his
life in the strip from Arizona to Montana as
a Cavalry Officer of the Regular Army, I am
in a position to appreciate the splendid job you
did in August issue of your fine magazine -in
devoting such a substantial part of it to Charlie
Russell and his contribution to the West. Pos­sibly
you could not have used it, because I un­derstand
that my copy is an original. It is a
water color showing two horsemen, one of
them leading a pack horse. Obviously, the one
with the pack horse is starting off to the Great
Divide and bidding his friend farewell. Printed
on my copy are t he following lines, which al­ways
have seemed to me to be about foolproof.
"Here's hoping your trail is a long one
Plain and easy to ride.
L\ilay :your dry camps be few
And Health ride with you
To the pass on the Big Divide."
Brigadier General
Brice P. Disque, Retired
Spuyten Duyvil, New York
• Cbarlie Russell's originals are now treasures
of art. H e recorded tirne and place in our histo­ry
witb syrnpcrtbetic understanding and accu­racy.
a RUSSELL PAINTINGS:
. . . The absorbing account in your August
issue of Charles M. Russell, from the pen of
Homer E. Britzman is worth more than a full
year's subscription to your valued publication.
I desire to congratulate you and him for such
an outstanding performance.
Well do I recall, while art critic on the Chi­cago
Record-Herald, the notable exhibition of
Russell's Indian paintings. T hey were the talk
of the art world here at that time .... Now, to
see them again printed in color is like running
across a long-lost friend. Thank you so much
for presenting it to your subscriber audience!
According to the reproduction of Mr. Rus­sell's
own portrait, I should almost place him
among the aborigines himself- could it be, I
wonder, whether he really might possess a
strain of Indian blood.
Maude I. G. Oliver
Chicago, Illinois
• Our Russell feature in August issue proved
very popular with our readers. Cbarlie Russell
was not only a great artist, but truly a great
man. Mr. Russell came from tbe middle west.
Tbere was no Indian blood in bis farnily. He
spent so much time among tbe Indians, tbat
be adopted, unconsciously, many of tbeir man­nerisms.
He was a true friend of tbe Indians.
OPPOSITE PAGE
"THE RAINY SEASON" BY PETER HURD.
Egg Tempera, 40" by 48". Collection Roswell
i\'luscum. The artist savs: "Here I have tried to
com·ey something of the cxcite111cnt and grate­ful
elation \\· hich ,1·c of an arid land feel when
the great cumulus build-ups appear in early sum­mer.
dapplin g the landscape with enormous,
s,1·iftly mo1·ing cloud shadows." T his landscape
was painted from a hillside overlooking the
Ruidoso \ ·a lley near San Patricio, New Mexico.
TO A SHARED TREE
My neighbor shares a lovely tree with me;
Its branches bend beyond my garden wall.
T he \I ind that ,,· hi spcrs in its steeple tall
Chimes things that make my heart pray grate-fully.
T he birds' sweet singing wakes me at the morn,
T hey, too, have found this tree a place of peace,
And day or night their singing docs not cease;
They've built a home where downy babes arc
born.
But best of all my neig·hbor ta lks with me
Beneath these gr~ciou~ branc hes bending low,
And here we learn to understand although
We 1·cry often find "·c disagree.
God speed the day when nations share a tree,
And all the whole wide world good neighbors
be.
CAROLYN Vi1I-JEELER AVERY
SPRING IN FALL
Today,
By every calendar, is fall.
And yet ...
It could be spring.
For down the vch-et breeze
The sparrows call;
And everything
Is bathed in melted sunny air.
See the way the leaves move
Slowly on the vine,
Lacing all the trellis edges
Like a valentine.
And though I know
It could be so,
That grapes are ripening;
The calendars may all be wrong.
I'm sure it must be spring!
IsAnELLE Cox
LEAVES BEYOND DARK
A morning holds its lea1·cs i111mcrscd
In silence; for a day wcll -1·erscd
In weather-lore begins its ,pan
According to an ordered plan.
By twelve o'clock the clatter starts
As a sudden wind-comb deftly p,1rts
The higher branches, fanning t hem out
Like peacock feat hers to preen and flout.
The sunset burns the last leaf seen,
Charring to black the li ving green.
So morning, noon , and sundown dust
Cycle and settle as all time must.
But night has given ghosts to less
Than leaves that hang in lifeless ness. ·
I see their phantoms walk the wind
Fragilely luminous, sih·er ski nned.
BACK PAGE
I sABELLE Cox
"BURRO CREEK" BY CARLOS ELMER.
T his picture, made May 3, 1953, shows Burro
Creek near its crossing of US 93, about 50 miles
northwest of Congress Jun ction. T his new high­way
to Kingman, which will provide central and
southern Arizona with a rapid and direct route
to the popular Lake Mead and Lake Mohave
recreational areas, also opens up some seldom­seen
areas of great sce nic beauty. For some rea­son,
the 111ost photogen ic Ocotillo, which rnakc
good "frames" for pictures of th is sort, always
seem in spots reachable only at great peril.