Arizona Highways. February, 1958

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IGHUJ"A
FEBRUARY 1958
THIRTY-FIVE CENTS
THIS ISSUE:
Black and white photographs herein were taken by Ray Manley, Naurice Koonce, Tommy Carroll, Mickey Primm, Pete Balestrero and Charles Herbert.
aRIZONa H J:GHUJAVS
VOl. XXXIV NO. 2 FEBRUARY 1958
RAYMOND CARLSON, Editor
GEORGE M. AVEY, Art Editor JAMES E. STEVENS, Business Manager
ERNEST W. McFARLAND
Governor of Arizona
ARIZONA HIGHWAY COMMISSION
Grover J. Duff, Chairman .. . ............ .. .. .. .• • • .••••••• ••. Tucson
Wm. P. Copple, Vice Chairman . ... . .•. •. .. • .. ..• . •• .•.••.•. • . •. Yuma
l. F. Quinn, Member ..... . ...... .• • . • .. .• .. • ••• . . ••.•• . ..•... Miami
Frank l. Christensen, Member . ..... • ••• ••..• ••• .. . ...• • . • • .. . Flagstoff
Milton l. Reay, Member .. . ...... .... .. . • .......... . ... . . . . .. Safford
Wm. E. Willey, State Hwy. Engineer .. .•• .. •• •• • • • • ..... ... ... Phoenix
Justin Herman, Secretary .. ... ... . .. .......• .• . . .... .. . . ..... Phoenix
ARIZONA HIGHWAYS is published monthly by the Arizona Highway Depart.
ment a few miles north of the confluence of the Gila and Salt in Arizono.
Address: ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, Phoenix, Arizona. $3.50 per year in U. S.
and possessions; $4.50 elsewhere; 35 cents each. Entered as second·class mat·
ter Nov. 5, 1941 at Post Office in Phoenix, under Act of March 3, 1879.
Copyrighted, 1958, by the Arizona Highway Department.
Allow five weeks for change of addresses. Be sure to send in the old as well
as the new add ress.
FOR. SUNNY FEBRUARY
ARIZONA HIGHWAYS PROUDLY
PRESENTS:
TUCSON
~IIJfJJou Wj.
lit 1J£ VtJ&
FRONT COVER
"AIR VIEW-TUCSON" BY RAY MANLEY AND NAURlCE
KOO lCE. 5X7 Linhof camera; Anscochrome; f.6.3 at 1/475th
sec.; 210 mm. Symar lens; July 15, 1957. Bright sunlight. ASA
reading of 400. The view shows downtown Tucson with the
University of Arizona in middle area and residential and Catalina
Foothills homes in background beneath the Santa Catalina Moun­tains.
Film was developed to one "f" stop greater speed to allow
for necessary shutter speed and also to increase color contrast.
"The University of Arizona had been seeding clouds over Mt.
Lemmon and we were able to make the photograph when one
of the seeding periods billowed one of the small clouds hanging
over the mountain," the photographers explain.
OPPOSITE PAGE
"IN SABINO CANYON-TUCSON'S PICNIC AREA" BY
RAY MANLEY. 5X7 Linhof camera; Anscochrome; f .8 at 1/5oth
sec.; 210 mm. Symar lens; May, 1957. Bright sunlight. Meter read­ing
ASA 450. View shows picnic area in upper Sabino Canyon,
recreational area for Tucsonians. Water fills the stream bed during
spring thawing of snows in the Catalinas and also after summer
showers and cloudbursts. It is quite a pleasant clear stream during
February to April when winter tourists visit the area. Wranglers
from various guest ranches near Tucson take individuals and
groups up the canyon to the top of Mt. Lemmon and return by
Bear Canyon, which is a very beautiful 20 mile ride.
Tucson · 4h
/"JAAr the lHit __
Pueblo
Tucson, one of the oldest communities in the United
States, wears with pride and distinction its sobriquet, "the
Old Pueblo." It was an ancient Indian village long before
the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock, and it was a bus­tling
outpost in Spain'S Colonial Empire before the Amer­ican
Revolution. Authorities tell us the name came from
the Piman "sluyk-son," meaning "dark or brown spring,"
or from the Papa go words "stoyk" for "black" and "zone"
or "son" for foot or base of a hill, or near a spring.
This tremendously interesting community, to which
we devote all of our pages this month, will always be the
Old Pueblo because it wears with charm and dignity its
mantle of time and history, but the visitor will find it the
New Pueblo, new as a bright, polished penny gleaming in
the sun, building and growing in every direction. Statistics
of population and industrial growth during the past
decade, quoted elsewhere herein, indicate that Tucson is
truly a miracle city in the desert.
How can we describe Tucson? The forty modest
pages we devote to the subject this month, are, we might
say, notable not. for what they say but for what remains
unsaid.
We met a man not long ago who moved to Tucson
with his family last spring. His only regret was that he
had not made the move years before.
"Why do you like Tucson?" we asked. His answer:
"Because Tucson is a big modern city with the friendli­ness
and easy informality of a small town."
-- Rather a nice thing to say about a community ... R.c.
COLOR CLASSICS FROM ARIZONA HIGHWAYS
This Issue
35 nnn. slides in 2" mounts, I to 15 slides, 40¢ eacb; 16 to 49
slides, 35¢ eacb; 50 or more, 3 for $1.00.
TC-22 Air View-Tucson-cover I; SC-8 In Sabino Canyon':"
Tucson's Picnic Area, cover 2; SX-17 Architectural Detail­San
Xavier Mission, cover 3; TC-23 Play Map of Tucson and
area, cover 4; TC-24 University of Arizona Campus Scene,
p. 17; V-36 Desert Spring-Tucson, p. 18; JM-12 Tucson's
Desert Garden-Saguaro National Monument, p. 19; NM-13
Saguaro Landscape, p. 19; TC-25 Tucson Panorama-A Desert
Evening, center spread; TC-26 February Is Rodeo Time in
Tucson, p. 22; TC-27 Thousands Winter Under the Warm
Sun, p. 22; TC-28 All the Champs Gather During Golf Tour­ney
Time, p. 23; TC-29 Batter Up! Major League Spring
Training in Tucson, p. 23; TC-30 Ranch Happy Guests at a
Tucson Ranch, p. 24.
TUCSON-calendar of events
FEBRUARY
Jan. 30 through Feb. 2 (tentative}-uth Annual Tucson $15,000
Open Golf Tournament, on major circuit, attracts biggest names
in golf-Del Rio Country Club.
8th-"Ficsta of Fashions"-Tucson Festival Society original pro­duction
featuring Southwestern Fashions of 1958 by the state's
leading designers, based on the history of various fiestas and
rodeos throughout the state of Arizona with a musical theme.
8-9-University of Arizona Annual Rodeo.
14-15-Sixth Annual Tucson Photography Workshop, theme­How
To Do It. All-day symposia concerning various aspects of
photography.
20-23-La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros. Rodeo. Highlight of the winter
season, opens with a large parade (no motorized vehicles permitted
to compete for prizes in the many categories) morning of the first
day. Afternoon performances when top notch riders compete for
large purses in bronc busting, bulldogging, steer riding and roping.
Feb. 28 throllgb Marc/) 9-Arizona Gem and Mineral Festival.
Opens with Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, Pima County Fair
Grounds Feb. 28 rvlarch I and 2. March I an open day; March 4,
field trip out of Tucson (Tucson Mineralogical Society); March
5 joint field trip (Tucson and Phoenix societies); March 6, field
trip out of Phoenix (Arizona Mineralogical Society-Phoenix);
March 7, 8, 9 annual Phoenix Gem and Mineral Show, Phoenix
County Fair Grounds, in conjunction with Rocky Mountain Fed­eration
of Mineralogical Societies convention.
15-Cleveland Indians arrive and remain for spring training through
the month of March. Spring training games at Hi Corbett Field.
Practice games open to the public free of charge. Ten or twelve
exhibition games have been scheduled.
MARCH
6-7-8 (tentative)-Tucson-Fourth Annual Arizona Industrial De­velopment
Workshop sponsored by Bureau of Business Research,
U. of A. College of Business and Public Administration; morning
and afternoon sessions-"Progress Problems and Prospects of Indus­trial
Development in Arizona"-national and state speakers, lunch­eons,
and annual banquet.
NOGALES, MEXICO-Bullfight season usually opens in March in the
Sonora bullring, Nogales Sonora (capacity 5,000). Prices differ ac­cording
to the occasion, which determines the quality of the event.
Special bull-fights are put on, on each of the Mexican holidays­May
5 and Sept. 16-and top matadors participate in these events.
Early Marcb-Old Tucson Fiesta Days, sponsored by the Jaycees,
opens with a street dance (downtown Tucson). The Fiesta Show
at Old Tucson is Spanish in theme and takes place at Old Tucson.
Tucson Livestock Sbow, Pima County Fairgrounds. Arizona Here­ford
Association show and sale of state's finest Herefords; Southern
Arizona Horse Show; one of nation's finest cutting horse contests
with entries from many states. Date to be set.
APRIL
2-6 (Easter Week}-One of the most primitive celebrations in Ari­zona,
at Pascua, the Indian village on E. Grant Rd. Here the little
colony of Yaqui Indians and their descendants who fled persecu­tion
in Mexico many years ago, yearly enact an Easter pageant.
It is the most important e,·ent in their religious calendar-a com­bination
of 17th century Spanish and ancient Yaqui tradition. It
is their dramatization of the Passion of Christ. The sorrowful pro­cession
along the way of the Cross, under the starry Arizona skies,
portrays their faith in the triumph of life after death and good
over evil, by the culminating symbolic battle (with flowers) on
Holy Saturday, against the masked long-nosed chapieka who
have tried to prevent their rituals.
7-27-The Tucson Fine Arts Association presents the Tucson
Festival Art Show, a triple juried show (southwest area). Prints
of all Media-Drawings-Watercolors-Tucson Art Center.
II (evening}-sAN XAVlER-Tucson Festival Society presents the San
Xavier Fiesta-Tucson's precious heritage from the Papago, Yaqui
and Spanish-pageant to commemorate Father Kino's founding of
the White Dove of the Desert ... the tolling of mission bells at
eventide echoed by the distant trumpet of the conquistadores
... the Matachini reverently dance in the procession of the Virgin
... in the glow of bonfires and fiesta fireworks the Indians invite
their new brothers to share the ancient social dances.
12-13-FIESTA DE LAS FLOREs-brilliant display of flowers from
Tucson gardens and nearby desert and foothills, co-sponsored
by the Council of Garden Clubs, Tucson and the Tucson Festival
Society, YWCA, 9:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M. Also participating-the
University of Arizona, local florists and nurseries.
19-20-FJESTA DE LA PLACITA-tWO colorful days of a real l\lexican
fiesta-Tucson's old square, Broadway and Avenida San Augus-
TU ON
SUNSH.NE C .... "..N THE DESERT
tine. Children's Paradc afternoon of April 19, prizes for best cos­tume-
concluded by thc breaking of the pinata. Night programs
each day feature 13 and mNC nati ,·c "lcxican danccs.
April tbrougb Jllne- Arizona-Sonora Dcscrt i\luscum. '\\USCUIll
wildlife blind (for animal obscn·ation and photography) opcn
to museum family membcrs (modcrate mcmbcrship charge)
functions at its bcst at this time. Also functions wcll from Octobcr
to December.
"JAY
5-Nogales- cINcO DE MAYO. Although this holiday is cclcbratcd
in all border towns, the ~ogales c,·cnt is thc largest. Thc 17th
Annual "Ficsta dc Mayo," sponsored by thc Chambcrs of Com­merce
of Ambo Togalcs, commemoratcs thc defcat of thc French
by the Mcxicans in 1862. Thc fifth of "lay (Cinco dc Mayo)
opens with a paradc of floats, military hands and marching units
from Mexico and Unitcd States. During thc thrcc day fcstival,
Indians from isolatcd arcas of ,\lcxico pcrform tribal danccs, and
school childrcn do folk danccs in nati,·c costumc, and both towns
take on a ficsta air, and thcre is a spccial bullfight.
ll-SONoITA- 22nd Annual Quarter Horsc Show, onc of the bcst
known in the southwcst- capacity crowds. Complctc show­horses
from Arizona, New Mcxico, Tcxas and California compct­ing
in all classes; mcn's, women's, and childrcn 's riding, bcnding
races, cutting horsc contest and calf roping. Show recognized by
the Quarter Horsc Brccdcrs Association and the mcrican Quar­ter
Horse Association.
MEXIco- Guaymas, Sonora- Tntcrnational Fish Rodco attended by
sports fishermen from all over thc world; ycar-round sports fish­ing
in Gulf of California at Guaymas, Rocky Point and La Paz.
Sailfish, marlin, dolphin, ctc.
AUGUST
One of the biggest C,·Cnts of this year, 13th International Jayccc
Golf Tournament, El Rio and Randolph i\Junicipal golf courses.
At least 250 young golfcrs and cscorts cxpcctcd from every state
in the union plus 16 or more forcign countries. Eight day pro­gram
arrangcd so that, in addition to the tournament, visitors
will see places of interest and havc outstanding entertainment.
SEPTEi\1BER
16-NOGALES, MEXlco- Diez y Scis sponsorcd by thc i\ lcxican
Patriotic Board of Nogales, Sonora, cOlllmemoratcs Mexican
Independence Day and it includcs the "Grita" or war cry ,·oiced
by Priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, called the Fathcr of Mexican
Indcpcndencc, at midnight on Sept. 15, 18ro in Dolorcs Hidalgo,
Guanajuato, to rouse the populace to their fight for independcnce.
On Sept. 16 parades take placc, along with othcr schcdulcd e,·ents
ineluding a spccial bullfight.
WILLcox-Annual Rex A IIcn Days festival, honoring Rcx Allen,
local cowboy well-known in entertainment field. Two day affair
begins with a parade and includcs a pcrsonal appearancc of Allen,
a stage show for young and old, and a rodco and horse show
for the many Allen fans who attend.
OCTOBER
4-At San Xavicr Mission, just south of Tucson, the Papago
Indians annually cclcbrate the Feast of St. Francis Assisi with
religious ceremonies in the church and a night processional in
the plaza, well worth attcnding.
4-MEXlco- At Magdelcna, Sonora, somc 60 miles south of the
border town of Togalcs, the Fcast of St. Francis Assisi is celc­brated.
Many Papago families fwm Southcrn Arizona make the
yearly pilgrimage and the town is jammcd.
17-18-19- TOMBSToNE-Annual Hclldorado; early Friday a fashion
show of early day styles; Saturday morning the aIlnual parade;
Sunday night humorous show "Pages of thc Past." Hclldorado
held in the streets and each act rcpeated c,·cry day to accommo­date
crowds who come.
NOVE..\ !BE.R
Old Tucson Daze, sponsorcd by the Jaycees, opcns the winter
visitor's season with a big paradc and strcct dancc in downtown
Tucson, followed by a "wcstern" show at Old Tucson.
29-30-Florence-Annual Junior Parade, rodco for tccnage perform-ers.
DECEMBER
3-At San Xavier Mission-one of the highlights of the year to
the Papago Indians, is the pre-Christmas cclebration of the Feast
of St. Francis Xavier, patron saint of Padrc Kino.
15-Las Posadas commemorates the scarch of Mary and Joseph
for lodgings, beginning ten days before Christmas. Proccssional
has been sponsored and done by Carillo School.
JANUARY
17-18-Tucson-Square Dance Festinl, c,·cnings at Pima County
Fairgrounds, Saturday afternoon at Studcnt Union ballroom,
University Campus. Draws people from all over the Southwest,
usually 1200 or more participate.
TUCSON-timetable with destiny
169z-Father Kino, the Spanish missiona~y and ex­plorer,
visits Indian villages of TumacacorI and Bac
south of Tucson.
1700-Kino lays foundations for the first San Xavier
del Bac Mission.
1752-Military forces strengthened at Tubac, south
of Tucson.
1769-Franciscan priests launch missionary work in
what subsequently became Southern Arizona; Father
Francisco Tomas Garces visits San Jose del Tucson
,\'lission.
1776-Tucson established as a Spanish fort; soldiers
arrive from Tubac.
1797-Probable date for completion of second San
Xavier del Bac Mission.
18zo-Friar Arriquibar takes census of Tucson,
counts 395 residents.
18z 3-Mexico wins indepe~dence from Spain; Tuc­son
passes into Mexican hands.
1 846-U.S. declares war on Mexico; Mormon Bat­talion
arrives at Tucson from Fort Leavenworth, Kan.,
raises first American flag over Tucson.
1848-Treaty ending Mexican War cedes most of
Arizona-excluding Tucson-to U.S.
1854-Area south of Gila River, including Tucson,
acquired by U.S. through Gadsden Purchase.
1856-Mexican troops leave Tucson for the last
time. Local citizens hold convention and ask Congress
to separate Arizona from the Territory of Ne~ Mexi~o.
Post office established. Solomon Warner arnves wIth
first American merchandise to open a store in Tucson.
I 857-First passenger and mail stages arrive in
Tucson.
1858-Butterfield's Overland Mail begins operating
between St. Louis and San Francisco, passing through
Tucson.
1859-The Rev. J. P. Machebeuf, Vicar General of
New Mexico, makes his "Journey of Death" from Santa
Fe to Tucson, an event immortalized many years later
in Willa · Cather's "Death Comes to the Archbishop."
Water-power flour mill put into operation at Silver Lake,
south of Tucson.
1860-Convention held at Tucson to write the terri­torial
constitution. The proceedings of the convention
become the first book printed in Arizona.
1861-Butterfield stage route discontinued through
the Southwest. Civil War breaks out. Government sup­plies
in Tucson are burned by Union troops to keep
them from falling into Confederate hands. Confederate
Council of Tucson is forn1ed and a delegate elected to
the Confederate Congress.
Tucson Municipal Airport, a busy place
•• • continued from preceding page
186z-Confederate soldiers occupy Tucson. Bat~le
of Picacho Pass takes place between fragment~r.f UOltS
of Union and Confederate forces- the only CivIl War
engagement fought in Arizona. Union soldiers occupy
Tucson.
1863-Abraham Lincoln signs act creating Territory
of Arizona.
1864-Charles N. Poston, first territorial delegate to
Conaress leaves Tucson for Washington.
b 1866'- Mi litary headquarters for. Anz. ~na ~?ve d
from Prescott to Tucson and estabhshed 1\1 MIlitary
Plaza, which is re-named Camp Lowell.
1867-Tucson made capital by territorial legislature.
1868- Tucson's first American public school opens.
1869-First ice cream made in Tucson, sells for $5
a quart. . . .
1871-First electIOn of Tucson mayor and councIl.
1873-First public school for girls opens. City offers
free lots to citizens for six months' residence on them
and $100 in improvements. First telegraph line reaches
Tucson. Town stages its historic "necktie party"-the
lynching of four men by a mob incensed over the mur­der
of a local merchant and his wife.
1878-First Protestant church established in Tucson.
1879-Capital moved to Prescott.
1880- Southern Pacific railroad reaches Tucson.
Arizona's first non-military hospital opened by the Sisters
of St. Joseph. . .
188 1-Tucson holds its first legal hangmg.
188z-Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman visits
Tucson.
1885-Legislature appropriates $2 5,000 to start the
University of Arizona. .
1886~ Tucson Rangers assist U.S. Army mfir:al p~sh
against Apaches. First board of regents of the UOlversity
meets to accept 40 acres of land donated by Tucson
gamblers.
1887-University begins construction of its first
building.
189I-University opens.
1906-Restoration work starts on San Xavier del
Bac Mission.
1916- Part of old capitol buildings torn down.
1938-Last of old capitol buildings razed. .
1941-Davis- !{onthan Air Force Base establIsh.ed.
194z-Consolidated-Yultee aircraft pla~t esta~hshed,
launching Tucson's wartime and postwar mdustnal de­velopment.
Plant subsequently passed into. hands of
Grand Central Aircraft Co., then Douglas Aircraft Co.,
which now operates it.
1951-Hughes Aircraft Co. comes to Tucson.
Tucson, ou the mainline of the S. P.
BY LOUIS R. JURWITZ
In, the shadow of the Santa Catalina Mountains, which
tower to 918; feet atop Mount Lemmon, we find the teeming
metropolis of Tucson. Perched on the edge of the Sonora
Desert but influenced by the high mountains to the east,
Tucson, at an elevation of 2410 feet, enjoys a unique climate
whose outstanding features are sunshine, pleasantly warm
winters, hot summers and low annual rainfall.
Tucson is located in an area of the United States that enjoys
the greatest number of sunny days. Actually, based on nine
years of record at Tucson's airport, 86 per cent of possible sun­shine
has been registered. When many other sections of the
nation experience stormy, cloudy and disagreeable weather,
Tucson shows a remarkably high percentage of sunshine. De­cember's
average of possible sunshine stands at 82 %, January
78% and February 8;%. April, May and June bring with them
90 to 93% of possible sunshine. When we begin to compare
the percentage of possible sunshine on an annual basis, we find
that Tucson's 86% is almost twice as great as that recorded over
much of the Great Lakes area. Even the southeastern corner
of the United States can only boast of 60 to 70% of possible
sunshine. Coastal areas of the Pacific Northwest and northern
California with about 40 to 4;% sunshine doubtlessly cast long­ing
eyes toward the azure sunny skies of Tucson when they
experience long cloudy periods of weather.
According to U.S. Weather Bureau records, relative
humidity values in the Tucson area are among the lowest in
the United States. A comparison of noontime average relative
humidity values shows Tucson with 30% while other localities
are considerably more moist. For instance, Atlanta's noontime
humidity averaged over an annual period stands at 56%, Buffalo
6[%, Jacksonville, Florida 55%, Los Angeles 49%, New York
City 59%, San Francisco 65%, Washington D.C. 5 [%, Boston
56% and Chicago 61 %.
Relative humidity records at Tucson show that noontime
\"alues range from an average of 40% in January to the low
value of [3% in May and June. It is not unusual for relati,'e
humidities to drop as low as 5% during the latter part of the
Spring season. Due to the dryness of the air, evaporator coolers
are utilized to a great extent for air conditioning of homes and
commercial buildings. With outdoor temperatures near the
100 degree mark it is not difficult to bring indoor temperatures
into the low 80'S with the aid of evaporator coolers. Hence,
living conditions are quite comfortable even with extremely
high outside temperatures. Also, refrigerated air conditioning
is becoming more popular so that "climate control" indoors is
becoming an every day reality.
Speaking about high temperatures, the University of Ari­zona
weather station in Tucson registered 112 degrees on
several occasions. Actually, every year since records began
back in 1892, temperatures ha,"e climbed to the 105 to [10
degree zone. One should not get the impression though, that
the climate of Tucson is as hot as the "prO\"erbial inferno."
The average annual temperature of 67 degrees compares very
favorably with that found in such far away places as Lima,
Peru and Athens, Greece.
The winter months of December, January and February
show an average daily maximum temperature of 6; to 68
degrees while early morning low temperatures drop to an
invigorating 35 to 38 degree value. The lowest temperature of
record on the Universiry campus was 6 degrees aboye zero
which occurred in January, 19[ 3. It is not rare to have low
temperatures near the 20 degree mark but normally these cold
spells do not last for more than a day or two in January or
february, Tucson e~joys a growing season which extends
over a 250 day period. The average date of the last killing frost
in the Spring is around the 15th of March while the average
date of the first killing frost in the Autumn occurs around
the 20th of November.
Snows are rare in Tucson and normally do not cover the
ground for more than a day or two at a time. On the Uni­versiry
campus, "three months since [892 have seen a total
snow cover which added up to 6,0 inches, namely January
1896 and 1937 and March, [922. Usually only about an inch or
two of snow falls and is rapidly melted as soon as skies clear
which ordinarily occurs on the following day after a snow
storm. Howe,"er, should one wish to find deep snows in the
winter, all that need be done is to drive to the winter sports
area on Mount Lemmon, about 45 miles from Tucson. Located
at the 7000 to 8000 foot level, it is not unusual to find from two
to three feet of snow with ideal skiing and tObogganing condi­tions,
Be sure to take along warm wraps though, as tempera­tures
get as low as 5 to 15 degrees above zero at the winter
ports area during cold spells!
March and April find delightful weather with Spring
flowers (if it rains) in full bloom by mid-March. If winter
rains on the desert are adequate, a thrill of a lifetime will be
experienced. Literally millions of wildflowers raise their petals
to the warm rays of a questing sun. Mariposa lilies, blue
lupins, mallow in shades of delicate pink to deep bronze,
splashes of brilliant cadmium yellow in the bouquet-like brittle
bush, with magenta, red and yellow wax-like petals of the
cactus blooms opening by late April or early in May.
Average daily high temperatures in March reach 74 degrees
with low values around 42. April sees the mercury climb to 82
degrees for average maximum temperature values while daily
low readings remain at a relatively cool value of 47 degrees.
May sees the first signs of the long summer days ahead. High
temperatures a,'erage 90 degrees with lows near 55, June
through September are the hot months of the year with
3,'erage daily high temperatures reaching 99 in June, 100 de­grees
in July, 97 in August and 95 in September. Even though
maximum temperatures are quite high in June and September,
we find that low temperatures are quite comfortable, averaging
around 64 to 6; degrees during these two months.
The arrival of tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico is
heralded by tOwering cumulus clouds against the deep blue
Arizona sky. They first appear during the closing days of
June or by the 4th of July. light-time temperatures immedi­ately
reflect the arrival of this moist air and we find daily
average low temperatures in the 71 to 73 degree zone through­out
much of July and August. Cool temperatures are never far
away frolll Tucson, e,'en during the hottest time of the year.
An extensive summer colony is found at Summerhaven, well
up the slopes of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Beautiful
cottages snuggle in the big pines with the 7700 foot altitude
assuring cool nights and pleasant afternoon temperatures. While
Tucson may swelter in temperatures in the 100 degree bracket,
we find temperatures at Summerhaven near 7; degrees with
early morning readings in the 49 to 54 range . .. this during
the hot months reaching from June through September! Thus,
within a mere 45 miles of paved road one can experience a
complete change in climate from that found in Tucson.
Spectacular displays of lightning and the deep roll of
th under mark the summer rainy season which brings almost
one-half of the annual precipitation. Average rainfall during
July is 2,01 inches, August 2.12 and September 1.[3 inches
for a combined total of 5.26 inches for these three months.
With an average annual precipitation value of [0.83 inches
we can readily see that the remaining nine months of the
year must provide the balance of moisture.
Winter rains from about mid-November through t\'larch
account for almost 3.50 additional inches of moisture. Thus
the Spring months of April, May and June are relati,"ely hee
from rainy weather. May, with an average of only 0.19 inch
of rain, is the driest month, followed by June with 0.28 and
April with 0'39 inch.
On rare occasions torrential rains . in thunderstOrms cause
flash flooding in washes draining intO lowlands from sur­rounding
mountains. Records at the Soil Conservation Service
station at Tucson Nursery, just to the north of town, show
that rain u to 2.85 inches can occur in a one day period.
Due to the slope of the ground in the Tucson area, flood
waters from these "gully washers" run off rapidly and within
a few hours ' after rains stop most of the water has drained
into main ri,'er channels,
As mentioned earlier, tropical air arri,"ing from the Gulf
of Mexico is primarily responsible for the heavy rains of July
and August. Almost all of this rainfall occurs in thunder­showers.
July has an a,"erage of 13 days with thunderstorms
while August has 12. During some years the thunderstorm
season extends into the early part of September so that an
average of about 5 days with thunderstorms can be expected
during that month. All other months of the year experience
only one or two thunderstorms. In most cases they accompany
a cold frontal passage or storm system moving into the area
from the north or west bringing rainfall to the Southwestern
desert ... thus accounting for moisture during all ' other
months than the "Summer monsoon" season of July, August
and early September in some cases,
Hail, fog, sleet and other weather phenomena usually
found over other sections of the United States is rare in
Tucson. So much so, often a complete year passes without
a single occurrence of hail fog or sleet, No record has been
made of tornadoes in the Tucson metropolitan area. Hurri­canes,
of course, are unh~rd of in the desert Southwest. On
rare occasions heavy rains in September occur as remnants
of a decayed hurricane drift into Arizona. However, no hurri­cane
winds accompany the "tail end" of these storms which
are so destructive at times on the Gulf of Mexico and east
coasts,
Strongest winds in Tucson are usually connected with
thunderstorms, For a brief period winds "kick up'" to about 40
to 45 miles per hour, raising great douds of dust. Within
about a 15 or 20 minute period rain commences and the dust
storm is at an end. A cold front passage in February of 1952
caused the strongest wind recorded in the' past 9 years at
Tucson's airport when a speed of 59 miles per hour was
reached for a one minute period. Ordinarily winds are gentle,
being dominated to a great extent by the mountain-valley
drainage of air. Average wind velocity at the University
campus is only 6 miles per hour with no particular month
being more windy than another-April with an average of 6.8
miles per hour is the highest with December's 5.; miles per
hour value standing on the low side.
Sharp and clear stand the sentinels of Tucson. To the
northeast the towering Santa Catalina Mountains, to the
southeast the sweeping slopes of the Rincons ... while to the
west the craggy tops of the Sih'er Bell and Sierrita Mountains
are backed up by the towering ramparts of the Roskruge and
Baboquivari Ranges. Rare is the day that visibiliry is lower
than 40 to 60 miles and often from the higher slopes, mountain
ranges up to 100 miles away can be seen outlined against
an Arizona sky that so often is "bluer than blue" .. . a "big"
sky that covers the "big country" surrounding the busy and
modern dry of Tucson.
PAGE SEVEN • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY 1958
Outdoor classes are enjoyed by students.
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA·
A DYNAMIC EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION IN A DYNAMIC STATE 'F-UI, or more than seventy years, Tucson has
~III been a "university" town. As a sleepy
adobe pueblo, and now as a city ex­.
,11, periencing dynamic growth, its life has
41 been interwoven with the life of the
University of Arizona. Located a scant
two miles from the downtown business section, the Uni­versity
was considered "way out in the desert" by Tuc­son
pioneers. Now, it is seven miles within the eastern
boundary of the community.
Growing along with Tucson, the University campus
has changed dramatically since World War II. In the past
twelve years, twenty-one major buildings have been com­pleted
or are under construction and there have been
major additions to seven existing buildings. A land acquisi­tion
program is presently underway that will increase the
campus area by fifty per cent within the next five years.
The semi-tropical landscaping of the hundred-acre
campus includes trees and plants from all parts of the
world. These combine with the predominant red-brick
architecture and the sweeping bright green lawns to make
the University of Arizona campus one of the most beauti­ful
to be found anywhere in the world.
During the current year more than 15,000 students
are receiving instruction either on the campus at Tucson
or through the University'S state-wide extension program.
Three-quarters of the 1957-58 regular enrollment of 10,-
000 students attending day and evening classes on the
Tucson campus is made up of students representing every
community of Arizona. The remaining one-quarter are
from each of the remaining states, the District of Colum­bia,
several U. S. Territories and forty-three foreign
countries.
Although Tucsonians have a strong local pride in the
University that has grown with the Old Pueblo, the fact
is that the University of Arizona is a state-wide institution
and has been throughout its seventy year history.
The University did not actually open its doors until
October, 189 I, but a law providing for the establishment
of a state university was enacted by the first territorial
legislature when it convened in Prescott in 1864. The first
Board of Regents was promptly elected by the legislature,
but one of the three members was killed by Indians before
the end of the year. The efforts of the pioneers to provide
higher education for the people of Arizona were some­what
premature because in 1864 there was not a school­house
or public school, a courthouse or a railroad, in the
entire territory, and there were only two or three private
PAGE EIGHT • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY 1958
schools. The first public school opened in 1871 and public
high schools still were unknown in the territory in 1891
when the university opened.
In that first year, only four of the university'S initial
student body of thirty-six students were at the college
level while the remaining were in the preparatory depart­ment.
In 1891, the University's first physical plant consisted
of one unfinished building-now known as "Old Main."
There was also a well with a steam-driven pump and forty
acres of land covered by mesquite and greasewood. The
campus was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. Old Main
contained all the classrooms and laboratories, as well as
living quarters for a part of the faculty and the library.
Revered and beloved by alumni, Old Main still stands In
the center of the campus, serving today as headquarters
for the University'S Air Force and Army ROTC units.
During the first twenty-five years the University
slowly changed from a combined college and preparatory
school to one with university aims and character ex­clusively.
During this period it had encouraged and active­ly
participated in the development of a secondary school
system in Arizona, and in 1914 the preparatory depart­ment
was abandoned.
In 1915 the University was organized into three col­leges:
Agriculture, Mines and Engineering, and Letters,
Arts, and Sciences. The University now began a period
of mature growth.
By 1920, the University had eighty-six faculty mem­bers
and 1732 students-all of whom were fully admitted
college students. The total number of buildings on cam­pus
was twenty. The population of the state had increased
~Imost sixty per cent-from 204,000 in 1910, to 334,000
111 1920.
During the twenties the faculty and student body
each doubled in size. Four new major buildings were con­structed,
and many new programs of research and instruc­tion
were launched as the University kept pace with the
growth of the state's population to 435,000.
Even during the depression decade of the 1930's the
University experienced a substantial growth in students
and ten more major buildings were constructed-financed
almost entirely by the sale of bonds and by grants from
the Public Works Administration of the Federal Govern­ment.
Current estimates indicate that during the period
1956-1966 the University will need additional buildinas,
land and improvements costing more than $40,000,000bif
the present high standard of university education in Ari­zona
is to be maintained. This sum is almost equal to the
present estimated replacement value of all campus build­ings
and grounds.
. Only a part of the University'S facilities are located
111 Tucson. In carrying out its programs of instruction,
A beautiful campus
research and extension in agriculture the University
operates ten farms spread throughout the state. They arc
located near the communities of Marana, Mesa, Phoenix,
Safford, Yuma, and Tucson. Four of these have been
added since World War II and there have been important
construction and improvements at the others.
The most recent addition to the system of farms and
facilities is the Cotton Research Station at Mesa with its
laboratory, manager's residence and auxiliary buildings.
The entire 265-acre tract of this station was purchased for
the University at a cost of $ I 70,000 bv the Arizona Cot­t?
n Planting Seed Distributors, which supplied an addi­tlonal
$38,000 to add to $105,000 provided by the state
for buiJding construction.
~n astou~ding fact is that the improvements in cotton
farmmg resulting from the work of the Aaricultural Ex­periment
Station of the University have given Arizona
cotton farmers an extra income that in anyone year
exceeds the total cost of the UA Experiment Station
throughout the eptire seventy-one years of the Univer­sity's
history. The Experiment Station's work has enabled
Arizona to lead the nation with a yield of 1 100 pounds of
cotton per acre and to become one of the top five cotton
states in total production.
The three main functions of the University of Ari­zona
are instruction, research and extension. The last
function-extension-applies to the widespread public serv­ice
in areas other than resident instruction and research,
an? is ~ .uni.que deve!?pment of land grant colleges and
umversmes 111 the U mted States. From the beginning the
University of Arizona has included the land arant pro­grams
made possible by the Morrill Act passed by Con­gress
in 1862. General public service has been a prime
o.bjective toget~1er with the University'S classical objec­tlves
of educatron and research. Through its state-wide
extension program the University of Arizona reaches out
~rom its campus in Tucson to benefit almost every person
111 the state.
Today the educational program of the University of
Arizona is organized into ten colleges and three general
departments including a total of four schools and forty-six
departments, and there are thirteen research divisions and
two extension divisions.
The bachelor's degree is offered in some 124 fields,
the master's degree in fifty-one, and the doctor's degree
in nineteen. Full pre-professional work is offered in the
principal areas in which the state does not yet offer educa­tional
programs-fields such as medicine, dentistry, and
veterinary medicine.
The research program of the University is carried on
through thirteen research divisions with regularly buda­eted
funds; by members of the faculty voluntarily· in their
f~ee t!me; and by graduate students working under the
dlrectlOn of members of the faculty. Funds have been
New and more buildings Tbe stadium
Field trip in the desert
given in the form of special grants from individuals,
corporations, foundations and federal agencies, and
through special contracts have increased sixfold since 1952.
Just as the research program of the College of Agri­culture
has been directed toward practical statewide serv­ice,
the Arizona Bureau of Mines has served the mineral
industries of the state since 1891. Southern Arizona, with
adjacent areas of New Mexico and Sonora, is the greatest
copper-producing region of the world. Arizona has led
the nation in the production of copper since 191 I and to­day
leads the nation in the value of all metals produced.
In response to the rapid' development in the state of
general business and industry, the Bureau of Business
Research was established in 1949. Included among its
numerous projects are the publication and distribution of
Arizona Business and Economic Review monthly to citi­zens
in all parts of the state, and the annual Arizona State­wide
Industrial Development Conference.
Industrial development related to electronics may
well hold the key to the future of Arizona, and progress
during the past three years at the University of Arizona
in instruction and research in this field serves as an ex­ample
of the prompt response of a state university to an
emergency need of its state. Since 1953, undergraduate
enrollment in electrical engineering has increased three
times, the graduate enrollment has increased five times,
and outside support for research has increased ten times.
Arizona has the largest American Indian population
of any state in the nation, and the Bureau of Ethnic Re­search
was established to gain a better understanding of
the problems of this population and to find solutions for
these problems.
The new Institute of Atmospheric Physics was estab­lished
to conduct fundamental research into the weather
and climate of Arizona, of the Southwest, and of arid
regions in general. Particular emphasis is placed on the
study of atmospheric processes associated with the forma­tion
of clouds and rain. By its investigations, the Institute
hopes to serve the interests of all those who struggle with
the water problems of the arid zones of the earth. In the
spring of 1955, it was host to the first international con-
Extracurricular activities for all
ference on weather modification. The Institute today is
world center for research in this field.
The University's research program in the utilization
of solar energy is also centered in the Institute of Atmos­pheric
Physics. The first efforts in this program are being
directed toward solar radiation measurements and the
practical heating and cooling of dwellings by using solar
energy. In the fall of 1955, scientists from all over the
world came to the University of Arizona campus to attend
a conference on applied solar energy.
The new Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, oper­ated
jointly by the University, the Arizona Fish and Game
Commission and the U. S. Wildlife Service, is rendering
important service directed toward solving wildlife prob­lems
of the state.
The Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research is also a
world center for investigation in its field. University
scientists have found that tree-rings give a picture of rain­fall
over the past two thousand years or so-information
useful in the prediction of the rainfall of the future.
Recently, a representative of this laboratory discovered
"the oldest living things," pine trees more than 4,000 years
old. This discovery received world-wide attention by the
press.
One of the newest University research agencies, the
Geochronology Laboratories, is an outgrowth of inter­departmental
work performed by scientists in the Labora­tory
of Tree-Ring Research and in other fields. Studies
in the field of geochronology encompass archaeological
and geological stratigraphy, Carbon 14 analysis, dendro­chronology,
paleoclimatology, paleontology, palynology,
and geochemistry. The Geochronology Laboratories on
Tumamoc Hill in the Tucson Mountains make it possible
to center all this work in one location. Its establishment
makes the University of Arizona unique among the
world's educational institutions both in the scope of the
research program and by providing facilities where scien­tists
in related fields may more efficiently pool their
efforts to expand man's knowledge of past epochs.
The University'S Steward Observatory has a 36-inch
reflecting telescope-one of the large telescopes of the
The University'S plant is constantly expanding.
world. Among its recent projects is one dealing with stars
called "supernovae," a study in cooperation with the Lick
Observatory of the University of California and the Mt.
Palomar Observatory of the California Institute of Tech­nology.
In its educational extension program, the University
offers evening classes in communities from Morenci on the
east to Yuma on the west and from Nogales on the .Mexi­can
border to Prescott in Northern Arizona. Corre­spondence
courses are taken by Arizonans in every com­munity
of the state.
An estimated total of 84,000 people heard some 700
lectures delivered by more than 100 members of the
faculty during a recent year.
The University's Radio-TV Bureau made nearly 1000
broadcasts and sixty-two telecasts, with the radio pro­grams
being heard' over thirteen of the sixteen radio
stations in Arizona.
During the same year 1 ,700 Un~versity motion picture
films were shown more than 9,000 times in seventy Ari­zona
communities.
The University's AgTicultural Extension Service,
financed chiefly thl:ough Federal funds, has a total staff
of seventy with central offices on the campus, a branch
office in thirteen Arizona counties, and a field program in
each of the state's fourteen counties. Statistics for a typical
recent year reveal: 12,274 farm and home visits; 15,678
office calls; 16,87 I telephone calls; 1,664 agricultural arti­cles
and news stories prepared for the papers of the state;
2,298 meetings of adults with a total attendance of about
110,000; 4,076 meetings of 4-H boys and girls with a total
attendance of about 90,000.
During the same year the agricultural faculty took
part in one hundred field days and short courses in various
parts of the state, and 8,500 Arizonans received four issues
of the publication, Progressive Agri·culture in Arizona.
Not only do Arizonans benefit from these extension
programs in their home communities, but thousands come
to the campus each year for meetings and conventions,
and to visit such famous places as the Arizona State Mu­seum,
the University Galleries, and the Steward Observa-tory,
which is open to the public during the winter months.
The Arizona State Museum, which contains some of
the finest collections of artifacts of the Southwest, includ­ing
the million-dollar Gila Pueblo Collection, has made
the University of Arizona a world center for the study ·of
Southwestern archaeology.
The University Art Galleries, housed in the beautiful
new Fine Arts Center devoted to music, art and drama,
features a recently acquired collection of Renaissance
masterpieces and other paintings from the Samuel H.
Kress Foundation and the Gallagher Collection.
Southern Arizona's famed healthful and sunny climate
strongly influel1'ces the nature of student life. Outdoor
sports are year round-and more than forty per cent of the
men and an almost equal number of coeds participate in
d,e University'S intramural program.
With a seven home game schedule, the Arizona Wild­cat
football team draws over 130,000 fans each fall to the
stadium, and each spring the University'S baseball squad
plays a long schedu le which has frequently taken it into
the College World Series at Omaha. The basketball quintet
annually ranks high in Border Conference play.
Track events are scheduled with Rocky Mountain
and Pacific Coast schools, and in minor sport~ full advan­tage
is taken of the Arizona sunshine for a long season of
tennis, golf, and swimming. A unique student activity is
the University'S famed annual student rodeo, usually held
in February. More than ISO student organizations serve
the wide range of extra-curricular interests of the men and
women enrolled at the University.
Today the University of Arizona counts more than
75,000 former students who live in every community of
Arizona, in all territories and states of the United States,
and in some 40 foreign countries.
Under the leadership of President Richard A. Harvill,
rapid progress is being made in all areas of the University'S
program in the service of the state and nation. He pre­dicts
that, as compared with 15,000 persons receiving edu­cational
services during the current year, there will be
24,000 in 1965, and 36,000 in 1970, and that there will be
expansion of research and extension programs.
PAGE ELEVE • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY 1958
"One of Tucson's 'most appealing qualities is its uncitified closeness to Nature . .. "
TUCSON
gracious living I• n the sun
BY '''ELDON AND PHYLLIS HEALD"
ariety is Tucson's outstanding charac­teristic
and the enjoyment of life
one of its chief products. This is
because the dominating influences in
Arizona's second largest city are
climate, situation, and background.
Ahllost perpetual sunshine, a desert
environment, and nearness to Mananaland of Mexico
have taught the true Tucsonian to live gently while,
at the same time, his Yanke.e heritage shows him how to
live modern. Strangely enough, these two ways of life
do not clash, but rather blend into . a distinctive pattern
unlike that of any other American city. In fact, there
is a pervasive charm to residing in a community that
is old yet young, sophisticated yet unaffected, up-to­date
yet independent of customs and fashions that do
not suit its casual informality.
One of Tucson's most appealing qualities is its unciti­fied
closeness to Nature and the unique beauty of the
surrounding desert. In spite of rapid urban development,
Tucsonians can still drive out into the open country in
a matter of minutes. There, amid giant saguaros and
fragrant creosote bush under the blue Arizona sky, is a
quiet world of peace and relaxation that is perfect medi­cine
for tired nerves. Even in the heart of the bustling
business district, one can look out upon mountains and
sense their calm solitude.
In fact, Tucson has as delightful a natural setting
as any city in the country. It is situated at an altitude
of 2,400 feet in a wide valley where Rillito Creek joins
the Santa Cruz River. Immediately to the north rises the
rugged, mile-high protecting wall of the Santa Catalina
Mountains; to the east, the sprawling Rincons; west is
the jagged skyline of the colorful Tucson Mountains;
and south, the pointed peaks of the Santa Ritas. Along
the river is a wide strip of green irrigated agricultural
land, but in all other directions the desert holds sway
and the very air within the city has the fresh aromatic
tang of the Great Southwest.
In the development of a community, as well as in a
human being, heritage plays an important part. And
Tucson has a living past as old as Christianity itself.
PAGE TWELVE • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY 1958
The very name of the city is derived from the Papago
Indians and is pronounced either Too-SAHN or
TOO-son. The first red-skinned inhabitants dwelt in
twO permanent villages within the present city limits
and another, seven miles south, which archaeologists
say date back about two thousand years. But the earliest
dependable records came from the great Jesuit mission­ary-
explorer, ~ather Eusebio Ki?o, who v~sited th.e .a~·ea
in 1692 and bmlt the first CatholIc church 111 the VICll1lty
eiaht years later. The actual beginnings of white settle­m~
nt are vague, but in 1776 Tucson was already a
Spanish pueblo and in that year the garrison from Tubac
was transferred there. It then became a military walled
town and through the years four flags have flown over
it-the Spanish, Mexican, the Confederate, and the Stars
and Stripes. Tucson attained city status in 1883 and grew
slowly to the turn of the century, when it had 7,500.
But in recent years, the Old Pueblo, as it is still
affectionately called, has become one of the fastest­growing
cities in the United States, and is expanding
and developing with increasing momentum. The popula­tion
of Greater Tucson, which includes Pima County,
has reached 215,000, and there are some 1,200 new
arrivals each month. The city's fame has spread through­out
the country and its attractions as a place to live
have an ever-widening appeal. The Chamber of Com­merce
and the Sunshine Climate Club together receive
about 75,000 letters of inquiry a year from all parts of
the world. The inducements to come to Tucson are
many and varied. It has an outstandingly healthful cli­mate;
it is an unrivalled winter resort; a paradise for
retired people; a growing manufacturing and mining
center; and is the trade capital for Southern Arizona's
vast cattle and agricultural empire.
Some idea of the amazing recent growth of the city
may be had by driving up A Mountain, near the busi­ness
district, or to the end of North Campbell Avenue,
six hundred feet up against the Santa Catalina Moun­tains.
From these viewpoints one looks down over the
busy, burgeoning community spreading for miles across
the valley. The panorama is particularly spectacular at
night, with lines, clusters and constellations of brilliant
lights. In the past decade Tucson has expanded in giant
strides to the north, south and east and each year
reaches further out into the desert. Up to now, west­ward
growth has been impeded by a group of pic­turesque,
steep-pitched hills, but here and there they
have been breached and new residential areas are being
opened up in the pleasant valleys beyond.
The unit of gro'wth is pre-eminently the subdivision.
At least a dozen are developed annually, complete with
paved streets, utilities installed, and rows of attractive
homes ready for occupancy. They vary considerably in
location, sizes of lots, and types of residences, and pro­vide
suitable neighborhoods for almost every income
group. Costs range from about $8,500 for a house with
two bedrooms to around $ 17,500 for a more elaborate
three-bedroom home. In several areas east and north of
town are exclusive country subdivisions, consisting of
small estates of an acre to five acres. Here one may buy
or build a fully equipped, landscaped home costing be­tween
$20,000 and $35,000. Home financing is liberal in
Tucson and varies from no down payment for veterans
to around $450 for others, and monthly payments
" ... an unrivalled winter resort" area . ..
" ... the te'mpo of desert living is quiet . .• "
" ... Tucsonians take pride in their schools . .. "
" ••. decentralization is being balanced by drttmatic downtown developments • ••
range from $45 to about $150.
A few affluent Tucsonians have built homes of $100,-
000 or more, but ostentation has never been a character­istic
of Southern Arizona, and the average house is com­fortable
rather than pretentious. In fact, Tucson is not
a flamboyant city and to the casual visitor may lack the
dash and color of Southern California, Las Vegas, or
its neighbor to the north, Phoenix. But the Old Pueblo
has learned through the wisdom of maturity that the
tempo of desert living is quiet and subdued, and so has
adapted its architecture to the environment.
Therefore, Tucson houses are mostly built of adobe
brick or red brick, witho,ut attempt at show, and follow
t?e Spanish~Mexican design by having comparatively
SImple extenors. The pulse and heart of the home is more
and .more centered in the patio, well-hidden from the
publIc eye. Too, ?ome-o.wners are increasingly reverting
~o desert landscapIng. ThIS solves the summer-winter grass
pro?lem, saves hours of labor, is inexpensive, offers infinite
, chOIce because there are 1,500 varieties of cactus. These
desert plants present. a st~iking effect in May and June
when they bloom WIth bIg waxy blossoms in gorgeous
~hades ~f cream''yell?'~, re.d, lavender and green. A recent
InnOvatIOn that IS gaInIng In popularity is to spread front
yards with a layer of gravel, dyed pink or pale green.
By contrast, the walled patios at the rear are usually
cool, green oases of grass, flowers, shrubs and trees. Here
are the family outdoor living rooms, Tucson style, often
with barbecue and children's play area, and frequently
a swimming pool. The last is not yet standard equipment
but backyard pools can be built for as little as $2,000
and there are more of them each year. Many subdivisions
have large community swimming pools with adjacent
recreation areas. Also several municipal and county pools
are open to the public and, of course, most of the motels ,
and guest ranches have them.
Business is keeping pace with Tucson's growth, and
stores, shops, restaurants, drive-in movies, and branch
banks are following the population outward. Complete
shopping centers arise each year in all parts of the city
to serve the thousands of new home owners. Each has
its super-market, stores and huge parking area. How­ever,
the business leaders of Tucson are convinced that
a healthy, growing city needs a lusty, beating heart. So
decentralization is being balanced by dramatic down­town
development. Within the past year and a half some
$13,000,000 has been expended on new construction and
modernization. These ambitious projects include office
In an expanding c0711munity, residents look to the desert.
buildings, department stores, banks, and other commer­cial
structures, which have completely changed the
aspect of Tucson's business district. Far-seeing plans,
sho\\'ing confidence in the city's future, are now being
prepared to develop the downtown area further. Prob­lems
being worked on are to provide off-st reet parking
and easier access, as a part of a city-wide arterial street
system to be completed by 1970. Friday night is a down­town
Tucson institution, Stores remain open until 9: 00
P.M. and the streets arc thronged.
. Living in Tucson is, in some wa:'s, leading a double
hfe. For the Old Pueblo h~s two distinct personalities­energetic
in winter and easy going in summer. vVith an
average of 35,000 visitors annualh-, it is a most cosmo­politan
place from November to ·May. Streets are filled
\\'ith cars bearing out-of-state license plates and \'isitors
enthusiastically indulge in parties, horseback riding,
fiesta.s, sight-seeing, horse and dog racing, s\\'imming,
huntll1g, mountain and desert trips, and visits to Old
Mexico and Papagoland. In winter hotels and motels are
crowded and guest ranches are filled, apartments are
hard to get and trailer courts resemble mechanized
armies, with their rows of mobile homes.
But the true Tucsonian, if you ask him, will likely
admit that he loves his city best in summer. During the
warmer months tensions are relaxed and living becomes
quieter and less strenUOllS. True, one must be prepared
for daytime temperatures of 100 degrees or more from
June to September. But it is a dry heat that loses its
force after the Slln has set. And in an ultra-modern city,
such as Tucson, high temperatures need no longer be
dreaded. Stores, office buildings, theatres and restaurants
are now all artificially cooled, and air-conditioned homes
and automobiles have extracted the sting from sum­mer
heat.
1\ lany also feel that the country is at its finest dur­ing
the hot season and that winter visitors do not see
Southern Arizona at its best. Cloudscapes are then mag­nificent,
and after the refreshing showers of July and
August the desert is often unbelievably green and lush,
and spread with a varicolored carpet of wildAowers.
The nights, too, are a pleasure to anticipate. There
can be no more breathtaking beauty than a full moon
shining over the Southwestern desert on a summer's
night. Cactuses become black ghosts in a gleaming. sil­vered
world; \\'arm, soft breezes breathe the fragTance­of
growing things; and an utter silence makes life- stand
still. Then the meaning of time is lost in universal time-
PAG E FIFTEEN • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY 1958
lessness, and from the desert, the night sky, and the air, •
one feels a closeness to eternity.
But fortunately or unfortunately, according to the
viewpoint, a change has come over the Old Pueblo in
recent years. The city no longer sinks ~nto its . former
summer siesta, and there has been a noticeable Increase
in business and general activity during the warmer
months. Also more and more visitors are beginning to
realize the charm of the Arizona desert in summer and,
surprisingly enough, the day may: not ?e f~r dista?t whe!1
Tucson will be a year-round tounst obJective. ThIS transI­tion
from a winter resort to an active full-fledged metro­politan
center is perhaps the most significant develop­ment
in Tucson's rapid growth.
But, although comparatively small, the city has long
been proud of its many and diverse cultural and educa­tional
advantages. Among the foremost of these is the
University of Arizona, which was established in 1885, and
occupies a pleasant, tree-shaded, hundred-acre campus
near the center of town.
On the campus is the Arizona State Museum, a fas­cinating
place to browse for those interested in the
Indians of the Southwest. The two-story building houses
over 100,000 archaeological and natural history speci­mens,
and contains outstanding exhibits on the Apache
Indians, dating prehistory by the tree-ring method, and
ancient Indian textiles, pottery, stone and bone work.
An alcove is devoted to Ventana Cave and one can trace
a stratified record of Man's occupancy of the region for
the past ten thousand years. Particularly fine are the
realistic dioramas showing prehistoric human and animal
life.
Across the street from the University is the hand­some
Spanish-Mexican style building of the Arizona
Pioneers Historical Society. Here are displayed relics
which graphically depict the state's development since
the coming of the White Man in 1540. The valuable
library of Arizoniana is pre-eminent in its field and con­tains
books, documents, manuscripts, records and photo­graphs,
as well as files of most of the state's early news­papers,
such as the Tombstone Epitaph and the Tubac
Arizonian. There is nothing about Arizona that cannot
be dug out of the Pioneers library, and in the reading
room are seen well-known Western fiction writers,
scholarly professors, distinguished historians, and even
treasure hunters on the trail of lost mines and buried
loot. Tucson is indeed fortunate in regard to libraries,
for there is also the huge and comprehensive University
Library, and the Carnegie Free Library, in Armory
Park, near the downtown section.
On the campus, too, is the striking, contemporary
style building of the University of Arizona's College of
Fine Arts. One unit cO!:sists of an art gallery that houses
the excellent Kress Collection of Renaissance paintings
and the Gallagher Collection of Modern Art. It is also
the center for exhibits of the work of the University's
art students. Adjoining is a fuUy equipped modern
the.atre in which the Drama Department conducts a
senes of plays during the winter season. Well attended
by the public, the productions vary from Shakespeare
to .recent Broadway hits and are given with considerable
flaIr and professionalism. The Old Pueblo, in fact, has
been strongly theatre-conscious since the early days.
Although now, of course, road shows are a rarity, the fa­mous
Tucson Community Theatre and the Arizona Corral
NOTES FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS
OPPOSITE PAGE
"UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA CAMPUS SCENE" BY RAY
MANLEY. 5X7 Linhof camera; Anscochrome; £.25 at 11z5th sec.;
121 mm. Super Angulon lens; July 30, 1957; bright sunlight; ASA
400 meter. Scene taken on the University of Arizona campus
from Old Main looking toward the northwest and the U. of A.
Library. The University has enjoyed prodigious growth since
World War II. In the past twelve years twenty-one major build­ings
have been completed or are under construction. The campus,
with luxurious semi-tropical landscaping, is considered one of
the most beautiful in the country.
FOLLOWING PAGES
"DESERT SPRING-TUCSON" BY RAY MANLEY. 5X7 Linhof
camera; Anscochrome; £.22 at 11z5th sec.; 210 mm. Symar lens;
May, 1957; bright, hazy sky; 400 ASA meter. Photograph taken
in Tucson Mountain Park, seven miles north and west of Tucson.
Guests from nearby guest ranches have a real treat when they
take their rides in the spring when the desert blooms. Fields of
desert poppies cover the rolling hills surrounded by saguaro and
other cacti. Poppies come each year, but only after the right
combination of rainfall and spring weather conditions do they
blanket the area.
"TUCSON'S DESERT GARDEN-SAGUARO NATIONAL
MONUMENT" BY WESTERN WAYS. 4X5 Graphic view
camera; Ektachrome, f.22 at 1/ 10th sec.; 5" Ektar lens, May, 1954;
bright 3 o'clock sun; Weston 300 meter reading. Photograph
taken in Saguaro National Monument. The area is very popular
for guests at desert dude ranches and resorts' for horseback riding
during winter and spring months. Tucson's splendid winter cli­mate
makes the area one of America's busiest resort areas.
"SAGUARO LANDSCAPE" BY RAY MANLEY. 5X7 Linhof
camera; Anscochrome; f.25 at Ilzsth sec.; 210 mm. Symar lens;
early May; bright "sidelighting with ASA 400 meter reading.
Photograph taken from first viewpoint in Saguaro National
Monument, seventeen miles east of Tucson. Late spring and early
summer bring out a blooming desert when rains have been lib­eral.
Visitors to the Saguaro National Monument last year num­bered
115,000. The area is another of Tucson's important tourist
attractions.
CENTER PANEL
"TUCSON PANORAMA-A DESERT EVENING" BY RAY
MANLEY AND TOMMY CARROLL. 5X7 Linhof camera;
Anscochrome; f.11 with two exposures; first, at 1/ 10th sec.,
second, ~ two hours later at 10 seconds exposing for city lights;
10" Goertz Artar lens; August 5, 1957; Extreme late evening at
moment suh had set for first exposure, total darkness for second
exposure of city lights; ASA 13 for first exposure. Photograph
of Tucson from A mountain showing new buildings in the
downtown section. Picture was made after sundown to record
a night or evening effect, requiring a slightly underexposed first
exposure ~nd a wait of several hours so that second prolonged
exposure recorded only city lights and no sky, etc. Though the
camera was very rigid, it was still necessary to support the
extended bellows with a second tripod. Tucson is one of several
cities doing something about its downtown area relati\"e to out­lying
shopping areas. The entire town is rapidly replacing old
buildings with new modern construction, designed to keep the
customer interested in downtown shopping.
Historic San Xavier Mission
PAGE SIXTEEN • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY 1958
RAY MANLEY
"Tucson's Desert Garden-Saguaro National Monument"
WESTERN WAYS
"Saguaro Landscape" RAY MANLEY
CENTER PANEL
"Tucson Panorama - A Desert Evening"
RAY MANLEY
I
"February Is Rodeo Time in Tucson" WESTERN WAYS
"Thousands Winter Under the Warm Sun" RAY MANLEY
------
"FEBRUARY IS RODEO TIME IN TUCSON" BY WEST- •
ER WAYS. 4X5 Graphic view camera; Ektachrome; f.9 at
I/50th sec.; 5" Ektar lens; bright 1:00 o'clock sunlight in Feb­ruary;
Weston 300 meter reading. Opening day of La Fiesta de
Los Vaqueros, Tucson's annual rodeo is a gala day for the Old
Pueblo. The event is always scheduled on Washington's Birthday.
This is one of the major rodeos in the U.S.A., and features cham­pion
performers and stock. At the start of the rodeo, the grand
entry and presenting of the colors brings everyone to their feet
for the national anthem. Then there's a great shout, "Let's rodeo"
as the contestants, rodeo queen, trick riders and officials ride from
the arena and the first rodeo event gets under way. The Fiesta
this year will be held Feb. 20 through Feb. 23. Several hundred
thousand people will line Tucson's streets for the big rodeo
parade the morning of the 20th.
"THOUSA DS WINTER UNDER THE WARM SUN" BY
RAY MANLEY. 5X7 Linhof camera; Ektachrome; f.22 at IllOth
sec.; 90 mm. super f.S wide angle lens; May, [957; bright noon
sunlight; 400 ASA meter reading. Pictures of this type require
use of variety of lenses, and in this case a wide angle of more
than normal covering power was required. The desert around
Tucson is dotted with scores of dude ranches, large and small,
as well as resorts and inns. Thousands of visitors come each year
from all over the world to enjoy Tucson's warm winter sun and
relax in pleasant and restful surroundings.
"ALL THE CHAMPS GATHER DURING GOLF TOURNEY
TIM:£,' BY RAY MANLEY AND TOMMY CARROLL. 4X5
Crown Graphic camera, Anscochrome; f.[6 at [/50th sec.; 5"
Symar lens; bright winter sunlight; ASA 400 meter reading. One
of the highlights of the winter season in Tucson is the Open
Golf Championship, in which leading professional golfers par­ticipate.
Tucson's fine golf courses, plus fine weather, combine
to make golf a popular winter sport for visitors and Tucsonans
alike. The 12th annual Tucson $[5,000 Open Golf Tournament
will be held this year from Jan. 30 through Feb. 2 at Del Rio
Country Club.
"BATTER UP!" MAJOR LEAGUE SPRING TRAINING IN
TUCSON" BY RAY MANLEY AND TOMMY CARROLL.
4X5 Linhof camera; Anscochrome; f.22 at [/z5th sec.; f.6.S
Schneider Angulon wide angle lens; brilliant March sunlight;
ASA 400 meter reading. The Cleveland Indians of the American
League have for a number of years used Tucson for their spring
training site. The Old Pueblo becomes baseball mad during March
and early April when the Indians host such other major league
teams as the Giants, Cubs, Red Sox and Orioles.
OPPOSITE PAGE
"RANCH HAPPY GUESTS AT A TUCSON RANCH" BY
WESTERN WAYS. 4X5 Graphic view camera; Ektachrome;
f.16 at [/zoth sec.; 5" Ektar lens; March; bright sunlight at 3:00
P.M.; Weston 350 meter reading. The corral at a Tucson guest
ranch is a popular place when it is time to go riding in the
desert. The informality of western life makes these guest ranches
so popular for people wanting to escape for a few days or a
few weeks, hectic city life and cold winters elsewhere.
DeGTazia's Mission in the Sun
Theatre furnish legitimate stage fare of high quality. THe
latter performs "in the round" and gives a series of five
plays during the summer. There is also a lively and en­thusiastic
Laboratory Theatre operated by the Dramatic
Arts Department of the. Tucson High School.
Painters, sculptors, writers, musicians, and even
actors are discovering a vital artistic stimulus in Tucson.
Here the landscape painter finds endless inspiration; the
portraitist a challenging variety of type~; the author a
vast field of almost untouched material; the musician a
background of Indian, Mexican, and Southwestern folk­lore
and songs. Whether amateur or professional, photog­raphers,
too, are in their element, and Southern Arizona
has produced several with national reputations. Encour­agement
to local artists is given by the Tucson Fine Arts
Association, which maintains its own gallery, and there
are a dozen other centers that exhibit the work of local
artists in painting, sculpture, prints, ceramics, fabric de­signs,
and jewelry.~ Several years ago Tucson artists
established a plan of renting their canvases for periods
of weeks or months. Thus, for a modest sum any resident
of the city may have the opportunity to enjoy and live
with outstanding works of art by men and women of
renown.
Many of Tucson's cultural activities revolve around
the University Auditorium. Here, during the winter
months, is held the Sunday Evening Forum, sponsored
by the Catalina Methodist Church. This series brings
each week the world's leading lecturers and has the repu­tation
of being the largest community forum in the United
States. Given free to the public, it is supported by sub­scription,
and the list of patrons reads like a Blue Book
of prominent Tucsonians. The Saturday Morning Mu­sical
Club and the Tucson Festival Society also sponsor
famous concert artists, dance groups and orchestras at
the Auditorium. The former organization maintains its
own 95o-seat theatre, the Temple of Music and Art,
which is a center for i large variety of local and travel­ing
entertainment. Chamber music is brought to town by
the Arizona Friends of Music and others, while there are
frequent appearances of the first-class Tucson Symphony
Orchestra, the internationally known Tucson Boys
Chorus, the Boys Band, and the Tucson Civic Chorus.
Like most rapidly growing areas, both the city and
Pima County have had to sprint to expand educational
facilities fast enough to take care of the constantly in­creasing
numbers of young people. But Tucsonians take
pride in the high standards of their schools and have
squarely faced the problem by adopting a building pro­gram
designed to accommodate an estimated I7 per cent
rise in school attendance by I960. This means an addi­tional
4,300 students a year. Elementary schools will
be increased from thirteen to seventeen, and high
schools from four to eight. One ultra-modern high
school costing over $4,000,000 has recently been com­pleted
and another is now under construction. Tucson
high schools have a complete vocational training pro­gram,
and offer many classes in adult education, as well
as the standard four-year course. The University of
Arizona also offers evening classes on many subjects,
which are open to outside registration. There are a num­ber
of private, parochial, and specialized schools, and
the area was one of the first to develop the so-called
ranch school, where young Tucsonians and children
from all over the United States live a healthy outdoor
PAGE TWENTY-FIVE • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY I958
TUCSON -dude ranch capitol of the world
Around Tucson there's a tale told about the time, many years ago, when
a stranger hiked into a nearby cattle ranch and asked if he might take
room and board there while he wrote a novel. The rancher allowed as
how it would be all right, and so the stranger stayed .
His name was Harold Bell Wright. The novel was called "The Mine with
the Iron Door." And that-according to the legend -was the start of the
dude·ranch industry in and around Tucson.
Since then a lot of dudes have gone over the saddle horns, for there
are today no less than 43 guest ranches in the Tucson area. Every year
people from everywhere distribute themselves -among these 43 ranches and
settle down to some of the rugged-but-not.too·gosh-darned·rugged living
that such ranches afford. Then, a few weeks or few months later, they go
home- perhaps a little tougher, certainly a little tanner, and with an odd
tendency to drop their 11915" and speak of "chuckll when they {neon "dinner."
In case you didn't know, not all dude ranches are alike. Some specialize
in entertaining family groups, with plenty of facilities for the kids. Others
prefer adu lts - married or single. Several combine cattle with guests. One
caters exclusively to people who are reducing,
Some of the guest ranches are rustic, with adobe buildings, wooden
sidewalks, benches in the dining room and chandeliers made out of old
wagon wheels. Others look a little like a piece of the Statler plucked out
of Manhattan and transported to the Arizona desert. You rough it in tiled
swimming pools and on carpets as thick as a cowboy's tongue on Saturday
night, and you pay accordingly.
While we're on that not·irrevelant subject, let it be said that dude­ranch
rates range from about $75 per week per person to $35 per day
per person. The price usually includes meals, horseback·riding, sight.seeing
trips and other normal activities. Bear in mind that a somewhat· better.than.
average motel makes an in·season charge of $8 or $9 per day or somewhere
in the neighborhood of $60 per week (and that's without meals). Thus it
becomes apparent that a dude·ranch vacation isn't necessarily an improvi­dent
indulgence.
The typical guest ranch in southern Arizona is a higgledy·piggledy of
buildings scattered over an acre or so of desert. There's a large structure
containing a dining hall, kitchen and living room. There are smaller, indi­vidual
cottages or sleeping rooms for the guests, set apart for privacy.
There's a corral, swimming pool, shuffleboard court, perhaps a tennis court,
maybe even a putting green or polo field.
How many other guests will you find at your dude ranch? That depends,
naturally, on the size of the ranch (and how good the season is), but the
ranches in this area run from about 15 guests at the smallest to 60 at the
largest. The latter, of course, would be very nearly in the resort class.
Every ranch has its dude wrangler. He conducts the horseback rides,
keeps the dudes and the horses reasonably at peace with each other and
serves as the ranch handyman. Occasionally (although not as often as the
movies would suggest) he marries one of the guests and goes off to become
prince consort of a Long Island mansion.
Well, that's dude ranching in the Tucson country. If it sounds as though
this is for the likes of you, write to the Tucson Chamber of Commerce or
Sunshine Climate Club for a list of ranches. Pock a couple 01 pairs of blue
jeans and a bottle of suntan oil. Buy yourself a ticket to Tucson and-
Have lunl
Informality keynotes guest ranch life.
yvestern life. So if it is engineering or carpentry, barber­mg
or bea uty culture, business or art, Right trainino',
nursing or dancing, competent courses and instructo~s
can be found in Tucson. T he Uni ve rsity even has a
splendidly equipped Radio and TV Bureau in which
students are fully trained in the techniques of mass com­muni
cation over the air \I·aves.
Several schools of religious instru ction refl ect the
fact that the Old Pueblo rea lly began as a Roman Catho­lic
mission to the Indians, two and a half cent uries ago,
and has always been a strong religions center. The citv is
the only seat of a Catholic di ocese in Arizona and' its
bishop presides over San Augustin Cathedral. This is a
prominent, gleaming whi te sp-ucture of modified Span­ish
design, with twin towers and a red tile roof, built in
1897. Today there arc nea r l.v I So churches, representing
some 36 or more di ffe rent fa iths, and in connection with
many of them are rea ding rooms, recrea tion centers, and
facilities for charitable and cul tural acti vities.
In this far west land of warmth and sunshine, church
ar chitecture has sharply broken with Eastern tradition,
and derives its inspirat ion from the city's backoTound
an d surroundi·n gs. As a result, T ucson churches °a re re-markably
va ried in design and conce ption and show a
conscious stri ving for appropriate spiritual expression
of the devout inhabitants of a countrv of dese rts, moun­tains
and vast distances. This makes for freshness and
o ~'is'in a iity and is a feature often remarked upon by
vIsitors.
Although not a consecrated chu rch, the unique Mis­sion
in the Sun is a stri king example of one man's effort
to express his religious feelings in the desert. Hidden
among the Cat alina foothills is a small chapel designed
and built bv a T ucson artist, Ted DeGrazia with the
help of Indian labor. The workmanship is ~rude, the
walls are uneven, and the dirt fl oors rough. Bm murals
cove.r the interi o.r surfaces and are highlig ht~ d by the
movll1g s.un, which shllles through the partially open
roof and 111 the course of a day illuminates each painting.
The effect is a dramatic achievement in simplicity and
charm.
Near the downtown area are two more exampl es
of the religious expression of individual Tucsonians. One
is the Wishing Shrine, \I ·here one mav li g'ht ~ ca ndle at
dusk and make a wish. If it burns nritil dawn the wish,
they sa.v, is bound to come trn e. The other is the Garden
of Gethsemane, on the west bank of the Santa Cruz
Ri ver. H ere another artist fa shi oned om of concrete
re p ro du c~i Ol:s of the Last Supper, the Holy Family , and
the CrUCifiXion. But of course, supreme amono' Tucson's
religious structures is j\/[ission San X:wier deloRa c, seven
miles south of town. Call ed "The White Dove of the
Desert," it is one of the most sup:: rbly bea utiful churches
in the Southwest. Since its completion in 1797 , the mis­sion
has been in continuous usc and the cOlwregati on
today is largely composed of Papago Indians °who are
descendants of the o ri ~ in a l cOlllmunica nts.
H owever, the Old Pueblo can offer many other
visual proofs of its Spanish, Mexican and pioneer past.
The. rums of Fort Lowell, built in 1873 as mili tary pro­tectIOn
from the fi erce, marau ding Apaches, lllay still
be seen. And Old T O\l'n, near the business district, retains
much of the character of ea rly Tucson. Center is La
Placita Park, a ty pical Mexican plaza, and nea rby arc
narrow streets fl anked b:' centur:, old adobe houses, with
PAGE TWE).'TY - SIX • A RIZON A
doorways opening directly onto the pavement. However,
behind each entrance is a walled patio fill ed with gera­niums,
cactuses and other growing plants. For the Mexi­can
people love fio,vers and color, and in the privacy
of their homes, no matter how humble, both will be
found. These picturesque old houses are now fast dis­appearing,
but Tucson still has an opportunity to save
or reconstruct a representative segment of its Spanish­Mexican
past and to preserve it for posterity, as has Los
Angeles with Olvera Street or Albuquerque at Old T own
Plaza.
The city's fondness for fiestas, celebrations and
dances also is inherited from its heterogeneous past.
Mexican residents of Old Town hold gala celebrations
each spring and fall at La Placita, which include music,
street dancing, and booths where Mexican delicacies
may be purchased. The Indians, too, maintain their cere­monies
as they have for centuries. One of the most
spectacular of these is the annual celebration commemo­rating
the founding of San Xavier del Bac. It consists
of a colorful procession followed by a full evening of
Papago and Yaqui dances. The latter Indians also stage
elaborate ceremonies in native style a week before
Easter at Pascua Village, northwest of town, and in
Barrio Libre, to the south.
Western square and round dances stem from pioneer
days and have become universally popular in recent
years. Enthusiasts will find regularly organized square
dance clubs meeting almost every night of the week.
Both the City and County Recreation Departments con­duct
free square dance classes in cooperation with the
Tucson Community Square Dance Council. Each January
the Southern Arizona Square Dance Festival is held in
Tucson, attracting hundreds of dancers and well-known
callers. Also in January is the sparkling La Baile de las
Flores, the famed charity ball which marks the height
of the winter social season.
But undoubtedly the biggest community event of
the year is La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros. For this, both
Tucsonians and visitors don Western garb for four days
in February and celebrate with a mammoth parade, a
world championship rodeo, dances, kangaroo court, and
assorted festivities over which a young and beautiful
"Queen" presides with gracious charm. Quieter and
more serious, but equally important, is the four-day
Pima County Fair held in October at the large and well­equipped
fairgrounds at the southern edge of the city.
But every day the year round Tucson offers excep­tional
opportunities for recreation and a variety of sports,
for both active participants and spectators. There are
four golf courses, one of which is municipally owned and
open to the public, and the Tucson Open Golf Tourna­ment
draws top professionals from all parts of the coun­try.
The Old Pueblo is represented by a lively baseball
team in the Arizona-Texas League, nicknamed the Cow­boys,
and is also spring training headquarters for the
American League Cleveland Indians. Most games are
played at night under the lights at city-owned Hi Corbett
Field in Randolf Park. In the fall thousands of footb all
fans jam the University'S Stadium to watch the home
games of the U. of A. Wildcats, which are also played
at night. There is thoroughbred and quarter horse rac­ing
from November to May at Rillito Park, and dog
races are held at Tucson Greyhound Park during the
winter season. Tennis is popular every day of the year, as
HIGHWAYS • F E BRUARY 19S 8
Concert at San Xavier
TUCSON'S-am.bassadors of good will
Back in the late 1930's, a good·looking young Englishman bearing the
latin name of Eduardo Coso arrived in Tucson with a small dream tucked
into a for corner of his mind. He wanted to organize a boys' chorus.
In due course, the dream acquired fo rm and substance, helped along
by Coso's special brand of dynamism and determination. Today the Tucson
Arizona Boys Chorus (which is its full, proper Clnd official name) is an
important part of the Tucson scene. But, more than that, it has done almost
as much to ~pread the fame of Tucson as the Chamber of Commerce and
Sunshine Climate Club combined. For this bunch of bright-eyed boys, wear·
ing cowboy boots and Levis, comprise one of the most celebrated choral
groups in the country. They have sung all over the United States, throughout
Europe, on the battleship Wisconsin ond in New York's Town Hall. And
wherever they've appeared, making their beautiful music together, people
have gone away thin'king nice thoughts about Tucson.
The chorus started out modestly · enough, as things of that sort usually
do. At its first concert in 1939, it consisted of eight boys. In 1940, when it
appeared in concert, there were 250 paid admissions - mostly relatives.
Then the chorus acquired a sponsor- a local radio station - and began
to grow. Civic clubs pitched in and helped. In 1950 the chorus was incor.
porated. That same year Coso and his boys went east for the first time.
Since then there's been no stopping them. They've sung on radio net­works.
They've appeared on Ed Sullivan's TV show. They entertained 20,000
Rotarians in convention assembled. Under the aegis of Columbia Artists
Management, Inc., they swing out around the country on concert tours every
season. And in 1955 they made their first European tour. (They would have
gone again in 1956 except for some unpleasantness involving Suez.)
The chorus consists - not 01 prodigies - but of ordinary Tucson boys
from ordinary Tucson families. Their ages range from 8 to 16. Coso selects
them on the basis of musical aptitude and character. The training he gives
them is strenuous, exacting and disciplined. But the boys love it- and Coso
as well.
Needless to say, they also love getting out of school every winter for
their annual tour. But special tutoring to make up for lost time always awaits
them when they get home. And their grades run consistently high.
There's no hard and fast rule as to when a boy leaves the chorus. Nature
takes care of that. A chorister simply ceases to be a chorister when his voice
changes. He's known in the business as an "overnight baritone."
Eduardo Coso is, of course, proud of the musical quality of his chorus.
(Even the austere and frequently disdainful New Yorker called "admirably
drilled" and spoke of its "rare control and purity of tone.") But Coso is
even prouder of the organization's character·building proclivities. His "alum·
ni" have gone on to be presidents of student bodies, captains of athletic
teams and graduates of Annapolis. One was a page in the U.S. Senate.
Another won a Rhodes scholarship. "To become a first·rate choral singer,"
says Coso, "a boy must learn to concentrate and to accept discipline. These
qualities ... make him a doer and a leader."
That the "doers" of the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus have been doing
very well for themselves is evidenced by their scrapbook of rave reviews and
their standing in the concert world. But, meanwhile, they've been doing very
well by their home town, too. Every concert - whether in Minneapolis or
Madrid, Oklahoma City or Oslo - brings honor to the name 01 Tucson. "The
finest walking advertisement Q city ever had," is the way a Chicago news-­paper
once described the chorus, and Tucson is fully and happily aware
that this is so.
In Colossal Cave
Old Adobe Patio-downtown Tucson
TUCSON-a civilized city
Elliott Arnold, the author of "Blood Brother" and other notable works,
once wrote that Tucson is a city with a "personality." This being the case
(and who, having ever seen Tucson, would deny it?), what are the ingredients
of its " personality" ?
Everyone probably would answer that question differently. But surely
everyone would include one particular ingredient, i.e., Tucson's affinity for
the arts of civilization.
This cultural flowing is manifested on every hand in the Old Pueblo.
You see it in the numbers of art galleries and museums and in the variety
of artists and writers holding forth there. You see it also in the city's durable
symphony orchestra, its in-season concerts (no less than three separately
sponsored series each winter), the little theatre groups (two of them), the
Saturday Morning Musical Club, the formidably ambitious Tucson Festival
... well, the list could go on indefinitely.
Consider, for a moment, those two last-named groups. They're typical
of the way Tucson goes about the business of fostering the arts.
The Saturday Morning Musical Club dates all the way back to 1907.
It was and still is predominantly a women's organization. But its impact on
the life of the community goes for beyond what you might expect of the
average women's club. For, over a period of many years, the club has
brought some of the greatest personalities of the concert stage to Tucson.
And, besides, it built an auditorium in which to present them. The audi­torium
is known as the Temple of Music and Art, a faintly mid-Victorian
name which somehow seems to fit both Tucson and the Saturday Morning
Musical Club.
The Tucson Festival is not nearly so venerable an organization, having
been founded in 1950. But it, too, is leaving its mark on the community
and, in addition, is a measure of the extent to which Tucson may be
considered a truly civilized city.
What the Festival set out to do - and has quite clearly succeeded in
doing- is to weave together in a single fabric the many artistic threads
of Southwestern life. Each year Tucson gives itself over to its Festival. There
are exhibits of paintings. There is fine dancing. There is music. There are
lectures. For two weeks this goes on, and the whole community is a part
of it, and when it's over, Tucson and its people are a little richer for the
fact that it happened.
Why this cultural vitality in Tucson?
Well, there's the state university, for one thing. Its mere presence gives
sanction and stimulus to the arts. The university teaches music and art and
drama. Its faculty people share their talents and enthusiasms with the com­munity.
And thus the university has become a kind of cultural fulcrum
for Tucson.
There's another factor-the very setting of Tucson. It is a city of great
beauty, surrounded by the greater beauty of mountains and desert. And so
there have come to Tucson many practitioners of the arts- painters, writers,
musicians-who find in the beauty of their physical surroundings a balm and
an aid to creative production.
Thirdly, the fact of having a reputation for being an "artistic" city
helps to make Tucson all the more "artistic." People interested in the arts
are drawn to Tucson every year for no other reason than that others were
drawn there before them. They know they will find a cultural climate
sympathetic to their kind.
There are other factors, probably. It would be pointless to list them all.
The important thing is that Tucson is hospitable to the arts, and that makes
it a very nice town to visit and, in many ways, even nicer to live in.
unit of g1'Owth is pre. h bd'" "
c r111il1ently t e SZl tvtSlon.
are swimming, riding, and trap or skeet shooting. I? fact, tiful "wilderness of unreality" among thousands of c1us-there
are facilities for almost all sports and games III and tered saguaros, reaching heights of forty to fifty feet.
around Tucson, as well as fr equent dog shows, horse To the southeast is Colossal Cave, an extensive limestone
shows, bird shows, home shows, and other eVents for . b d I'd Th .
cavern and one-tIme an it 11 eout. e cave IS a county
the entertainment of the public. T here are a score . of park an d gut' de d tours 0 f t h e we II -II' gIl te d m' ten.o r may
guest ranches in the vicinity, and a recent innovatIOn be made over an easy tra il. In the Santa Catalina foothills,
in summer are package weekends at . some of t hese .. A just north of town, are Sabino Canyon and Bear Canyon
whole T ucson family can go at a nom ma~ rate a ~d enJoy Recreation Areas, developed by the U. S. Forest Service
s\\'imming, riding, barbecues, square dancmg, or J u~t tak- with roads and improved picnic grounds along wooded
ing it easy at luxury resorts within a half hou~ drIve of streams and small artifi cial lakes. Another easily reached
home. mountain retreat is Madera Canyon in the Santa Ritas,
But perhaps the most believ~-it-or-not re~reation of to the south. It is particularly noted for its rare varieties
this desert city is the new enthUSIasm for .boatmg . . ~ here of birds.
are now three "boat docks" in town, With surpnsmgly But the most popular and thoroughly used recrea-marine
atmosphere, which sell boats, outboard motors tional area is Mount Lemmon. This is T ucson's natural
and fi shing tackle. Each week end hundreds of Tuc- air-conditioned penthouse during the hot months. Loftiest
sonians load their craft on trailers and head for the deep- summit of the Santa Catalinas, with an elevation of 9, 185
sea fishing grounds of the Gl~lf of Californi~ or the lakes feet, it is a magnificent summer and winter playground
of the Salt River, with theIr fine reputatIOn for bass. reached by the paved, forty-mile Hitchcock Highway.
However, one needn't be a boat owner to enjoy fi shing T he Catalinas are within a section of Coronado National
below the border. Punta Penasco and Guaymas, Mexico's Forest, and high amid mountaintop pines and firs they
famed resorts on the Gulf, are less than a day's drive, offer a sharp contrast to the desert valleys below. Here
and during the winter, fishing parties fly down in a are several summer cabin colonies, a rustic resort and
couple of hours. village, campgrounds and a snow bowl for winter skiing,
This proximity to a foreign land is one great atrac- with rope tows, snack bar and warming house. In fact,
tion T ucson holds for visitors and residents alike. T here a drive up Mount Lemmon takes the visitor in little more
are not many cities in the United States fron: which ~ne than an hour into a climate comparable to that of south-can
drive sixty-five miles and leave th e Enghsh-speakll1g ern Canada.
world behind. The highway is wide, smooth and almost So Tucson is both a world-famous resort and a cos-straight
that leads to the twin border cities ~f N ogales, mopolitan ~ity. It has an increasingly solid foundation
Arizona, and Sonora. Along the route traffic sIgns appear of manufacturing. It is a military center of importance,
in Spanish as well as English and one can obey the law with Davis Monthan Field, one of the country's largest,
by driving under 60 miles an hour or 97 kilometros por employing more than 22 ,000 Air Force and civilian per-bo'ra.
Tucsonians find Nogales a fascinating place fo r sonnel. It is served by three air lines, several bus lines,
novelty shopping and there are .few homes in ~he O!d and a transcontinental railroad. It has seven radio broad-
Pueblo which do not show the mfluence of theIr Lat1l1 casting stations, three television stations, and is becoming
neighbor to the south. increasingly popular for motion picture and teleplay
In every direction out of Tucson are places to go locations. The city is adult politically, with the good
and things to see. W est of the city is 28,000-acre Tucson fortune to have two daily papers which give both the
Mountain Park, a magnificent county-owned desert tract Democratic and Republican viewpoints, nationally and
traversed by a 38-mile loop road. There are fine stands locally . It has fine clubs, good restaurants, and a gracious
of saguaro cactus; the quaint movie set, "Old T ucson," social life. It is a growing medical center , with excellent
reputed to be a reproduction of the town in the I 86~'s; hospitals and clinics. In fact, it is a city to be proud of.
and the unique Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, WIth But so long as Tucson clings to r emembrance of
zoo, botanical garden and natural history exhibits per- things past; as long as one sees squaw dresses on the
tainina to the arid Southwest and Northern Mexico. ~treets and in the stores; as long as ther e are cowboys
T he park has several picnic grol~nds and ~any miles of In ten-gallon hats sitting in hotel lobbies and bars; as long
scenic trails. Further to the west IS the fascmatmg 2,500,- as .one feels the warmth of the desert sun; as long as one
ooo-acre Papago Indian Reservation. enJoys a siesta and smiles at the word manana; and as
Seventeen miles east of Tucson is Saguaro N ational l o~&, as candles are burning at the Wishing Shrine, the
Monument, with an area of 55,000 acres. Its western part SpltIt of the Old Puebl o will live on and all Tucsonians
contains A rizona's fin est and densest " forest" of giant will be convinced that theirs is one of the pleasantest
saguaros. A loop road leads through this weird but beau- and most delightful cities in the world.
R esidential areas featurebomes at various prices.
A rizona Pioneers' Historical Society's museum
TUCSON-city of museums
Most cities th. size of Tucson would count themselves lucky to have on.
good museum. Tucson has no less than three. Each of them confines itself
to a specific and well-defined area of interest, One does not duplicate an­ather.
All offer contemplativ. pleasures for the Tucson visitor with time
on his hands.
A drive .... t to the University of Arizona campus will take you within
reach of twa of the museums. One, located just inside the Third Street
entrance to the university, is the Arizona State Museum. The other, located
at 949 East Second St., just west of the campus, is the Arizona Pioneers'
Historical Society.
Bath are conc.rned with Arizona's history. By mutual consent rather
than by law, however, they have chosen different periods. The state museum
embraces pre-history- the dim beginnings of this Southwestern country. It
deals mainly witr. archeology and anthropology. Then the pian.ers' society
takes up where the museum leaves off, covering the period of Arizona'.
recorded hi.tory.
But both th.se institutions are nat merely static museum. with showcases
full of memorobilia for the casual dropper·in to Inspect. They are as pre­occupied
with research and exploration a. with exhibition, and Arizona awes
much to them for the knowledg. of itself that it now po ........
Under-th. auspices of the state museum, for instance, archeologists have
uncov.red clear-cut evidence of life in Arizona extending back same 10,000
years_ One such piece of evidence was found just a few years ago, near
the little barder.straddling town of Naco in .outhern Arizona. It was the
site af an .I.phant kill, only the .lephant wasn't the African .peci •• with
which _ are familiar. It was what anthropologists call a "mammoth:'
standing 10 f •• t high .at the should.rs, with lang, curling tusks. Th.re, at
the kill site, nativ.s trapped and then executed and butch.red the mammoth.
And today, at the lIate mus.um, you can see the bones of this hug. beast
plus a diorama reconstructing the mammoth and oth.r Arizona animal
species long since extinct.
Similarly the pioneers' historical soci.ty is k •• ping alive the spirit af
inquisitiveness and scholarship, to sh.d mar. light an Arizona's y.st.rdays.
Along with its .xhibits of historical articl.s, the society maintains a vast and
ever-growing library of books and documents relating to the state's post.
For scholars, writers and researchers, it is a treasure trove. EliioH Arnold
spent a year and a half at the society, gathering material for "Blood
Broth.r," his best-seller about the Indian, Cochise. Walter Nobl. Burns
researched much of "Tombstone" there.
Out west of Tucson, in Tucson Mountain Park, is 0 different kind of
museum-the Arizona-Sonora O.sert Museum. It's a community project, now
self' sustaining, and it's actually five parts zoo and five parts museum. Here
you see the living desert of Arizona and her neighboring state, Sonora,
M.xica. You see the desert's indigenous animals (alive and everlastingly
fascinating ), its reptiles, birds, insects and natural growth. Here, concen­trated
in a few ocres of saguaro-studded desert, is a veritable education
in zoology, geology, botony and anthropology.
The museum, only a liHle mare than five years old, has caught the
fancy of Tucson and its visitors. Well over a hundred thousand people a
year visit it. Roy Chapman Andrews has called it "truly one of the fore­mast
living museums in the world." And a nicer thing simply couldn't have
happened to the small fry of Tucson and af Tucson's guests,
These, then, are the three museums af Arizona's southern metropolis.
But they are more than museums, for they serve as vital and creative
entities in the life and culture of Tucson and Arizona.
,
TUCSON-boom cit~n a booming state
BY L. vv. CASADAY
DIRECTOR, BUREAU OF BUSI~F.Sl RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
ucson is a modern boom city in a boom­ing
state and region. The extent of its
growth and economic transformation
during the past decade and a half and
the pace at which these are maintained
continue to astound even hardened ob-servers
of western social dynamics.
For in the series of historic population and e~onomic
explosions that have rocked the American Southwest in
the postwar years, Arizona's second largest city is a
major ground zero-one of the points where the force and
the impact of expansion are at their most intense and the
results correspondingly startling.
The process really began with the Second World
War though it has been gaining momentum ever since.
In 1940 the Old Pueblo was a slow-paced tourist and rail­road
t?wn of 58,00? people (only 35,000 in the city limits)
centenng a sprawlll1g cattle, farming and mining county
with a total population of less than 73,000. By 1950 the
county population had jumped 94 percent to a little over
14 1,000, of which all but about 20,000 were residents of
urban or greater Tucson. This is the area where virtually
all of the county's new growth is takinO' place.
!o~ay the "Tucs.on Standard Me~ropolitan Area"
<.whlc.h IS t~le same as PII11a County by U. S. Census defini­tIOn)
IS estimated to have a population of nearly 250 ,000,
of which at least 225,000 are residents of the greater
Tucson community. The municipal limits, still, despite
annexations, far behind the growth of the urban area, con­tain
well over 100,000 persons.
Thus the population of metropolitan Tucson, after
nearly doubling (94 percent gain) during the decade of
the '40'S has increased approximately 75 percent since
1950 and is expected to nearly double again between 1950
and 1960, the projected figure for the latter year being
275,000.
Growth of this order of magnitude is spectacular
even in spectacular Arizona.
Winter visitors and other newcomers and even some
old-timers in sunny Tucson have been heard to inquire:
"But what do people do here to earn their daily bread?
What kind of economy supports this growth? What
makes Tucson tick?"
That questions like these can be asked about a bustling
metropolitan area of nearly a quarter of a million people
suggests the diverse character and somewhat deceptive
appearance of this charming desert city.
~or Tucson is not an obvious or easily typed com­mUI1I~
y. To illustrate, although manufacturing payrolls
c?nstltute its largest single source of basic income, the
~Ity's skyline is unmarred by smokestacks, its desert air
lI1nocent of smog, and its residential sections unblighted
PAGE THIRTY-O E • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY 1958
Tucson's many fine motels, trailer courts, hotels, resorts, and ranches accon1711Odate thousands of visitors annually.
by "industrial" housing. Although long known as a tourist
and health center, it is not dominated by plush skyscraper
hotels, aggressively advertised nightclubs or by any of
the commoner signs and paraphernalia of organized adult
play. And, although traditionally and still today the capital
of a mining and cattle region, the city boasts no smelters,
slag-piles or stockyards . .
Other factors likewise contribute to the city's gener­ally
deceptive first appearances. It is the home of the
highly rated University of Arizona, with its nationally
eminent faculty and an enrollment of approximately 10,-
000 reo-ular, day-time students drawn from throughout
the nation and ·from more than forty foreign countries.
In addition, Tucson is the home of many prominent writ­ers,
painters, musicians and other exponents and patrons
of the arts and the humanities. As a result, the city is justly
famed as an educational, cultural and artistic center with
a distinctly cosmopoliqll1 atmosphere-a highly unusual
circumstance in what is, after all, an industrial city.
And finally, to compound the newcomer's confusion,
Tucson has somehow managed to retain, in the midst of
industrial boom, much of the casual manner and leisurely
pace of its earlier and simpler era as the Old Pueblo. This
heritage from the past frequently masks, though delight­fully
so, the underlying energy and drive which make the
city'S economic wheels hum.
What then are the major elements in Tucson's
economy? In terms of estimated annual payrolls here are
the principal categories:
Manufacturing and
Military
processing $59,000,000
4 6 ,000,000
Civilian government
(federal, state and local)
Wholesale and retail trade
45,000,000
45,000,000
Services and miscellaneous 3 J ,000,000
Transportation, communications
and public utilities 23,000,000
Contract construction 20,000,000 .
Mining 14,000,000
Agriculture . 8,000,000
To the above sources of 1I1come must be added the
estimated $50,000,000 spent annually by tourists, health
seekers, and other visitors in this resort and convention
city.
Some wag once remarked that before the war Tuc­sonians
made their living by "taking in" tourists and each
other's washing. Of course this was never even approxi­mately
accurate and is far less so today. Nevertheless,
tourist expenditures remain one of the important sustain­ing
elements in the economy and will undoubtedly con­tinue
to do so. In fact many competent observers feel
that, despite the long history of tourism in the state, the
surface has hardly been scratched in developing either
Tucson's or Arizona's tourist potential.
The foregoing figures pertain entirely to Pima Coun­ty
with the exception of the military item, which includes
payrolls of the recently established ( 1954) United States
Army Electronic Proving Ground located at historic old
Fort Huachuca, some seventy air miles south of Tucson
in Cochise County. It should be understood, however, that
mining, farming, ranching, trade, and other activities in
the neighboring counties of Cochise, Santa Cruz, Graham,
The giant Hughes Aircraft-Arizona's largest single employer
Pinal and Yuma are partly or largely tributary to Tucson.
The Old Pueblo is truly the economic metropolis of
Southern Arizona and even of points further south. For
to an ever increasing extent Tucson serves as a two-way
distributing point for imports from and exports to the
booming west coast of Old Mexico.
Of the payroll categories listed above, those repre­senting
industry, the military, government (except local) ,
mining and agriculture, along with the expenditures of
tourists, are to be regarded as "basic" or "supporting"
elements in Tucson's economic structure in that they
represent activities which bring money into the area from
the outside. The other items, with some partial exceptions,
represent "dependent" activities, a kind of mutual self­servicing
within the "closed circuit" of the local exchange
economy.
. Since industrial payrolls clearly represent the biggest
slOgle segment of Tucson's basic income, and since this
development is of recent occurrence, two questions logi­cally
arise: what kinds of industries are these? and why
have they chosen to locate in Arizona and in Tucson?
Regarding the first question it can be said at once that
electronics and aircraft account for the bulk of industrial
employment and payrolls in the city. Hughes Aircraft,
producing the famous Falcon guided missile, selected
!~cson as a location in 195 I. Today, with 5,500 workers,
It IS . the largest single employer not only in this com­mUl11ty
but in the state. Its securely guarded plant just
south of the municipal airport covers thirteen acres of
ground under one roof.
Douglas Aircraft came to Tucson in 1954. With cur-rent
employment of more than 1,500, its municipal airport
plant is Tucson's second largest.
These two major firms together account for more
than 7,000 employees or well over half the city's total
industrial and allied labor force of approximately 12,000.
Parenthetically, this current industrial employment figure
for Tucson exceeds the number of industrial workers
in the entire state less than a dozen years ago. The state
figure stood at 11,600 in June 1946.
Despite the relative prominence of its two largest
firms, Tucson is by no means a one- or two-industry town,
nor does all its industry relate exclusively to the elec­tronics-
aircraft complex. Altogether, 203 industrial es­tablishments
have located here, 115 of them since 195 I.
These smaller firms in the aggregate represent an ex­tremely
wide diversity of products and activities.
Some of the small firms, it is true, were attracted by
the market for their products or services created by the
advent ,of Hughes, Douglas and the electronics center at
Fort Huachuca. Seven small electronics manufacturing
firms have located in Tucson and there is a like number
of dealers in electronics equipment of various sorts. At
least two small firms produce experimental aircraft and
aircraft components or engage in aircraft reconditioning
and maintenance.
Several small factories are engaged in such fields
as precision tool and die manufacture, screw machining,
precision heat treating, metal plating, and the manufac­ture
of electrical equipment.
These and many other kinds of small plants in a score
of related activities may have come to Tucson in the first
PAGE THIRTY-THREE • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY 1958
Superb schools of Old Pueblo-an attraction for newcomers
place partly in the hope of serving as auxiliaries or satel­lites
to one or both of the large firms. But in point of fact
most of them are developing independent non-military
oriented markets of their own, often national in scope.
And many of Tucson's industries are totally unrelated
to either aircraft or electronics. Some of them serve the
growing local and state demand and others market their
products also on the west coast and throughout the nation.
For example, a dozen different plants are found pro­ducing
such items as western shirts, boots, squaw dresses,
and other articles of high-fashion sportswear for a grow­ing
national market. Several firms are engaged in the
original designing and crafting of jewelry, ceramics and
leather goods. More than two score of manufacturing es­tablishments
cater principally to the fast-growing local
and state market for food and for building materials and
home equipment and furnishings.
Apart from the foregoing, Tucson's list of industrial
products includes such diverse items as surgical instru­ments,
plastic containers, insulating materials, industrial
and agricultural chemicals, cosmetics, rifle bullets, re­refined
motor oil, metal bird and poultry cages, equipment
for the treating of sewage and other liquids, bulk grinding
equipment for industry, and industrial optical micrometers
and followers.
Why have these industries, large and small, selected
Tucson as a location? The city is, of course, well supplied
with favorable sites, abundant and cheap electricity, natu­ral
gas, water and community services, an excellent labor
pool, and fast rail, truck and air transportation to the west
coast and Texas markets, Midwest and East.
All these factors and others have had their influence
but the greatest attraction has been Tucson's superb cli­mate
and the community amenities which make it fun to
live and work here.
Let's see what Tucson's industrial executives have to
say about some of these location factors.
Here are some excerpts from an address given in
March, 1956, at the University of Arizona's Second State­wide
Industrial Development Workshop by W. W.
Wooldridge, Vice President of Hughes Aircraft and
former plant manager of the company's Tucson operation.
On labor supply: .
"One of the contributing factors causing the decision
to build a plant in Tucson ... was the excellent labor
market."
" ... in 1954, 84 percent of our hires were local
people and in 1955 we hired 2,600 people of which 93
percent were local hires."
" ... it was found that the Tucson Chamber of Com­merce
had on file letters from thousands of skilled and
semi-skilled craftsmen from all over the United States who
were seeking employment in Tucson .... an analysis of
this labor market showed that hundreds of precision tool
makers, jewelers, specialists in the electrical fields, and
supervisory type personnel would move to Tucson pro­viding
they could be assured of employment .... For ex­ample,
we have dozens of skilled jewelers who forsook
their own businesses and are working here today on our
subminiature, high precision electronics product."
On transportation and utilities:
"This area is well located and serviced by major rail
Congenial community life in Tucson makes living pleasant.
lines and truck lines, rapidly being followed by adequate
transportation by air .... The supply of electric power
and natural gas is excellent."
On climate in relation to industrial processes:
"Another feature required for precision electronics
manufacturing is the requirement for controlled tempera­ture
and low humidity .... Much of the installation and
proof-out of electronic equipment in aircraft is performed
outdoors. The climate in this part of the country is most
ideal for outdoor work. Also, should flight tests of aero­nautical
electronic gear be required, flying conditions are
excellent ... with the largest percentage of clear flying
days available for this operation."
On climate in relation to labor procurement and labor
efficiency:
"Doctors had recommended this area for relief to
either [these workers] or members of their families ....
Once these new employees had established their new
homes and had their children located in new schools, and
felt their new-found security, together with improve-'
ments in health conditions ... they in turn wrote back
home to their relatives telling them how pleased they
were with their new-found life.
"We found then that our newly imported employees
we~e Our best employment recruiting organization and
dUrIng the past three years hundreds of friends and
relatives of our early nucleus followed to establish them­selves
here. We have no labor procurement problems."
" ... Our labor turnover is 1.6 percent per month
versus the national average of 3.4 percent and our ab­senteeism
is 2.5 percent per month versus the national
average in this type of industry of 3.2 percent."
On educational and cultural advantages:
"One of the most important advantages in this area
. .. is the educational and cultural facilities ... "
"We consider the progressive University of Arizona
with the rapidly growing Engineering College as a tre­mendous
asset and advantage to our type of industry ....
"Together with this asset we have found that the
secondary and primary schools are excellent in this com­munity
... Our employees have recognized the improve­ment
in their children as compared to their attitude and
general educational indications before coming to the
Southwest."
Bill Wooldridge's foregoing comments are typical.
Executives of other firms, large and small, voice similar
views.
A Douglas official has been quoted as follows: "We
came here for the flying conditions and the airport facili­ties
but we've been pleasantly surprised by other advan­tages.
The labor supply, for instance. We can get engi­neers,
electronics people, machinists-anything we need.
Workers like it here and don't want to move away. They
are healthy, and our absenteeism is incredible-about one
half of one percent. The in-and-out turnover is less than
three percent a year." (Reader's Digest, Sept. 1957.)
The manager of a firm employing about one hundred
women workers said: "People are more cheerful in a
sunny climate, and cheerful workers are good workers."
Another small employer put the same thought this
way: "There are hundreds of trained men in this city who
are here because of the health of some member of the
PAGE THIRTY-FIVE • ARIZONA HIGHWAYS • FEBRUARY 1958
family. Probably hundreds of others are in retirement or
semi-retirement but still " 'ant to keep busy. These are
here but thousands like them would come if they were
sure of a job. At the worst, a little direct advertising in
the eastern part of the country would solve any labor
supply problem Tucson is likely to have. So far we've
never had to advertise for help outside the city."
The special suitability of Tucson as a location for
industrial research deserves a lengthy treatise of its own.
The unique combination of climate, superior educational
facilities, and cultural and living conditions attractive to
highly trained men and their families has brought many
research organizations to the Old Pueblo. Some of these
are firms engaged wholly in research and others are the
research staffs of industrial concerns located elsewhere.
One research director, representing the local research
branch of an eastern manufacturing concern says: "It
would take wild horses to get me to leave Tucson but even
if I did have to go back to headquarters I would see to it
that the laboratory operations remain right here. There
couldn't be a better location for that type of work."
One research direc tor, representing the local research
laboratories to its west coast operating units in terms of
flying time for executive conferences. He said, "I can be
in conference in Los Angeles just as quickly from Tucson
as if the lab were located only fifty miles from the plant,
southern California traffic being what it is."
Last March at the Universit\" of Arizona's Third
Statewide Industrial Development ""Vorkshop, the Tucson
manager of Armour Research Institute's Southwestern
Laboratories said: "Arizona's big research advantage is
that people like to live here. Turnover is practically nil,
and this seems to be the rule rather than the exception in
other organizations engaged in the research business."
The electronics and aircraft industries and industrial
research, along with some others, have often been referred
to by economists as "footloose" in that they produce high
value, low bulk commodities (or services) and hence pre­sumably
can be located almost anywhere-at least they
need not be located near mass markets or the sources of
bulk raw materials. That is of course one reason (but only
one) why there are so many of these industries in Arizona.
But in recent years it has begun to appear that elec­tronics,
aircraft and research companies are by no means
as "footloose" as they seem. In the first place they are
finding it ever more necessary to locate where they can
attract and hold the highly trained technical and profes­sional
personnel they need. That means, increasingly, that
they must locate in communities where the climate and
other amenities v"ill prove congenial to the new prima
donnas of industry-the technical and professional men
and their families. These people will not work and live
just anywhere.
This situation stems of course from the critical short­age
of trained manpower throughout the nation-a prob­lem
dramatically highlighted by James P. Mitchell, United
States Secretary of Labor, when he addressed the Third
Arizona Statewide Industrial Development Workshop
held at the University last spring.
A second consequence of this national shortage is that
few companies, particularly in electronics and research,
find that their staffs are highly trained enough. College
graduates are snapped up so fast that few are going on
i~to gradd"ate work. More and more, however, such ad-vanced
work is required to cope with the dizzy pace of
scientific progress and technological change.
Almost of necessit:·, therefore, companies in this
situation need to locate within reasonable proximity to a
first-rate university " 'here refresher courses, and courses
for both the baccalaureate and advanced degrees, for key
industrial personnel are offered, and " 'here adequate re-search
facilities are available. .
Tucson, and indeed most parts of Arizona, meet both
these requirements for the so-called "footloose" industries.
The climate and the community amenities are there in
superabundance and the University of Arizona's facilities,
specially adapted to the needs of industry, are available
both locally in Tucson and in off-campus classes in most
parts of the state.
One final question deserves comment. Is there enough
water to support Tucson's growing population and indus­try?
The answer is an emphatic yes.
Obviously, few cities in the Southwest are suitable for
industries that consume vast quantities of water. But man~'
experts have testified that for all ordinary industrial and
other urban purposes, Tucson's water supply is good for
a long, long time to come. Tn the words of the Arizona
State Land Commissioner, "The ground water supply for
domestic and industrial use is one that can be judged more
reliable than that of a great number of communities in the
United States which depend entirely on surface streams
and reservoir systems for their water needs." (TVeste1'12
Electronic News, Feb. 1956.)
The big water user in the desert country of course is
agriculture. Last year, of all the water plimped in the
entire upper Santa Cruz Valley, which extends from the
Mexican border northward beyond Tucson to the Pima­Pinal
county line, and includes the cities of Nogales and
Tucson as well as numerous smaller communities, only '
twenty-five percent was for domestic, commercial, in­dustrial
and other urban use. The rest was for agriculture.
It has been said that the water put on one acre of cotton
in a year would support at least twenty persons living in
an urban-industrial situation-this means it would meet all
the urban requirements of these twenty people, not just
their personal, domestic needs.
In the long run, therefore, as the city of Tucson
grows, agriculture in the upper Santa Cruz Valley may
have to diminish or even disappear.
Someday, throughout Arizona and the Southwest,
many of the great river basins may see their cotton plowed
under and their orange groves uprooted to make way for
subdivisions and supermarkets. These beautiful valleys
may eventually cease to be agricultural and become in­stead
urban-industrial in character-the homes of healthy,
cheerful, highly paid workers in diversified industry,
havens for the retired, and playgrounds for tourists. If
this happens it will not be because of water shortage but
because such a way of life will come to be considered the
highest and best use of the land, the water-and the
climate.
Someday, the wide bowl rimmed by the rugged
ranges of the Catalinas and the Santa Ritas, the Rincons
and the Tucsons, will be filled from edge to edge with
urban people-a half million of them at least. In fact, that
is Tucson's projected population figure for the year 1975.
That way the future lies. Who is to say the way is
not good?
,
Tucson Indian
Scbool
TUCSON
they said and are saying
COMPILED BY JOSEPH STOCKER
"Tucson . . . has been a town of some importance
for about a century ... Seven-eighths of the population
are Mexican, and the Spanish language is more spoken
than the English."
-From "The Territory of Arizona-A Brief History and
Summary," prepared by authorization of the territorial legisla­ture
and published in 1874.
" ... a city of mud boxes, dingy and dilapidated,
cracked and baked into a composite of dust and filth;
littered about with broken corrals, sheds, bake ovens,
carcasses of dead animals and broken pottery; barren of
verdure, parched, naked and grimly desolate in the glare
of a southern sun."
-From "Adventures in the Apache Country," by J. Ross
Browne, published in 1868.
"[Tucson] was a place of resort for traders, specula­tors,
gamblers, horse-thieves, murderers and vagrant
politicians. Men who were no longer permitted to live
in California found the climate of Tucson congenial to
their health. If the world were searched over, I suppose
there could not be found so degraded a set of villains
as then formed the principal society of Tucson. Every
man went armed to the teeth, and street fights and bloody
affrays were of daily occurrence. It was literally a para­dise
of devils."
-From "A Tour Through Arizona," by the same author,
published in 1864.
"Tucson was just a little Mexican village of a few
hundred souls out there on the desert, 500 miles by stage­coach
from San Diego to the west and El Paso to the
east."
-From "Ridin' the Rainbow," Rosemary Taylor's novel
about Tucson in the mid-[9th century.
"Opposed as I am to gambling, no matter what pro­tean
guise it may assume, I should do the gamblers of
Tucson the justice to say that they were as progressive
an element as the town had. They always had plank
floors ... "
-From "On the Border with Crook," by Capt. John G.
Bourke, 1891.
"It may be that not all will find this oasis town,
lapped in the desert and girt about with low mountains,
as much to their liking as I do, but I believe it possesses
features worth going back on one's tracks to see; for it
has a decided character of its own."
-From "Finding the Worthwhile in the Southwest," by
Charles Francis Saunders, 19[8.
"Tucson ... is beginning, under the American ambi­tion,
to aspire to something more than one-story adobes."
-From "Picturesque Arizona," by E. Conklin, 1878.
"Tucson . . . is the largest city of Arizona, with a
population of 20,000."
-From "Arizona," by F. M. Irish, [907.
" ... the miserable little town of Tucson."
-From "The Far Western Frontier, 1830-1860," by Ray
Allen Billington.
"The town of Tucson is built up almost wholly of
adobe (sunburned brick), and to one unaccustomed to
that kind of material, it presents a quaint and curious
appearance. "
-From "Arizona As It Is, or The Coming Country," by
Hiram C. Hodge