Flagstaff and Vicinity
The town itself is an interesting place, prettily situated in the heart of the San Francisco uplift and surrounded by a pine forest.
Its hotels, business houses, lumber mills, and residences denote thrift. On a neighboring hill is the Lowell Observatory, noted for its many contributions to astronomical science.
San Francisco Peaks.
Eight miles southwest from Flagstaff—reached by a pleasant drive along a level road through tall pines—is Walnut Canyon, a rent in the earth several hundred feet deep and three miles long, with steep terraced walls of limestone. Along the shelving terraces, under beetling projections of the strata, are scores of quaint cliff dwellings, the most famous group of its kind in this region. The larger abodes are divided into several compartments by cemented walls, many parts of which are still intact. It is believed that these cliff dwellers were of the same stock as the Pueblo Indians of to-day and that they lived here about 800 years ago.
Nine miles from Flagstaff and only half a mile from the old stage road to the Grand Canyon, upon the summit of an extinct crater, the remarkable ruins of the cave-dwellers may be seen.
The magnificent San Francisco Peaks, visible from every part of the country within a radius of a hundred miles, lie just north of Flagstaff. There are three peaks which form one mountain. From Flagstaff a road has been constructed up Humphrey’s Peak, whose summit is 12,750 feet above sea level. It is a good mountain road, and the entire distance from Flagstaff is only about ten miles. The trip to the summit and back is easily made in one day.