We followed a road along one of the canals which spread like a network over the valley and furnish unlimited water for the 182,000 acres now under irrigation. About 30,000 additional acres can be reclaimed by pumping water to a slightly higher level and this will comprise about all the available land in the valley. None of it remains in possession of the government and prices of improved land now range from $100 to $500 per acre—very low, our enthusiastic informant asserted, when you consider that a single year’s crop will often pay twenty-five to fifty per cent of the original cost of the land. And this did not seem unreasonable when we saw the enormous crops of wheat and alfalfa which are being harvested—and the latter yields two to six cuttings per year. Of course, there may be another side to the story of Salt River Valley’s prosperity—as there is to nearly everything on this mundane sphere—but our interest was too casual to spur us to any careful investigation.
We were back to our hotel in the early afternoon, after having covered a large part of the roads, good, bad, and indifferent, in the immediate vicinity of the town. If we had time to go farther afield, we were assured that there is much of interest within a radius of one hundred and fifty miles about Phoenix. Tucson, one hundred and twenty miles to the southeast, has the State University and one of the oldest and most picturesque of Spanish missions in the Southwest—that of San Xavier Del Bac, still in charge of the Franciscan monks. Granite Reef Diversion Dam is thirty miles to the northeast and just beyond that are the ruins of old Fort McDowell, established in the days of the Apache wars. About it is an Indian reservation where the sons and daughters of these fierce red warriors now pursue the arts of peace—they are famous basket-makers and some of them are prosperous farmers and cattle raisers. The Gila Indian Reservation is seventeen miles to the southwest and is remarkable for its excellent buildings, which were erected by the Indians themselves. One tribe, the Pimas, is noted for its pottery, and its proudest boast is that it has never been at war with the whites.
All of these points may be reached by motor over roads ranging from fair to bad—but whatever their condition, constantly improving, for Arizona, despite her limited population as compared with her vast areas, is making every effort to improve her highways. Our old driver left us at the hotel with the earnest plea that we give the merits of Phoenix as a place to live our careful consideration and we assured him that if we did not become citizens of the town it would not be his fault.
Our plans were already made for a stop at the Petrified Forests of Arizona—for these are in Arizona, though it takes a night’s run on the Santa Fe to reach them in this land of magnificent distances. We were met at the little goods-box station of Adamana by a short, swarthy individual who seized our grips and piloted us to the bungalow-like inn across the track, where the proprietor, Mr. Chester B. Campbell, welcomed us and assured us that in response to our telegram he had reserved “the best in the house for us.” We found the best to be had in the Campbell Hotel quite primitive enough to suit the taste of the most ardent advocate of the simple life; bath-rooms and running water were taboo and telephone and call bells minus in rooms. But things were clean and one is hardly entitled to Waldorf-Astoria accommodations for two-fifty per day—“American plan.”
We barely paused to deposit our baggage in the room assigned to us before signifying to Mr. Campbell our desire to visit the wonders which had brought us to Adamana and we were assured that nearly everything worth while could be done in a day—since Fords had superseded horses and spring wagons. And I suppose it was fortunate for me that this shift in transportation methods had been made; otherwise what excuse could I have found for including the story of our experiences in a chronicle of the motor car? And there was no time lost in “hitching up.” Almost immediately we heard the familiar growl of the Ford engine and were told that our car was ready. We found the swart, stocky individual who met us at the station in charge of the steering wheel and he proved an encyclopaedia of information, useful and otherwise, as well as an artist in piloting the little machine over the sandy wastes.
“We’ll take in the North Sigillaria first,” he declared, “and there’ll be plenty of time after dinner to do the others.”
It was the last of May—a clear, fresh day with a rather stiff breeze, and the desert sand along our route was starred with many beautiful blooms which elicited exclamations of admiration from the ladies of the party. They must needs pause to gather a few of the flowers and inquired as they climbed back into the car,
“Are there any rattlesnakes in this country?”
“Plenty of ’em,” responded our pilot. “I just shipped a big fellow east yesterday.”
“Do you make a business of catching snakes?” I asked.