The old part of the town, where lived the “first families” who settled the district when the Apaches raided, and the “bad man” frequented saloons, and made shootings and lynchings common in the sixties and seventies, has lost many of its thick-walled, verandahed houses in the face of the builder’s fervor for bungalows. The inhabitants who remember picturesque and bloody tales of the frontier days, and even participated in them, are still in hale middle age.
Viewing the electric lights, the neat and charmingly designed bungalows, the tramways and excellent garages, the cretonne lined coupés, Toby and I decided we had discovered the West too late. We had before us only a denatured California, and were, indeed, feelingly reminded of that fact by the increasing numbers of Native Sons we encountered. Some of the benefits long enjoyed by the Golden State have seeped across the boundaries, and Arizona has become canny, and in the health resort zone which embraces Tucson has learned to add in the climate at the top of every bill. But Arizona’s boom is but a feeble pipe when a real Native Son begins. Some of these have, for unknown reasons, migrated to Arizona, and whenever such an individual, male or female, saw our sign, after the customary greeting, he opened fire, “On your way to California?”
“No.”
Following blank astonishment, “No?”
“No.”
Recovery, “Oh,—just come from there?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“And you’re not going to California?”