The Nogales to Yuma Slant: Arizona’s Southern Border West of the 111th Meridian

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“Map of the Gadsden Purchase : Sonora and portions of New Mexico, Chihuahua & California,” produced in 1858 by cartographer Herman Ehrenberg. Note the northwesterly slant in the border as it runs from Nogales to Yuma.
Image credit: Library of Congress

Here’s a question that likely keeps you up at night: Why does Arizona’s southern border run in a northwesterly manner between Nogales and Yuma?

Give up? Have a listen to this KJZZ piece – that happens to quote yours truly – from last Friday. It should be noted, of course, that the history of the Gadsden Purchase involves many very complex moving parts. However, Nadine Arroyo Rodriguez summed up the story nicely given the challenge of condensing it into a two-to-three minute radio segment.

Enjoy.

http://theshow.kjzz.org/content/51743/did-you-know-arizonas-slanted-southern-border-was-negotiated

Arizona ‘Lawns’ – We’re Not in Kansas Anymore…

Photo of a Sun City Leisure Lawn included in a March 1963 National Geographic article on Arizona.

Photo of a Sun City Leisure Lawn included in a March 1963 National Geographic article on Arizona.

Headline and photo from a February 23rd, 1963 Arizona Republic article on Leisure Lawns.

Headline and photo from a February 23rd, 1963 Arizona Republic article on Leisure Lawns.

A 1968 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

A 1968 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

Bermuda grass is considered a weed in most parts of the nation. In many Arizona communities, however, a patch of bermuda is not an unsightly blight on the landscape, but is instead thought of as a ‘lawn.’ Of course, the blistering heat of an Arizona summer often proves overwhelming for even the best maintained Sonoran Desert-variety lawns, leading some to seek an alternative to the cost and labor required to maintain grass in the desert. Enter the “Leisure Lawn.”

A 1972 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

A 1972 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

Arizonans who have driven through Sun City, Mesa’s Leisure World, Pima County’s Green Valley, or any number of mobile home parks throughout the Phoenix, Tucson, and Yuma metropolitan areas have likely seen many such lawns, which appear verdant year-round regardless of temperature or rainfall levels. The rich green color of these lawns is not the result of a Space Age turf-greening technology developed at one of the state’s universities. Rather, it is a material no more technologically advanced than the pet rock was biologically innovative — painted rocks.

A 1973 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

A 1973 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

Leisure Lawns came about as a product intended to serve as a low-cost, no maintenance lawn that that could withstand the brutal Arizona sun, thrive in times of drought, and render lawn mowers obsolete. Though now little more than a kitschy relic of Arizona’s mid-century retiree influx, Leisure Lawns were once quite popular throughout the warmer regions of the Grand Canyon State.

 

A 1976 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

A 1976 Arizona Republic ad for Leisure Lawn Stones.

The green rock fad, something likely incomprehensible to residents of more temperate climes, was touted in a February 23rd, 1963 Arizona Republic article as a choice that allows “retired couples who prefer hobbies to hoeing” to “have an at-ease lawn, thanks to colored gravel,” and won notice in National Geographic’s March 1963 story entitled “Arizona: Booming Youngster of the West.” However, just as tail fins, hula hoops, and drive-in theaters have faded from the scene, so too has the Leisure Lawn. A 2011 Arizona Republic article lamenting the demise of the water-conscious landscaping option detailed the growing rarity of this once-common sight, bringing renewed — albeit brief — attention to green rock landscaping. In this age of xeriscaping, might Leisure Lawns be poised for a comeback? Just imagine the Phoenix Open played on a course comprised of green-painted rocks…

But It’s A Dry Heat…

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Cover of the 1952 edition of Oren Arnold’s Arizona Brags.
Image credit: John Larsen Southard Collection

dry heat, Arizona weather, 5 Cs, 5 C's, John Larsen Southard, John Southard, Arizona history, Arizona historian, AZHistorian, boosters, boosterist, boosterism, tourism, sunshine, it's a dry heat, its a dry heat, saguaro, Arizona postcard, Yuma, Hell, Tucson

A humorous early twentieth-century postcard comparing the temperatures of Tucson and Yuma to those of Hell.
Image credit: John Larsen Southard Collection

Arizona’s climate, one of the state’s 5 Cs, is something to boast about during the winter months. Early tourism campaign slogans such as “Summer Days All Winter” were used to great effect in efforts to draw out-of-state visitors to enjoy the spectacular weather found here from November through March or, at best, April. However, the wonderful winter weather inevitably transitions to the far less desirable and often eye-popping extreme heat of an Arizona summer. These high temperatures have prompted quips such as Dick Wick Hall’s story of a seven-year-old frog who never learned to swim due to his being raised in the dry, dusty Sonoran Desert, and Mark Twain’s story of a soldier from Fort Yuma who died and “went straight to the hottest corner of perdition,” but found that after living in Yuma, he needed a blanket to live comfortably in the cooler climes of Hell.

 

Humorist Oren Arnold compiled a number of jokes, claims, facts, and anecdotes — many of them climate-related — for inclusion in his 1947 book entitled Arizona Brags (revised and republished in 1952). As we slide into the brutal heat of yet another summer, some of Arnold’s ‘facts’ may help to bring a smile to our collectively overheated faces. Among other assertions, some believable and some outlandish, Arnold’s book jokingly claims:

— “The devil himself carries a palm leaf fan in Arizona.”

— “It never rains. Only reason an Arizona home has a roof is to have a place to put the TV [antenna].”

— “It stays so dry in western Arizona the fish kick up clouds of dust as they cruise the Colorado River.”

— “Any Phoenix doctor says that his medical practice is twice as hard as that of doctors in any other part of the nation. He can’t tell his patients to go to Arizona for their health.”

dry heat, Arizona weather, 5 Cs, 5 C's, John Larsen Southard, John Southard, Arizona history, Arizona historian, AZHistorian, boosters, boosterist, boosterism, Arizona postcard, tourism, sunshine, it's a dry heat, its a dry heat, Williams Field, World War II, swimming pool

A postcard showing the swimming pool at Williams Field, later to be known as Williams Air Force Base. While airmen such as the Milwaukee native native referenced in the above joke might have initially found the Sonoran Desert climate to be unbearable, the large numbers of World War II veterans who chose to relocate to the Valley in the post-war period indicate that one need not be a native to “stand the weather.”
Image credit: John Larsen Southard Collection

— “A young GI from Milwaukee was sweating out his first summer at Williams Air Force Base near Phoenix. A native Arizonan explained that a man had to be born and reared here to stand the weather. ‘What!’ exclaimed the soldier. ‘You mean folks live here when there ain’t no war?’”

— “It gets so dry in Arizona the jackrabbits carry canteens and the trees chase after dogs. Only mud is the kind the politicians sling. Rivers are just lines to crease a map, and to furnish Arizona cattle a dry, sandy bedding ground.”

And finally, a joke related to something all Arizonans have been guilty of at one time or another…

— “A citizen of Phoenix died and, of course, went down below. The devil greeted him and was showing him around the place. The ex-Phoenician kept mopping his brow. Finally he spoke up.

‘Gosh, it certainly is hot down here.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Satan nodded. ‘But it’s not humid, it’s a healthful, dry heat.’

‘Phooey!’ scoffed the Arizonan. ‘I’ve heard that old guff before.’

‘Oh sure you have,’ Satan smiled affably. ‘Fact is, you told it. That’s why you’re here.’”

Growing Sugar Cane and Bananas… in Arizona?

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A ca. 1915 image of men raising an experimental sugar cane crop in the Salt River Valley. This Bureau of Reclamation photo documents the serious efforts once made to bring about large-scale sugar cane cultivation in the Phoenix and Yuma areas.

Who would have guessed that sugar cane and bananas were once promoted as crops that could be profitably grown in the arid Arizona desert?

According to overly-optimistic nineteenth-century Arizona newspapers, successfully cultivating such crops was not only possible, but was extremely likely. As sugar is typically grown in more temperate parts of the globe that receive at least 24 inches of rain per year and bananas require 75 to 100 inches of rain to thrive, the hot and dry Salt River Valley and greater Yuma area seem an ill-fit for sugar and banana farms. Nonetheless, Arizona’s exhibit space at the 1885 New Orleans Exposition featured Arizona-grown sugar cane, among other locally-produced crops. A February 16th, 1889 Arizona Sentinel article proclaimed the “strong and healthy ‘stand’ of… sugar cane” growing in a local farmer’s field to be “a good advertisement for [their] mild winters,” while a different article in that same paper advised readers, “the cultivation of sugar cane in [Yuma County] is simple and cheap, the cane growing luxuriantly and being easily kept clear of weeds.” Nearly two decades later, a 1915 Tombstone Epitaph article mentioned ongoing consideration of “the possibilities of molasses as a by-product from the Salt River Valley sugar cane.”

Bananas, a crop only a handful of sane individuals would propose growing in the deserts of our state, received mention as a possible cash crop for Arizona farmers, with the February 16th, 1889 Arizona Sentinel extolling Yuma County’s Mohawk Valley as being “especially adapted to fruit growing.” In addition to the standard citrus plantings found to be successful in the Phoenix and Yuma areas, the Sentinel promised, “even pineapples and bananas will grow to an advantage” in Mohawk Valley.

Of course, as is now widely known, Arizona’s harsh climate — even with the benefit of irrigation — is not conducive to raising sugar cane, bananas, coffee, or any other tropical crop. Our climate, although extreme at times, merits inclusion within the the grouping of Arizona’s 5 Cs, as does the cotton, cattle, and citrus raised under the Arizona sun. Cane, however, is nowhere to be found — despite the promises of nineteenth-century newspaper men.

“Summer Days All Winter” – Arizona’s Climate

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This gallery contains 6 photos.

As residents of much of the country are still digging out from the recent polar vortex and its associated snow, ice, and Arctic temperatures, those of us in central and southern Arizona are enjoying the balmy weather that passes for … Continue reading