Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1892-06-23
New Series, Vol. 80, No %
A FAIR VALLEY,
Blessed by Nature But Defaced by Man.
| Indian and Cowboy Life

H
| Indian and Cowboy Life.
Will Miller, who returned this week
from Phoenix, Ariz., tells some interesting
facts about that far off point. Mr.. Miller
was to have worked on government
dam, but owing to some legal difficulties,
which will have to be smoOthed out, the
work will not be begun before September.
lie therefore returned. while Fred Long
ley and wife went to Los Angeles, where
they are now located.
Phoenix is town of some 1900 inhab-
itants, principally settlers from the East,
but plentifully sprinkled with Mexicans,
indigenous cowboys, Indians, Chinese,
and japanese from the Pacific coast.
This heterogeneous population added to
the tropical climate, and the fact that it
is located on the verge of civilization,
makes Phoenix a strange place to an Ohio
man. Its leading industries are mining
and fruit growing, thoughin the latter it
is handicapped by imperfect cOmmunica-
ton with the outside world. There is
but one railroad, and passenger fares are
five cents a mile, express rate to the East
ten cents pound, and freight rates pro-
portiOnately high. Gambling, dissipation
and lawlessneSs are rampant. Cowboys,
with passions whetted by four months
solitary work on the plains, come in and
squander their whole wages in one wild
night in the saloon and at the faro table.
Miners, with their pay or their lucky finds,
massed in golden flakes, and put up in
tiny bottles, hang over the tables with
cooked revolvers or convenient knives
and bet glittering heaps on the turn of
card. Sunday is the day on which the
gamblers reap their richest harvest and
the red liquor flows most freely. Rob-
berries are frequent. Often a riderless
horse with the blood stained saddle rot
tingS on his back, is .caught near the
town, the owner having been ambushed,
shot and robbed as he came from the
hills or plains. Necessarily morals are
at low mark. Depravity extending
through all classes of society. and even
to school children is repulsive and
shocking.
But if man has cursed the fair valley
in which Phoenix lies, nature has blessed
it. The climate is perpetual spring; days
are clOudless, skies are of deepest blue,
cool winds blow from snow capped
mountains, singing cold OF oppressive
heat Except when the hot winds blow)
are unknown. The picturesque and ex-
Otic nature of the populatiOn-the beard
ed miner in red shirt and boots, the
bronzed cowboy with his sOmbreo, his
lassO and his pistols, the noble red man
compelled to don clothes on coming to
town, but living two miles out as naked
and free as Adam, the deprayed women
of China and the petite and graceful
Japanese women-to these nature adds
features of energy and color by pro-
fusion of tropical fruits and luxuriant
riot of brilliant flowers. Roses, which
our hOthouses produce at six and nine
dollars a dozen, grow wild. Gigantic
C lcti flame and blaze with myriad bios
SONS. The Christmas mistletOe hangs
rank on every side. Figs, pomegranates,
apricots, bananas, are plueked in the
streets. Orange culture is just being
tried. All this abundant fruitage and
gorgeous Righteousness is produced by
Only for about a week in
February are there rains, and there is no
dew.
The houses in Phoenix are for the most
part adobe. The population as rule
sleep out of doors on cots with mosquito
bar for blankets. This is pleasant enough
except out in the hills, where one is apt
to be awakened by the unearthly screeeh
of wild cat, or the mocking bark of
coyote Lizards, rattleSnakes, scorpions,
and the poison putting HULA monster
are thick. Insects swarm, and the mos
quito is brother to the savage blood
sucker in Jersey.