The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1898-10-16
YUMA's RECORD.
1t Is the Hottest of All
American Towns.
(From the Boston Transcript.

(From the Boston Transcript
The people who fee to the mountains
and seashores these summer days as
if before a pestllence, when what they
know as the heated term is on, can
have no idea what hot weather really
is until they have spent few days in
this old town a. the Colorado river in
southwestell Arizona. The people
who tell agoniZing tales of their suf-
fering in the periods of temperature
among the n;neties in the great cities
ought to come out here these summer
days to know better what Old Sol can
do in the way of heat making when he
gets really down to business. What
would you say to living in spot where
not blade Of grass may be seen,
where there is nothing green but few
trees shlmmering in the dusty sun
shine, where the earth everywhere is
so hot that one cannot stand upon 1t
with bare feet, and where from June l
to early October, the temperature is
seldom below 70 degrees, and more gen
orally about the 10th degree mark
once in q while running up to 123 and
1875 degrees What would you think
of a temperature for full month not
less than 0? degrees, of two weeks at d
time varying from 10S to lis degrees.
and even week at time over liz de-
grees in the shade? That is what the
residents of this quaint old town of
Yuma have regularly each summer.
50 far this season the HUMANS have
had two spells of weather when the
mercury climbed up to III degrees in
the shade every morning for few sue
cesslve days, ana descended to SO and
100 degrees in the night. From June
| 10 to IA the Gaily temperature ranged
| from 107 TO lis degrees. From June
Is to June 81 inclusive, the tempera-
ture on each afternoon went as high as
| III degrees in the shade.
Yuma has been the banner hot town
of America for 40 or so years That an
cient, palsied, and weather-b beaten
story about the soldier who lived and
died in the garrison at Yuma and
whose ghost came back one night for
his army blankets for use down in chill
! ly, frosty hell, has gone far and wide
throughout the world (even DR.. Depew
recently told 1t to a group Of reporters
| who welcomed him home in New York
from his tour of the Pacific coast) and
has given a certain characteristic to
| the fame Of the town. In the 40s and
| SOS the army garrison at Yuma was
| famous among Uncle Sans soldiers as
the most dreaded posi- on the frontier,
and the letters and diaries of such mil
| lldTY IIlen as NISIlS. Albert 6lQney JONI
ston Edward r. Beale and Kearny,
who served their military apprentice
ship there, are plentiful with comments
on the terrific hot weather of Fort Yu-
ma in the summer months while they
served there
! All conditions seem to unite in max
| ing Yuma the hot summer spot 1t is.
1t is located in a low basinlike locality
on the edge of the lazy, muddy Colora-
do river, as it meanders through de-
sert sands and adobe SOIL down to the
! Gulf of California. Away to the west,
across the river, and to the south,
stretches the Colorado desert, several
thousand square miles in area. 1t is 80
merciess, CHASTITY and fierce a desert
that no one dares cross it by wagon or
| on foot in the summer months, and
never in winter or early spring, unless
accompanied by companion or two,
| and fitted out with an abundance of
drinking water and food. Every sum
mer there are venturesome miners who
lay down their lives in trying to cross
those deserts because they are overtak-
! en- by a sandstone or are weakened un-
to death by the dreadful heat
Rain falls in Yuma and the region
roundabout but four or five times in a
year. and then only in the early winter
months There are however. some very
heavy floods here in the months Of Feb
ruary and March, when the water in
the Colorado river rises and overfows
it's banks because of the melting SHOWS
| away up in the mountains of Colorado