The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1900-09-14
IN SIZZLING YUMA.
TEMPERATURE RISES AS HIGH
AS 1875 DEGREES.
And People for 10 Months In the Year
Sleep Out OF Doors-The Town the
Hottest in the Entire Country-Au
Business Suspends at Noon.

Business suspends at Noon.
People in the east who complained of
the great heat of August should con-
graduate themselves that they are not
forced to live in Yuma, Ariz., the ban
ner hot town of the United States.
Fancy an everyday temperature
varying from 105 to 125 degrees in the
shade for four or five months at a
stretch. Imagine village of several
hundred adobe, stone and brick squat
one-story houses and store buildings,
all with clumsy porches in front, strewn
along a dreary red brown roasting
bank of drowsy, muddy stream;
where rude thoroughfares struggle up
and down a naked hill shimmering un-
der the flercest, emptiest sky you ever
saw. Such is Yuma.
Imagine region thousands of square
miles in area, of yellow sand, quaint
cacti, whitened powders, not one COM
handing mountain or shapely promi-
nence-a desolate, CHASTITY desert waste
setting of Yuma. Imagine yourself on
some vantage spot and looking over
frontier town paralyZed in overwhelm-
ing sunlight, where scantily clad,
swarthy Indians sprawl fast asleep on
hot earth in a patch of shade, no white
person in sight, not sign of activity
anywhere, stores shut, houses bolted
and blinded, not sound heard save
rustling of dried sage brush. And that
is life in Yuma during midsummer
afternoon, writes a correspondent on
August 10.
The summer thus far this year in
Yuma has been an average one. From
May IA to May 80 the temperature ev-
cry afternoon ranged from SO degrees
to 101. Then there was week of COM
rose above 80. From June z to June
% the mercury varied from 105 to 113
degrees. Old Sol then settled down to
business. The desert sand dunes had
become baked, and the foothills were
glowing. For six weeks the mercury
never was below 1902, and from that it
has gone to 1872 degrees twice. From
July to July 20 the average afternoon
temperature was lis degrees. During
nights the mercury sunk slowly to an
average of 1O5 at about a. m. With
the rising of each sun the mercury
climbed up steadily until about 3
o'clock.
And the warmest weeks of the year
are yet to make their records. Last
the hottest day in Yuma was
August 26, when the mercury touched
1877. In September there were several
days when the temperature was at 121,
and a few nights when the Their
never registered lower than
1913 degrees. In 1896 Yumas red letter
hot day occurred. 1t was August 16,
when extra hot winds blew from off the
the desert. Between dawn and noon
the mercury rose from 40 to 1913, and
by 4 o'clock it rose to 1919. Several
deaths among children occurred during
the heated spell.
geographically Yuma is situated for
he making Of high records. AS far as
he eye can reach, and miles and miles
'arther, in any direction, there is moth
ng but profound aridity through which
he Colorado drowsily meanders to the
gulf of California. From some points
lothing is in sight but vast crumpled
sea of yellow sand and the horizon.
Yuma is the heart of region of ex-
inct volcanoes, barren hills and sterile
region Of mirages, Gila
monsters and reptiles that thrive amid
alkali wastes and deadly
hirsts, wnere not green thing in ma
ure may be seen as far as vision
sweeps, except a few sparse cotton
wood trees at the railway stations,
where a whitening white sunshine
,lazes from out a cloudless sky twelve
lours day, months at time; where
eyes and even blindness from
he intense sunshine are commons
where the earth is so hot that white
people can scarcely walk upon it with
hin shoes, and where tough range
.attle sicken and die in a few weeks.
At night the whole population sleeps
tut of doors, and many people slumber
lnder the open heavens 10 months in
he year.