The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1901-04-06
in IN SIZZLING Y UNA.
TEMPERATURES RISES AS HIGH
.## AS 125 DEGREES.
And People for. 10 Months In the Year
sleep Out OF DoorsThe Town the
Hottest in the Entire Country--An
Business suspends at Noon.

1 Business suspends at Noon.
| People in the east who complained OF
the great heat Of August should con-
gratulate 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 los to 125 degrees in the
shade for four or five months at a
stretch. Imagine a 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 q droWsy, muddy stream;
where rude thoroughfares straggle up
and down a naked hill shimmering un-
der the fiercest, emptiest sky you ever
saw. Such is Yuma.
Imagine a region thousands of square
miles in area, Of yellow sand, quaint
cacti, whitened powders, not one COM
mandlng mountain or shapely promi-
nence-a desolate, CHASTITY desert waste
under fiery sun-and you have the
setting of Yuma. Imagine yourself on
some vantage spot and looking over a
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 a sign of activity
anywhere, stores shut, houses bolted
and blinded, not sound heard save a
INK n 1rio csoo Ar5
is life in Yuma during midsummer
afternoon, writes correspondent on
August 10. ~
The summer thus far this year in
Yuma has been an average one. From
May Il to May 80 the temperature ey-
cry. afternoon ranged from SO degrees
to 1O1. Then there was week of COM
parative coolness; the mercury never
rose above 80. From June to June
25 the mercury varied from los 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 102, and from that it
has gone to Iz2. degrees twice. From
July 8 to July 20 the average afternoon
temperature was 115 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 8
O'clock
And the warmest weeks of the year
are yet to make their records Last
| summer the hottest day in Yuma was
August 26, when the mercury touched
127. In September there were several
days when the temperature was at 121,
and a few nights when the ther-
| mometer never registered lower than
1oS degrees. In 1895 Yuma's 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 10 to 1913, and
by 4 O'Clock it rose to 129. Several
deaths among children occurred during
| the heated spell. ~
geographically Yuma is situated for
the making of high records AS far as
| the eye can reach, and miles and miles
farther, in any direction, there is moth
ing but profound aridity through which
the Colorado drowsily meanders to the
| gulf Of California. From some points
nothing is in sight but vast crumpled
sea of yellow sand and the horizon
Yuma is the heart of a region of ex-
tinct volcanoes, barren hills and sterile
canyons; a region of mirages, Gila
monsters and reptiles that thrive amid
burning alkali wastes and deadly
thirsts, where not a, green thing in ma
ture may be seen as far as vision
sweeps, except a few sparse cotton
| wood trees at the railway stations,
| where a whitening white sunshine
blazes from out cloudless sky twelve
hours day, months at a time; where
lin1amed eyes and even blindness from
the intense sunshine are common; :.
where the earth is so hot that white
tpeople can scarcely walk upon it with
thin shoes, and where tough range
cattle sicken and die in few weeks.
At night the whole population sleeps
out of doors, and many people slumber5
under the open heavens 10 months in
the year.