The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-02-04

North America and the forerunners of
the Aztecs. whose high civilization
Cortez found in Mexico Indeed, legend
says that the great Montezuma was
born In what is now New Mexico
Long before the cavalier had settled
at jamestown, and forty years prior to
the landing Of the Pilgrim Fathers on
Plymouth Rock the European had IN
vaded New Mexico and had planted a
settlement at Santa Fe. 1t was from
there that Coronado came to Kansas
more than three hundred years ago
The Spaniard and the Indian struggled
for supremacy for many decades-not
the savage tribes OF farther north ana
east but those more like the civilized
people of Mexico. T12Sre are many
ruins in the southwest today that tell
The Spaniards built an adobe COVER
nor's palace" at Santa Fe, which has
been the seat Of government ever since.
1t is a low, rambling, one-story struc-
ture. but it had a remarkable history
in the days when Spanish governors
came and went with their grandees and
fair ladies. In later years General Lew
Wallace lived there while he was terri
torial governor of New Mexico, and IN
one of the rooms of the old ADOBE
palace ben Hur' was penned
sYet although the Spaniard dominated
this great southwest for more tnan
three centuries, it was not until tne
Anglo saxon came that development
began. Today irrigation Is making the
vsiIevs of New Mexico, Arizona and
Southern California Veritable garden
spots.
At Needles there is a Harvey hotel
where all Santa Fe trains STOP Aot
meals. There are also hrty or more more
Mohave Indians on hand to meet edc1
train Most of them are SquaWS ana
all are loaded with some sort OF MO
have handicraft-bows and arrows,
bead purses and other kinds of bead
work pottery and baskets. Most OF
them can understand little English
excent Glow nuch?' Prices range
from ''two bits to two dollars Such
a monetary denomination as a quarter
or twenty-five cents is not in their
vocabulary-it is Invariably two
bits"
West of Needles lies the Mohave
desert but as most Santa Fe trains
run through it in darkness, its mon
One usually thinks of California as a
narrow state, yet it requires most of
a night to make the run to Barstow
and south on the Los Angeles line to
the summit of Cajon Pass over the
San Bernardino mountains. The sum-
nit of the pass is reached at day
break, and when the Santa Ana valley
is reached an hour later it is like
dropping into another world. 1t is
the middle of January and the tele-
graph wires tell US that Kansas and
adjoining states are having zero
weather, yet here. only a little more
than two days journey from Topeka,
the birds are singing, rose vines climb
ing trees and houses are full of bios
SONS. people are sitting on their YER
andas, and the air has all the feeling
of spring.
San Bernardino=t1le trainmen and
natives contract it to San Berdoo-is
strictly a Santa, Fe railroad town. It
3
sees palms, pepper trees, eucalyptus
and other forms of vegetation. 1t is
the beginning of the most thickly
populated valley in southern Cali
fornia, but it is only the beginning,
but a run of twenty minutes on eth err
the Santa Fe, Southern Pacific or the
new Salt Lake line, takes one to
Riverside the heart of the great
orange producing region of the United
States. G. H. MATSON. 2