Arizona republican., 1911-08-06
The National and Territorial High
 ways.

Delegate Cameron ndNlnS SecuTeu from the federal government an ap- propriation of ninety thousand dollars for q bridge across the Little Colo rado river, the people of the northern counties are rejoicing in the con clusion that the construction of this bridge will assure the location of the national highway through northern Arizona. And no doubt they are correct in this conclusion. The problem of crossing the Little Colo rado being solved, the construction of a highway from Albuquerque to Flagstaff, following the line of the Santa Fe railway, presents no engi- neering difficulties.
 From Flagstaff, this national high way would come through Prescott to Phoenix and from here follow the most practicable route to the Pacific coast.
 Our neighbors of the north will not have the only national highway, however. Unquestionably there will be two routes into Arizona from Al buqueruue. There will be a line from AIbuquerque to southern New MeXi- co. and thence into Arizona via Clifton or Douglas, and then into tori ia1 GN-Cz- tenn.
 The proposed national highway from ocean to ocean is taking shape so rapidly that it is no longer a dream of automobile enthusiasts. State after state has fallen into line, and the road is a certainty. There is a general recognition of the inn mense value of the highway to the states through which it will run, and in all probability the road will be an accomplished fact by the time the Panama exposition is open to the public in 1915.
 If the road is in operation by 1915, thousands upon thousands of people will pass through Arizona by auto mobile to and from the exposition at San Francisco.
 Fortunately for the people of the territory, the system of territorial roads planned by the territorial ad- ministration will offer the best pos sible means for transcontinental trav- elers to become acquainted with the scenic attractions of Arizona. Tray eIers by rail get no adequate idea of what Arizona really is. Both the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe lines pass through dreary stretches of desert. Unless the railway pas senger gets his information from sources other than the scenery from the car windows, he passes through Arizona ignorant of the numerous sections that are really worth see to remind him of the fact that Ari- zona has-in the Salt River valley the largest and most beautiful body of irrigated land in the world; that Arizona has the largest pine forest in the world-an unbroken body of magnificent timber, covering more than six thousand square miles; that Arizona has waterfalls-in the cat aract canyon-which rival Niagara in heighth and beauty and grandeur; that Arizona has a natural bridge in comparison with which the famous natural bridge of Virginia is toy of nature; that Arizona has a petri- fled forest of gigantic trees that are worth crossing the ocean to see; that Arizona has canyons and gorges and mountain scenery surpassing Switz- erland in grandeur; that Arizona has a storage reservoir for irrigation which surpasses in size all other projects of the kind in the western world-and that, hidden away in the mountain fastnesses, there are well preserved habitations of a race which vanished from the earth so long ago that the historian is without even tradition to guide him in guessing whence that ancient civilization came or whither it went.
 The most wide-awake people of the territory do not yet appreciate fully what it will mean to Arizona to have a system of splendid high ways for tourist travel, nor have they had time to grasp the full signifi- canoe of the nationwide movement for a national highway.