Arizona republican., 1912-06-25
SCENIC ROUTE
 FUR HIGHWAY
Northern Arizona Good Roads Association Wants Transcontinental Auto Road to Follow Route of Historic Old Trails.

The transcontinental highway has
 not yet been developed into a macad- l amiZed boulevard-rather is it a long | trail and a hard one, but the route l that is chosen now for the trail will l iii all probability be the route of the | turnpike that is to be. In it's wind | ing course through Arizona the high way passed through Springerville. and | from that point the favored route l leads off to the southwest through 1 the White mountains toward Phoenix. But the people of Flagstaff and Will 1 Hams, who entertained the Stude- | baker tourists so royalty, are con- vinced that the scenic highway should | lead the mOtOrist northwest from 1 Springerville through the wonderland | of northern Arizona before turning toward the fat valleys of the south 1 M. J. Riordan puts the case forci- | bly, in a booklet published by the Northern Arizona Good Roads asso- l citation. He believes that the northern l route has every advantage in the way | of scenic beauty and historic asso- citation.
 He says; "The instant the matter
 is presented to ones attention it be-
 comes evident that these two quali-
 ficatiOns. with the further one of practicability, are absolutely requisite for the success of any important 1 highway. If they are not taken into
 consideration and made the basis of l the route selected it will be but short time until those making use of ! the highway will branch for them 1 signed by historic and scenic reasons, | and will abandon any highway es-
 tablished for the purpose of contrib l uting to the commercial interests of
 any particular territory. A national 1 highway, if it is going to be any 1 success at all. will be made so pre- l cisely by those who use it for the
 purpose of visiting those parts of the
 country made sacred by historic as
 sociation and attractive by unusual | scenery.
 1 The highWayman eff I may use l this word in the good sense which it 1 originally bore, and to which the 1 good roads movement is going, I hope. l to restore iD. from New York and Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and Illinois and Nebraska, when he motors to
 Arizona will want to see the point l where Coronado camped with his gen | tlemens exploring party at Bernalillo 1 in New Mexico: he will want to cross 1 the Very- stretches of country that 1 the first detail of European CiviliZa- l tion traversed on it's way to the Grand l Canyon in 1541; he will want to see
 the site of the first capitol of Ari-
 zona at Navajo Springs; the great | Chalcedony park. with it's treasures
 of rainbow color imprisoned in the 1 forest turned to stone. near Ada mana; he will want to travel. for l some distance at least, the old Star
 Route trail: he will want to visit the i Hopi villages, the scene to this day | of the most remarkable indigenous
 religious rite, in the form of the | snake dance, known on this conti nent; he will want to see the mar l velous colors Of the Painted Desert
 of which Van Dyke tells so beau 1 tifully, and which Sauerwein, Lun-
 gren. Farny. Akin, and Rollins have l painted so touchingly; he will want l to see the banks of coored clays by l the shores of the Little Colorado | river, when the moonlight sleeps up- on them more sWeetly than it slept | upon the bank at Belmont; he will | want to see the tremendous chasm at Meteor where, what was practi | cally, a miniature other world col l lided with this, with the result of | leaving a scar 600 feet in depth and l more than mile in diameter upon 1 the face of our desert: he will want | to see the great gash that cleaves the | rock for depth of 200 feet and for a Il distance of many miles at Canyon I Diablo; he will want to see the re- I markable prehistoric ruins in Walnut I Canyon just south of Flagstaff; he I will want to see the Cave Dwellings, I the oldest form of human habitation I known on this continent. lying just i east of Flagstaff; he will want to see I Sunset mountain the most delicately- | colored piece of natural scenery on the face of the earth, with the rose I of the sun on it's summit and the I gloom of the clouds on it's slopes; he will want to see. from the summit of ' the San Francisco Peaks the greatest Il group Of extinct volcanoes in any Il part of the world: he will want to I travel the same route Lieutenant Ives ! with his historic party, travelled in
  Il the Colorado river: he vii want to T travel to the Grand Canyon, that Il thought of God on earth expressed
 | and the greatest of His thoughts Tn respect Of natural scenery; he will l want to travel in the footsteps of Fray Garces, who in 1776 was wan I derng along the banks of this very Il canyon while the Liberty Bells were T ringing in Philadelphia; he will want Il to pass under the shadows of Bill II Williams mountain in the ways Of Il Lieutenant Wheeler's expeditions west l of the tooth meridian: all these and | more will these highwaymen of the I west. who will go down to Arizona II ntheir cars want to cast their eyes | upon and see, before they enter into II the promised land of southern Cali i fornia For these travellers visions | of alfalfa, and prunes, and lemons l and oranges, and green fields, and I fat pastures, and contented cattle, and l waving ostrich plumes, will be no at traction as against the fascination of the historic and scenic interests that