Bisbee daily review., 1919-06-01
GRADED HIGHWAY FROM BISBEE TO TOMBSTONE IN PLACE OF HISTORIC
 COACH RUTS OF THE EARLY DAYS
Residents Owe Debt of Gratitude to the Cochse County Highway Commission and Its Engineering Force Who Have Made This Arizona's Premier Good Roads
 County; Highways to Stand For Generations
BY H. D. ROSS, JR.

The first highway from Douglas across the desert to Bisbee, from Bisbee up Tombstone canyon and through Government draw to Tomb stone, and from Tombstone out over Curtiss flats to Penson, was thrown down on the ground. It was good enough for those days-it served it's purpose. It was two ruts where the wheels tracked, and two trails where horses drawing rumbling stage coach es or clumsy ore wagons and trailers had beaten bare the earth and kicked aside the rocks.
 This road was sufficient for those days. Over it passed the pioneer miners with pack trains. Travelling men, gamblers, business men, tour bumps in old-fashioned stages. The rich copper or silver ores found in the districts which the road tapped, piled high in great wagons, were drawn the roads length to concen- traitors or railroads.
 Relics of the road still remain.
 4 Relic of Pioneer Days
 Go to Tombstone. Seek out one of the pioneers. He will lead you through typical Tombstone streets, past deserted houses long since dead, which were the glory of palmy days, to a back yard, where standing today is one of the pioneer stage coaches of the early days. Its four wheels are unsteady-the paint is peeling from them and their spokes are loose in the hubs and rims. Its doors creak on the hinges which have rust ed with thirty years idleness. And the old tongue hangs dragging to the ground-too aged to speak of the days when it bragged of being the best, biggest and fastest stage coach ply ing between Tombstone and the Mule canyon.
 Come back on the highway at the west side of the summit between Bis, bee and Tombstone. Here are more relics of the old days when the old roads were good enough to serve the purpose.
 Winding down the bottom of the canyon, here and there reaching up to the sides of the stream, are rem nants of the old road. Rough they are-filled with ricks and ruts. They are mute testimony of what paimy days offered the tourist in travel comfort
 They Were Roads Once
 Or, go back farther from Tomb stone to the early roads across the plains between Bisbee and Douglas. Roadsl They were roads once. Tray el made two ruts where wheels tracked. Then came rains. The ruts widened and deepened. Soon they became unpassable. Then the road moved a few feet to the south or north, the east or west.
 Many desert gully or arroya once was a desert road. Rain, travel and time have wrought the change.
 And, as rain, travel and time have worked, man has worked until today man, speeding across mountain or desert, demands something beside the wagon-track trail on which to drive his motor car.
 The first railroad thrown up and leading into the Warren district vi cinity, came south from Benson to Fairbanks, and then took to the foot hills for the remainder of the dis tance. Down below the Warren dis trict country club still can be seen the old grade. Near the Hereford road below Don Luis, is black slat and cinder dump, marking the old Naco Junction of the pioneer rail road. Striking southeast from tho junction is the old grade to Naco.
 This road has long since beer abandoned.
 It was done away with for on' reason-it had outlived its usefulness it had become too expensive t' maintain becauses floods and rain from the hills persisted in washing out
 It was torn up. New grades wer built further south and nearer tn river. New ties were laid and nev rails were strung.
 Travel, advancement in railroa