The Coolidge examiner., 1930-09-05
TALES FO THE
SOUTHLAND
arizona DREAMS
Tied Healy)

"Yes, froze solid in the month Of
August. Thought you knew about
It,"
We'll it happened all right
You see a saloon keeper in Casa
Grande-
"Sure | know there's no saloons
there and this bit of news occurred
when there was plenty of saloons
That's the reason the Mexican
froze"
We told the Old Timer to proceed
his own way, his information of
such cold weather in the month of
August in Arizona was news when
ever it happened.
1t wasn't cold weather when
this hombre froze. 1t was ITO IN
the moonlight, and this is true
story. It was very simple. A gen.
tleman of the Mexican persuasion
went to sleep on a shipment of ice
covered with sacking. The ice had
come from Tempe in the evening
and was waiting shipment on an
east-bound train in the morning..
The ice thawed out four-days jag,
and the man just froze."
Where did you get that story?'
windy Bill" the most truthful
man in this valley told me he knows
that it happened, and he told me
about the wh;stling we'll; but you're
stingy his morning where is my
cigar? Alta Boy, looks like you
changed your brand.
"Bill allowed that down on the
Papago Indian flats just north of
the Mexican line there was deep
hole that spouted air like a
gusher spouts oil They timed it
with the tides coming in on the
gull of California, which is located
about $50 miles away, and found
that the whistling of the well oc
CURED when the tides came in.
Bill had scheme of putting a pipe
organ on the well and collecting
money from tourists who would
come to hear it play. The hole filled
in and knocked the idea.
Say, | read the other day in a |
press dispatch that it was so hot
near Sparta, ILL.,, that eggs cooked
when placed in the sun. A fellow
from that town came thru Arizona
about five years ago and he made
the same crack about the weather
here. Retribution, l call it.
Eyes, l know it's hot enough |
without bringing it up, but | don t
know much more that is news, ex-
cept perhaps about the time | was
a reporter and made an oil boom
scoop on a paper in Douglas.
well, | was a reporter for about
one day, and l made things happen
in Aqua Prieta, that little revolu-
tion hatchery across the line from
the smelter city. A friend left me
in charge of the paper after most of
the news was in for the day.
"a telephone call took me over
across the line in hurry. A Mex
lean saloon keepers wife drawing
up water from a we'll found it full |
of oil. Moreno, that was the |
saloon mans name, explained to
me that the name of the town,
Aqua Prieta (black water), sug-
gested oil and now it had been dis
covered. l hurried back in time
to get my oil sensation into the
paper and things started. The
price of lots scared in the Mexican
town, and Moreno's and every
body else that had saloon had
boom times. The excitement last
ed couple of days and busted.
"Yes, busted flat. Moreno had
thrown a drunken Mexican out of |
his place, and in revenge this bum
had tossed a piece of soaked oil |
waste down the well. He took the !
waste out of the journal box of a |
box car. 1t saturated the water.
which was streaked with colors
like rainbow.
Word that a revolution had
started in Moreno's saloon brought |
out the fact that the drunk had |
given his secret away to a crowd |
OF newly made oil promoters, who
thought their lots would make |
them millionaires.
Aqua Prieta may have had
other oil booms since, but | have
not heard about it.
Some other time I'll tell you
about how the New Yorker discov-
cred the lost race of white Indians |
out here"