OUTDOOR SOUTHWEST - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

Jsetuseen Ifou and Ate
By RANDALL HENDERSON
THIS MONTH OF October, 1961, is one of the The desert itself probably has not changed much
golden anniversaries on my calendar. It was in since the Tertiary period. But the genius and multi-
October, 1911, just out of school in Los Angeles, plying numbers of homo sapiens have brought fantastic
that I bought a one-way ticket to the Arizona desert. changes not only to the landscape but to the character
With the exception of service in two World Wars, I and aspirations of its human inhabitants. Only history
have followed the desert trails ever since. I can now will determine whether or not high speed transportation,
apply lbr membership in the desert's Half Century Club. television and the harnessing of nuclear power should
be entered on the credit or debit side of the ledger of
human progress.
If the readers will pardon a bit
of reminiscence, I will recall for
the benefit of newcomers on the
desert a few of the changes which
have taken place in the last 50
years.
The first dam in the Colorado
River was being constructed at
Laguna site near Yuma when I
arrived in Arizona. Now there
are seven dams and diversion
weirs in the stream below Grand
Canyon.
On my first return trip to California, I crossed the
Colorado at Ehrenberg on a ferryboat, and the sandy
90-mile road from Blythe to Indio required nine hours,
much of it in low gear. Today a slow motorist can
cover the distance in two hours including a stop at
Steve Ragsdale's Desert Center for soft drinks. Steve is
a violent prohibitionist.
In 1920 I piloted a World War I training plane to
Phoenix, and had to land inside the racetrack at the
fairgrounds because there were no other landing
facilities.
In the Palm Springs-Palm Desert area, land which
could be bought in 1912 for $1.50 an acre recently was
subdivided, and a 50x100 town lot sold for $25,000.
The first crude evaporative air conditioner for home
and shop became available in the mid-1920s. Previous
to that we sweated it out with an electric fan—if there
was electricity. It was no great hardship because we
did not know any better.
I learned to play poker in the light of a kerosene
lamp, and once overlooked a spade flush because the
lamp chimney was all smoked up.
Science and technology have changed all that. Good
highways have made the desert more accessible, and
with air conditioning the high summer temperatures
have ceased to be a deterrent to migration to this region
of the arid landscape. Today the population of the
Great American Desert is over four million, compared
to less than a million a half century ago.
In the meantime, increasing millions unquestionably
will migrate to this desert land, lured by a favorable
winter climate, the artificial appeal of a sophisticated
environment, fast easy transportation, and the opportunity
to exploit the natural resources of this backward
land. But fortunately, not all will come for these reasons—for
health and wealth. For, as I wrote for the
initial issue of Desert Magazine 24 years ago, there are
two deserts:
"One is a grim desolate wasteland. It is the home
of venomous reptiles and stinging insects, of vicious
thorn-covered plants and trees and unbearable heat.
This is the desert seen by the stranger speeding along
the highway, impatient to be out of this "damnable
country." It is the desert visualized by those children
of luxury to whom any environment is intolerable
which does not provide all the comforts and luxuries
of a pampering civilization. It is the concept fostered
by fiction writers who dramatize the tragedies of the
desert because there is a market for such manuscripts.
"But the stranger and the uninitiated see only the
mask. The other desert—the real desert—is not for the
eyes of the superficial observer or the fearful soul of the
cynic. It is a land which reveals its true character only to
those who come with courage, tolerance and understanding.
For these, the desert holds rare gifts: health-giving
sunshine, a sky that alter the sun goes down is studded
with diamonds; a breeze that bears no poison; a landscape
of pastel colors such as no artist can reproduce;
thorn-covered plants which during countless ages have
clung tenaciously to life through heat, drouth, wind and
the depredations of thirsty animals, and yet each season
send forth blossoms of exquisite coloring as symbols of
courage that triumphed over appalling obstacles.
"To those who come to the desert with tolerance it
gives friendliness; to those who come with courage it
gives new strength of character. Those seeking relaxation
find in its far horizons and secluded canyons release
from the world of man-made tensions. For those seeking
beauty the desert offers nature's rarest artistry. This
is the desert that has a deep and lasting fascination for
men and women with poetry in their souls."
October, 1961 / Desert Magazine / 43