coooocc-ooosi : . fSPEClAX. CORRESPONDENCE.) PileVl'lNIX '(Aria.) Nov. l-(.—Tho the Western Gilo, would tiimISh ma-fiParis]) Trail Association that pro- ferial for a volume. John C. Fre-poses/io reestablish through tlio mom passed in ISIS and Kit Carson Southland, from Florida to the west- made the same journey years before, urn sea, the main highway over. tn October, 184IS, Gen. Stephen which came the earliest of the white |, Kearny led a., column or dragoons men. will find especially interesting , down the Gila Rivor and helped add the route through Arizona, California to the union. Following Within the land'now Known as Kearny's expedition was the march Arizona most of the travel of early j of th0 famous Mormon Battalion days, dating back to lvf>8, was from . fr(>m Missouri to San Diego. This £sCW *p^ln northZ*™’ though Ca- | remarkable column entered Arizona, beza de Vaca, in 1536. managed, on not far from the present site of] a more southerly line, to encompass . an„ passed wcstward| the distance that lies between the through Tucson and the Pima v 11-Gulf of Moxtco and the Gulf of Cor- , , , th ol, Ri tez, _to us known as the Gulf of "otla™0T™ptqS3l I though not held. i Tlie peace treaty with Mexico i set the Gila, on the southern bonn-j Gary of the United States, and ......... a ‘'jcsuirprieSt,- Eusebio s .ther® Jas * llne Kino, not a Spaniard, but a German !n. ^iarn ^.morY by birth, of the family name of I *?tfT established the present bmm-Kuhn. He established a chain of i ^ary under the terms of tne Gads-missions or visitas down the Santa j ^cri Purchase. Cruz River and then down the Gila, FIRST SURVEY, among- tbo Papago, Pima, Coco- I About 1854 the first of several Maricopa and Yuma tribes. This was 1 between IGGl’ and 1710, and though , California. The first known European to travel along the Gila River route from the friendly Papago settlements. near the pre-sent site of Tuc- vjas made along recorded that during h ho baptized more than 48,000 In dlans, none of his religious establish rnents along the Gila endured. SECOND TRAVELER. Tile next traveler reported was, Francisco Ga.rccs, a Franciscan mis- ! sionary, industrious and devout, who rou railroad survey thi* southern route. A stage line was operated through Arizona from El Paso t.o San Diego a$s early- as 1857, A little later, the San Antonio and San Diego State Company was succeeded by the famous Butterfield mail «... -v m Tipton. Mo., to San had his headquarters with the Pa- 1' ranciseo. witli daily service and a pagos at the famous mission of San \ 'njbsidy of Vl,«AOfOOO a year, Xavier, which still stands, in good J Concord coaches, 1000 condition, a few miles south of the ; Worses, »00 mules and 750 men. The modern city of Tucson. Ho traveled * from San Francisco was the Gila trail from I76S until 17SI I delivered to St. Louis in "the short in the summer of the latter, year of twenty-four days, twenty suffering martyrdom near the pres- | hours and thirtv minutes." This ent site of the town of Yuma. With jwas abandoned at the outbreak throe’ other Franciscans, he was "f the Civil War. and travel was murdered at the time of the morning | not resumed until after the end of mass, slain by tho Cuchan (Yuma) , *hat struggle. Stage service was people whom he had labored among J continued until the Southern Pa-fop years and whom he had tried to «cjfic finally appropriated all travel, serve. i when the railroad was built through A fact little known is that, the city I El Paso, in May, 1881. of San Francisco was founded by a The route of the border highway Spanish officer from the Arizona j enters Arizona east of Douglas. At presidio of Tubac, In the Santa Cruz: Douglas the traveler may visit the Valley, south of Tucson. He was j great copper smelters, or from Captain Juan Bautista de Anza. In that point pass southward info January. 1774, he had pioneered Mexico. At Eisbco lie the greatest across the desert, from Coborca to J copper mines of the Southwest, al-tho Colorado River, by way of the most within a hillside city of not-Camino del Diablo (Road of th'|ablc interest. Tombstone is the Devil,) then visiting Monterey. In j remnant of the wild western camp October. 1775, by a direct command ' that is celebrated in border stories, of the Spanish Viceroy, he started J Tucson, the oldest city in the State, again for Tubac, with J40 'people dating back to 1775, still has much and much livestock, destined for the (lf the Spanish charm. Florence, foundation of a presidio and mission I ,lt thc Gila crossing, is set in tho on the great bay that had been I o[ an immense agricultural f^rtoJa In 1769. Anza took , flon>riIn anfl Is thf. sJte of tho Sta.te the Gila route ns the safer, forded prjPOn Passing over a great oon-the Colorado near the Gilas mouth i t hridre a few hours' lour-Ta;stMhPsSrCd I "*>' brings>.ho traveler to Mesa and i,n thc *ubi*rt>R of Ph<‘enW the Golden Gate. LONG LAPSE. There was a long lapse of years In which tho Gila route was traveled the State's metropolis and capital, all surrounded by 800,000 acres of cultivated lands, Irrigated from Che celebrated Roosevelt Dam. TVest-ward again, the way at present only by trappers, or by occasional usually is through Needles, Ehren- parties from Mexico which preferred this longer and better-watered way to thc dangerous Carnino del Diablo. With the finding of gold in California, came the real making of the road, approximately on the line on which it now is proposed to create a national highway that shall furnish all-year connection for automobile travel between the eastern and western seas. In a few years following 184 8 as many as 60,000 people traveled westward on this route, braving the Apaches who menaced It at every point. Thousands were slain berg or Parker, but the main high way of the future will be by the wav of Yuma, down the historic Gila, and to a connection, at the Colorado River bridge, with California highways that are now under construction. HISTORIC INTEREST. Tbfc* southern highway through Arizona is full of historic, as well r.sr ficc-nic interest, and travelers over it who prepare themselves with some fcumvledgc of what .has been done along the way, as well as what by these Ishmaelites of the desert is to be seen, thereby will give and the stories of bloodshed along themselves much added pleasure.