text:
Final Report 660
December 2011
Arizona Department of Transportation
Research Center
Arizona Transportation
The contents of this report reflect the views of the authors who are responsible for the facts and
the accuracy of the data presented herein. The contents do not necessarily reflect the official
views or policies of the Arizona Department of Transportation or the Federal Highway
Administration. This report does not constitute a standard, specification, or regulation. Trade or
manufacturers' names which may appear herein are cited only because they are considered
essential to the objectives of the report. The U.S. Government and the State of Arizona do not
endorse products or manufacturers.
Technical Report Documentation Page
1. Report No.
2. Government Accession No. 3. Recipient's Catalog No.
4. Title and Subtitle 5. Report Date
December 2011
ARIZONA TRANSPORTATION HISTORY 6. Performing Organization Code
7. Author
Mark E. Pry, Ph.D. and Fred Andersen
8. Performing Organization Report No.
9. Performing Organization Name and Address 10. Work Unit No.
History Plus
315 E. Balboa Dr.
Tempe, AZ 85282
11. Contract or Grant No.
12. Sponsoring Agency Name and Address
13.Type of Report & Period Covered
Project Manager: Steven Rost, Ph.D.
14. Sponsoring Agency Code
15. Supplementary Notes
Prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration
16. Abstract
The Arizona transportation history project was conceived in anticipation of Arizona's centennial, which will be
celebrated in 2012. Following approval of the Arizona Centennial Plan in 2007, the Arizona Department of
Transportation (ADOT) recognized that the centennial celebration would present an opportunity to inform
Arizonans of the crucial role that transportation has played in the growth and development of the state.
The report consists of a historical narrative and a series of topical essays. The seven-chapter historical narrative
is a history of Arizona's highways that extends from the pre-Columbian era to the present.
The 14 topical essays extend the scope of the history beyond the state's highway system. They include
overviews of the development of other transportation modes (railroads, aviation, and urban transit), a brief
history of highway pavements, a lighthearted look at the motoring experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and
an exploration of how changes in transportation infrastructure affected some Arizona communities. The topical
essays also provide additional historical information on bridges, urban freeways, the Interstate system, ADOT
and its predecessor agencies, and famous roads such as U.S. Route 66, U.S. Route 89, the Black Canyon
Highway, and the Beeline Highway.
The report also includes a timeline of transportation-related developments. This chronology not only provides an
accessible overview of Arizona's transportation history; it also places that history in a larger context by including
transportation-related developments from the rest of the nation and around the world.
Finally, the report contains a guide to archives in Arizona that hold significant collections of historical
photographs related to the state's transportation history, a bibliography of published historical sources related to
the history of highways in Arizona, and a discussion of how the historical narrative and topical essays could be
used to produce publications and media that would be made available to the public.
17. Key Words
Transportation agencies. Transportation,
History, Arizona
18. Distribution Statement
Document is available to the
U.S. public through the
National Technical Information
Service, Springfield, Virginia
23. Registrant's Seal
19. Security Classification
20. Security Classification
21. No. of Pages
22. Price
Symbol When You Know Multiply By To Find Symbol Symbol When You Know Multiply By To Find Symbol
in inches 25.4 millimeters mm mm millimeters 0.039 inches in
ft feet 0.305 meters m m meters 3.28 feet ft
yd yards 0.914 meters m m meters 1.09 yards yd
mi miles 1.61 kilometers km km kilometers 0.621 miles mi
in2 square inches 645.2 square millimeters mm2 mm2 Square millimeters 0.0016 square inches in2
ft2 square feet 0.093 square meters m2 m2 Square meters 10.764 square feet ft2
yd2 square yards 0.836 square meters m2 m2 Square meters 1.195 square yards yd2
ac acres 0.405 hectares ha ha hectares 2.47 acres ac
mi2 square miles 2.59 square kilometers km2 km2 Square kilometers 0.386 square miles mi2
fl oz fluid ounces 29.57 milliliters mL mL milliliters 0.034 fluid ounces fl oz
gal gallons 3.785 liters L L liters 0.264 gallons gal
ft3 cubic feet 0.028 cubic meters m3 m3 Cubic meters 35.315 cubic feet ft3
yd3 cubic yards 0.765 cubic meters m3 m3 Cubic meters 1.308 cubic yards yd3
NOTE: Volumes greater than 1000L shall be shown in m3.
oz ounces 28.35 grams g g grams 0.035 ounces oz
lb pounds 0.454 kilograms kg kg kilograms 2.205 pounds lb
T short tons (2000lb) 0.907 megagrams
(or "metric ton")
(or "t")
mg megagrams
(or "metric ton")
1.102 short tons (2000lb) T
TEMPERATURE (exact) TEMPERATURE (exact)
ºF Fahrenheit
or (F-32)/1.8
Celsius temperature ºC ºC Celsius temperature 1.8C + 32 Fahrenheit
fc foot candles 10.76 lux lx lx lux 0.0929 foot-candles fc
fl foot-Lamberts 3.426 candela/m2 cd/m2 cd/m2 candela/m2 0.2919 foot-Lamberts fl
lbf poundforce 4.45 newtons N N newtons 0.225 poundforce lbf
lbf/in2 poundforce per
square inch
6.89 kilopascals kPa kPa kilopascals 0.145 poundforce per
square inch
SI is the symbol for the International System of Units. Appropriate rounding should be made to comply with Section 4 of ASTM E380
ROADS AND TRANSPORTATION IN EARLY ARIZONA, 1400s-1863 .................7
Pre-Columbian Trails .................................................................................................7
Spain, Mexico, and the Santa Cruz Road...................................................................9
Cooke's Wagon Road and the Gila Trail ...................................................................9
Creation of New Mexico Territory...........................................................................11
Army Road Surveys in the West ..............................................................................12
Beale's Road and El Paso–Fort Yuma Road............................................................12
Creation of Arizona Territory ..................................................................................14
Toll Roads ................................................................................................................15
County Road Districts ..............................................................................................16
Army Wagon Roads .................................................................................................17
Arrival of the Railroad .............................................................................................19
Territorial Wagon Roads..........................................................................................20
Road Building by the Counties ................................................................................22
The Territorial Engineer and Arizona's First Highway System ..............................23
Arizona Highway Department .................................................................................27
The Good Roads Movement in Arizona ..................................................................28
The National Old Trails Highway and Other Named Roads ...................................29
Federal Aid Comes to Arizona.................................................................................33
Maricopa County's Road Bond Program .................................................................37
Creation of the Seven-Percent System .....................................................................37
Numbering Arizona's Highways..............................................................................39
Reorganizing the Arizona Highway Department .....................................................43
Arizona's Highways in 1926....................................................................................44
Forest Roads in Arizona...........................................................................................45
Oiled Roads in the 1920s and 1930s ........................................................................46
New Deal Road-Building Programs.........................................................................47
Arizona Highways on the Eve of the Second World War........................................51
Impact of the War on Highways ..............................................................................54
Arizona Highway Traffic Surges .............................................................................57
Postwar Modernization Projects...............................................................................58
The "Roads Crisis" of the 1950s ..............................................................................59
Creation of the Interstate System .............................................................................59
Construction Boom of the 1960s..............................................................................60
Bypass Controversies ...............................................................................................61
New and Improved Highways for Tourism..............................................................63
Arizona's First Freeways .........................................................................................65
Creation of the Arizona Department of Transportation ...........................................69
The Energy Crisis of the 1970s ................................................................................70
Progress on the Interstate System.............................................................................71
The Funding Gap of the 1980s.................................................................................72
Maricopa County Freeways .....................................................................................72
Regional Area Road Funds ......................................................................................73
Retiring Old Highway Numbers ..............................................................................74
MODERNIZING ARIZONA'S HIGHWAY SYSTEM, 1991-Present........................77
New Attitudes Toward Highways ............................................................................77
Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act ..................................................79
Maricopa County Freeways .....................................................................................79
Freeway Controversies.............................................................................................81
Rural Highway Widening Projects...........................................................................82
Bypasses and New Alignments ................................................................................84
Figure 1. Prehistoric and Early Historic Trails in Arizona................................................8
Figure 2. Early Trails and Roads in Arizona Territory ...................................................10
Figure 3. Early Arizona Railroads, 1894.........................................................................18
Figure 4. Arizona's First Highway System, 1914 ...........................................................24
Figure 5. Automobile Roads and Routes in Arizona, 1917.............................................30
Figure 6. Arizona's Seven-Percent System, 1926...........................................................36
Figure 7. Arizona State Highway System, 1931 .............................................................48
Figure 8. Arizona State Highway System, 1940 .............................................................52
Figure 9. Arizona State Highway System, 2007 .............................................................76
Figure 10. Arizona Railroads, 2007 ................................................................................128
Table 1. Registered Vehicles, Highway Mileage, Vehicle Miles Traveled,
and State Transportation Expenditures in Arizona, 1912-2005.................41
Table 2. Arizona State Engineers and Department of Transportation Directors,
1909-2009 ................................................................................................140
Portions of the text were previously published in Building the Grand Canyon State:
Public Works in Arizona History, by Mark E. Pry, Ph.D., and Fred Andersen (Phoenix:
Arizona Chapter of the American Public Works Association, 2006), and are incorporated
in this report with the permission of the Arizona Chapter. In preparing this report, the
authors also used research materials collected for Building the Grand Canyon State.
In allowing material from Building the Grand Canyon State to be incorporated into this
study, the Arizona Chapter of the APWA has made an important contribution to the study
of Arizona's transportation history, and for that the authors and the Arizona Department
of Transportation are grateful.
The Arizona transportation history project was conceived in anticipation of Arizona's
centennial, which will be celebrated in February 2012. Following approval of the Arizona
Centennial Plan in 2007, the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) recognized
that the centennial celebration would present an opportunity to inform Arizonans of the
crucial role that transportation has played in the growth and development of the state.
However, there was no written history of transportation in Arizona that the department
could use as the underpinning of such a public outreach effort. Seeking to erase this
shortcoming in Arizona's historical record, the department commissioned this history of
transportation in Arizona.
The solicitation for the Arizona transportation history project was issued in the spring of
2008. It called for the preparation of a history of the state's transportation network, from
prehistoric times to the present, that would also highlight the role played in that
development by the department and its predecessor agencies. It would cover all major
modes of transportation, but the greatest emphasis would be on roads and highways,
which have always been the core of Arizona's transportation infrastructure.
After the project's completion, the history would then be used by the department to
develop a variety of publications and media that could be distributed to the public. To
assist the department in planning these publications, the project solicitation asked the
authors of the history to suggest how such publications might be formatted, what topics
they might cover, and which audiences they might target.
The bulk of the Arizona transportation history presented in this report consists of a
historical narrative and a series of topical essays. The seven-chapter historical narrative is
essentially a history of Arizona's highways that extends from the pre-Columbian era to
the present.
The 14 topical essays extend the scope of the history beyond the state's highway system.
They include overviews of the development of other transportation modes (railroads,
aviation, and urban transit), a brief history of highway pavements, a lighthearted look at
the motoring experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and an exploration of how changes
in transportation infrastructure affected some Arizona communities. The topical essays
also provide additional historical information on bridges, urban freeways, the Interstate
system, ADOT and its predecessor agencies, and famous roads such as U.S. Route 66,
U.S. Route 89, the Black Canyon Highway, and the Beeline Highway.
The report also includes a timeline of transportation-related developments. This
chronology not only provides an accessible overview of Arizona's transportation history;
it also places that history in a larger context by including transportation-related
developments from the rest of the nation and around the world.
Finally, the report contains a guide to archives in Arizona that hold significant collections
of historical photographs related to the state's transportation history, a bibliography of
published historical sources related to the history of highways in Arizona, and a
discussion of how the historical narrative and topical essays could be used to produce
publications and media that would be made available to the public.
Owing to the limited budget for this project, certain limitations had to be imposed on the
research conducted for the narrative history and topical essays. No substantial archival
research was done. Such research is always time-consuming, but for this project this
would have been especially so, owing to the fact that archival sources relevant to
Arizona's transportation history are, for the most part, unindexed, difficult to locate, and
scattered across the state. Just identifying these materials, let alone examining them,
would have consumed much of the research budget for the project.
Consequently, most of the research was done in published sources, including published
government documents, Arizona Highways magazine articles, books, journal articles, and
other sources (for a list of the major sources, see the bibliography in this report). The
reliance on government documents and Arizona Highways (which began as an official
construction bulletin) was largely a matter of necessity. Very few scholarly books and
articles have been published on Arizona's transportation history, and almost none has
been written about the state's highway system.
Fortunately, the publications and reports of the State Engineer, Arizona Highway
Department, Arizona Highway Commission, Arizona Department of Transportation, and
Arizona State Transportation Board provided an ample quantity of information—
certainly enough to produce a narrative of the scope envisioned by the department.
The history of the state's highway system is the centerpiece of this report because roads
and highways have always been the dominant means of getting to and around Arizona.
Indeed, it was only during the heyday of the railroads, from the 1880s to the early 1950s,
that there was any significant alternative to travel by road. (Airlines have turned out to be
important for interstate travel to and from Arizona, but much less so for intrastate travel.)
The history of Arizona's highway system can be divided into seven distinct periods, each
of which is described in one chapter of the narrative.
Roads and Transportation in Early Arizona, 1400s-1863
During this period, which ended with the creation of Arizona Territory in 1863, roads in
Arizona were few and poorly maintained. Prior to the arrival of Americans in 1846, roads
were not so much constructed as they were blazed by travelers. The first roads to be built
in Arizona were constructed by the federal government and in particular by the U.S.
Road Building During the Territorial Period, 1864-1911
After a brief but unsuccessful experiment with private toll roads, the Territorial
Legislature began financing the construction of Territorial wagon roads, only to see that
effort halted by federal legislation that limited borrowing by the territories. For most of
the Territorial period, it was the counties that built Arizona's highways, financing their
efforts through special road taxes. Then, in 1909, the Territorial Legislature appointed a
Territorial Engineer and established a modest highway system consisting of two roads.
Building a State Highway System, 1912-1925
In 1912, after Arizona became the nation's 48th state, the Arizona Highway Department
was created. Its earliest efforts to build highways were limited by poor funding, as the
counties received most of the state's road funds and continued to build most of the state's
roads. This changed in 1916, when the first federal highway aid bill was enacted. Using
federal aid, the Arizona Highway Department established Arizona's "seven-percent
system" of highways, laying the foundation for the state's modern road network.
Arizona's Highway System Grows Up, 1926-1945
In 1927 the Arizona Highway Department was reorganized and the Arizona Highway
Commission established. Funding was also reformed, finally giving the department the
resources it needed to make major improvements to Arizona's seven-percent system.
Aided substantially by federal funding for not only highways but also forest roads and
New Deal public works, Arizona's patchwork highway system was transformed into an
integrated network of hard-surfaced state and federal highways.
The Highway Boom Years, 1946-1973
This was the boom period for Arizona, a time of spectacular population growth and urban
expansion that in turn led to an unprecedented surge in highway construction. Arizona's
federal and state highways were completely paved, and many roads in the state system
were improved to meet modern safety standards. Then came the inauguration of the
Interstate highway system. As construction of these new four-lane highways began, new
standards for speed, comfort, and safety in automobile travel were established.
Meeting the Challenges of Growth, 1974-1990
In 1974 the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) and Highway Users Revenue
Fund were established, once again overhauling financing of the state's highways. The
energy crises of the 1970s and early 1980s posed further problems for the state's highway
funds, but these were resolved by increasing the gasoline tax and creating the Regional
Area Road Funds, which made possible the expansion of the Maricopa County freeway
system. During this period the Interstate system was completed in Arizona, followed by
the decommissioning of some of the state's first federal highways.
Modernizing Arizona's Highway System, 1991-Present
With the completion of Interstate 10 through Phoenix in 1990, Arizona's highway system
reached maturity. Now the challenge facing Arizona was not so much planning and
constructing new roadways as it was increasing the capacity of existing highways through
realignment, widening, and bypasses. It was during this period that the Intermodal
Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA) was enacted, significantly broadening the
federal government's role in local transportation funding and planning, and that the
Maricopa County freeway system was significantly expanded.
The most effective medium for educating the public about history today is the Web,
which is also an especially good way to reach the state's students, who increasingly rely
on Web sites for their research projects. The historical narrative and topical essays are, to
a large degree, already Web-ready; both could be placed on a Web site without having to
do any substantial additional research or writing. The same material could also be
formatted as a PDF file that would be available at the Web site for downloading.
Ideally this would become a top-level section of the ADOT Web site, which would be
reached via a "History" button on the main menu in the left-hand column of the Web site.
Once this "History" page is set up, it would be linked to the Web sites of museums,
libraries, archives, and historical organizations in Arizona and the Southwest.
To reach the broadest possible public audience, and to facilitate the distribution of
historical materials at public events and festivals, museums, places of business, tourist
bureaus, and the like, printed publications remain useful. The historical narrative and
topical essays are substantial enough to be used as the basis for a full-length illustrated
book on the history of Arizona's highway system.
The narrative and essays also can provide content for brochures and booklets. If prepared
with an eye to statewide coverage, such short publications could be used in a wide variety
of settings and locations. Topics that lend themselves well to such treatment include:
historic bridges, canyon and mountain highways (describing some of Arizona's more
celebrated roadways, many of which were engineering achievements), Arizona's
Interstate system, and a comparison of automobile travel conditions during different eras.
Finally, the narrative and essays could be used as the basis for collaborative projects with
such entities as the Arizona Office of Tourism and the Arizona Heritage Traveler. Using
the historical information contained in this report, ADOT would provide a brief history of
each road's location, construction, and development, while the partnering agency would
provide information on tourist attractions and traveler's facilities along the road. These
guides could be made available online, as printed brochures, or as posters to be displayed
by businesses and attractions along the highways covered by the guide.
Long before Europeans arrived in what is now the American Southwest, Native
Americans established many travel routes across the deserts, grasslands, and mountains
of Arizona (see Figure 1). Traveling long distances by foot, Arizona's first inhabitants
maintained active contact with peoples scattered across the Southwest and northern
Mexico. "It could be argued," one historian has written, "that travel was a defining and
central experience of Native American life."1
The journeys were made for many different reasons. Native Americans traded for shells,
stones, minerals, bells, and figurines, and for organic goods like herbs, animal hides, and
feathers. They made spiritual journeys to sacred locations where they gathered plants and
minerals, captured animals, and conducted ceremonies. And they carried out raids on
neighboring peoples, sometimes returning with captives.
Some of Arizona's native peoples are believed to have traveled widely. For example, the
Hohokam, who lived in the river valleys of central Arizona, visited and traded with other
peoples in present-day Mexico, California, Baja California, New Mexico, and Colorado,
using routes that in Arizona typically followed rivers and washes.
The Hopi also traveled long distances and were doing so when the first Spaniards came to
Arizona in 1540. They made ceremonial trips to the Grand Canyon and trading journeys
to New Mexico, southern Colorado, the Gila River, and Mexico. They also ventured
north of the Colorado River, using the crossing that would later be known as Lee's Ferry.
Native Americans living in other regions also traveled to Arizona. The Ancestral
Puebloans, or Anasazi, who established the Chaco culture in northwestern New Mexico,
built an impressive road network that extended into northeastern Arizona. Archaeologists
have estimated that the Chaco road system included more than 400 miles of roadway.
Most of these native trails were unmarked, especially in the open desert, yet
archaeologists have still been able to identify traces of them on the desert floor. In some
parts of Arizona, especially the rugged canyon country to the north, native trails were
sometimes marked and improved by the construction of handholds and stairs in rough
terrain. Many of these routes were later used by Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans, in
large part because they were near water sources.
1 Pat H. Stein, Historic Trails in Arizona from Coronado to 1940 (Phoenix: Arizona State Historic
Preservation Office, 1994), 2-3.
Figure 1. Prehistoric and Early Historic Trails in Arizona.
From Pat H. Stein, Historic Trails in Arizona from Coronado to 1940 (Phoenix: Arizona
State Historic Preservation Office, 1994), 4.
Following Francisco Vásquez de Coronado's entry into Arizona in 1540, and continuing
for nearly three centuries, Spanish explorers and missionaries traveled widely across what
is now the American Southwest. Many of their journeys, especially in Arizona, were one-time
ventures that left no permanent trace. Others followed well-worn paths that became
the region's first roads (see Figure 1).
Spain's foothold in Arizona was always tenuous. Spaniards established missions at the
Hopi mesas in northern Arizona; missions, presidios, or settlements in Tucson, Tubac,
Tumacácori, and a few other locations in southern Arizona; and a mission at Yuma in
southwestern Arizona. The settlements that grew up at these locations were sparsely
populated and isolated.2
The usual travel route to the Hopi mesas was west from New Mexico via Zuni Pueblo.
From the Hopi mesas, Spanish explorers and missionaries traveled to the Grand Canyon,
the Verde Valley, and the lower Colorado River, with some continuing on to California.
Spanish missionaries and settlers traveled from Mexico to Arizona by several routes. The
most commonly used route followed the San Pedro River or the Santa Cruz River to
Tucson; from there travelers could head north to the Gila River and then west to
California. Less commonly used was the famed Camino del Diablo, or Devil's Highway.
This was a direct route from northern Mexico to Yuma that crossed the inhospitable
deserts of northwestern Sonora and southwestern Arizona.
After the Spanish missions at Hopi were destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, the
Spanish presence in Arizona was confined to the Tucson region and Yuma. The Santa
Cruz road became the main Spanish route from Mexico to Arizona, providing access to
all of the mission communities and to the presidios at Tubac and Tucson. From Tucson
this road crossed the desert en route to the Pima Villages on the Gila River, and then
turned west to follow the Gila to the Yuma crossing of the Colorado River.
During the Mexican period of Arizona history (1821-1848), the Santa Cruz road offered
the only safe travel route through the region. It later became part of the Gila Trail, which
brought thousands of California-bound gold miners through Arizona starting in 1849.3
The first American attempt to establish a road in Arizona came during the Mexican-
American War, when a detachment of soldiers known as the Mormon Battalion marched
across southern Arizona en route to California (see Figure 2). Commanded by Capt.
Philip St. George Cooke, the battalion had orders not only to reinforce American forces
in California but also to establish a wagon road that the Army could use to travel between
Santa Fe and San Diego.
2 Henry P. Walker and Don Bufkin, Historical Atlas of Arizona (2d ed.; Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1986), Map 13; Stein, Historic Trails in Arizona, 5-7.
3 Walker and Bufkin, Historical Atlas, Map 40.
Figure 2. Early Trails and Roads in Arizona Territory.
The map shows some of the more important routes used from the 1840s to the 1870s in
Arizona. Adapted from Map 40, "Major Trails," in Henry P. Walker and Don Bufkin,
Historical Atlas of Arizona (2d ed.; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986).
The Mormon Battalion entered Arizona through Guadalupe Pass in 1846, near what is now
the southeastern corner of the state, and traveled west along the present-day Mexican border
to the San Pedro River. After following the river north for some distance, the men turned
northwest toward Tucson. There they connected with the historic Spanish road, which they
followed to the Pima Villages, the Gila River, and Yuma.
Cooke's men did little actual road building. Mainly they marked their route and removed
major obstructions like brush and rocks; otherwise they made no improvements. As one
historian wrote, "When the going was smooth, it appears that they marched along, moving
from water hole to water hole, convinced that the marks left by their turning wheels had
established a road."4
Known thereafter as Cooke's Wagon Road, in truth it was more a trail than a developed road.
Nevertheless, for a decade it was the best known travel route across Arizona, and the only
one suited for wagons. During the California gold rush of 1849, it was used by thousands of
would-be gold miners who chose to risk the dangers of an overland journey to the western
gold mines (most traveled by sea).
By 1849 a section of Cooke's road through southeastern Arizona was part of the Gila Trail,
which was the popular name for a series of roads that connected El Paso with southern
California. For three decades, from the late 1840s to the late 1870s, the Gila Trail was the
primary travel route across southern Arizona. It was followed not only by miners and
adventurers but also by settlers and ranchers traveling from the east.5
After the war between the United States and Mexico, and the signing of the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, Americans took possession of the Southwest—California,
Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Two years later, in 1850, California
became a state and the area comprising today's Arizona and New Mexico was designated
New Mexico Territory.
The Territory's capital was in Santa Fe, a long distance and many days of travel from the
settled parts of Arizona, which in the 1850s were confined to the same areas that the Span-iards
and Mexicans had occupied: southern Arizona and the lower Colorado River at Yuma.
At the time, Arizona had very few residents who were not Native Americans and hardly
anything that passed for an economy. Aside from a few struggling silver mines, economic
activities such as ranching, farming, and lumbering were conducted on practically a
subsistence basis. Virtually all of Arizonans' trade was local. Warfare with the Apaches of
southeastern Arizona made travel dangerous and greatly retarded the development of
Arizona's economy.
4 W. Turrentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West: A Study of Federal Road Surveys and Construction
in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1846-1869 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952), 21.
5 Because the Gila Trail was not a formally developed road but simply a popular name for a travel
route, there has always been some uncertainty about its exact location in some parts of Arizona. For
example, some maps show the Gila Trail passing through Apache Pass rather than Guadalupe Pass.
Away from the well-used Santa Cruz–Gila River route, travel through Arizona continued
to be over rough roads and trails blazed by the Territory's native peoples, traders,
ranchers, and miners. When work was required to maintain or improve these roads, it was
carried out not by any government entity but by informal groups of residents or travelers
who furnished their own labor, material, and funds.
The expansion of U.S. territory to California and the Southwest, and the gold rush to
California, created an urgent need to improve communication and transportation links
between the West and the rest of the nation. In 1853 Congress appropriated $150,000 for
surveys of potential railroad routes to the Pacific Ocean that would be conducted by
Army topographical engineers. Over the next two years, the Army carried out six
surveys; two of them, the Whipple and the Parke surveys, crossed Arizona. Although
their purpose was to identify transcontinental railroad routes, the surveys in fact first led
to the construction of wagon roads.6
In 1853, Lt. Amiel Whipple led an Army survey party on the first of these surveys, with
orders to find a railroad route on or near the 35th parallel. This route had already been
partially explored by Capt. Lorenzo Sitgreaves, who in 1851 had traveled from Zuni
Pueblo, near the northeastern border of Arizona, across northern Arizona. He and his
Army reconnaissance party traveled along the Little Colorado River, past the San
Francisco Peaks, and then directly west to the Colorado River, which they crossed near
present-day Needles. Whipple's route was similar to that taken by Sitgreaves, except that
in northeastern Arizona he and his men traveled along the Puerco River. In northwestern
Arizona they traveled farther south than Sitgreaves had, following the Bill Williams
River to the Colorado.
A year later, in 1854, Lt. John Parke led Arizona's second railroad survey party along the
32nd parallel in southern Arizona. Parke's men entered Arizona west of present-day
Lordsburg, New Mexico, and traveled directly west to Tucson. From there they followed
the Gila Trail, traveling first to the Pima Villages and then following the Gila River to
The route surveyed by the Whipple party, with some modifications based on the earlier
report of Sitgreaves, was eventually followed by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe
Railroad. Later, when highways were built, the routes blazed by Sitgreaves and Whipple
were followed by U.S. Route 66 and Interstate 40. The route marked out by the Parke
survey was eventually used by the Southern Pacific Railroad. Later U.S. Route 80 was
built along parts of the Parke route, and Interstate 10 followed the route almost in its
Construction of these two railroads lay two decades in the future, though, and in the
meantime an effective means of traveling across Arizona was still needed. Since the
6 William H. Goetzmann and Glyndwr Williams, The Atlas of North American Exploration (New
York: Prentice Hall, 1992), 162-63, 166-67; Walker and Bufkin, Historical Atlas, Map 23.
conclusion of the Mexican-American War, westerners had been lobbying for federal
assistance in building wagon roads. However, many in Congress believed that it was
unconstitutional to spend federal money on "local" improvements such as roads, and so
proposals to build wagon roads in the West faced significant opposition.
Finally, in 1857, Congress ordered the construction of two federal wagon roads through
New Mexico Territory, one across the northern part and the other across the southern.7
Construction began in 1857 on the northern road, which came to be known as Beale's
Wagon Road, after construction superintendent Edward Fitzgerald Beale (see Figure 2).
The first phase of the work, which cost $50,000 and took five months to complete,
established the route. Beale followed Whipple's survey route except in western Arizona,
where he went more directly westward rather than turning south to the Bill Williams River.
Many years later, when U.S. Route 66 was built, it mostly followed Beale's route.
When Beale and his men traveled eastward over the new road in 1858, it took them a
month to cross Arizona and northwestern New Mexico. Beale then recommended more
improvements. This second phase of work, which cost $100,000 and was carried out in
1859, involved the construction of a few bridges, some grading and straightening, and—
most importantly—digging wells and building water tanks.
When it was finished, the road was advertised as suitable for six-mule teams pulling
wagon loads as heavy as 3,500 pounds. Returning to New Mexico on his second trip
along the road, Beale needed only 108 hours to travel from the Colorado River to
The southern road, the El Paso–Fort Yuma Wagon Road, was begun in 1858. For the
most part it followed the route laid out by Parke in his 1855 survey (see Figure 2). After
entering southeastern Arizona near Apache Pass, the road headed directly west to the San
Pedro River, which it followed north to the Gila River. This route bypassed Tucson—a
decision made by the construction superintendent in order to avoid the long waterless
stretch past Picacho Peak north of Tucson.
The southern road cost just under $200,000 and required two years to complete. Workers
graded 35 miles of roadway, cleared brush along another 62 miles of road, and built one
water tank on the Arizona section of the road. "Much clearing of loose stone from
roadway was done, which was not measured," an official later reported.8
In later years the maintenance of these two roads was spotty and infrequent. When repairs
were made, they were typically carried out by travelers who occasionally cleared away
downed trees and filled in potholes. Nevertheless, these roads were important to frontier
Arizona. The El Paso–Fort Yuma road in particular helped connect the Territory's far-
7 Jackson, Wagon Roads West, 163ff, 241ff.
8 A. H. Campbell, Report upon the Pacific Wagon Roads (1859; Fairfield, Wash.: Ye Galleon
Press, 1969).
flung settlements with each other, and it provided a much-needed trade route to
California, New Mexico, and Texas.
It was along portions of this southern road that the first stagecoaches to reach Arizona
operated. The most celebrated of these was the Butterfield Overland Mail, which carried
passengers and mail to and from Arizona between 1858 and 1861. The Butterfield
coaches for the most part followed the El Paso–Fort Yuma Road, except that instead of
detouring north around Tucson, they stopped in the town, which was served by one of the
18 stations in Arizona built by the stage line.
The stations, which were located 17 to 37 miles apart, were simple adobe structures with
enclosed courtyards that served as corrals for the company's horses and mules. The
coaches ran night and day, stopping at the stations only long enough for employees to
change animals and for passengers to grab a quick meal. On its first run through Arizona,
the Butterfield stage needed only three-and-a-half days to travel 437 miles from Stein's
Pass on the New Mexico border to the California border at Yuma.9
The Civil War brought a dramatic slowdown in the settlement and development of
Arizona, as Army troops were withdrawn from frontier posts to fight in the war. Yet the
war also gave rise to the creation of Arizona Territory, which was established in 1863.
Federal officials were concerned that the Confederacy might try to break the Union
blockade of the South by occupying New Mexico Territory and establishing a trade route
across the Southwest. By creating a new territory that encompassed just Arizona,
Congress would bring greater federal authority to the region—a move that Arizona's
residents had been seeking for some time.
Everyone in the new territory agreed that Arizona's most pressing need was for wagon
roads. Freight and passengers had been able to reach Arizona by boat since 1852, when
steamboat service was established on the lower Colorado River. But travel inland from
the river still required a difficult and time-consuming journey by horse or stagecoach, one
made worse by the poor condition of the few existing roads.
However, when the Territorial Legislature met for the first time in 1864, at the new
Territorial capital in Prescott, it passed only one measure related to roads. Legislators
approved a resolution declaring the already-built Woolsey Trail, which connected
Prescott with the Pima Villages, to be Arizona's first public road. It was to be "a county
road, free for all intents and purposes."10 Like most public officials at the time, the
Territorial legislators considered road building to be the responsibility of the counties, not
the Territory.
9 The Butterfield Overland Mail Across Arizona, 1858-1861 (Tucson: Arizona Pioneers' Historical
Society, 1961), 9-10, 14, 33.
10 Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, Adopted by the First Legislative Assembly of the Territory of
Arizona (Prescott: Arizona Miner, 1865), 20.
The early officials of Arizona Territory were in a difficult position when it came to
building roads. Arizona was a sprawling territory of 114,000 square miles, much of it
rugged desert and mountain terrain that posed serious technological and logistical
challenges to road builders. Construction projects were made more difficult and
expensive by the distances that separated the Territory's towns, ranches, and mines.
Supplies and water had to be hauled to construction sites, and camps often had to be set
up for the workers.
At the same time, the financial resources available to the Territory were limited. Arizona
was sparsely populated and there was little taxable economic activity. Incomes were low,
and the Territory's residents made it clear that holding down taxes should be one of the
legislature's first priorities. Furthermore, many legislators believed that road building was
the responsibility of the counties, not the Territory. Under these circumstances, it was
hardly surprising that progress in improving Arizona's roads came slowly.
Although Arizona's early legislatures were unwilling to finance the construction of
public roads, they did encourage private road development. Six franchises were awarded
to toll road companies in 1864. Most were planned to serve the Territory's mines, which
were concentrated in southern Arizona, the Prescott-Wickenburg area, and western
Arizona. One company, the Tucson, Poso Verde, and Libertad Road Company, had
ambitious plans to build three roads, one of which was to connect Tucson with Sonora.
At its second session in 1865, the Territorial Legislature authorized two more toll road
franchises—one from Prescott to Lynx Creek, another originating at the Mowry mine in
southern Arizona.
Most of these roads were never built, and those that were proved to be poor investments.
Eventually, after relatively short periods of service, all of Arizona's early toll roads were
abandoned or converted into public roads.
The most successful by far was the Mojave and Prescott Toll Road, also known as the
Hardyville Road. Authorized in 1864 and constructed in 1865, the 161-mile road
connected Prescott with Fort Mojave on the Colorado River.11 In return for gaining the
exclusive right to build a road over that route, the company was required to spend at least
$3,000 on construction and follow a toll schedule prescribed by the legislature. A wagon
pulled by two draft animals was charged $2.42 to travel the road, while a horse and rider
were charged $1.21. Native Americans, and anyone traveling by foot, were granted free
passage on the road.
11 Acts, Resolutions and Memorials, Adopted by the First Legislative Assembly of the Territory of
Arizona (Prescott: Arizona Miner, 1865), 32-35.
The design and construction of the road were left entirely up to officials of the Mojave and
Prescott Toll Road Company, which worked with almost no direct supervision by Territorial
officials. Establishing a practice that would be followed for most of Arizona's Territorial
period, the legislature required that a temporary road commissioner inspect and approve the
road after it had been built.
The commissioner, Jerome Calkins, traveled the completed road in the summer of 1865. "A
large amount of work has been done on said Road in grading, clearing out rocks, filling
arroyos and gullies," he reported to the Arizona Territory governor. "It is in a condition now
throughout its whole length for teams with heavy loads to pass over, with safety and
comparative ease, although portions of the distance are naturally rough."12
With the Territorial government leaving public road construction to the counties, progress in
improving Arizona's roads was slow. The counties operated with tight budgets, reflecting
their limited tax bases, and all county officials except the sheriff worked part-time.
Following Territorial law, which prescribed how Arizona's counties conducted most of their
affairs, county road building was done by temporary construction crews under the
supervision of a three-man "viewing committee." These "viewers," as they were called, were
typically prominent local citizens who may or may not have had practical experience in
construction. They were responsible for determining each new road's route, mediating
disputes over the right-of-way, hiring and supervising work crews, and inspecting the road
after it was built.13
Once roads were built, they were turned over to county road overseers, each of whom was
responsible for maintaining the public roads in his local road district. The overseers were
part-time officials and could earn as much as $6 per day for their work, most of which
involved keeping roads clear of obstructions and organizing temporary repair crews. There
were no formal education or experience requirements for the position, which meant that
sometimes overseers were given their jobs as a reward for political work.
The work crews they supervised were composed of either hired laborers or local residents
performing their required road maintenance service. All "able-bodied men" in the county
were required to either pay a $6 annual road tax or donate two days of labor to road work.
When laborers, materials, or equipment had to be hired or purchased, the expenses were paid
with funds raised by a property tax devoted specifically to road improvements.
This system remained in place, with minor changes made by the legislature, until 1909—a
period that spanned more than four decades. In 1871 the legislature eliminated the viewing
committees, dividing their authority between the county boards and the road overseers.
Henceforth, new road construction work would be contracted directly by the supervisors,
12 Letter from Jerome Calkins to Gov. John N. Goodwin, Mojave and Prescott Toll Road Co. files
(FE Sacks 19/5 and 24/11), Arizona Historical Foundation, Hayden Library, Arizona State University.
13 The Compiled Laws of the Territory of Arizona, Including the Howell Code and the Session
Laws, from 1864 to 1871 (Albany, N.Y.: Weed, Parsons and Co., 1871), 548ff.
with the overseers left in charge of the work itself. The labor donation requirement was kept,
though it was lowered to one day per year, where it remained until 1909.
During the late 1860s and early 1870s, this system was sufficient to keep Arizona's roads in
more or less adequate repair. However, the revenue generated by the road taxes was not
enough to fund more than a few small construction projects. Until the counties could borrow
money for road construction by selling bonds, which required approval by the Territorial
Legislature, they would have to tolerate the roads they had.
Most of the roads built in Territorial Arizona were local, that is, they were designed to
connect towns with nearby ranches, farms, and mines. Few of these roads were designed to
efficiently connect with other roads, nor were they located to reduce traveling times or
distances. As a result, many of the Territory's roads were not particularly useful to long-distance
The exceptions were the roads located and built by the Army, which until the late 1870s was
the only authority in Arizona building roads specifically designed for long-distance travel.
Even though many of these Army roads were trails rather than properly constructed roads—
they were usually called "routes"—they were nevertheless important to Arizona. One popular
guidebook published in 1878, the Hand-Book to Arizona, identified 41 military routes to and
across Arizona.14
These military roads connected the forts and camps that the Army had established to support
its campaigns against the Territory's Native Americans. They ranged in length from the 39-
mile route between Fort Verde and Fort Whipple, which was located at Prescott, to the 316-
mile route between Fort Apache, in the White Mountains, and Maricopa Wells, a station on
the newly built Southern Pacific Railroad. The guidebook's route descriptions included
information about the available water, wood, and grass supplies and provided some
instructions on route-finding.
One of the better-known military routes was the General Crook Trail, which was established
in the early 1870s between Fort Apache and Fort Whipple. Named after General George
Crook, who at the time was the Army commander for Arizona Territory, the road followed
the Mogollon Rim from Fort Apache to Fort Verde, where it then descended into the Verde
Valley, crossed the Verde River, and followed the Cherry Creek road to Prescott (see Figure
2). The route was laid out by Crook in 1871, and construction work started in 1872. Most of
the work was confined to removing large obstacles such as trees and rocks from the roadbed.
By 1873 the trail was declared ready for pack trains, and by 1874 it was considered usable by
14 Richard J. Hinton, Hand-Book to Arizona: Its Resources, History, Towns, Mines, Ruins and
Scenery (1878; Tucson: Arizona Silhouettes, 1954), xxii (appendix).
15 Eldon Bowman and Elaine Cassey, A Guide to the General Crook Trail (N.p.: Museum of
Northern Arizona and Boy Scouts of America, 1978).
Figure 3. Early Arizona Railroads, 1894.
With the exception of the two transcontinental railroads, the Southern Pacific and the
Santa Fe, most of the early railroads in Arizona were built to serve the Territory's mining
regions. Based on data from Donald B. Robertson, Encyclopedia of Western Railroad
History; The Desert States: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah (Caldwell, Idaho:
Caxton Printers, 1986).
Travel on the General Crook Trail was never easy. One Army wife who took the road
soon after its opening, Martha Summerhayes, vividly recalled the experience many years
later: "For miles and miles the so-called road was nothing but a clearing, and we were
pitched and jerked from side to side of the ambulance as we struck large rocks or tree-stumps;
in some steep places, logs were chained to the rear of the ambulance, to keep it
from pitching forward onto the backs of the mules."16
The completion of Arizona's transcontinental railroads rendered Crook's Trail
unnecessary for long-distance wagon freighting, but the road continued to be used by
Army troops on patrol and by settlers and ranchers in the Mogollon Rim country. Many
parts of it can still be traveled today using U.S. Forest Service trails and roads.17
Some relief for Arizona's lack of good roads was provided in the late 1870s, when
railroads came to the Territory. The Southern Pacific Railroad was the first to build in
Arizona, completing its line across the Territory in 1880. It was followed soon thereafter
by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
Railroad (commonly known as the Santa Fe), which completed its Arizona line in 1883
(see Figure 3).18
The Southern Pacific line, which largely followed the 32nd parallel route surveyed by Lt.
John Parke in 1854, originally was to have been built by the Texas and Pacific Railway.
However, when the Southern Pacific arrived at Fort Yuma in 1877, after building east
from the California coast, the Texas and Pacific had yet to lay any track outside Texas.
Although the Southern Pacific was not authorized by its federal charter to build in
Arizona, it nevertheless constructed a bridge across the Colorado River and extended its
tracks into the town of Yuma, which it reached on September 30, 1877.
After securing a charter from the Arizona legislature authorizing it to build a railroad
across the Territory, the Southern Pacific resumed its eastward advance in late 1878. By
the spring of 1879 the railroad had reached Maricopa, which became the station serving
Phoenix, and in March 1880 the railroad arrived in Tucson.
Later that year, in October 1880, Southern Pacific tracklayers crossed the New Mexico
border east of San Simon. A year after that, in 1881, Arizona gained its first direct
railroad link to the Midwest and East, as the Santa Fe built a line south from Albuquerque
to Deming, New Mexico, connecting the Southern Pacific to the Santa Fe's rapidly
growing transcontinental network.
Like the Southern Pacific, the Santa Fe was not chartered by the federal government to
build in Arizona. That right had been given to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, which
16 Martha Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979), 69.
17 Public Lands Information Center, "General Crook National Recreation Trail, Arizona,"
http://www.publiclands.org/explore/site.php?id=967, accessed November 17, 2009.
18 Janus Associates, Transcontinental Railroading in Arizona, 1878-1940 (Phoenix: Arizona State
Historic Preservation Office, 1989).
planned to follow the 35th-parallel route surveyed in 1853 by Lt. Amiel Whipple.
However, after completing less than 400 miles of track in Missouri, the Atlantic and
Pacific went bankrupt in 1876. Eventually the Santa Fe acquired a controlling interest in
the Atlantic and Pacific and, using the latter's transcontinental charter, began surveying a
route across northern Arizona.
Construction started in Albuquerque in the summer of 1880. By the following May,
track-laying crews had reached Lupton, Arizona, on the border with New Mexico. Work
proceeded rapidly as far as Winslow, which was reached in December 1881, but then
progress slowed as the tracklayers waited for other Santa Fe workers to erect a bridge
across Canyon Diablo, a 225-foot-deep canyon that had always been a major obstacle to
east-west travel across northern Arizona.
The Canyon Diablo bridge, together with a bridge across Canyon Padre, was finished in
the summer of 1882, allowing the Santa Fe's track-laying crews to continue their
westward push. In August 1882, the first Santa Fe trains reached Flagstaff. A year later,
on August 13, 1883, they rolled into Needles, California, where the Santa Fe connected
with the Southern Pacific. Arizona now had its second transcontinental railroad service.
Curiously, neither of these railroads served Phoenix, which was rapidly growing and
would become Arizona's capital in 1889. The closest rail stop was the Southern Pacific
station at Maricopa, leaving Phoenix-bound passengers with a 35–mile stagecoach ride to
complete their journey. It was not until 1887, when the Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad
was completed, that Phoenix received direct rail service (see Figure 3).
The arrival of the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe laid the groundwork for the
development of Arizona's modern economy. Some of the changes were immediately felt,
while others would not occur until the early years of the 20th century. The railroad greatly
reduced the cost and time required to ship goods to and from Arizona. More importantly,
it made it economical for producers to ship bulky agricultural and mining products. This
allowed such critical Arizona industries as citrus and cotton farming, copper mining, and
cattle ranching to grow and prosper.
The beginning of rail service in Arizona also increased the demand for improved roads,
as businesses and towns across the Territory pushed for better connections to the two
railroads' depots. Before the railroads could be used to ship goods to and from Arizona,
new roads had to be built to transport those goods.
In 1877, with the Southern Pacific poised to enter the Territory at Yuma, Arizona
legislators finally brought the Territorial government into the road-building business. The
Territory's first project was a wagon road between Phoenix and Globe that was funded
with $10,000 in Territorial bonds ($205,000 in current dollars)—the first bonds in
Arizona to be issued for a highway construction project.
Establishing a supervisory procedure that would be followed until 1909 for all Territorial
road projects, the legislature appointed three road commissioners to oversee the project.
In return for a salary of $6 per day, these three men—all prominent Maricopa County
residents—were expected to oversee the survey, location, and construction of the road.
They could either supervise the work directly or delegate that responsibility to
contractors, who were required to submit competitive bids.
Between 1877 and 1885, the Territory issued additional road bonds totaling more than
$70,000. This represented a substantial increase in spending compared to previous years,
yet it was still a modest sum—less than $10,000 per year—considering how many miles
of roadway were needed to serve a territory as large as Arizona.
Not everyone was satisfied with that level of spending, however. In 1879 Governor John
C. Fremont urged the Arizona legislature to appropriate $500,000 for road projects in the
Territory. The legislators demurred, though, and instead of endorsing Fremont's
ambitious spending plan, they authorized just two road projects: $40,000 for roads
between Globe and Tucson, Globe and Florence, and Gillett and the Tiger Mine in
Yavapai County, and $10,000 for a road between Agua Fria and Camp Verde.
A typical Territorial road project of this era was the Ehrenberg-Yuma road, which was
funded in 1881 with a $10,000 bond issue. For the first 50 miles of the road, from Yuma
to the Castle Dome Mountains and Kofa Mountains, workers improved existing roads
built to serve mines in the area. For the remaining 60 miles, from the Kofa Mountains to
Ehrenberg, they surveyed and built a new roadway. It was completed in 1882, at which
time the commissioners in charge of the project reported, "The entire road is in excellent
condition, and can be kept in repair at small expense. The road is traveled over by four
and six horse teams; and has proven of immense benefit to people living above Yuma."19
Four years later, in 1885, the Arizona legislature authorized several road projects, one of
which was the first bridge to be built by the Territory. Crossing the Gila River near
Florence, the bridge was erected by a California company at a cost just over $15,000.
Nearly a thousand feet long, it was constructed of redwood pilings and had a wooden
roadway that was 16 feet wide. "The Bridge has been tested, at different times, by a
twenty mule team with four heavily loaded wagons without spinning [sic] or giving away
in the least," the bridge commissioners reported after its completion.20
In 1886 the Territory's road-building program was brought to a halt by Congress'
passage of the Harrison Act, which was intended to reform the financial affairs of all of
the nation's territories. The law imposed new limits on how much debt each territory
could incur, and because Arizona had already exceeded those limits, the Arizona
legislature was forced to stop issuing bonds for roads and other public works. For the
next 23 years, all road construction in Arizona was undertaken by the counties, which
could more easily float the bond issues required to finance such large projects.
19 Miscellaneous Road Records, Secretary of the Territory, RG 6, Arizona State Archives.
20 Records of the Secretary of Territory, RG 6, Box 1, Arizona State Archives.
In fact the counties had been issuing road bonds for some time, in some years spending
more than the Territorial government on road construction. In 1877, the same year that
the Territorial government had approved a $10,000 bond issue for the Phoenix-Globe
road, Maricopa County sold $15,000 in bonds to pay for the construction of wagon roads
from Phoenix to several destinations. This included two roads to Prescott, one via Black
Canyon and the other via Wickenburg; a road to Yuma via Agua Caliente; and a road to
Globe. Also that year, Yavapai County issued $40,000 in bonds to build wagon roads
from Prescott into the Bradshaw Mountains, to Iron Springs, and into Black Canyon.
Between 1879 and 1885, Arizona's counties were authorized by the Territorial
Legislature to issue nearly $60,000 in bonds to finance road projects—a sum almost as
great as that spent by the Territory on road building during that period. Most of these new
county roads were in Maricopa and Yavapai counties, but Pinal and Graham counties also
were able to carry out projects. All of these bond issues were to be repaid using property
The fact that most of these new roads were being built by only a few counties pointed to a
problem that would bedevil road planners in Arizona for many decades: while some
counties saw rapid improvement of their roads, others remained "road poor." Using
property taxes to finance road construction, as Arizona's counties did, it worked to the
advantage of wealthier and more populous counties like Maricopa, Pima, and Yavapai,
and to the disadvantage of less developed counties like Apache, Navajo, and Santa Cruz.
Even if the counties had wanted to seek new funding sources, they could not do so
without approval from the Territorial Legislature, which did not extend home rule to
Arizona's counties. The legislature's 1871 law establishing the county road districts
remained in effect until 1909. Some counties secured passage of special road laws by the
legislature, as Maricopa County did in 1883, but these were nearly identical to the 1871
law. Indeed, the only real changes made for Maricopa County were to drop the
requirement that county residents do road work each year and to adjust the county's road
tax rates.
After passage of the 1886 Harrison Act, Arizona's counties also were forced to limit their
debt, though not so much that they could no longer issue road bonds. They built roads all
through the Territorial period, and many of these new county roads laid the groundwork
for what would later become Arizona's first state highway system. For example, the
wagon roads built by Maricopa County and Yavapai County between Phoenix and
Flagstaff would eventually be incorporated into U.S. Route 89 and State Route 69. By the
later years of the Territorial period, Arizona's counties together were spending an
average of $200,000 a year on road construction and maintenance—a significant increase
from the limited expenditures of earlier years.21
21 Report of the State Engineer of the State of Arizona, July 1, 1909, to June 30, 1914 (Phoenix,
1914), 19.
However, the quality of road construction varied enormously from county to county and
from road to road. There still was only one major bridge in Arizona, the one across the
Gila River at Florence, and none of the Territory's roads were paved. Indeed, only a few
miles of roadway were even surfaced with gravel; most Arizona roads still had surfaces
of unimproved dirt. Maintenance was spotty, with most work supervised not by engineers
but by local contractors and officials whose primary credentials were political rather than
None of this was necessarily anyone's fault. In 1910, two years before statehood, Arizona
had only 204,000 residents and little taxable property by national standards. Its centers of
population and economic activity were separated by large distances and rugged terrain
that posed significant challenges to highway engineers. Under such circumstances, it was
difficult and expensive to construct even the most basic of road networks.
Fortunately for Arizona, the lack of good roads was not a serious problem during most of
the Territorial period. In many parts of the Territory, where the climate was dry and the
soils rocky, the mud that plagued road users in other parts of the country was blessedly
absent for most of the year. And when conditions were bad, the horses and mules that
Arizonans used for transportation were usually able to negotiate even the worst trails.
The world was changing, though. The modern industrial economy taking shape in the
United States depended on good roads. So, too, did a new mode of transportation coming
onto the scene—the automobile.
Recognizing this, the Territorial Legislature took Arizona's first step toward creating a
modern road system in 1909, when it overhauled the Territory's road law. Most
importantly, the legislature placed Territorial road construction and maintenance under
the supervision of a Territorial Engineer who was required to be "a practical competent
civil engineer." In return for a salary of $3,000, and aided by a $2,500 appropriation for
office expenses, the Territorial Engineer was expected to set up a formal Territorial
highway system, design and supervise the construction of all new Territorial roads, and
provide engineering support to the counties.22
The legislature also ordered changes at the county level. The road districts were
abandoned and the local road overseers replaced by county road superintendents "skilled
and experienced in the construction of roads and highways." Each superintendent was
required to "give his full time to the duties of his office and shall conduct no other
business requiring attention," bringing to a close the era of part-time political road
commissioners and overseers.23
22 Report of the State Engineer…1909 to 1914, 16ff.
23 Acts, Resolutions and Memorials of the Twenty-Fifth Legislative Assembly of the Territory of
Arizona (Phoenix: Phoenix Printing Co., 1909), 164.
Figure 4. Arizona's First Highway System, 1914.
From Report of the State Engineer of the State of Arizona, July 1, 1909, to June 30, 1914
(Phoenix, 1914).
The Territorial road system created by the Arizona legislature in 1909, at first existed
only on paper. It consisted of just two roads, one running east-west between Yuma and
Duncan, on the New Mexico border in southeastern Arizona, and the other running north-south
between Douglas and the Grand Canyon (see Figure 4).
To pay for this new system, the legislature created Arizona's first road tax: a property tax
administered by the counties. In counties with no Territorial highway—the two roads in
the system did not pass through every Arizona county—the tax rate was lower than in
counties served by a highway in the new system. The new tax did not raise large sums of
money, a reflection not only of the low tax rate but also Arizona's limited tax base.
During the last three years of the Territorial period, Arizona collected just $546,000 in
road taxes and spent $560,000 on road surveys and construction—an average of $187,000
per year.24
Not surprisingly, given Arizona's size and the poor condition of its existing roads,
progress in building the new Territorial system was slow. During the three final years of
Territorial government, the engineer surveyed more than 1,200 miles of roadway but was
able to construct only 145 miles of new roadway, most of which was part of the Douglas–
Grand Canyon highway.
As a result, most travelers in Arizona noticed few real improvements. Isolated sections of
roadway were graded, drained, and surfaced with crushed gravel, but they were still
interspersed with long sections of roadway that had been built with nothing more than
dirt and other local materials. For more significant road improvements, Arizonans would
have to wait for assistance from the federal government, which did not come until after
Arizona attained statehood.
24 Report of the State Engineer…1909 to 1914, 17, 30.
Statehood brought many changes to Arizona, but a new system of road administration
was not one of them. The Territorial Engineer was rechristened the State Engineer, and
his department given a new name—the Arizona Highway Department—but otherwise the
division of authority and funds between the state and the counties remained largely
unchanged. Indeed, the legislation establishing the highway department assumed that
much of the construction and all maintenance would be carried out by the counties.
To fund the new highway department, the Arizona Legislature established a statewide
road tax, which was a property tax like the road tax previously collected under the 1909
Territorial road law. The legislators did not specify a tax rate; instead they required only
that the tax be "sufficient" to raise $250,000 per year (see Table 1, p. 41). Each year's tax
collections were divided between the state and the counties, with 75 percent of the
revenue distributed among the counties in proportion to their road tax collections.
Although all road tax receipts were deposited into a single fund, the State Road Tax
Fund, in practice they were divided between two funds that became known as the 75-
percent fund and the 25-percent fund.1
The counties did not have a free hand in spending the money placed in the 75-percent
fund, for the State Engineer was given a supervisory role in all projects financed from it.
Indeed, for all practical purposes the 75-percent fund was used for the development of the
state highway system rather than on county roads. This system nevertheless left the
highway department with rather little control over where much of the state's highway
budget would be spent. And, it tended to concentrate spending on roads in the wealthier
counties with large tax bases, which meant that many miles of roadway in the less
populated counties received minimal attention.
The modest amount ($62,500) remaining under the exclusive control of the highway
department, which was placed in the 25-percent fund, was supplemented by vehicle
license fees, which in the first two years of statehood averaged $25,000 per year. It was
also supplemented by the state corrections budget, which included funds for hiring
prisoners as road workers. During the early years of statehood, prison workers were used
on some of state's most notable projects, including the Tempe bridge built in 1913, the
Phoenix-Tempe highway, the Bisbee-Tombstone highway, and a new bridge over the San
Pedro River at Fairbank.
1 Report of the State Engineer of the State of Arizona, July 1, 1909, to June 30, 1914 (Phoenix,
1914), 40ff.
As a result of this distribution scheme, the State Engineer was left with exclusive control of
less than $100,000 a year to spend on plugging the gaps in the new state highway system.
In fact, during the first two years of statehood, the State Engineer had $191,000 at his
disposal for state projects, of which he spent $152,000—just over $75,000 per year. In
addition to designing and supervising construction of state highways and bridges, the State
Engineer also assisted the counties in locating, designing, building, and maintaining their
Not surprisingly, county road expenditures continued to dwarf those of the state. From 1912
to 1914, counties received $417,000 in road funds from the state, of which they spent
$355,000—an average of just under $178,000 per year. This was more than twice what the
state spent directly, yet it was only a portion of what the counties spent on roads. Counties
also had their own road taxes, as well as funds derived from bond sales and special
assessments. Together, these funding sources were often larger than the counties' annual
share of state road tax revenues. In 1914, for example, county road revenues totaled
$764,000—more than twice the state's revenues of $356,000, which included the counties'
75-percent fund.
The condition of Arizona's state highways reflected these levels of spending; almost all of
the state's roads were built of dirt and other local materials, and few had been properly
graded or drained. "There are a few miles of graveled road in Graham, about ½ mile in
Yuma and several miles of caliche road in Maricopa," State Engineer Lamar Cobb reported
to Governor George W. P. Hunt in 1913. "I know of no other improved roads in the state,
outside of cities, towns or special road districts, though I may have missed a half mile or so
Arguing that a better and more coherent statewide network of roads was needed, and that
such a system would be possible only if state funding were increased, the Arizona Good
Roads Association in 1914 proposed a $5 million bond issue to finance a statewide road
construction program. At the time, according to the association, Arizona was the fifth-largest
state in the nation in area but ranked 46th in road mileage, with just 5,987 miles of
public roads.3
The Arizona Good Roads Association was a product of the "good roads movement" that
had been growing in the United States since the late 1880s. At first the movement
represented the interests of urban bicyclists. Bicycling organizations had tried to win the
support of farmers and other rural residents, but at first they were rebuffed. Most rural
Americans did not want to see their taxes raised to pay for new roads that they thought
would benefit only city dwellers. However, as more rural Americans came to see that poor
roads significantly increased their transportation costs, farm groups became a powerful
2 Report of the State Engineer…1909 to 1914, 73. Caliche, or hardpan, is a sedimentary rock
containing calcium carbonate; its cement-like quality makes it a durable road surface.
3 The figure included both state and county roads. See "Announcement of Meeting of the Arizona
Good Roads Association … Prescott, Arizona, July 3, 1914," Arizona Collection CE EPH O-40,
Department of Archives and Special Collections, Hayden Library, Arizona State University.
constituency in the good roads movement. Once motor vehicles began appearing on the
nation's roads, a third group of supporters joined the good roads coalition: automobile
owners. As their numbers grew rapidly, "automobilists" helped make good roads a potent
issue at every level—national, state, county, and local.
The bond measure proposed by the Arizona Good Roads Association received high-profile
support, with State Engineer Cobb and Governor Hunt both speaking in favor of the
measure. Three years earlier, Cobb's predecessor, Territorial Engineer J. B. Girand, had
argued in favor of good roads in economic terms: "It is estimated that each man, woman
and child in the United States bears a tax of $12.50 because of bad roads. By far the greatest
part of this needless waste could have been avoided, if the roads had been properly
constructed in the first place."4
When the bond proposal went to the voters in November 1914, though, it was soundly
defeated, with 13,215 Arizonans voting in favor but 23,499 voting against it. The largest
margin of defeat was in Maricopa County, which ironically would begin its own ambitious
and expensive highway paving program only five years later.
The bond measure's defeat left the Arizona Highway Department in a difficult position.
The state could afford little new road construction and would have to continue to emphasize
improvements, many of which were incremental. Nor could the department afford to begin
paving the state's highways; instead it surfaced all roads, including new ones, with gravel.
As a result, by 1916 there was still not a single mile of concrete or asphalt highway in the
state highway system. Arizona's best roads were surfaced with crushed rock or gravel; the
rest were not surfaced at all, having been built simply by grading the existing dirt or rock
Meanwhile, automobile registrations in Arizona were rising quickly, from 1,852 in 1912 to
12,124 in 1916.5 More importantly, automobile tourism was on the rise, and Arizona's
business owners wanted to capture a share of this growing market. Arizona's good roads
advocates had been arguing for some time that the state's reluctance to spend money on
road improvements was costing it valuable tourist business. Arizona had famous attractions
such as the Grand Canyon, the Hopi villages, Spanish missions, and the Painted Desert, the
Territorial Engineer had written in 1911. "Yet today," Girand lamented, "few of these
wonderful points of interest are within reach of the tourist, and none of the motorist."6
Throughout these early years, Arizona's highway system was a system in name only.
Virtually all of the state's roads were built piecemeal, with the work done by the counties
rather than the territory or the state. The location of these roads was determined primarily
by the needs of local traffic moving in and out of towns, and secondarily by regional traffic
moving between towns.
4 J. B. Girand, "Arizona Roads," Arizona: The New State Magazine 1, no. 6 (July 1911): 1-2.
5 Motor vehicle registration data can be found in the annual reports of the Secretary of State.
6 Girand, "Arizona Roads," 1-2.
Figure 5. Automobile Roads and Routes in Arizona, 1917.
This map shows the named routes and other roads that were recommended for automobile
tourists near the close of the First World War (some minor spur roads and connecting roads
are not shown for clarity's sake). Adapted from map in Clason's Guide to Arizona, with
Map of Auto Routes (Denver: Clason Map Co., 1918).
Little was done to plan direct, efficient roads that crossed the state, and even less thought
was given to integrating Arizona's roads into a national system or network, which at any
rate did not exist yet. It was for this reason that most of Arizona's roads were known by the
towns they connected—the Phoenix-Tempe highway, for example, or the Tombstone-
Bisbee road.
When the first "national" roads were routed through Arizona—an effort started by private
business interests rather than the highway department—these, too, were given names. By
the time the Arizona Good Roads Association proposed its $5 million bond program in
1914, there were five named roads across Arizona: the National Old Trails Highway; the
Ocean-to-Ocean Highway; the Borderland Highway; the Roosevelt Dam Highway; and
the Grand Canyon–Nogales Highway.
The National Old Trails Highway, Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, and Borderland Highway
were regional or national routes (see Figure 5). They were assembled from existing
county roads strung together by local and state groups working cooperatively under
national associations. The associations coordinated efforts to erect road signs to identify
the routes, provide directions and mileage, publish road guides, and promote travel along
the roads. Towns and counties along the routes were eager to cooperate, hoping that they
might capture some of the business of lodging and feeding automobile tourists.
The National Old Trails Highway, which would eventually find fame as part of U.S.
Route 66, was begun in 1911 as a project of the Missouri chapter of the Daughters of the
American Revolution. After the initial route between St. Louis and Kansas City was
established, road promoters in Missouri began working with like-minded groups in other
states to establish a route between Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.7
In 1913 the National Old Trails Highway Association announced the road's route through
Arizona. Starting at Lupton near the New Mexico border, it followed the Santa Fe Rail-road
tracks across northern Arizona to Topock, at the California border. In fact there was
not yet a passable road from Lupton to Holbrook, so an alternative route was established
that entered Arizona east of Springerville and went through St. Johns to Holbrook, where
it joined the main Old Trails route. Reflecting its location alongside the railroad, the
National Old Trails Highway was also known in Arizona as the Santa Fe Highway.
For a time the National Old Trails Highway Association cooperated with a second road
group, the Ocean-to-Ocean Transcontinental Highway Association, which was founded in
1911 by highway promoters from Arizona, New Mexico, and California. The Ocean-to-
Ocean group favored an Arizona route that entered the state near Springerville and then
headed to Phoenix via Globe and the Apache Trail (which ran between Roosevelt Dam
and Mesa). From Phoenix the route passed through Buckeye and Arlington before
following the Gila River to Yuma and California. Eventually the National Old Trails and
Ocean-to-Ocean planners parted company, and the Ocean-to-Ocean promoters developed
their own route.
7 Harold Ray Housley, "A History of United States Highway 66 in Arizona" (M.A. thesis, Arizona
State University, 1996), 19-25.
The Borderland Highway was a regional route that connected El Paso and Los Angeles. It
entered Arizona at Rodeo, on the New Mexico border, and passed through Douglas,
Bisbee, and Tombstone en route to Tucson. From there it continued north through
Florence and Florence Junction, where it turned west along the same route followed by
the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway. Passing through Mesa, Tempe, downtown Phoenix,
Buckeye, and Wellton, the road crossed the Gila River at Dome and the Colorado River
at Yuma.
The Roosevelt Dam Highway was the Arizona Highway Department's name for the road
connecting Mesa with Duncan, on the New Mexico border. Between Mesa and Rice, a
small town located just east of Globe, this route was identical to that of the Ocean-to-
Ocean Highway; at Rice it left the Ocean-to-Ocean route and angled southeast through
Safford to Duncan, continuing on to Lordsburg, New Mexico.
On some maps this road is also identified as the Southern National Highway, a minor
cross-country route established in 1913.8 Little is known about this road in Arizona, but
according to one source, the Southern National route was the same as the Roosevelt Dam
Highway and the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway between Mesa and Arlington; west of
Arlington the Southern National passed through Quartzsite and Ehrenberg before
crossing the Colorado River and entering California.9
Arizona's other named road was the state's only truly home-grown highway: the Grand
Canyon–Nogales Highway, which connected the south rim of the Grand Canyon with
Nogales. From the Grand Canyon it passed through Flagstaff, Camp Verde, Prescott,
Wickenburg, and Glendale en route to downtown Phoenix. From there it followed the
Borderland route as far as Tucson, where it turned directly south toward Nogales and the
border with Mexico. The Grand Canyon–Nogales Highway remained the state's principal
north-south road, but the Prescott–Grand Canyon segment via Flagstaff and Camp Verde
was soon eclipsed in popularity by an alternative route from Prescott to the canyon via
Ash Fork and Williams.
The National Old Trails Highway, which was Arizona's most popular and heavily
traveled road during this period, survived until the establishment of the federal highway
system in the early 1920s. All of the other named east-west roads were either abandoned
as named routes or incorporated into other, more successful cross-country roads: the
Dixie Overland Highway, the Bankhead Highway, and the Lee Highway.
Development of the Dixie Overland Highway, which connected Savannah, Georgia, with
San Diego, began in 1917; its western route through Arizona and California was decided
8 Richard F. Weingroff, "Dr. S. M. Johnson – A Dreamer of Dreams," Highway History, Federal
Highway Administration, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/johnson.cfm (accessed December 3,
9 The Southern National may have had two branches in western Arizona, with the second following
the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway through Yuma; see "Southern National Highway,"
http://academic.marion.ohio-state.edu/schul/trails/national/snh.html (accessed December 3, 2009).
in 1919.10 The Bankhead Highway, which ran between Washington, D.C., and San
Diego, was first proposed in 1916 and its route through Arizona announced in 1920.11
Development of the Lee Highway, which also ran between the nation's capital and San
Diego, began in 1919.12
In Arizona, all three of these named roads followed the same route as the Borderland
Highway, which connected Rodeo, New Mexico, with Yuma and passed through
Douglas, Tucson, and Phoenix. In addition, the Lee Highway established a northern
branch in eastern Arizona that followed the Duncan-Mesa route originally known as the
Southern National Highway and Roosevelt Dam Highway.
The Dixie Overland, Bankhead, and Lee highway associations were better-organized and
their routes better-publicized than their predecessors. As a result, the earlier road names
used in Arizona faded into obscurity, even as the routes themselves survived. One section
of an early named road—the Ocean-to-Ocean Highway segment between Rice and the
New Mexico border—was abandoned altogether as a named route.
These names, which evoked feelings of romance and history, were the principal means of
identifying Arizona's highways well into the 1920s. When the State Engineer published
his biennial report in 1918, he could describe Arizona's highway system only by referring
to these named highways—there was no numbering system or even a consistent method
of marking roads. Indeed, the only aspect of Arizona's highway system that was
systematic was its coverage of the state: every county and county seat was served by at
least one of the named roads.
Convinced that a modern highway system could never be built without tapping the
federal government's financial resources, good roads activists in Arizona and other states
for years had been lobbying Congress to fund the construction of state roads.
In 1914 the National Highways Association proposed a 50,000-mile national highway
system and pushed the federal government to fund its construction; three of the roads in
the proposed system would cross Arizona from east to west. "All attempts to develop
roads by first building local roads have failed," a representative of the association stated.
Referring to the success that railroads enjoyed in bridging the continent, he continued,
"Not until trunk lines were built was there any material advance in road building. These
trunk lines brought about the desire for and building of the local feeder lines. … It must
be the same with roads."13
10 Richard F. Weingroff, "U.S. Route 80: The Dixie Overland Highway," Highway History, Federal
Highway Administration, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/us80.cfm (accessed November 25, 2009);
"Dixie Overland Highway," American Roads, http://www.americanroads.us/autotrails/dixieoverland.html
(accessed December 3, 2009).
11 "Bankhead Highway," American Roads, http://www.americanroads.us/autotrails/bankheadhighway.html
(accessed November 25, 2009)
12 "Lee Highway," American Roads, http://www.americanroads.us/autotrails/leehighway.html
(accessed November 25, 2009).
13 "Announcement of Meeting of the Arizona Good Roads Association," 5.
To a limited extent, the federal government was already involved in road matters.
However, the Office of Public Roads, which had been established in 1893 as the Office
of Road Inquiry, had only an advisory role in highway affairs. It conducted technical
studies on road building and advised the states on construction issues, but it had no
regulatory or supervisory authority, nor any funds to expend directly on road
construction. So far all attempts to give it such authority or funding had been defeated in
Congress by opponents of federal funding for "local improvements" such as roads, who
argued that such aid was unconstitutional.14
In the first decade of the 20th century, however, the opposition to federal involvement in
highway construction was greatly undercut by four developments. First was the increase-ing
popularity of good roads among farmers, who were a powerful political force in many
states. Second was the inauguration of rural mail delivery (Rural Free Delivery, or RFD),
which greatly increased the demand for better roads. Third was the rising popularity of
the automobile, which needed improved roads in ways that draft animals and wagons had
not. And fourth was a Supreme Court ruling, in 1907, that the federal government could
in fact construct highways under its authority to regulate interstate commerce.
In 1916, advocates of federal involvement in road construction finally triumphed,
winning passage of the Federal Aid Road Act, which committed the federal government
to providing funds to the states for highway construction. To gain approval of the measure,
good roads advocates agreed to a provision that left the states and counties in charge of the
actual design and construction work. The primary role of the federal government, acting
through the Office of Public Roads (soon to be renamed the Bureau of Public Roads),
would be to provide funds and set technical standards for highway design.
The Federal Aid Road Act of 1916 was among the most important pieces of public works
legislation in American history. It established a model for federal participation in
highway development that prevailed for the remainder of the century. State highway
officials submitted project proposals to the Office of Public Roads (OPR), which
reviewed them for compliance with federal highway standards. Construction began only
after OPR approval; federal funds for a project were released to the state only after its
completion. Each state received a fixed amount of annual aid, which was determined by
the OPR's budget, and reimbursement for each project was limited to half of its total
Arizona's initial share of federal aid funds was a modest $68,500, but that share grew
quickly, rising to $890,000 in 1919 and to $1.3 million in 1920. Not all of this money
was actually received by Arizona and spent by the highway department, however. The
states were required to match any federal aid they received, and in some years property
tax collections and legislative appropriations in Arizona were insufficient to match the
federal contribution. In 1919 and 1920, for example, Arizona actually received only
14 Richard F. Weingroff, "Federal Aid Road Act of 1916: Building the Foundation," Federal
Highway Administration, http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/rw96a.cfm (accessed April 23, 2009).
15 The 1916 act is reproduced in Third Biennial Report of the State Engineer (Phoenix, 1918), 22ff.
$573,000 in federal aid—much less than it was eligible to receive, yet still a substantial
new source of highway funding.16
Arizona would have received even less had the 1912 formula for funding state highways
remained in effect. However, state officials quickly realized that capping the annual
appropriation for the highway department had the effect of also capping federal aid, so
they pressured the legislature to overhaul the state's highway funding scheme. This was
done in 1917, when the legislature fixed the road tax at one mill, or 10 cents per $100 of
assessed valuation, and eliminated the $250,000 cap on the revenue that could be
collected from the tax.
Under the new law, the funds collected for the highway department increased
dramatically, rising from $250,000 in 1916-17 to $697,000 in 1917-18 and $841,000 in
1918-19. The counties benefited as well, as the 75-percent fund (which was left intact by
the 1917 legislation) swelled in size. Even allowing for these continued payments to the
counties, the highway department was now receiving much more money than it had
during the first few years of statehood.
At the same time, other state revenues were rising as well. Motor vehicle license receipts
were increasing and would reach $160,000 by 1920. And the legislature was now willing
to make additional annual appropriations for individual road and bridge projects—a tacit
acknowledgment that even the new property-tax revenue formula was perhaps not as
productive as needed. Taking all of these new revenue sources together—federal aid,
increased property tax revenues and license fees, and appropriations—Arizona had more
money to spend on highway construction and maintenance than ever before. In 1919-20,
state highway revenues reached $1.58 million, of which $741,400 was given to the
counties through the 75-percent fund.
With rising funding came more construction. In the eight years that had passed since
statehood in 1912, Arizona had been able to construct 335 miles of "permanent" roads—a
small portion of a state system that was slated to include 1,600 miles of roadway, but a
major step forward nonetheless.
Most importantly, these new miles of roadway included Arizona's first stretches of paved
highway. Drivers now could travel on asphalt or concrete along sections of the Bisbee-
Douglas road, the National Old Trails Highway through Flagstaff and Winslow, the
Tucson-Florence highway, and the Tucson-Nogales road. By far the longest segment of
paved road in Arizona was the highway that ran through the Salt River Valley from
Mesa, on the east, to Buckeye, on the west. It was here that three of Arizona's major
roads—the Lee Highway, the Bankhead and Dixie Overland highways, and the Grand
Canyon–Nogales Highway—converged, making it one of the most heavily traveled
roadways in the state. By 1921, all but one mile of this 64-mile stretch was either paved
with asphalt or concrete or under construction with pavement. The lone unpaved mile
was at the Agua Fria River, where plans were being made for a new bridge.17
16 Fourth Biennial Report of the State Engineer (Phoenix, 1920), table following 108.
17 "Longest Paved Highway in State," Arizona Highways, December 24, 1921, 5.
Figure 6. Arizona's Seven-Percent System, 1926.
This map of Arizona's state and U.S. highways was published just after the first highway
numbers were assigned. Some of the numbers were later changed. From Arizona
Highways, January 1926.
The biggest road improvement success story in Arizona, though, was local. In 1919, Maricopa
County voters approved a $4 million bond issue to pave 283 miles of county roads with
concrete. It was, as Arizona Highways magazine observed, "the most ambitious county paving
undertaking in the United States" and one that attracted "no end of interest among highway
engineers the country over."18
Construction began in 1920. It soon became apparent that rising concrete prices would make
it impossible to pave as many miles as originally planned, so a second bond issue of $4.5
million was proposed to county voters that year. It, too, was approved, and within a year the
county had surfaced 125 miles of road, out of a total of 312 miles slated for paving under the
expanded program.
Material costs remained high enough that the county was not able to complete as much paving
as it had first hoped. Yet, it still was able to surface far more miles of roadway than any other
county in Arizona. By 1927, Maricopa County had 277 miles of paved county roads. With the
82 miles of paved state highways that traversed the county, this gave Maricopa County a total
of 359 miles of paved roadway—more than the rest of the state combined.19
Although the cost of these paved roads was high compared to earlier roads, county and state
officials argued that paving projects paid for themselves over time. Unpaved roads exacted a
hidden tax on drivers in premature tire wear, higher maintenance costs, and increased gas and
oil consumption. Writing in Arizona Highways, which at the time was a road construction
magazine rather than a travel magazine, highway official Ira Wood estimated that the unpaved
road tax was 2.6 cents per mile. For the 82 miles of paved state highway in Maricopa County,
Wood calculated, the 816,000 cars that traveled over them in one year "saved" $1.6 million—
enough to pay for the paving of those 82 miles of roadway in less than two years.
The 1916 federal highway bill was not without its flaws, chief of which was its failure to
require that new state highways be connected to each other in a system that efficiently served
long-distance travelers. This oversight was remedied in 1921, when Congress passed a new
Federal Aid Highway Act that significantly increased road funding for the states but also
required that each highway department designate seven percent of its highway system as part
of a national highway network. These roads, which soon were dubbed "seven-percent" roads,
would be given first priority for federal funding.
When the 1921 legislation was passed, Arizona had 21,400 miles of county and state roads, so
its initial seven-percent system was set up to include 1,453 miles of highway. Most of that
mileage came from the state's existing highway system, and Arizona's initial seven-percent
system included 9 out of every 10 miles of roadway that had been built by the Territorial and
state governments since 1909 (see Figure 6).20
18 "Maricopa County Highway Program," Arizona Highways, December 24, 1921, 3.
19 Ira L. Wood, "Eighty-Two Miles of Paving in Maricopa County Saves Car Owners $1,594,265 a
Year," Arizona Highways, March 1927, 1.
20 Fifth Biennial Report of the State Engineer (Phoenix, 1922), 19-23.
At first Arizona's seven-percent system consisted simply of the named highways set up in the
1910s. The National Old Trails Highway, or Santa Fe Highway, was incorporated into the
system as the state's principal east-west road across northern Arizona; both the Holbrook-
Lupton segment and the alternative route through Springerville and St. Johns were included.
The Lee/Bankhead/Dixie Overland highways, which ran from Rodeo on the New Mexico
border to Yuma, were included as the principal east-west highway across southern Arizona.
The third east-west road was the northern branch of the Lee Highway, which ran from
Duncan on the New Mexico border to Florence Junction.
The only north-south road in the seven-percent system was the Grand Canyon–Nogales
Highway. At first the highway department proposed that the road follow Black Canyon
between Prescott and Phoenix, along a route that more or less corresponds to the present-day
alignments of State Route 69 and Interstate 17. This would have been a major
departure from the established route of the Grand Canyon–Nogales Highway, which
passed through Wickenburg, Yarnell, and Prescott. Although an increasing number of
travelers used the Black Canyon route, which was then a county road, neither was a
particularly good road and both were the subject of many complaints from Arizona
Yavapai County officials strenuously objected to the Black Canyon route, largely because
the county had just issued $1.5 million in road bonds to pay for improvements to the
highway's White Spar segment, which climbed through the Bradshaw Mountains
immediately south of Prescott.21 In the end, state and federal officials (who had to
approve Arizona's seven-percent system designations) concluded it would be less
expensive to improve the existing alignment through Wickenburg and Yarnell. This
would remain the route of Arizona's principal north-south highway, U.S. Route 89, until
well after the Second World War.
Once the seven-percent system was in place, the Arizona Highway Department's first
goal was to improve Arizona's roads to the point where travelers could average 30 miles
per hour. This was a daunting task, for many miles of Arizona roadways were not even
surfaced with gravel. It also required a dramatic increase in expenditures compared to
earlier years. Between 1922 and 1924, the state and counties together spent $6.4 million
on highways, with nearly a third of those funds ($2 million) coming from the federal
government. Without federal aid, much less progress would have been made on
constructing and improving Arizona's highway system; from 1916 to 1924, the state
received a total of $5.5 million in federal aid.22
Despite the accelerated spending, progress in improving the state's roads was slow. Of
the 1,453 miles of highways in Arizona's seven-percent system in 1924, only 175 miles
were paved with asphalt (39 miles) or concrete (136 miles). All of those paved roads
were in and around the state's largest towns. Away from the towns, drivers could expect
to find rougher conditions. Half of the state highway system (723 miles) was surfaced
21 The dispute over the route is briefly described in C. C. Small, "Prescott-Phoenix Highway
Location," Arizona Highways, July 1925, 7.
22 Sixth Biennial Report of the State Engineer (Phoenix, 1924), 262, 117.
with gravel, and more than a third of the system (555 miles) was not surfaced at all. At
best these unsurfaced roads had been graded and drained; in some places, though, they
remained unimproved.
It was in late 1925 that the final step was taken toward setting up a modern highway
network in Arizona. Following guidelines developed by the American Association of
State Highway Officials (AASHO) and approved by the Bureau of Public Roads, the
highway department assigned each of Arizona's highways a unique number, with the
east-west roads getting even numbers and the north-south roads getting odd numbers (see
Figure 6).23
The National Old Trails Highway, which ran from Lupton to Topock via Holbrook,
Winslow, Flagstaff, Ash Fork, and Kingman, was initially designated U.S. Route 60.
Soon thereafter it was renumbered U.S. Route 66. Under that number, as the celebrated
Route 66 connecting Chicago with Los Angeles, this highway would become Arizona's
most famous stretch of roadway. The Springerville-Holbrook alternate route of the
National Old Trails Highway was numbered U.S. Route 70, a designation it would lose in
the mid-1930s, when it was renumbered U.S. Route 260.
The Lee/Bankhead/Dixie Overland highways, which ran from Rodeo, New Mexico, to
Yuma via Bisbee, Benson, Tucson, Florence, Phoenix, and Gila Bend, was numbered
U.S. Route 80. This had been Arizona's first complete east-west highway, and now, as
part of U.S. Route 80, it made up one section of the Southwest's most important
highway, connecting El Paso with Tucson, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
The northern branch of the Lee Highway, from Duncan, on the New Mexico border, to
Phoenix via Globe, was designated U.S. Route 180; later, in the mid-1930s, it was
renumbered U.S. Route 70.
Parts of the Grand Canyon–Nogales Highway were designated U.S. Route 380 (south of
Tucson) and U.S. Route 280 (between Phoenix and Ash Fork), while a new highway
from Flagstaff to Fredonia, on the Utah border, was designated U.S. Route 89. Soon the
380 and 280 numbers were dropped, and the entire highway from Nogales to Fredonia
was made part of U.S. Route 89, which eventually would connect Mexico and Canada.
Arizona also began numbering its own highways. The first numbered state highways
were State Route 79, from Prescott to Jerome; State Route 87, from Mesa to Casa
Grande; State Route 88, which was the Apache Trail; State Route 83, from Vail to
23 At first this numbering convention was inconsistently followed in Arizona, and some north-south
roads were assigned even numbers; over time, though, it became the norm for all U.S. routes. A description
of Arizona's initial numbering system can be found in Arizona Highways, February 1927, pages 11 and 14.
In 1973 the AASHO changed its name to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation
Officials (AASHTO).
Sonoita; and State Route 82, from Nogales to Tombstone via Patagonia and Sonoita.
Several of these highways still bear the same numbers today.24
It was also at this time that the now-familiar symbols for U.S. and Arizona highways
were adopted. Federal highways were marked with a shield, while state highways were
marked with an outline of the state. The Arizona Highway Department also began putting
up standardized road signs, under a system devised by the AASHO and approved by the
federal government. These included octagons for stop signs, black-on-yellow diamonds
for warning signs, and circles for railroad signs. As part of this signing program, all
previous signs put up by the private highway associations and local governments were
taken down.25
24 See the map in Arizona Highways, February 1927, 14.
25 E. V. Miller, "Signing of Arizona's Highways," Arizona Highways, February 1927, 11, 14 (map).
Table 1
Registered Vehicles, Highway Mileage, Vehicle Miles Traveled, and State
Transportation Expenditures in Arizona, 1912-2005
State Vehicle State State
Registered system miles traveled transportation transportation
Year Population vehicles mileage (000s) revenues ($) expenditures ($)
1912 204,354 3,098 1,500 -- 276,300 151,236
1915 -- 7,318 -- -- 401,072 455,160
1920 334,162 34,619 -- -- -- --
1925 -- 67,924 1,853 256,000 -- --
1930 435,573 112,261 2,771 -- 7,578,946 7,242,207
1935 -- 108,445 3,091 930,931 6,294,643 --
1940 499,261 147,048 3,640 1,355,000 7,067,925 7,043,808
1945 -- 154,975 3,825 1,573,000 -- --
1950 749,587 294,139 3,945 2,944,000 17,502,807 17,591,874
1955 -- 445,688 3,975 4,415,000 26,710,215 25,805,440
1960 1,302,161 702,536 4,435 6,536,000 65,782,721 67,677,432
1965 -- 942,063 5,225 8,339,000 113,642,639 99,227,278
1970 1,775,399 1,310,738 5,517 12,122,000 132,110,104 143,711,366
1975 -- 1,691,357 6,023 16,031,000 168,875,556 171,479,686
1980 2,716,546 2,098,166 6,085 18,816,000 317,721,793 312,696,421
1985 -- 2,283,832 6,119 29,052,000 499,032,000 470,704,000
1990 3,665,339 2,822,304 6,150 35,455,000 722,445,000 1,185,050,000
1995 -- 2,945,574 6,137 39,566,000 883,812,000 852,181,000
2000 5,130,632 3,983,860 6,158 48,568,000 1,272,618,000 1,509,342,000
2005 5,952,083 4,556,448 6,157 58,796,000 2,764,499,000 2,980,277,000
Notes on Data
Unless otherwise noted below in the source notes, all data are for either the indicated calendar year or the
fiscal year ending that year (1912-13 = 1913). The twin hyphens (--) indicate years for which data are not
State system mileage includes all federal and state highways but excludes county and forest roads.
Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is an estimate, based on survey data, of the total miles traveled by all
vehicles in the state for the year. It is the most commonly used measurement of highway "demand."
Both revenue and expenditure data are for the Arizona Highway Department (through 1970) and then for
the Arizona Department of Transportation as a whole. Figures for the latter include some expenditures
for aviation and urban mass transit.
Data Sources
Population — All data are from the U.S. Census for that year, except that the 1912 figure is from the 1910
Census and the 2005 figure is from the 2007 Census estimate.
Unless otherwise indicated, all reports listed below were published in Phoenix by the Arizona Highway
Department or Arizona Department of Transportation.
1912 — Registrations (for October 1912–December 1913): Report of the Secretary of State (Phoenix,
1916). System mileage: Report of the State Engineer (1914), 5. Revenues and expenditures: Report of the
State Engineer (1914), 82.
1915 — Registrations: Report of the Secretary of State (1916). Revenues and expenditures: Second
Biennial Report of the State Engineer (1916), 256.
1920 — Registrations: Report of the Secretary of State (Phoenix, 1921). Revenues and expenditures: no
single-year data available for this period (see Fourth Biennial Report of the State Engineer [1920]).
1925 — Registrations: Factual Review (1950), 11. System mileage: History of the Arizona State Highway
Department (1939), 21. Miles traveled (for 1926): Seventh Biennial Report of the State Engineer (1926),
15. Revenues and expenditures: no single-year data available for this period (see Seventh Biennial Report
of the State Engineer [1926]).
1930 — Registrations: Factual Review (1950), 11. System mileage: History of the Highway Department,
21. Revenues and expenditures (for 1930-31): Factual Review (1952), 57.
1935 — Registrations: Factual Review (1950), 11. System mileage: History of the Highway Department,
21. Miles traveled: Factual Review (1956), 73. Revenues: History of the Highway Department, 21.
1940 — Registrations: Factual Review (1950), 11. System mileage (for 1940-41): Factual Review (1952),
57. Miles traveled: Factual Review (1950), 9. Revenues and expenditures (for 1940-41): Factual Review
(1952), 57.
1945 — Registrations: Factual Review (1950), 11. System mileage: Factual Review (1962), 41. Miles
traveled: Arizona Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4.
1950 — Registrations: Factual Review (1952), 66. System mileage: Factual Review (1962), 41. Miles
traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and expenditures: Factual Review (1952), 57.
1955 — Registrations: Factual Review (1956), 102. System mileage: Factual Review (1962), 41. Miles
traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and expenditures: Factual Review (1956), 49.
1960 — Registrations: Factual Review (1962), 113. System mileage: Factual Review (1962), 41. Miles
traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and expenditures (for 1960-61): Factual
Review (1962), 71.
1965 — Registrations: Factual Review (1968), 127. System mileage: Factual Review (1966), 47. Miles
traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and expenditures: Factual Review (1966), 74-
1970 — Registrations: Arizona Highway Commission Annual Report: Statistical Summary (1971), 52.
System mileage: Arizona Highway Commission Annual Report [AHCAR] (1971), 16. Miles traveled:
Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and expenditures (for 1970-71): AHCAR (1971), 18-19.
1975 — Registrations: Factual Review (1977), 47. System mileage: Factual Review (1976), 8. Miles
traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and expenditures: Arizona Department of
Transportation Annual Report (1975), 19.
1980 — Registrations: Arizona Transportation in Review (1985), 29. System mileage: State Highway
System Log (1981), 13. Miles traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and
expenditures: Arizona Department of Transportation Financial Statements (1980), 3, 15, 22, 28, 34, 40,
1985 — Registrations: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 3. System mileage: State Highway System Log
(1986), 12. Miles traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and expenditures:
Component Unit Financial Report (1991), Table II, Table I.
1990 — Registrations: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 3. System mileage: figures extracted from
annual HPMS reports by Multimodal Planning Division, Arizona Department of Transportation
(communication with author). Miles traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and
expenditures: Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (1998), 64-65.
1995 — Registrations: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 3. System mileage: see note for 1990 above.
Miles traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (1997), 4. Revenues and expenditures: Comprehensive
Annual Financial Report (2000), 63-64.
2000 — Registrations: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (2002), 3. System mileage: see note for 1990 above.
Miles traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (2002), 3. Revenues and expenditures: Comprehensive
Annual Financial Report (2000), viii-ix.
2005 — Registrations: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (2005), 4. System mileage: State Highway System Log
(2005), Va-4. Miles traveled: Motor Vehicle Crash Facts (2005), 4. Revenues and expenditures:
Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (2005), 72-73.
By the mid-1920s, the Arizona Highway Department was not only the largest
government agency operating in Arizona but also the largest employer in the state. Yet,
one Arizona highway official would later refer to this period as the "dark ages" of road
construction. Although Arizona was making great strides in designing and building
highways, State Highway Engineer T. S. O'Connell wrote a decade later, "no intelligent
method of financing the Highway Department had been established by the Legislature."1
As a result, increases in federal aid were not always matched by increases in state
funding, which still depended on the modest one-mill property tax enacted in 1917.
Highway construction expenditures had been steadily rising since 1912, yet much of the
increase had been financed not by the state but by federal aid and county bond issues.
The state's more populous and therefore wealthier counties, such as Maricopa and
Yavapai, occasionally financed both their own highway projects and some state projects
with large bond issues.
The less-populous counties, however, were either unable or unwilling to raise the funds
needed to substantially improve their roads, let alone contribute to the improvement of
the state highway system. As a result, many rural areas of Arizona were as underserved
by highways as they had been during the final years of the Territorial period. In 1926,
three counties—Apache, Mohave, and Greenlee—still had no paved roads.
The disparities in road conditions among the counties were striking. "Parts within the
wealthy counties could be highly improved," one highway official wrote in 1928, "while
in the majority of the counties they would be only fair or barely passable." Under those
circumstances, he added, "criticism and abuse of the highway department and the
officials became quite audible from all sides."2
Responding to these complaints, the Arizona Legislature enacted a major overhaul of the
Arizona Highway Department in 1927. The legislature created a five-member Arizona
State Highway Commission and placed it in charge of the Arizona Highway Department,
whose chief administrator was now known as the State Highway Engineer. To prevent
the larger counties from dominating the commission, the legislation stipulated that no
county could hold more than one seat on the commission.
1 T. S. O'Connell, "Highways in Review," Arizona Highways, January 1937, 18.
2 I. Perle McBride, "The Arizona Highway Department: The Past, Present and Future," Arizona
Highways, January 1928, 5-6.
The Highway Commission was given authority over the highway department's annual
budget (which was required to itemize construction projects), highway location decisions,
and construction contracts. Most importantly, the commission was given full control of all
highway funds raised by the state. The State Road Tax Fund, and the 75-percent and 25-
percent funds that had been used to divide road funds between the counties and the state,
were abolished. They were replaced by a single State Highway Fund, which was to be
funded through a $250,000 annual appropriation, a one-mill property tax, vehicle
registration fees, and drivers' license fees. In addition, the fund would receive revenue
from Arizona's first gasoline tax, which was set by the legislature at four cents per gallon,
and its first common carrier taxes, which were imposed on bus and freight lines operating
in the state.3
The impact of these funding changes was substantial. In 1927-28, the first year under the
new system, the Arizona Highway Commission approved a $5.65 million budget that
called for spending $3.3 million on highway construction and $2.35 million on
maintenance. Although nearly half of the funding came from the federal government
($2.57 million), this still represented a major increase in state funding. In 1919-20, by
comparison, the state had spent only $1.58 million on both construction and maintenance.
At the end of 1926, the year in which Arizona's highways received their first numbers and
first standard road signs, the state highway system comprised 2,034 miles of roadway. Of
those, 208 miles were paved with concrete or asphalt, 1,207 miles were surfaced with
gravel, and 259 miles were graded and drained but not surfaced. The remainder of the
system's mileage (360) was either unimproved or under construction.4
Arizona's primary roads—the state's seven-percent system—were the 1,452 miles of U.S.
highways. These included all of the state's paved roads (208 miles), as well as most of its
gravel-surfaced roads (790 miles). Yet, even a substantial portion of the seven-percent
system (454 miles) remained unsurfaced, unimproved, or under construction.
In getting to this point, Arizona had relied heavily on federal aid. Between 1916 and 1928,
Arizona used federal highway aid and other federal funds to build or improve 889 miles of
highway. Granted, all but 153 miles of these new roads were unpaved, but this still
represented a substantial addition to the makeshift system that had existed in 1916, when
the federal aid program began.
"The State Highway System is generally considered to be in excellent condition and so
much better than many of the States," W. W. Lane, the highway department's chief
engineer, wrote in 1926. But he qualified that assessment with the observation that "this is
mainly true in fair weather," and he expressed concern about the system's durability. In the
previous year, Lane wrote, gasoline sales in Arizona had risen 18 percent and the number
of cars using Arizona's highways was rapidly increasing. Lane estimated that Arizona and
3 A one-mill property tax is 10 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. See Acts and Resolutions of
the Third Special Session, Eighth Legislature of the State of Arizona, 1927 (Phoenix, 1928), 73-74, 77-78.
4 Seventh Biennial Report of the State Engineer (Phoenix, 1926), 20, 27, 28.
out-of-state drivers logged 256 million vehicle miles on the state's roads in 1926, with
some state highways carrying as many as 5,000 cars per day. Sounding a theme that would
be repeated by many of his successors, Lane warned that some sections of the state system
would have to be rebuilt or "the sections must go backward, as they are not now
withstanding the traffic strain in spite of constant and expensive maintenance."5
Maintaining and improving Arizona's highways was not just a matter of convenience for
drivers; the condition of the state's roads also had a significant impact on Arizona's
economy. As Lane pointed out, Arizona's highways brought "many tourists and much
prosperity to the State at large, and the welfare of the State is materially dependent upon
the maintaining or betterment of these [road] conditions."
Tourism was increasingly important to Arizona's economy, and more and more of the
tourists visiting the state were arriving by car rather than railroad. Indeed, automobile
tourism had been growing in popularity all across the country during the 1920s. But the
trend was especially noticeable in less-developed states such as Arizona, where even
modest increases in tourist traffic could have a striking effect on the state's income.
According to one study conducted by the highway department, 385,440 out-of-state cars
traveled to and through the state in 1928. If one assumed, as the department's planners did,
that each car carried an average of 3.5 persons and that each person spent $3 per day, this
resulted in an inflow of $20.24 million dollars. That figure was nearly four times the
highway department's budget for that year ($5.65 million), which meant that "tourists in
1927 not only paid the cost of good roads … but the citizens of the state received a net
The federal highway aid program was not the only source of outside funding for
improvements to Arizona's road system. Since 1916, Arizona had been receiving money
from the federal government to survey, build, and maintain highways through the state's
national forests. The sums were modest compared to the highway aid program—Arizona
received just $715,000 in forest road funds from 1916 to 1923—and the projects were
largely controlled by the U.S. Forest Service rather than the highway department. Yet, they
still contributed to the improvement and expans
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