Part 10

In the meanwhile the existence of the Valley, with its farms and towns, was threatened; if unchecked, the flood would eventually restore the inland sea that filled the basin in prehistoric times. The settlers were greatly alarmed and appealed to the Government for assistance. Congress was not in session and President Roosevelt, with characteristic resourcefulness, called upon the Southern Pacific Railroad Company to undertake the task of curbing the river, assuring the officials of the road that he would recommend an appropriation by Congress to reimburse them for money expended in the work. The railroad company consented and after several months of almost superhuman effort and an expenditure of two million dollars, the flood was curbed and the vast empty chasm of New River left to tell the story of its wild fury.

But Congress refused to make the appropriation and the Southern Pacific "held the sack" for the enormous sum spent in protecting the Valley. The people likewise declined to issue bonds to reimburse the railroad company, which considered itself the victim of bad faith on part of both the Government and the citizens of the Valley. We heard an echo of the controversy when we visited El Centro—another break was imminent on account of high water in the Colorado and the railroad was called upon for assistance. The officials notified the owners of the threatened lands that when a sufficient sum of money to guarantee the cost of the work was deposited in a Los Angeles bank, they would hurry a force to the scene of the trouble—and the cash was forthcoming without delay.

The story of the flood forms the framework of Harold Bell Wright's recent novel, "The Winning of Barbara Worth," and while the narrative does not by any means adhere to historic fact, it has served to bring the Imperial Valley to the attention of many a reader who had scarcely heard of it before.

Prosperity has usually prevailed in the Valley; money has been made so easily and surely that the disadvantage of the climate was readily overlooked by the inhabitants, many of whom actually profess to enjoy it. But a climate that is hot in winter and superheated in summer, rainless, and with almost incessant high winds that stir up clouds of dust and occasional sand storms, has its drawbacks, we must admit. Rainfall, however, is neither needed nor wanted. The farmer turns the water on at the proper time and there need be no excessive moisture or protracted drought.

Under such conditions the productiveness of the land is almost incredible. Six or eight heavy crops of alfalfa are harvested from a single field during the year. Barley, oats, and other small grains flourish and at present are cut mostly for forage. Cotton, under normal conditions, is the most valuable crop, about one hundred and forty thousand acres being planted in 1920, with an estimated value of $25,000,000. The quality rivals the sea-island product and the yield is large, averaging more than a bale to the acre. Vegetables and berries flourish in endless variety and truck-gardening for the Los Angeles and San Diego markets is profitable because the season for everything is ahead of the rest of California. Citrus fruits of finest quality thrive wonderfully, but as yet little has been done in orchard-planting. Figs are readily grown and it is said that the date palm will flourish and produce an excellent quality of fruit in the Imperial though it has not been a success elsewhere in California. Cattle-raising and dairying are leading industries—the butter product alone is worth several million dollars yearly. Taking the country over, however, the Imperial Valley is probably more famous for its cantaloupes than for any other single product. Each year it produces several thousand cars of this succulent melon and they are on the market from Boston to San Francisco before the Rocky Fords are in blossom.

Until quite recently the Valley could be reached only by the main line and branches of the Southern Pacific Railroad and by one or two inferior wagon trails which meandered through the great hills and over the sands. The desirability of a motor highway led the business men of San Diego to raise by subscription sufficient funds to complete the road through the mountains from Mountain Spring on the San Diego County line to the floor of the Valley, where it continues for a dozen miles through sands not quite heavy enough to stop progress if one keeps on the beaten trail. Beyond Coyote Wells an attempt had been made to improve the road by freely oiling the sand. The older portion was broken and rough, though for some distance out of Dixieland there is as fine a boulevard as one could wish. In San Diego County the stage road is part of the magnificent new highway system, of which I shall have more to say later.

Another highway to the Valley comes down from San Bernardino through Beaumont, Banning, Palm Springs and Indio, continuing along the northern side of the Salton Sea to Brawley. Pavement of this road is now so well advanced that it will very likely be completed by the time this book comes from the press. In any event, it will be so nearly finished that this run, once the terror of motorists, can be made easily and comfortably, and, revealing as it does so many interesting phases of California, it is sure to be immensely popular. The new route misses by a few miles the towns of Coachella and Mecca, but these may be reached by a detour over the old road if any one's interest is strong enough to lead him from the comforts of the new pavement. Palm Springs, however, will surely claim a pause for lunch at the well-ordered Desert Inn and a visit to Palm Canyon, a few miles away. Here we may see the palm in its native state and some authorities assert that these palms are the progenitors of this particular species in California. The larger ones are several centuries old, and there is an Indian tradition that they provided seed for the palms planted by the Mission fathers.

The canyon itself would be worth visiting, even without the added interest of the palms. It is a rugged ravine several hundred feet deep, with a clear stream rippling among boulders or losing itself beneath the tangled undergrowth. It is about sixteen miles in length, and the palms extend the entire distance, ranging from scattered sentinels to jungle-like thickets. Some of them are perhaps one hundred feet high. The trunks of the larger ones are blackened by fire, due to the practice of the Indians in building fires around them to cause the fall of the seeds, which they consider a great delicacy. Strange to say, the palms seemed none the worse for this severe treatment. They did not endure so well the onslaught of a moving-picture outfit which, to make a sensational scene, blew up some of the rocks and palms with dynamite. There was an insistent demand for punishing these vandals, which we hope attained its end. One can drive to the edge of the canyon and from an elevated point get a very good general view, but most visitors will wish to make the descent and proceed a greater or less distance up the gorge on foot.

From Palm Springs to El Centro is an easy day's run, allowing time for a visit to the date plantations of the Coachella Valley, where Arabian date palms have been imported and successfully cultivated, producing fruit superior and more valuable than the imported article. For some miles this road runs in sight of the Salton Sea, a remarkable body of water about twenty-five miles long by ten in width, lying more than two hundred feet below the sea level.

The standard motor route from San Diego to El Centro—the capital of the Valley—runs by the way of the Potrero grade through the tiny villages of Jamul and Dulzura. One does not have to own a car—or even to hire one—to motor in state over this wonderful highway, for a half dozen automobile stages make the trip each way daily, the fare averaging about five dollars for the one hundred and twenty miles.

An alternate road as far as Campo, about forty miles from San Diego, goes by the way of Lakeside and Descanso and takes one through some of the most picturesque hills and vales of the "Back Country." It is nearly twenty miles longer than the stage road, but it has no serious grades and has been designated as the route of the new state highway. We found it well improved as far as Lakeside, but beyond it became a winding trail, meandering through canyons heavily wooded with oak and sycamore.

On the recommendation of a fellow-motorist just returned from the Imperial we chose this route on our outward trip. We left San Diego about ten o'clock, advertising our destination to the public generally by the five-gallon canvas water-bag that dangled from our car. Most cars for the desert carry this useful adjunct and there are conceivable predicaments where it might be very serviceable. Beyond Lakeside we entered the hills and saw much delightfully picturesque scenery, though the country seemed likely never to be of great value to mankind except for scenic beauty. There were one or two villages and occasional ranch-houses in the cultivated spots in the valleys, but the rugged hills rising on every hand gave little promise of future productiveness. This section is already famous as a vacation resort and several of the ranchers are prepared for campers and summer boarders. Many of these ranches are ideally located in grassy, tree-fringed vales watered by clear mountain streams. The coming of the state highway will bring prosperity to these villagers and resorts and greatly assist in the development of the scanty resources of the country. The Viejas grade near Descanso is the only considerable ascent and this is easy and well-improved.

At Campo we came into the stage road and pursued our way for some miles through rolling, oak-studded hills. A band of gypsies camped by the roadside stopped us with many gesticulations and were immensely disgusted when we declined to wait for fortune-telling. They presented a picturesque sight in their brightly colored, oriental-looking costumes and at a distance some of the women looked pretty—though as they crowded up to the car a near view quickly dispelled this illusion.

Warren's Ranch, a few miles beyond Campo, is the regular stopping-place in both directions for luncheon, and a substantial farm dinner is served at a moderate price. There were perhaps fifty guests on the day of our visit and the proprietor said that it was a "little slack" as compared with the usual run of travel; that on the previous Sunday one hundred and twenty cars had passed and most of them halted at the ranch for refreshments.

A few miles beyond Warren's we entered the great hill range that cuts the Valley from the coast and jogged up the splendidly engineered road with little effort. We saw some wild, rough scenery during the climb, but nothing to prepare us for the stupendous spectacle that burst on our vision as we reached the summit. It would be no exaggeration to say that we fairly gasped with astonishment as we brought the car sharply to a stand-still, for beneath us lay a vast abysm that reminded us more of the Grand Canyon than anything else we had seen. It seemed as if the red granite mountains had been rent in twain by some terrific cataclysm, leaving a titanic chasm stretching away until lost in the purple haze of the distance. Its walls were bare—save for an occasional cactus—and the reddish tinge of the granite was intensified in the declining sun. The great boulders tumbled discordantly about, the isolated peaks springing from the floor of the canyon, and the endless array of mighty cliffs and precipices all combined to give a rare effect of wild and rugged grandeur. As we descended the winding road we saw the majestic spectacle from many viewpoints, each one accentuating some new phase of its impressive beauty.

At Mountain Spring, a supply station just beyond the summit, we crossed into Imperial County. From this point the road was built by popular subscription and a wonderful road it is. It winds around the great precipices, which rise far above or drop hundreds of feet below, and crosses yawning canyons, yet it maintains easy grades and avoids difficult turns to an extent seldom seen under such conditions. The smooth wide surface offers temptations to careless drivers and despite the perfect engineering several accidents have happened on the road. A car went off the grade shortly before our passing and a collision occurred near the summit on the following day.

At the foot of the grade we encountered the sandy wash leading down into the valley. For several miles we fairly wallowed through heavy sand, the car pitching and rolling like a boat on a rough sea. Had the sand been an inch deeper—so it seemed—we should have been hopelessly stalled—a fate which often overtakes a car departing from the beaten track. We scrambled along with steaming engine and growling gears and were glad indeed when a forlorn little ranch-house hove in sight. A windmill tower indicated water and we took occasion to replenish our supply.

Coyote Wells shows on the map as a post office, but our conception of a village was dashed as we approached the spot by the tiny clapboard shack which greeted our sand-bleared vision. A rudely painted sign, "General Store, Gasoline and Oil," apprised us of the chief excuse for the existence of Coyote Wells. The wells are there, too; eleven feet under the burning sands is an unlimited supply of water. We paused a few minutes and looked around us—which we had scarcely done before, the plunging car and the clouds of sand driven by a forty-mile wind being quite enough to distract our attention. In every direction stretched the yellow sands, dotted with sage brush and cacti. Some of the latter were in bloom, their delicate blossoms, yellow, carmine, and pink, lending a pleasing bit of color to the drab monotone of the landscape. And yet we were told that this sandy waste needs only water to metamorphose it into green fields such as we should see a little later.

A few miles beyond Coyote Wells the road had been oiled, but it had broken into chuck-holes and become unmercifully rough. It was not until we entered the confines of the cultivated lands a short distance from Dixieland that we found a fine boulevard, which continued for several miles. Dixieland is the western outpost of the Valley, situated in the edge of the present irrigation district. It is a substantially built village, most of the business houses being of brick and cement. The coming of the new railroad, already within a few miles, will probably bring a great boom for Dixieland.

A paragraph may be fitly introduced here concerning the present status (1921) of the roads we traversed on our tour to the Imperial some six years earlier. The most trying sections have been improved; the heavy sand where we wallowed about so helplessly and the broken, oiled road between Dixieland and Coyote Wells—in fact, the whole stretch between the foot of the mountain grade and El Centro—is a first-class boulevard now. There is also pavement from Campo to the summit of the range, and the descent, while not paved, is in good condition. Only a fraction of the two routes we pursued in San Diego County—the northern, via Descanso, and the southern over the Potrero grade—has been paved, but the funds for this work have been provided and it is to proceed as rapidly as possible. Taken altogether, the roads to-day average good and the run between San Diego and El Centro may be easily made by the shorter of the routes (122 miles) in five or six hours.

While bowling along just beyond Dixieland one of our party cried, "Look at the sunset!" and we brought the car to a sudden stop. I have seen gorgeous sunsets in many parts of the world, but nothing that could remotely approach the splendor of the scene that greeted our admiring vision. The sky was partly clouded—rather unusual, we learned—and this accounted for much of the glorious spectacle. The whole dome of the heavens showed a marvelous display of light and color—lucent silver slowly changing through many variations to deep orange-gold, and fading slowly to burnished copper as the sun declined. The clouds lent endless variety to the color tones. Their fantastic shapes glowed with burning crimson or were edged with silvery light. The sky eastward was of a deep indigo-blue; westward, above the sun, it burned with ethereal fire. The summits of the dimly defined mountains in the distance were touched with a fringe of golden light and their feet were shrouded in a pale lavender haze—the effect of the sun on the drifting sand. The weird and ghostly appearance of the Superstition Range, a dozen miles to the north, seemed suggestive of the name. Surely the desert gnomes and demons might find a haunt in the rocky caverns of these giant hills set down in the wide arid plain surrounding them on every side. The more distant mountains faded to dim and unsubstantial shadows and were finally obscured by the falling twilight.

When we were able to take our gaze from the heavens we became conscious of the marvelous greenness of the grain and alfalfa fields about us, then accentuated by the weird light of the sunset, and we learned later the scientific cause of the gorgeous Imperial sunsets. Evaporation from the irrigation system and Salton Sea, together with the fine dust constantly in suspension in the dry desert air, are the elements responsible for spectacular effects such as I have tried to describe.

A half dozen miles from Dixieland we crossed New River, a great gulch twenty-five feet deep and several hundred yards wide. This was the channel cut by the terrible flood of 1904-6 and gives some conception of the danger that threatened the Valley when practically the whole volume of the Colorado tore through the yielding sands. There is now no running water in the river, the road crossing on its dry bed.

The roads throughout the Valley are generally unimproved and a clever plan has been adopted to keep down the dust, which would become almost unbearable in this rainless region. The wide roadways are divided in the center by a ridge of earth; and the sides are alternately flooded with water from the irrigating ditches, a plan which keeps the dust pretty well in control. But woe to the motorist who attempts to drive across a "wet spot" before the road has thoroughly dried—the soil usually partakes of the nature of quicksand; the car speedily settles to the running boards and a stout team is about the only remedy for the predicament.

We reached El Centro after dusk and repaired to the Oregon Hotel, a fairly comfortable inn, though not good enough to satisfy the ambitions of this live town, for the Barbara Worth, a hundred-thousand-dollar steel-and-concrete structure, was building. El Centro has a population of about six thousand and is a live place commercially, being the capital and banking center of the Valley. It is substantially built and we noted there has been developed a type of architecture designated to mitigate the intense heat. The business buildings have arcades with balconies along the streets and some of the houses and public buildings have double roofs. Every sign pointed to the prosperity of the town and it doubtless offers numerous opportunities to enterprising business men.

A favorite trip out of El Centro is to Calexico, eight miles distant on the Mexican frontier, and the streets were thronged with Ford cars bearing the legend, "Auto Stage to Calexico." At the time of our visit, California state troops occupied this border town to forestall a possible attack by the Mexican army in Mexicali, just across the line. There was considerable uneasiness in the Imperial country in view of the fact that the canal carrying the water supply passes through Mexican territory.

This situation necessarily creates an element of uncertainty as to the future of the Valley and a strong agitation is being made for the construction of an all-American canal. So far little has been accomplished in this direction, owing to the difficult terrain to be crossed and the vast cost of such an enterprise. There is a feeling, however, that such a canal must and will come in time.

The country about El Centro is typical of the whole Valley. As a resident of the town said, "When you've seen one corner of the Imperial Valley you've seen all of it—a flat, sandy plain cut up by irrigation canals and covered in the cultivated parts with rank vegetation a good part of the year." In the northern part of the Valley new lands were being opened to the public and Nilands, a boom town, had sprung up almost overnight. The "opening day" saw hundreds of people on hand eager to purchase lots and many of them came to stay, for they brought their household goods, which were piled promiscuously on the sand, often without even the protection of a tent. The first move of the promoters was to found a bank and a newspaper and to begin the erection of a fifty-thousand-dollar hotel and a commodious schoolhouse. And so Nilands took its place on the map and when the arid sands about it begin to produce it will no doubt repeat the history of Holtville, Brawley, and other thriving Imperial towns.

Motorists who come only on a sightseeing excursion will not care to spend much time in the Valley. A round of twenty-five miles will take in Imperial and Calexico and give a general idea of the thousand or more square miles of reclaimed desert land. Touring conditions are far from pleasant—rough roads, intense heat, and high winds with blinding clouds of dust, being the rule. One can easily imagine what a commotion a fifty-mile wind stirs up in this dry, sandy region, where it is frequently necessary to stop until the dust blows away in order to see the road. There is little to vary the monotony of the country, and it is not strange that the average motorist is soon satisfied and longs for the shady hills of the San Diego "Back Country." And so, after a hasty survey, we retraced our way through the sands—and narrowly missed "stalling" while incautiously passing a car laid up for repairs—to the mountain wall which shuts in the Valley on the west.

I do not remember of ever having been in a fiercer wind than that which swept down to meet us as we ascended Mountain Spring grade and at the summit it almost seemed as if the wild gusts would sweep the car from the road.

"It is sure some wind," said a native at the little supply shack. "Very unusual, too. I've been in the Valley seven years and never saw it blow like this before."

"Very unusual" is the stock phrase of every loyal Californian for any unpleasant phenomenon of nature—excessive rain, heat, cold, fog, or wind are all "very unusual" when so marked as to call forth comment from the Eastern visitor.

Beyond Campo we followed the stage route to San Diego—mostly a down-hill coast; it was scarcely necessary to use the engine on the eight miles of the Potrero grade. This is part of the new San Diego County system and a wonderful piece of road engineering it is. Though it skirts the edge of the mountain from summit to foot, there are no steep pitches and but few sharp corners; even the driver of the car could enjoy the wonderful panoramas visible during the descent. The forty miles between Campo and San Diego presents a series of wooded hills and sylvan glades which more than once invited us to stop and rest in the shade of the great oaks overarching the road. Such scenes made us anxious to see more of the famous "Back Country," and when we once entered on this delightful tour we were not satisfied until we had covered all the main roads of the county.