Yuma

Original inhabitants: Unclear — but they weren’t white. Current indigenous people are Cocopah and Quechan.

Current demographics: Spanish speakers: 43%; Hispanic/Latino: 65%; Native: 2.3%;

Population: 93,700

Yuma is a desert town right across the California border and just above Mexico, at a narrow spot in the Colorado River. Apparently the Spanish, who came in 1540, agreed with Natives that this was a damn fine spot for a town. Later, Yuma was a popular steamboat stop along the wide Colorado, and gold rushers and pioneers also crossed through Yuma on their way to California. The Guinness Book of World Records says it’s the sunniest city on Earth. It’s also the driest and least humid spot in the U.S. It was indeed sunny, and bloody hot (110F), the day I passed through in June 2021.

This area above Yuma, also known as Winterhaven, is located on the Yuma-Chechan Indian Reservation. Spaniards first came here in 1560. According to usmissiontrail.com, “The first mission at Ft. Yuma was named Puerto de la Purísima Concepción, established in 1780, built by Father Francisco Garcés. Colonists ignored Quechan (Yuma) rights, usurped the best lands, and destroyed Indian crops. Quechans and their allies destroyed Concepción on July 17-19, 1781 and massacred the Spanish Padres, settlers, and soldiers there and at San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuner, 8 leagues up the Colorado river. Almost 70 years later, the U.S. military established Fort Yuma (on “Indian Hill”) and was revived as an active mission again in 1919. The current church, St. Thomas Indian Mission, was dedicated in 1923.
The Mission was located on the California side of the Colorado River near where the Gila River joins the Colorado on Indian Hill. The old Fort buildings now are part of the Yuma-Quechan Reservation, which also has a large casino.

Fort Yuma (est. 1851) on “Indian Hill,in what was then known as Colorado City (Library of Congress photo)

Fort Yuma-Quechan Reservation: 45,000 acres given back to the Quechan Tribe in 1884. www.quechantribe.com

???A Methodist Indian Mission was established in [downtown Yuma?} in 1903 “for the welfare of the Chechan Indians,” according to this old postcard (circa 1960s?), but was washed away by the Colorado River in 1916 and rebuilt sometime thereafter. It is now the Fort Yuma United Methodist Church.

Rest stop between Yuma and Gila Bend

100 degrees, scant shade. Do Not Enter. Wrong Way.

Gila Bend

Indigenous history: Hohokum, Pima, Opa

Current Native inhabitants: Tohono O’odham Nation (Nation centered in nearby San Lucy (Si:I Mek)

European Founding: 1872, as a settlement along the Southern pioneer trail.

Population (2010 Census): 1,922

The Town of Gila Bend’s website calls Stout’s Hotel an “Officially Historic Place,” and it does have that air about it, though the windows were papered over when I drove through town, and seemed to have been for a long while. Indeed, the town bought the hotel in 2017, envisioning its reuse as a community center, museum, and cafe, with an open-air amphitheatre and plaza. The website announces the hotel’s designation as a Historic Place in 2018, but does not update further. The hotel was built between 1916 and 1929, presumably as funds and customers allowed, in response to the railroad running through town, and later to automobile passengers traveling west to California, or east to Tucson. In its early years, the hotel offered a billiard room, mercantile shop, and gas station. The town and the hotel declined in the 1970s. gilabendaz.org

Gila Bend’s cultural offerings cover a wider range than one might expect, given the town’s unassuming countenance, honoring or at least acknowledge ancient peoples of the area; the later Hokoham people, Spanish conquistadores, 19th-century frontierspeople of the 1800s, and victims of Sept. 11, 2011: The 9/11 Memorial Park; Gatlin Archaeological Park and Museum, with Hohokam platform mounds and other artifacts; Gillespie Dam Bridge (1927), which crosses the Gila River; Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail; the Painted Rock Petroglyph Site, which displays prehistoric petroglyphs; and the Sonoran Desert National Monument, a 487,000-acre area that includes three mountain ranges. gilabendaz.org

Mesa

According to Bing.com, Mesa, Arizona, at about 500,000 people, is “the most populous city in the East Valley section of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.”

And visitmesa.com calls the town “a boundless destination” and a “regional recreation playground.” Indeed the Sonoran Desert and Tonto National Forest are nearby. The city itself, though? What I saw, in June 2021? Strictly Meh-sa. I’m no doubt giving it short shrift. The 116-degree heat helped not a bit. Everyone was inside, and many stores and restaurants were closed, whether due to Covid or the economy or both, I’m not sure.

I’m eating breakfast at T.C. Eggingtons, a faux-British restaurant in Mesa. “35 Years of Award-Winning Breakfast,” I’m told.

The couple across from me appears to be on a first date. I’m guessing arranged online, as they don’t appear to know each other at all. After a few awkward preliminaries, he starts talking about a woman he used to date: beautiful green eyes, fantastic cook, had a lot of money, blah blah blah. His date is attempting to look interested; who knows what her inner monologue is. Eventually, she asks how long ago they broke up and why. “She stood me up for the third time in a row and I broke up with her. Well, first she moved, then I broke up with her.” The woman, who I now view as a bastion of class and self-restraint, tries to steer him toward a more general discussion of relationships. But no. He’s gotta come back to how she done him wrong. She nods, she smiles faintly, she leans in, she arranges her hands like a lotus in front of her. He drones on. The waiter comes, she orders a drink and excuses herself to go to the bathroom. And call her friends to vent, no doubt. She’s gone a long time. Their drinks come. He’s ordered a Dr. Pepper, which he slurps down to ice in seconds. She finally returns, sits down, and continues to appear fascinated as he continues to drone. Still with the ex-girlfriend, who, I’m guessing, broke up with him, then skipped town to avoid his stalking. Our Lady of Perpetual Suffering was still sitting there, statuesque, when I left.

My Airbnb is in the “pool house” (some would call it a garage) of a modest house on a street of modest houses, at the end of which is a check-cashing business. The yard of the house across the street is chain-link fenced and overrun with small, brown puppies. There must be at least 10, and they must be close to heat stroke in the 116-degree heat. No kidding. The people who live there glance at me briefly but don’t smile. They don’t seem blown away by the cuteness of the pups. Must be a puppy mill.

I’m feeling grateful that I have a pool. Coming home after a ridiculously hot walk in the not-especially-interesting downtown, which does boast a new-looking light rail system, I change into my suit, step out onto the concrete and shriek. It’s burning hot, of course. Wearing sandals, I make to the pool’s edge and slide in. It’s at least 85 degrees. The water feels almost gelatinous; like sweat, if this were a salt-water pool. I find some shade and try out the hammock and imagine I’m in Hollywood, 1920s, just about to hit it big. But I’m not quite getting the vibe, and tiptoe back inside, where the window air conditioner is doing its wheezy damnedest to cool the air. That night, if I lie very still, covered with just a sheet, I only sweat a little. The air conditioner drones on and off (off?? It’s still 90 degrees in here!). I wake up in the middle of the night, my chest so tight and heavy I feel like I’ll never fill my lungs. It’s not a pressed-down weight or a sharp pain like I image a heart attack would be — just constriction so tight I can’t tell if it’s stress, fear, or something more dire. At some point I fall back asleep and dream that I can’t breathe. In the morning, the tightness is mostly gone. I’m convinced that the extreme heat has screwed up my bodily functions so much that it’s gone haywire.

Scene: Dutchman Coffee, main drag, Mesa

The shop is empty except for 2 baristas, lounging behind the counter, and me, eavesdropping by the window.

BARISTA 1:

I’m so excited for the full moon!

BARISTA 2:

The strawberry moon?

BARISTA 1: Yeah.

BARISTA 2:

Why? What’re you gonna do?

BARISTA 1:

I don’t know. I mean I was born under a full moon. So … I wonder what it’s gonna bring for me. I mean … I don’t ask for much.

I’m feeling grateful that I have a pool. Coming home after a ridiculously hot walk in the not-especially-interesting downtown, which does boast a new-looking light rail system, I change into my suit, step out onto the concrete and shriek. It’s burning hot, of course. Wearing sandals, I make to the pool’s edge and slide in. It’s at least 85 degrees. The water feels almost gelatinous; like sweat, if this were a salt-water pool. I find some shade and try out the hammock and imagine I’m in Hollywood, 1920s, just about to hit it big. But I’m not quite getting the vibe, and tiptoe back inside, where the window air conditioner is doing its wheezy damnedest to cool the air. That night, if I lie very still, covered with just a sheet, I only sweat a little. The air conditioner drones on and off (off?? It’s still 90 degrees in here!). I wake up in the middle of the night, my chest so tight and heavy I feel like I’ll never fill my lungs. It’s not a pressed-down weight or a sharp pain like I image a heart attack would be — just constriction so tight I can’t tell if it’s stress, fear, or something more dire. At some point I fall back asleep and dream that I can’t breathe. In the morning, the tightness is mostly gone. I’m convinced that the extreme heat has screwed up my bodily functions so much that it’s gone haywire.

Coolidge:

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

Cochise County

This is OK Corral Country, home of Tombstone and other small towns that have retained their inherit pioneer Westernness: some as a tourist draw (Tombstone), some because things were just left standing: the false-front buildings that look like movie sets, the dusty streets, the silent heat. Occasionally, a lone tumbleweed, no lie. It’s breathtaking country, cattle-ranching country, unexpectedly lush in spots (i.e., near springs and rivers), hilly land with purple-gray mountains in the distance.