The railway mileage of Arizona on the 1st of January 1908 was 1935·35 m.
Population.—The population of Arizona in 1880 was 40,440; in 1890, 59,620; in 1900, 122,931 (including 28,623 reservation Indians not counted before); in 1910, 204,354. The native population is of the most diverse origin; the foreign element is equally heterogeneous, but more than half (in 1900, 14,172 out of 24,283 foreign-born) are Mexicans, many of whom are not permanent residents; after 1900, immigrants were largely mine labourers, and included Slavonians and Italians. The largest towns in 1900 were Tucson, Phoenix, which is the capital, Prescott (pop. 3559), Jerome (pop. 1890, 250; in 1900, 2861); Winslow (pop. 1890, 363; in 1900, 1305), Nogales (pop. 1900, 1761), and Bisbee. The last was an insignificant mining camp in 1880, still unincorporated in 1900, but with an estimated population of 6000 in 1904. It is crowded picturesquely into several narrow confluent ravines. Railway connexion with El Paso was established in 1902. Douglas is another growing camp.
Over thirty Indian tribes are represented in the Indian schools of Arizona. The more important are the Hualapais or Apache-Yumas; the Mohaves; the Yavapais or Apache-Mohaves; the Yumas, whose lesser neighbours on the lower Colorado are the most primitive Indians of the United States in habits; the Maricopas; the Pimas and Papagoes, who figure much in early Arizona history, and who are superior in intelligence, adaptability, application and character; the Hopis or Moquis, possessed of the same good qualities and notably temperate and provident, famous for their prehistoric culture (Tusuyan); the Navaho, and the kindred Apaches, perhaps the most relentless and savage of Indian warriors. All the Indians of Arizona live on reservations save the few non-tribal Indians taxed and treated as active citizens. Even the Apaches after being whipped by relentless war into temporary submission have been bound by treaties which the gifts, vices and virtues of the reservation system have tempted them to observe. The Pimas and Papagoes were early converted by the Spaniards, and retain to-day a smattering of Christianity plentifully alloyed with paganism. Apaches, Pimas, Papagoes have been employed by the United States on great irrigation works, and have proved industrious and faithful labourers. In 1900 there were 1836 taxed Indians, 26,480 reservation Indians not taxed, and in addition many friendly Papagoes unenumerated.
In 1906 the Indian population was estimated as being 14% of the whole population of Arizona, and that they are singularly law-abiding is argued from the fact that in the same year the Indians furnished only 3% of the convicts in the territorial prison.
Government and Education.—Arizona became a territory of the first (or practically autonomous) class in 1863. Her organic law thereafter until 1910 consisted of various sections of the Revised Statutes of the United States. From the beginning she had a territorial legislature. Congress retained ultimately direct control of all government, administration being in the hands of resident officials appointed by the president and Senate. Special mention must be made of the secret police, the Arizona Rangers, organized in 1901 to police the cattle ranges; they are “fearless men, trained in riding, roping, trailing and shooting,” a force whose personnel is not known to the general public. The legislature repealed the law licensing public gambling in 1907; enacted a law requiring the payment of $300 per annum as licence fee by retail liquor dealers; and provided for juvenile courts and probationary control of children. In 1907 the total tax valuation of property was $77,705,251; the net debt of the territory $1,022,972, and that of counties and towns $3,123,275. The receipts of the territorial treasury for the year ending on the 30th of June 1907 were $687,386, and the disbursements for the same period were $601,568. A homestead provision (1901) exempts from liability for debts (except mortgages or liens placed before the homestead claim) any homestead belonging to the head of a family, existing in one compact body and valued at not more than $2500; such a homestead a married man may not sell, lease or put a lien on without his wife’s consent. Personal property to the value of $500 is exempt from the same liability. The public school system was established in 1871. A compulsory attendance law applies to children between 6 and 14 years of age, but it is not generally obeyed by the Mexican element of population. In 1907 there was an enrolment of 24,962 out of 33,167 children of school age; there were six high schools—three new in 1906; and the average number of school days was 128·4. In the fiscal year ending June 1907, the total receipts for schools were $697,762, and the expenditures were $701,102. Illiteracy is high, amounting in 1900 to 23·1% of native males, above 21 years of age, and 30·5% of foreign males, principally because of the large number of Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Mexicans in the state. There are two normal schools at Tempe (1886) and Flagstaff (1899), a university at Tucson with an agricultural experiment station that has done much for the industries of Arizona; there is a considerable number of Indian schools, the largest of which are maintained by the national government, and the funds of the university come largely from the same source. The first juvenile reform school, called the Territorial Industrial school, was opened in 1903 at Benson. The territorial prison, formerly at Yuma, was abandoned for a modern building at Florence, Pinal county; and a hospital for the insane is 3 m. from Phoenix.
History.—The history of the South-west is full of interest to the archaeologist. A prehistoric culture widely distributed has left abundant traces. Pueblo ruins are plentiful in the basins of the Gila and Colorado rivers and their tributaries. Geographical conditions and a hard struggle against nature fixed the character of this “aridian” culture, and determined its migrations; the onslaughts of nomad Indians determined the sedentary civilization of the cliff dwellers. A co-operative social economy is evidenced by the traces of great public works, such as canals many miles in length. The pueblos of the Gila valley are held to be older than those of the Colorado. Casa Grande, 15 m. S.E. of a railway station of the same name on the Southern Pacific railway, is the most remarkable of plain ruins in the South-west, the only one of its type in the United States. It resembles the Casa Grande ruin of Chihuahua, Mexico, with its walls of sun-dried puddled clay, and its area of rooms, courts and plazas, surrounded by a wall. It was already a ruin when discovered in 1694 by the Jesuit father Kino. John Russel Bartlett described it in 1854, and in 1889 Congress voted that it be protected as a government reservation; in 1892 it was set apart by the government. Excavations were made there in 1906–1907 by Dr J. Walter Fewkes. Migration was northward. The valleys of the Salt river and its affluents, the Agua Fria, Verde and Tonto, are strewn with aboriginal remains; but especially important in migrations of culture was the Little Colorado. A very considerable population must have lived once in this valley. It is represented to-day by the still undeserted habitats of Zuñi (in New Mexico) and Tusayan; the Moquis, after the Zuñis, are in customs and traditions the best survival of the ancient civilization.
Arizona north of the Gila, save for a very limited and intermittent missionary effort and for scant exploring expeditions, was practically unknown to the whites until well after the beginning of American rule. The Santa Cruz valley, however, has much older annals of a past that charms by its picturesque contrasts with the present. Arizona history begins with the arrival in Sonora in 1536 of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, who, although he had not entered Arizona or New Mexico, had heard of them, and by his stories incited the Spaniards to explore the unknown north in hope of wealth. Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan friar to whom the first reconnaissance was entrusted, was the first Spaniard to enter the limits of Arizona. He crossed the south-eastern corner to Zuñi in 1539, passing through the Santa Cruz valley; and F. V. de Coronado (q.v.) was led by Fray Marcos over the same route in 1540; while Hernando Alarcon explored the Gulf of California and the lower Colorado river. Members of Coronado’s expedition explored the Moqui country and reached the Grand Canyon, and after this a succession of remarkable and heroic explorations followed through the century; which however accomplished little for geography, further confusing
