Two decades later, a route was developed from Phoenix to Prescott via Wickenburg that generally followed the newly completed Prescott-Phoenix Railway.Īfter statehood in 1912, early automobile enthusiasts traveled the Black Canyon stage road and what came to be called the Prescott-White Spar route through Wickenburg and Yarnell. It was a jarring 30-hour stage ride from Phoenix to Prescott with risky Agua Fria River crossings and the threat of robbery by highwaymen. In March 1878, the first stagecoach line began operating on a newly built road from Canon, today’s Black Canyon City, to Prescott, according to historian Stuart Rosebrook. Plus, I-19 between Nogales and Tucson was nearing the finish line.Ī century earlier, the first iteration of a Black Canyon route was scratched out north of Phoenix. A month later, a 67-mile stretch of I-40 from Kingman to Seligman was completed at a cost of $94 million. In August, the Interstate 8 bridge over the Colorado River was dedicated in Yuma. It was a busy summer for the Arizona Department of Transportation. And you can click on the photos at right to get more information on those parts of Interstate 17 construction. You can use the slider above to compare the highway today heading north into the Verde Valley around 1969, when it was being upgraded to interstate freeway. It took another decade to finish I-17 in the Verde Valley. 12.I-17 (Black Canyon Freeway) just south of I-40 in Flagstaff in 1968. An alternative way of saving NGS without using coal has been approved by Black Mesa Trust.īlack Mesa Trust held its annual meeting at the Native American Cultural Center on Northern Arizona University’s campus Dec. NGS and PWCC officials are threatening 1,000 Navajo jobs will be lost if NGS and mining shut down. PWCC now wants to extend mining operations to the end of 2044 to supply coal to Navajo Generating Station. The initial price of water leased from the Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation by Peabody Western Coal Company (PWCC) was $1.67 per acre-feet (one acre-feet holds 326,000 gallons), approved by then Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall. Over 45 billion gallons of pristine fossil water stored in the Navajo Aquifer destroyed. Unknown numbers of burial and religious sites destroyed. In the process of strip mining, an undisclosed number of archaeological villages built by Hopi ancestors have been destroyed. The next stop could be Black Mesa, where the world’s largest coal mining has been going on since 1970, in slow motion, to supply Navajo Generating Station with coal to produce energy to bring water from Colorado River to Phoenix and Tucson through a 320-mile aqueduct called Central Arizona Project. Hopis applaud our brave brothers and sisters for taking a courageous stand. This is just a beginning of a movement to protect and preserve sacred lands. This is called colonialism.Ī united protest by Native Americans against an oil pipeline at Standing Rock Sioux land has brought tribal nations and people together to fight against future exploitation of sacred lands. Gosar, like so many Arizona politicians, take Native American people for granted, dictating to us what we can and cannot do. We should focus and support on-going research to generate clean energy using solar, wind and biomass, instead of getting mired in contentious costly fighting. Tribal lands provide enough land to develop sustainable permanent solar energy. Gosar to come to Hopi to tell the people why he supports uranium mining when it is not necessary to generate energy, produce jobs and contribute to Arizona’s economy. Arizona surveys have been done showing overwhelming support for the legislation introduced by Rep. The Hopi Tribe is in favor of expanding the Grand Canyon National Park to protect the Colorado Plateau from uranium mining and other threats.īlack Mesa Trust, founded in 1998 by Hopi elders who hold the Colorado Plateau as a sacred ecological landscape, has written a letter urging President Barack Obama to expand Grand Canyon National Park. Arizona consists of 26 independent governments that control 26 percent of land. Without checking the facts, Gosar writes that ‘tribal governments’ support the Grand Canyon Watershed Monument. Paul Gosar (AZ- 04) misled the public (Communities deserve to be heard in designation process), Navajo Times, Dec.
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