TO the ordinary air traveler winging across the U.S. Southwest, the great American desert still seems an arid and forbidding waste of sand, dry lake beds and jagged rock mountains. But to the observant, a careful look reveals surprising signs of a new civilization rising among the ocotillos and greasewood. Thin asphalt ribbons stretch across the sand, linking black and white dots of clustered homes, blue bands of irrigation canals and rectangles of bright green new farms. From California's southern coastal ranges inland 375 miles to the central Arizona cities of Phoenix and Tucson, the searing desert, long a shunned part of the U.S.'s land surface, is filling up. Today, thousands of pioneers are moving in, claiming a brand-new empire in which to build new homes, farms, businesses and a whole new way of life.
To the ill-equipped and the unwary, the desert can still be a savage and treacherous foe. But to the man who comes to the desert with caution and respect, the forbidding area has much to offer: fabulous mineral riches, water so pure that it tastes like distilled water, incredibly fertile farmland and a growing season 365 days long. Above all, the desert offers the restless migrants from city stress a combination of peace, solitude and a fresh start on a new frontier. "There are three ways of life now," says Indio (Calif.) Publisher Ole Nordland. "The city, the farm and the desert."
Mass Migration. Ever since the Spaniards first explored the region in the 16th century, man has been able to promote a cautious friendship with the great deserts of the Southwest. Springs and river water from the Colorado, Mojave,* Verde, Salt and Gila gave rise to settlements and small farming districts. Deep wells supported a slowly growing population, clustered along well-traveled desert highways in a few centers—Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Barstow. In the mountains, miners hammered away at sun-baked mineral vaults, and on the sandy desert floor men learned to irrigate and raise truck crops, cotton, dates and citrus trees.
But within the past 15 years, so casually that the nation at large was scarcely aware of the change, man discovered how to live comfortably al most anywhere he chose on the desert. From the old centers, suburbs began mushrooming out through the mesquite and yuccas. Long fingers of civilization stretched along brand-new desert highways, reaching toward new cities that sprang up among the saguaros and Joshua trees.
Behind the push was one of the greatest migra tions the world has ever known. Since 1940, more than 5,000,000 newcomers have moved into the Far West; 200,000 are still arriving in California each year. They flow into Los Angeles and the main cities of the Southwest and, in search of more space and freer living, push on through the populated centers and out over the desert.