Flagstaff, circa 1890

Our trip today takes us all the way back to the Flagstaff of the late 19th century, as seen through the eyes of John L. Stoddard, American traveler and lecturer. This is how he arrived in Flagstaff. We pick up his story, in his own words, during a visit to Lowell Observatory.

"Upon a hill near Flagstaff stands an astronomical observatory from which distinguished students of the midnight skies search for the secrets of the moon and stars. Few better sites on earth could have been chosen for this purpose, since Arizona's atmosphere is so transparent that the extent of celestial scenery here disclosed is extraordinary.

We visited the structure at the solemn hour that marks the hush between two days, when the last sound of one has died away, and before the first stir of the other thrills the morning air. Then, gazing through the lenses of its noble telescope, we welcomed the swift waves of light pulsating toward us from the shoreless ocean we call space. There is a mysterious beauty about the radiance of a star that far surpasses that of the moon. The latter glitters only with reflected light; but a star (that is to say a distant sun), when seen through a telescope, frequently scintillates with different colors like a diamond, and quivers like a thing of life. Moreover, the moon, forever waxing, waning, or presenting almost stupidly its great flat face, is continually changing ; but the fixed star is always there."


"It fills the thoughtful soul with awe to look upon the starry heavens through such an instrument as that at Flagstaff. Space for the moment seems annihilated. We are apparently transported, as observers, from our tiny planet to the confines of our solar system, and, gazing thence still farther toward infinity, we watch with bated breath the birth, the progress, and the death of worlds."

"To one of the most distant objects in the depths of space, known as the Ring Nebula, the author addressed the following lines :

TO THE RING NEBULA

O, pallid spectre of the midnight skies!

Whose phantom features in the dome of Night

Elude the keenest gaze of wistful eyes

Till amplest lenses aid the failing sight,

On heaven's blue sea the farthest isle of fire,

From thee. whose glories it would fain admire,

Must vision, baffled, in despair retire !

What art thou ghostly visitant of flame ?

Wouldst thou 'neath closer scrutiny dissolve

In myriad suns that constellations frame,

Round which life-freighted satellites revolve,

Like those unnumbered orbs which nightly creep

In dim procession o'er the azure steep,

As white-wing'd caravans the desert sweep ?

Or, art thou still an incandescent mass,

Acquiring form as hostile forces urge,

Through whose vast length a million lightnings pass

As to and fro its fiery billows surge,

Whose glowing atoms, whirled in ceaseless strife

Where now chaotic anarchy is rife,

Shall yet become the fair abodes of life ?

We know not ; for the faint, exhausted rays

Which hither on Light's winged coursers come

From fires which ages since first lit their blaze,

One instant gleam, then perish, spent and dumb !

How strange the thought that, whatsoe'er we learn,

Our tiny globe no answer can return,

Since with but dull, reflected beams we burn !

Yet this we know ; yon ring of spectral light,

Whose distance thrills the soul with solemn awe,

Can ne'er escape in its majestic might

The firm control of omnipresent law.

This mote descending to its bounden place,

Those suns whose radiance we can scarcely trace,

Alike obey the Power pervading space."

"One glorious September morning, leaving our train at Flagstaff, we started in stage-coaches for a drive of sixty-five miles to the Grand Canon. I had looked forward to this drive with some misgiving, dreading the heat of the sun, and the dust and sand which I had supposed we should encounter ; but to my astonishment and delight it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. It was only eleven hours in duration, and not only was most of the route level, but two-thirds of it lay through a section of beautifully rolling land, diversified with open glades and thousands upon thousands of tall pines and cedars entirely free from undergrowth. It is no exaggeration to say that we drove that day for miles at a time over a road carpeted with pine needles. The truth is, Arizona, though usually considered a treeless and rainless country, possesses some remarkable exceptions ; and the region near Flagstaff not only abounds in stately pines, but is at certain seasons visited by rainstorms which keep it fresh and beautiful."


Excerpted from John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Volume X, 1989, Boston, Balch Brothers Co. Now in public domain.

To be continued . . .