The Border Vidette

BETTER HIGHWAYS.

Engineer Frazier Says Montezuma Canyon Road Not Feasible.

In a recent communication to the Tombstone Prospector, Mr. A. H. Gardner of Tombstone says:

Division State Engineer I. P. Frazier of Nogales, while in town the other day stated that although he had been elected to the legislature from Santa Cruz county, it did not mean he was retiring from road work. He stated that during the time he was in Phoenix he hoped to be instrumental in securing some beneficial highway legislation.

Another statement made by Mr. Frazier was of more interest to people of Cochise county. In the face of the fact that an interview was recently published in the press in which Supervisor Adams advocated a road through Montezuma Canyon to Nogales, Mr. Frazier in speaking of this proposition stated that so far as Santa Cruz county was concerned it did not appeal to them at all for the reason that part of the road that would fall in Santa Cruz ran through a country that would cost the taxpayers a million dollars to build, as it is a very rough piece of land. He stated further that it would serve very few people in that part of Santa Cruz and would only be a duplication of a highway to Nogales already built and which, in a few months, will be a boulevard. The road referred to is the state highway from Nogales to Fairbank, via Patagonia and Sonoita, for which the bonds have been voted and sold, and everything is ready for the calling of bids on construction.

He also stated that the road around the mountains would simply parallel a road that Mexico contemplates along the border and that all the people living in the eastern part of the county of Santa Cruz will be taken care of by feeder lines connecting with their two state highway lines that run where the people live and where they do the most good. These lines run from Nogales to Fairbank and Nogales to Tucson. In his final statement Mr. Frazier expressed the idea that many who have studied the road problem from a point of economy and efficiency are of the belief that we should select our main line routes with great care as to the present needs and prospective future needs and build standard trunk lines in localities that federal aid can be secured for and connect such roads up with feeders that will put the outlying districts on the lines of shortest connection to the main trunk lines.