In Arizona, it seems like a never-ending trail of legendary, larger-than-life figures added their own brand of mischief and mayhem to the state's colorful past.

One of these was Iowa-born Dick Wick Hall, who moved to our state in 1898 to live with the Hopi in northeastern Arizona and learn their snake dance.

You can read a bit about this character on an historical marker in Salome on US 60 some 60 miles west of Wickenburg.

It says:

“Salome, where she danced. This desert town was made famous by the humor of Dick Wick Hall, health seeker and operator of the Laughing Gas Station."

“Hall’s publication, the Salome Sun, was filled with extravagant tales of the desert’s adaptation of a species. He told of a frog that was seven years old and never learned how to swim.”

If you want to know more about this character, there’s probably no better source than the McMullen Valley Chamber of Commerce, which has an entire website page dedicated to him and his place of importance in what the website calls “the heart of Arizona’s Outback.”

For starters, Dick Wick Hall, born Richard Deforest Hall, changed his name after falling in love with Wickenburg.

Miner, prospector, speculator, newspaper publisher, humorist and businessman, Hall became one of Salome’s founders in 1904.

He and fellow founder Charles Pratt called the area “Happy Valley” before settling on a name. It was during this time that Pratt’s wife, Salome Pratt, attempted to walk on the hot desert sand in her bare foot and wound up “dancing” to her destination.

“There and then Dick Wick Hall named the town 'Salome, where she danced, Arizona.’ The founder of Salome is honored with both a historical marker on Highway 60 and Center Street, and the historical gravesite near the site of his old office and home, located at the intersection of Center and Hall Streets,” the website says.

In addition to his newspaper, he opened the Laughing Gas Station, where he covered the walls with signs making fun of Arizona’s weather. Among these were one proclaiming “Free hot air” and another saying, “Smile, smile, smile. You don’t have to stay here but we do.”

Credited with being Arizona’s most famous humorist, Hall’s widely popular syndicated column was published in 28 newspapers from New York to California.

And of course, there was Hall’s famous “Salome Frog,” who never learned to swim because Salome was so hot, dusty and dry. Hall wrote a poem about his swim-less amphibian, which concludes: “I’m an Old Bull Frog, dang my hide, I can’t swim because I never tried.”

American engineer and educator James Kip Finch said “The engineer has been, and is, a maker of history.”

That can definitely be said of the engineers and team members working on the Pinto Creek Bridge project as they are creating a replacement for a 72-year-old bridge, located on US 60 about six miles west of Miami, to keep a southern Arizona community moving.

When the project began in 2012, many factors came into play, including addressing historic preservation with the Federal Highway Administration and bridge aesthetics with the U.S. Forest Service. Another consideration was environmental impact, which led to the mitigation and conservation of the Arizona Hedgehog Cactus in the canyon.

An interesting development was the discovery of a mine adit, which is basically a prospector’s tunnel, a consideration during the original construction in the 1940s. The team did 3D modeling of the foundation excavation limits to determine the type of foundation that would reduce any risk due to the mine adit.

ADOT used value engineering to develop improvements to the construction feasibility review and efficiency of the bridge, saving about $1.5 million.

“Adjustments were made to the foundations and column reinforcing for efficiency and constructibility,” Bridge Designer Rafe Davis explained. “A bid alternate was developed in the plans and specifications which provided the contractor flexibility.”

“The girders took more than three months to fabricate, not including the time for required submittals and to prepare the structural steel shop drawings,” Project Supervisor Kim Vanvolkinburg said. “Once girder delivery to the project began, it took them about six weeks to set and splice all the girders and cross frames. The contractor brought in multiple cranes, and had to move them several times due to the logistics of working adjacent to the existing highway and within the canyon below.”

The projected completion date is January 2022.

“This will likely adjust some as there is a lot of work yet to be completed,” Vanvolkinburg said. “Hopefully, the weather will cooperate.”

Read more about the bridge project and progress in the ADOT Blog. Discover photos of the project and the girder lift on Flickr. 

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, who died in roughly 475 B.C.E., is said to have been the originator of the phrase "the only constant in life is change."

And while that thought seems fine for philosophy books, what does it have to do with transportation? 

Well, it turns out that you can find change and new approaches in even a common task like paving a road.

Let's take ADOT's project on US 60 and State Route 260 at Show Low, for example. The work, which kicked off on June 1, will remove and replace a total of 11 miles along US 60 and SR 260 near Show Low, in addition to curb and gutter, sidewalk and guardrail work. 

So what's so innovative about that? Because, for this project, ADOT is using a relatively new type of pavement that will improve the road life. In layman's terms, the paving is more dense than what has been used in the past, achieved through greater compaction and a reduction in small air bubbles found in the mixture. This in turn makes it more durable and resistant to things such as rutting, cracking and moisture intrusion. 

Bottom line: That could expand the life of the driving surface by years. 

And if you need another reason to get excited about this, we have you covered. Because ADOT is using this new type of paving, it successfully applied for federal innovation funding. With those new dollars, the federal share of the $16 million project went up 5 percent to 99.3 percent. That means roughly an extra $800,000 is being covered by federal funds.

This isn't the first time ADOT has used this new type of paving, and there are more projects scheduled to utilize it moving forward. 

While we're pretty sure Heraclitus wasn't thinking specifically about paving a road when he talked about change, but improvements like what's happening near Show Low still help prove the 2,500-year old thinker right. 

On this Memorial Day, a special thank you to Adopt a Highway Volunteer program groups – over 400 statewide, who gather at adopted segments during the year to clear litter in remembrance of beloved family members, both human and furry. Expressing honor by serving the community is a choice ADOT understands and appreciates. 

Traveling northbound toward Show Low on US 60, watch for a mile dedicated to Melissa Pomeroy. For the past three years, Melissa’s sign greets motorists at mileposts 334 and 335. Melissa unexpectedly passed in 2014 at the age of 49, but her twin Michelle keeps her sister’s memory alive within their family. Since 2018, Michelle has participated in the Adopt a Highway Volunteer program and organizes cleanups a couple times a year, mostly with family members. 

South of Florence Junction at SR 79 milepost 144, a memorial sign stands at attention to a brave young Marine.

Headed to Payson? The family of Jonathan T. Orcutt adopted a segment to care for on SR 87 at milepost 189 near Fountain Hills in remembrance of their son. Jonathan’s family clears litter along this segment more than three times per year, which is proudly displayed on the Outstanding Volunteer Placard below the recognition sign in the photo. 

Adopt a Highway recognition signs hold a maximum of 40 characters to express the name of the volunteer group, which may include a sentiment and name.

“Sometimes, expressing how you would like the sign to read in 40 letters can be a challenge. Adopt a Highway permit coordinators understand and will gladly assist volunteer group leaders to maximize a memorial sentiment printed on the sign,” said Mary Currie, the Adopt a Highway program manager. 

In Arizona littering is getting worse. If you are interested in caring for a segment of state highway, we welcome civic-minded groups and individuals that are interested in helping to reduce litter in Arizona by gathering as a group to collect litter a few times per year. Please visit the Adopt a Highway website to learn how.

Nothing dazzles quite like an old black-and-white film photograph. Especially one taken at night, surrounded by street lights that are positively celestial.

Right off the bat, the exit signs down the road in this picture tell us we’re looking westbound on the Superstition Freeway, just east of McClintock Drive. Today, this familiar stretch is signed as US Route 60. However, from 1970 to 1992, it was designated State Route 360.

At the time, US 60 followed a “through-town route” along Main Street/Apache Trail about two miles to the north.

State Route 360 has the distinct honor of being the first Valley freeway that wasn’t an interstate highway. It was also the only Phoenix-area freeway being constructed during the entire 1970s.

Here’s another fun note: If you look closely, you may notice the exit numbers are in the single digits. These days, the exits are numbered according to US 60’s corresponding mileposts (173 for Mill, 174 for Rural).

Now, when exactly this photograph was taken is a bit tricky to nail down. For one, this photograph was found undated in our archives. 

The earliest we can posit for this monochrome marvel is around 1975. That’s the year the freeway opened from Mill Ave to Price Road, the future Loop 101 Price Freeway.

The Superstition Freeway would open a few miles every few years until 1991, when it was completed in Apache Junction.

But since we’re not going anywhere right now, let’s just sit back, relax and watch the lights as they twinkle on in the night sky.