Letter: Leave it as it is

Editor:

I received an email this morning from a concerned Prescott citizen regarding development in the Granite Dells area. I grew up in Yavapai County during the 1940s and 1950s in Ash Fork. Back then the town had no well and out water was hauled daily by train from Del Rio Springs.

The nearest area for swimming, and recreation was Granite Dells so the place has many memories for me. I learned to swim there and was even baptized in its waters.

I’ve always considered its beautiful granite rocks one of nature’s grandest natural architectural masterpieces. I understand it’s threatened by developers. How can this precious crown jewel be preserved for future generations. What can the city do to preserve enough of this special place so the public can partake of its natural wonders in perpetuity? Developers can build around the Dells but we can’t allow them to rip out her heart. That belongs to all the people and isn’t intended just to be the private domain of a privileged few.

Once a place of such natural beauty is developed it is gone forever and we, who are just passing through are only caretakers and stewards of this land. We don’t have the right to deprive generations who follow of this special place.

It recalls the words of President Theodore Roosevelt when describing the Grand Canyon with emphasis on the last three sentences:

“In the Grand Canyon, Arizona has a natural wonder which is in kind absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world. I want to ask you to keep this great wonder of nature as it now is. I hope you will not have a building of any kind, not a summer cottage, a hotel or anything else, to mar the wonderful grandeur, the sublimity, the great loneliness and beauty of the canyon.”

Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.

Marshall Trimble

Official Arizona State Historian

Scottsdale Community College