Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 225, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1915 — Desert Lighthouse. [ARTICLE]

Desert Lighthouse.

Prairie schooners, as the long can-vas-covered wagons which cross the deserts of Arizona are called, are guided by the only desert lighthouse in the world. The lighthouse marks the position of a well, the only place where water can be found for 33 miles to the eastward, and 30 miles in any other direction.

Many a wayfarer in this vast, waterless region has died of thirst practically within sight of the well, the whereabouts of which he was ignorant. It was a tragedy of this sort which led to the erection of the beacon. A boy, perishing of thirst, had fallen in the last stages of exhaustion. When night came, he noticed the light from the well keeper's cabin burning dimly in the distance. With a last heroic effort, the boy reached the cabin. This gave the well keeper an idea, and now every night a light flashes out from the only desert lighthouse in the world. —American Boy.