It’s closing in on 100 years since veterinarian A.J. Chandler sold plots of his 18,000-acre ranch to establish the city. That was three months after Arizona became a state on Feb. 14, 1912.

City leaders are organizing to commemorate both centennials next year. But given the poor economy and tight budget, it’s going to require scaling back some and seeking private donations, said Jean Reynolds, Chandler’s public history coordinator.

Women had been flying airplanes since the early days of aviation, and by 1928, they had also piloted balloons, parachuted out of disabled planes, served as their own mechanics, set altitude and speed records, wing-walked and barnstormed. But they hadn’t yet raced airplanes.

According to a writer for the Great Depression’s Arizona Federal Writers Project, Arizona’s prospectors and miners have been famous for stretching the truth for many years. These raconteurs have spun marvelous stories about their diggings and exaggerated the value of their strikes, often for the sole purpose of entertaining friends.

On the silver screen and the wide-open southern Arizona ranges, Sid Wilson was one of the last authentic 19th century cowboys. His genuine, hard-working, real cowboy lifestyle provided authenticity to the characters he played in Hollywood movies and Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.

Montezuma Castle near Camp Verde is an enigma.

The great Aztec chief Montezuma would never have seen the structure on the cliff walls. It certainly is not a castle, but merely secure living quarters for a long-gone people.

A man widely recognized for making sweeping changes in labor conditions as part of his work as New York City mayor may have held a small Arizona town in higher regard than The Big Apple.

In 1885, the Thirteenth Territorial Legislature appropriated $100,000 for a hospital to house the insane to be built in Phoenix.

A state’s 100th birthday only happens once, and the current budget crisis shouldn’t stop Arizona from ringing it in right, Gov. Jan Brewer said Feb. 17.

In 1922, there were 14,000 cars in Maricopa County with more than 8,000 cars being owned by Phoenix residents.

Travelers driving on U.S. Highway 180 (aka Fort Valley Road) near Flagstaff are greeted with a mix of rustic-looking buildings, wooden cattle fences and open space as the road carves a route through the ponderosa pine forest. While the times have changed, the panoramas that gripped homesteaders in the 1880s and influenced the historic road’s route still amaze.