The Tucson Fire Association, Tucson Fire Company and Tucson Hook and Ladder Company formed the first Tucson fire department under the fumes of cigar smoke in the Gem Saloon on Congress Street in the early 1880s.

While the volunteers had the will to fight fires, technology and city support still needed to catch up.

Leading up to Halloween in 1939, Phoenix was enthralled with the first of several escapes by a female prisoner newspapers delighted in describing as the “Trunk Murderess,” “Tiger Woman,” “Blond Tigress,” “Velvet Tigress” and “Mad Killer.”

George Washington assumed command of the Continental Army under an Ulmus Americana Elm tree in Cambridge, Mass., on July 3, 1775. The tree died in October 1923, but foresighted botanists made sure its legacy lived on at universities across the United States, including the campus at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

At the end of October of 1929, a $1.5 million (approximately $18.7 million today) structure, described as “…an inspiration for better government and a symbol of progress and prosperity,” was dedicated at Central Avenue and Washington Street in downtown Phoenix.

In 1993, a handful of notable politicians gathered in the backroom of a small diner in downtown Phoenix to hammer out a deal that would allow Native American tribes to operate casinos on their land in Arizona.

The politicians at the table included state Attorney General Grant Woods, Gov. Fife Symington and U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt.

John Anderson remembers rowing into the burning water around the USS Arizona, searching in vain for a twin brother later found among the battleship’s nearly 1,200 dead in the Pearl Harbor attack. But he also has fond memories of his time on the Arizona, such as attending navigation and meteorology classes with shipmates.

In 1907, the territory of Arizona had fewer than 200,000 residents.

However, there seemed to be a number of interesting characters that kept the local newspapers busy.
In Tucson, “…a jury of 12 good citizens” decided that cowboys and miners coming into town had two hours to remove their weapons.

Fires were a common occurrence in frontier towns. With limited water supplies and volunteer firefighters, Tombstone almost completely burned to the ground twice.

On June 22, 1881, a cigar ignited a barrel of whiskey at the Arcade Saloon. The subsequent fire destroyed more than 60 businesses in the downtown area – comprising the eastern half of Tombstone’s business district.

It doesn’t take a DC insider to know that conservatives are in a battle for the soul for the Republican Party. It is a battle for the future of fiscal responsibility in America. It’s a battle between the George W. Bush wing of the Republican Party and the Reagan/Goldwater conservatism that made our nation the strongest, most prosperous and freest in the world.

In the mid-1950s, the future of baseball in Phoenix seemed to be on the line as the city was trying to purchase Phoenix Municipal Stadium.

Allerton Cushman and his wife owned approximately 10 acres around what was then called Phoenix Municipal Stadium at Third and Mohave streets south of downtown Phoenix. The 100 Club owned the Phoenix Senators that played at the stadium.