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Birdman lands in Bisbee
In November 1911, R.L. “Birdman” Fowler made a stop at the Bisbee Country Club on a cross-country air trip and became the first man to fly into the copper mining camp (Didier Masson whose plane appears in this photo was the first to fly out of Bisbee in February 1911, but his biplane was shipped into Bisbee by railroad.)
Saving Sunset Crater from Hollywood
In the 1920s, a Hollywood director wanted to blow up the side of Sunset Crater for a movie avalanche scene. Flagstaff residents immediately objected.
Blazing the General Crook Trail
Today, we travel across this diverse landscape on paved roads, in air-conditioned comfort and with radios blaring, unaware of the early pioneers who braved Arizona’s roughest land to lay trails. In remote and untouched areas of Arizona, the old trails remain, where the history of the pioneers’ experiences are remembered.
The Lore of Charleston
On an outing from Fort Huachuca, this trio of unidentified soldiers hiked through a dense mesquite bosque to a clearing overlooking the San Pedro River near the crumbling remains of Charleston.
The New Mills House
Susie and Ernest Mills came to Arizona in 1881. Ernest was a Canadian who ran away from home to join the American Civil War. He served three years with an Ohio regiment and was wounded in battle. After the war, he settled in Kansas, married Susie and worked in a variety of governmental jobs — U.S. marshal, county coroner and justice of the peace.
Gilmore and Salisbury’s ‘custom’ smelter
Benson was established in June 1880 by the Southern Pacific and became an important maintenance center for the railroad and the shipping point for the Bisbee and Tombstone mines, neither of which was served by rail. The town was less than three months old when, according to the Tucson Citizen, “the first shipment of copper bullion from Bisbee (arrived) in Benson, where it (was) shipped to San Fr[...]
Transforming turn-of-the-century Tucson
The view across 1880s Tucson from Sentinel Peak toward the barely visible Santa Catalina Mountains reveals a snapshot of a town on the cusp of an evolution.
Flagstaff’s Chapel Car
Rev. Peter Vanderhoof and his wife in founded Glad Tidings Baptist Church in 1926 in a Pullman rail car. The car, which was divided into a living space and a sanctuary, included an organ, a pulpit and a few benches. The makeshift church referred to as “The Chapel Car” allowed the Vanderhoofs to preach in the remote areas of northern Arizona.
Surviving the frozen Colorado, 1931
Eighty years ago this month, two intrepid would-be entrepreneurs spent a harrowing 12 days traveling upstream on the ice-choked Colorado River from Lee’s Ferry to Rainbow Bridge, battling frigid waters and the elements in a wooden boat they had found while testing their own steel boat.
Arizona’s Snow Bowl
Skiing was introduced to Flagstaff in 1915, probably by a pair of Norwegian immigrants, brothers Ole and Pete Solberg. The Solbergs made skis and started downhill runs on Observatory Hill where the Lowell Observatory was located, very nearly in the center of town.
A Territorial Christmas
Christmas time in the 1860s in the Arizona Territory was similar to Christmas in the state of Arizona in 2010. People had feasts, decorated large Christmas trees, children ate candy and townspeople spread cheer by caroling.
The ‘Convento’
South of Congress Street on the west side of the Santa Cruz River near downtown Tucson was a Pima Indian village. This site, at the base of Sentinel Peak — today it is called ‘A’ Mountain — is known to have been inhabited since at least 1000 B.C. Located by a once-flowing spring that emptied into the Santa Cruz, American Indians called the village Stjukson (spelling of the word varies wide[...]
