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Al Sieber
When the great scout, Al Sieber, was killed in a construction accident near Roosevelt Dam, a headline read: "Famous scout who escaped a thousand deliberately aimed shafts of death, a victim of a mere accident." The irony of Al Sieber escaping decades of hard Arizona living was evident.
The Southwestern Society of Spizzifiers
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.
A legendary Tombstone cowboy
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.
Guarding the castle
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.
Fiorello La Guardia’s Arizona connection
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.
The Condemned Asylum
In 1885, the Thirteenth Territorial Legislature appropriated $100,000 for a hospital to house the insane to be built in Phoenix.
The Bankhead Highway
In 1922, there were 14,000 cars in Maricopa County with more than 8,000 cars being owned by Phoenix residents.
Highway of History
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.
Bird Man of Tombstone
Some of Tombstone's most famous gun fighters, including the Earps, Doc Holliday, Billy Claiborne and Johnny Ringo all patronized Hafford Saloon, which became one of the most popular watering holes in Tombstone. But the establishment is notable for another reason entirely.
Paradise, Arizona
In 1940, the year this photograph was taken, an unidentified scribe noted "a score of weather-worn frame buildings scattered along the narrow, winding mountain road" that snakes through Paradise.
Baron of Arizona
When it came to an appetite for ill-gotten gains, James Addison Reavis, the self-proclaimed Baron of Arizona, was in a class by himself.
3 generations of photographers in the Old Pueblo
Arriving in Tucson seven years before the railroad, frontier photographer Henry Buehman captured the rapidly vanishing frontier on film. His son Albert Buehman continued the family tradition and gained international renown. Grandson Remick rounded out an 80-year family legacy.
