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Arizona history

Jan 30, 2015

Phoenix’s First Light Rail System

Just about every city of any size in the early days had a streetcar or trolley line. In Phoenix, there was the Phoenix Street Railway System, which operated from 1887 to 1948. It was owned and operated by the great promoter and subdivision mogul, Moses H. Sherman, until 1925, when the city of Phoenix took over operations.

Jan 16, 2015

The Shrine at the Casa

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the patron saint of Mexico, of the Americas and of the Catholic Diocese of Phoenix. The mosaic building being dedicated in the photo was erected by the Franciscan Renewal Center (Casa de Paz y Bien) in 1954 on the center property at Lincoln Drive between Mummy and Camelback mountains.

Jan 9, 2015

Princess Margaret visits Arizona

When Tucsonan Lewis W. Douglas was appointed ambassador to the Court of St. James in 1947, his daughter Sharman left Vassar to accompany her parents to England and became a close friend of Princess Margaret.

Jan 2, 2015

The Mertz Family

This photo shows 444 Monroe Street in downtown Phoenix in 1936. The building in the background is the former convent of the Sisters of the Precious Blood, who taught St. Mary’s Elementary School classes for nearly a century.

Dec 26, 2014

Swigarts’ Irresistible Arizona

In 1910, Esther Rothrock, who lived in Elgin, a town southeast of Sonoita in Santa Cruz County, invited her sisters, Carrie and Rhoda Swigart, to come out to Arizona to homestead land.

Dec 19, 2014

Annie Daniels, Schools Superintendent

Annie Evalena Stakebake Seayrs Daniels, a schoolteacher and Pima County superintendent of schools, was born in a log cabin on a farm near Windsor, Indiana, on Oct. 3, 1869. Her parents were Henry Harrison and Louisa Cropper Stakebake.

Dec 1, 2014

Thriving St. Mary’s

Several generations of Phoenix’s Catholics attended St. Mary’s Elementary School, which closed in 1992 and was eventually demolished to make way for new Diocesan offices.

Nov 21, 2014

Promoting Tourist Travel in 1884 Northern Arizona

The following article appeared in the Weekly Champion, a Flagstaff newspaper, on March 22, 1884. Today’s reader may enjoy the flowery writing style of the time; may be curious as to why the route would travel so far to the west unless it was to reach the waters of the Colorado River instead of viewing the Canyon from the rim?

Nov 14, 2014

Cochise County Attorney Allen R. English

Allen Robert English, born in Saginaw, Michigan in 1858, earned a law degree by age 19. His father was a well-to-do shipbuilder and his mother was from a pioneer Irish family, the Fitzgeralds of Maryland.

Nov 7, 2014

Scarce Funding for 1920s Early Education

Every year that teacher Anne Tinsley taught kindergarten at Flagstaff’s Emerson School, the 40 or so members of her class got to visit the fire department and sit on the huge fire truck.

Oct 20, 2014

The Class of 1920

These students are the first graduating class of St. Mary’s High School in Phoenix. Founded in 1917, the school first held classes in the tiny second floor of St. Anthony’s grammar school (since razed) next to St. Mary’s Church.

Oct 10, 2014

Mining Man & Mayor

Abraham Hyman Emanuel was an Easterner who made his fortune in the gold and silver mines and mining towns of the American West.

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