Exploring Northern Arizona’s Lava River Caves
About 14 miles north of Flagstaff in the Coconino Forest, a network of caverns and lava-encased passages lie just below the feet of hikers, hunters and other recreation seekers. This relatively small slit, hidden amongst boulders, will take you there. Just large enough to accommodate a grown a man, this doorway leads to a mile-long lave … Read more...
Arizona History Trivia 3: Can You Pass?
Test your knowledge of Arizona's history with this quick quiz, originally published in Marshall Trimble’s Official Arizona Trivia. Don’t scroll down too quickly. The answers are posted shortly below the questions. When you’re finished, leave a comment with your score. Good luck! What Arizona community took its name from a mining magnate … Read more...
Relive 1930s Mobster Scene During Dillinger Days in Tucson
TUCSON -- Dillinger Days are held in this city on the third Saturday of each January, giving the locals and visitors a chance to dress in pinstripe suits, felt fedoras, flapper dresses and moustaches. The annual event at the Hotel Congress commemorates the arrest of John Dillinger, the notorious gangster who became the FBI's first Public Enemy … Read more...
Why Do Rabbits Have White Tails?
Excerpt from “Valley 101: The Great Big Book of Life,” a collection of Clay Thompson’s columns for The Arizona Republic. (Originally published September 19, 2002.) Q: Why do rabbits have white tails? They really blend into the background until they run and then you see their white tails like a target. A: There is a school of thought … Read more...
Why Do People Put Cups on Cacti?
Excerpt from “Valley 101: The Great Big Book of Life,” a collection of Clay Thompson’s columns for The Arizona Republic. (Originally published December 14, 1999.) Q: My husband and I recently drove to Cave Creek and along the way we noticed many people had put plastic-foam cups on their cactuses. I said this is for protection from the … Read more...
Latest News
Mule Train Meatballs Recipe
Once a month, we’re bringing you a scrumptious and “doable” recipe with a southwestern flare. This one was originally published in Clay Thompson’s Enormously Big Official Valley 101 Cookbook. Do you have a recipe you’d like to share? We just might feature that too. Submit to info@arizonaoddities.com.
Arizona History Trivia 3: Can You Pass?
Test your knowledge of Arizona’s history with this quick quiz, originally published in Marshall Trimble’s Official Arizona Trivia. Don’t scroll down too quickly. The answers are posted shortly below the questions. When you’re finished, leave a comment with your score. Good luck!
Featured Artist: Claudia Torres
Once a month, Arizona Oddities features a Q&A with a talented Arizona artist who is influenced by our state’s people, places and history. This month, budding photographer Claudia Torres explains how living in Tucson has shaped her portfolio.
Why Do Rabbits Have White Tails?
Q: Why do rabbits have white tails? A: A rabbit’s tail, by the way, is called a scut. It comes from a Middle English word meaning rabbit or hare. Here’s another good rabbit word, fomm. A fomm is a little pocket shelter a rabbit makes by trampling down grass or small shrubs.
Move Over Chicago, Best Franks Found at Jimmy’s Hot Dog Company in Bisbee
BISBEE – The iconic Chicago hot dog: an all-beef frank topped with tomato, pickles, relish, onions, sport peppers, mustard and celery salt, all encased in a poppy seed bun. Seems simple enough, but any Chicagoan will tell you that us Arizonans just can’t master this highly acclaimed recipe. Yet unbeknownst to most Windy City transplants
Featured: Small Town Scene
Trivia on Arizona Cities & Towns: Can You Pass?
Test your knowledge of cactus and wildlife of Arizona with this short quiz, originally published in Marshall Trimble’s Official Arizona Trivia. Don’t scroll down too quickly. The answers are posted shortly below the questions. When you’re finished, leave a comment with your score. Did any answers surprise you?
1. What Arizona city’s name means big house?
2. In what city is Fort Whipple Veterans Hospital located?
3. Where is the monument to camel driver Hi Jolly (Hadji Ali) located?
4. Where is Phantom Ranch located?
Rex Allen: A Cross-Eyed Hero from Willcox
Most fans of the old Western B movies watched Rex Allen fight the outlaws and rescue the heroines without ever realizing that he was once a cross-eyed country singer who performed at barn dances.
Fortunately for everyone involved (Allen and fans alike), he had corrective surgery shortly after his singing career took off in Chicago. But his eye problem is prominently mentioned on a bronze plaque placed next to his statue in Railroad Avenue Park in Willcox. The larger-than-life bronze sits across the street from the Rex Allen Arizona Cowboy Museum and the Willcox Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Pauline Weaver: The Story of Prescott’s First Citizen
When old Joe Walker, a big, strapping, ex-mountain man, and his party of prospectors arrived at Granite Creek in the Spring of 1863, another old mountain man, Pauline Weaver, was already camped there. The area where the future territorial capital city of Prescott would be founded was the stomping grounds of the Yavapai and Tonto Apaches. Both groups had a reputation as formidable foes of the whites who asked no quarter and gave none. Surprisingly, the earliest days of Prescott’s history were relatively free of bloodshed and the credit goes to Pauline Weaver.
Weaver is one of those ubiquitous characters who best fits the description of one who never had time to write or narrate early Arizona history—he was too busy making it. Born in Tennessee around 1800, he was the son of a white father and Cherokee mother. For a time he worked for the Hudson Bay Fur Company but preferred warmer climates, so he headed for the Southwest.
Move Over Chicago, Best Franks Found at Jimmy’s Hot Dog Company in Bisbee
BISBEE – The iconic Chicago hot dog: an all-beef frank topped with tomato, pickles, relish, onions, sport peppers, mustard and celery salt, all encased in a poppy seed bun. Seems simple enough, but any Chicagoan will tell you that us Arizonans just can’t master this highly acclaimed recipe. Yet unbeknownst to most Windy City transplants
The Fourth Goes Bang in Taylor
TAYLOR — The people who reside in this community don’t have to worry about getting a wake-up call to make sure they don’t miss the Independence Day festivities. The Taylor Fire Department takes care of that.
Starting at 4 a.m. every July 4, the department conducts an annual ritual known as “firing the anvil.” It’s a simple procedure — get an anvil and some gunpowder, stuff a bunch of gunpowder under the anvil, light the fuse and stand back. (The warning of “do not try this at home” should be obvious). The ensuing blast not only wakes up everyone within hearing distance, it also catapults the anvil several feet into the air.
Featured: Dose of History
A Little History Behind Arizona’s Early Mormon Missions
The first Mormon colonists from Utah arrived in Arizona in early 1854. The Navajos were on the warpath at the time and the Saints were driven out a year later. Between 1858 and the early 1870s Jacob Hamblin, the Mormon’s greatest trailblazer, made several reconnaissance missions, locating river crossings, water holes and suitable trails. By this time the Navajos were at peace thus making attempts at colonization safer. However, the greatest enemy facing the newcomers was the harsh, arid land and the fickle moods of the Little Colorado River.
Mormon settlements at Kanab (Utah), Pipe Springs and Lee’s Ferry were designated as bases from which to launch new colonies in Arizona.
The primary mission of the Church during these years was expansion. Under the dynamic leadership of Brigham Young, the Mormons were determined to establish a far-flung empire from their Utah base west to California and south to the Salt River Valley and eventually to Mexico.
A Two-House Story in Snowflake
SNOWFLAKE — This is a two-house story, rather than the usual two-story house. It begins in 1878, when Andrew Rogers built a simple one-room log cabin for his family after they migrated to northeastern Arizona. As the family grew, Rogers added more rooms. In fact, he added so many new rooms that they swallowed up the original structure. After a while, all mention and memory of the cabin disappeared.
It stayed that way until 1989, when the house of many add-ons caught fire. While clearing the debris after the blaze was extinguished, workmen discovered the cabin standing among the ashes. Protected by all the additions, the thick logs had withstood the flames.
Arizona Trivia Sampler 3: Can You Pass?
Test your knowledge of Arizona with this quick sampler, originally published in Marshall Trimble’s Official Arizona Trivia. Don’t scroll down too quickly. The answers are posted shortly below the questions. When you’re finished, leave a comment with your score. Good luck! What is the state gemstone? What color is the star on Arizona’s state flag?
The Cowboy Mystique (Pt. 3): A Cowboy Isn’t a Cowboy Without His Horse
t was not the cow that made the cowboy; it was the horse. In the early days, it was a range mongrel known as the mustang, those sturdy, unpampered descendants of the Spanish breed that were the greatest contributors to a cowboy’s self-image. There was an aura of aristocracy, shared by the fraternity of horsemen, that bridged all cultures.
History, Theories Surrounding the Lost Dutchman Mine
Arizona’s most notorious lost treasure story for both believers and otherwise takes place in the mysterious Superstition Mountains.
The rugged range of mountains east of the Salt River Valley encompasses some of the most breathtaking, untouched wilderness recesses in America. There is also an aura of mystical beauty that can possess the soul. They are regarded as religious shrines by both the Pimas and Apaches. They provided the setting for much bloody violence between those warring tribes before the coming of the white man. During the latter part of the 19th century, the mountains became a formidable sanctuary and one of the last vestiges of the Apaches who refused to become reservation Indians. They used the twisting canyons and impenetrable maze of rocks, defying sustained efforts by the military, for over twenty years.
