The gold and silver rushes, more than anything else, provided the inspiration for people to give up relative comforts in the East and come west. Opportunity to get rich quick is a uniquely American article of faith and was virtually born in the West. With a single lucky break, one could instantly make more money than he could lend, spend in a lifetime. So, it was “off to Californey, Coloradie, or Arizonie with my wash pan on my knee,” looking for, as Bret Harte said, “a fresh deal all around.” Most were either trying to get something or get away from something. It was called the “greatest mass migration of greenhorns since the children of Israel set out in search of Canaan.”
Today’s disreputable land promoters selling lake shore lots on edges of mirages are mere amateurs when compared to the wheeler dealers of yesteryear. The lawless Arizona territory attracted the wide gamut of frontier con men ranging from tin horn gamblers to stock swindlers.
One was Doctor Richard Flower. Doc Flower wasn’t really a doctor. He earned his living for a time selling cure-all bottled medicine. Although Doc Flower claimed his recipe could cure everything from baldness to toothaches, it really had no redeeming medicinal value. It did contain enough alcohol to mellow its imbibers enough that nobody felt ripped off. Anyhow, that’s how he came to be called Doctor Flower.
Doc Flower eventually grew weary of small-time scheming and decided to play for higher stakes. Fortunes were being made in the Arizona mines and since Doc Flower didn’t have a bonafide mine of his own, he decided to create one.
Arizona’s capital city might have been called “Salina,” “Stonewall,” or even “Pumpkinville,” had it not been for a spurious English “Lord” named Darrell Duppa. Duppa was a well-educated world traveler who, it was rumored, was given a substantial allowance by his wealthy English relatives to remain permanently at large.
His raucous lifestyle, highlighted by epic bouts with dipsomania was, no doubt, a source of embarrassment to his relatives and contributed to his banishment to Arizona. It was said “Lord” Duppa was fluent in seven languages. Unfortunately for his listeners, the erudite eccentric spoke all seven in the same paragraph.
Duppa was a member of a committee chosen to select a name for the new settlement on the banks of the Salt River one sunny October day in 1870.
Most scientists believe the Hohokam arrived in Arizona from Mexico around 300 B.C. Apparently, they arrived with a strong culture intact and had an immediate influence on the area and the people already living here. In time their influence would be felt as far west as the Colorado River, to the east, New Mexico and north to the Flagstaff area.
The 13,000 square-mile watershed above the Salt River provided a reliable water supply. During normal years, the river was probably a hundred feet wide and five to six feet deep. The banks were held in check by tall stands of willow and cottonwood trees. Digging by hand without beasts of burden (the Spanish didn’t introduce oxen, horses or mules until the 16th-century) they engineered the largest prehistoric irrigation project in North America.
