Regarding monuments Will Rogers used to say: “You don’t need much monument if the cause is good. It’s only the monument that’s for no reason at all that has to be big.”
On the outskirts of Casa Grande, along what used to be the main highway…
The Story of Arizona’s First Newspaper: The “Arizonian”
October 3, 2011 By 1 Comment
TUBAC – More than 150 years ago – five decades before statehood – Arizona’s first newspaper hit the printing press in Tubac.
At the time, Tubac was among the territory’s more active presidios with 400 residents. The Gadsden Purchase had just been ratified five years earlier…
Sharlot Hall All Gussied Up in Copper
September 8, 2011 By 2 Comments
PRESCOTT — Copper has been an important element in Arizona’s history for more than a century, but it usually goes into the creation of such utilitarian items as tubing, electrical wiring and computer parts.
However, it took a different form in 1923, when Sharlot Hall went to Washington, D.C., wearing a copper dress.
Hall, a longtime Arizona activist and historian, was selected to deliver Arizona’s three electoral votes for Calvin Coolidge. Prior to her trip, the Arizona Industrial Congress commissioned an overdress made of copper links, and Hall wore it to the presidential inauguration.
Curly Bill: The Outlaw King of Old Galeyville
September 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The genesis of Galeyville, on the eastern side of the Chiricahua Mountains, was similar to many other short-lived boom towns in Cochise County.
In this case, it all started in 1880 when John Galey arrived from Pennsylvania to promote a silver mine. Since the prospect was only 60 miles, as the crow flies, from Tombstone’s bonanza, Galey visualized himself as the next silver king of Arizona. He secured some financial backing and laid out a townsite. Before long, Galeyville boasted 11 saloons and some 30 other various and sundry enterprises.
The boom lasted only about a year. The silver played out and Galeyville became another metropolis that didn’t quite metropolis. The story of old Galeyville might have ended right there, had not a pack of outlaws led by Curly Bill Brocius decided to take up residence.
The Titan That Never Clashed
August 24, 2011 By 1 Comment
SAHUARITA — The Titan Missile Museum here isn’t really scary like a haunted house, but when you stop to consider the damage that one of those things could have done, it goes way beyond frightening.
Fortunately, it never happened.
During the Cold War, several Titan missiles armed with nuclear warheads were planted in deep holes and aimed at the Soviet Union as a matter of precautionary defense. None were ever fired, so nobody knows for certain what the consequences would have been. The site/museum here was originally known as Site 571-7, and was one of 54 sites in three states to be spared after nuclear disarmament treaties were signed. Now the complex is a museum that reflects on something that never happened.
