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...
Besh-Ba-Gowah: The Non-Ruin Ruins in Globe
GLOBE -- Most ancient ruins in Arizona are just that -- ruins. Overseen by government agencies, they are stabilized but never rebuilt because the philosophy is to preserve, not restore. But the old pueblo here, known as Besh-Ba-Gowah, has been partially rebuilt and nobody's getting their nose bent out of shape because of it. The site's … 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...
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Besh-Ba-Gowah: The Non-Ruin Ruins in Globe
GLOBE — Most ancient ruins in Arizona are just that — ruins. Overseen by government agencies, they are stabilized but never rebuilt because the philosophy is to preserve, not restore. But the old pueblo here, known as Besh-Ba-Gowah, has been partially rebuilt and nobody’s getting their nose bent out of shape.
Ewing Young: The Southwest’s Premier Mountain Man
By and large, the history of the fur trade in the Southwest regions has been left out of the mainstream of American history. Trappers like Walker, Bridger, Fitzpatrick and especially Carson have become American legends and folk heroes, their fame coming primarily from exploits in the northern Rockies…
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.
Featured: Small Town Scene
Quartzsite’s Legend of A Camel Driver
The thing most people notice right away when they enter the Quartzsite Cemetery is a stone pyramid topped by a copper camel, and there’s quite a story behind its presence. The cairn marks the grave site of a man they called Hi Jolly, who came to this country in the 1860s to act as a camel driver for the U.S. Army during an ill-fated attempt to use the animals as beasts of burden for military purposes in the deserts of the Southwest.
Mogollon Monikers: Origins of Place Names in Arizona’s Rim Country
Ever since man first set foot in this rugged piece of terrain known as Arizona, he has felt compelled to brand everything with a name. Inspiration for these place names came from a variety of sources—some quite obvious.
Lousy Gulch got its name after all the residents got lice. When Mormon pioneers decided to settle near a large stand of Ponderosa pines, they simply named their community Pine. Another group settled in a small valley where they found wild strawberries growing in abundance and decided to name their town Strawberry. Henry Clifton, a member of an early Indian-fighting militia, claimed that in 1864 the place was known as Wah-poo-eta for a prominent Tonto Apache chief better known to whites as Big Rump. The most obvious place name in Mogollon Rim country was bestowed when a group of settlers pulled into a little green valley and promptly named it Little Green Valley.
The Painted Rocks at Chloride
Up around Chloride, the painted rocks are known simply as “the Mural.” Roy Purcell, the artist, called the work “The Journey” and says it was the result of a deep personal introspection. Either way, the decorated boulders have withstood the elements, bureaucracy and the multitude of tourists who travel a crooked mile to view them, photograph them, comment on them and attempt to decipher their hidden meaning.
Tanks by the Road in Bouse
BOUSE — Regardless of which way you’re headed, State Route 72 enters and exits Bouse in less than ten minutes. It would be easy to miss the whole town if it weren’t for the enormous pieces of military equipment sitting in a little park alongside the road. There are two of them. One is a M60 Patton Tank. The other one looks like a tank but it’s actually an M109 self-propelled howitzer.
Iron Whales and Rusty Nails in Quartzsite
QUARTZSITE — Gene Hassler doesn’t let things go to waste, especially if they’re things he can use to create a whale or a velocipede. Hassler is a welder and artist who spends some of his time in Quartzsite because he owns Hassler’s RV Park here. The property is adorned with about 50 of his creations, all made of scrap materials.
His rendition of an ostrich has car headlights for eyes and pipe wrenches for legs. Nearby, a huge hand made of bolts reaches out of the ground to grab a vine crafted from reinforcing rods. Elsewhere are palm trees, velocipedes, cowboys with six-shooters, elephant feet and cactus, all rusted because they’re all made of previously used metal.
Featured: Dose of History
Doc Flower: One of Old Arizona’s Great Con Men
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.
The Stories Behind Scottsdale’s McCormick Ranch, Gainey Ranch
Q: There are so many places around the Valley with “ranch” in the name. How many were ever really ranches?
A: Lots of them. Lots and lots. Despite all the sprawl, you have to bear in mind that the Valley metro area started as a farming community, and until fairly recently, Maricopa County was primarily an agricultural area. So there were a lot of ranches.
Not all of these spreads were exactly hardscrabble kinds of places. McCormick Ranch in Scottsdale, before it turned into a residential development, was the home of Fowler and Anne McCormick. Fowler McCormick’s two grandfathers were Cyrus McCormick, the inventor of the grain reaper, and John D. Rockefeller, so he wasn’t exactly hurting for cash. He later became president and chairman of the board of International Harvester.
Old Arizona’s Dick Wick Hall Puts Salome on the Map, Humors Travelers
Some of the West’s most colorful characters ended up in Arizona sooner or later. For some, it was the lure of the boom town bonanzas. Others found it a refuge from the restrictions of more established societies in the East. For DeForest Hall, it was the wide open spaces and the weather. He liked the high desert around Wickenburg so well that he changed his middle name to Wick.
How did Show Low Get its Name?
Early day settlers Corydon E. Cooley and Marion Clark had been neighbors for a short time, living among the lush, green ponderosa forestland along Arizona’s Mogollon Rim. The two became concerned about one encroaching on the other’s privacy. Perhaps on a clear day one could see a wisp of smoke rising from other’s country. Whatever the reason Cooley and Clark agreed it was getting too crowded and one of the two parties had to move.
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.
