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...
Latest News
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
Uncle Jim: The Last of Arizona’s Bonafide Gunfighters
The old West was fading from reality into the realm of myth by the mid-1920s. Most of the bonafide gunfighters were gone and Hollywood took up the chore of telling how it really was. Tom Mix was earning over $17,000 a week performing super-human feats from atop his famous horse, Tony, and the public loved it. Nobody seemed to care much for the way it really was out in lotus land, so Americans were fed a heavy dose of tight-trousered, fast-drawing, hard-riding heroes.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Featured: Dose of History
Arizona Place Names: A Slew of Cities and Counties with Spanish, Indian and Random Origins
Ever since man first set foot in this land called Arizona, he has felt compelled to name every river, waterhole, mountain pass and trail. Inspiration was usually drawn from great natural spectacles and awesome beauty, but not always. Among Arizona’s fabulous mineral laden mountains lie the skeletal remains of storied ghost camps of yesteryear, born in boom and died in dust, the fragile wooden walls, concrete ruins, monuments to hopes and aspirations that didn’t always pan out.
These ghostly reminders of the past were generally populated by a variety of boisterous, rough and tumble miners generally characterized as unmarried, unchurched, and unwashed. They named their temporary abodes after former hometowns or countries, girlfriends, local geography, dappled with a liberal touch of tongue-in-cheek humor.
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.
Who was the McDowell in Fort McDowell?
Q: Who was the McDowell in Fort McDowell?
A: This is an excellent question because it has nothing to do, at least not directly, with Jack Swilling or Darrell Duppa, two worthies of whom we are thoroughly sick and tired.
Fort McDowell was founded in 1865 at the juncture of Sycamore Creek and the Verde River by five companies of the army’s California Volunteers. It was near several Indian trails and convenient for expeditions against the Yavapai and Tonto Apache, who were tearing up the pea patch at the time.
It was named for Gen. Irvin McDowell, the commanding officer of the Department of California and New Mexico. He held this post because it was about as far away from the Civil War as his superiors could put him.
Who is Ol’ Bill Williams… as in Williams, AZ?
The picturesque town of Williams takes its name from Bill Williams Mountain that towers above and provides as beautiful high country setting for a community as can be found in America. It’s a fitting place-name for ol’ Bill Williams, the “greatest fur trapper of ‘em all.”
Ol’ Bill was as colorful a man as any who ever forked a horse or mule and headed towards the setting sun. To those who knew the tireless old mountain man, he’d always seemed old and eccentric. His drunken sprees around Taos set the standard by which others tried to match but never could. Each season he rode alone into forbidding hostile Indian country and returned safely, his pack mules laden with precious beaver pelts.
Ol’ Bill was a tall, skinny, redhead, with a high-pitched voice, his body battle-scarred and worn. He was known to run all day with six traps on his back and never break into a sweat.
Arizona’s “Hollywood” Trivia: Can You Pass?
Test your knowledge of Arizona’s “Hollywood” scene below, 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! We have much more Hollywood trivia, so let us know if you enjoy it!
1. Where was John Ford’s 1939 classic film, “Stagecoach,” filmed?
2. The stage driver in “Stagecoach” was played by this Arizona native.
