Test your knowledge of Arizona history 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.
1. Before Arizona became a territory in 1863, it was part of which territory?
2. From what observatory was the planet Pluto discovered?
3. From what city did Barry Goldwater launch his 1964 Presidential campaign?
In its prime, Fairbank was the site of a hotel, school, mercantile, several houses, stage depots and four railroads. Not bad for a town which, even at the height of its popularity, had only about 500 residents. But those days are gone and Fairbank is now a mere remnant of its glory days as a center of mining activity. Now, however, there’s a valiant effort underway to make sure those days aren’t forgotten, as well.
On a hot afternoon in 1849 not far from the Yuma River Crossing, a small party of Army Topographical Engineers came upon a young Indian girl wandering in the desert. She was nearly dead from exposure, hunger and thirst. Many would have left the youngster to her fate. It was a tough, unforgiving land where the strong survived and the weak perished.
The officer in charge was a kind, thoughtful man from Massachusetts, named Amiel Weeks Whipple. He’d only been in the Southwest a short time but had already developed a deep respect for the customs and culture of the native residents.
Whipple shared his canteen with the youngster, then gave her some food. Before she departed he presented her with a small mirror—a simple token of friendship and also something any young lady would surely cherish. She smiled and left to return to her people. Lieutenant Whipple went back to his job—that of surveying a boundary between Yuma and San Diego, marking the new land won in the recent war with Mexico.
Long ago, Arizona settlers felt inspired to attach names to the special places they found. Sometimes they achieved palpable immortality by naming it after themselves; and sometimes it backfired.
Like the time Henry Mortimer Coane was running a small store in the Verde Valley. Folks wanted to use the place as a post office, so Coane filled out the paperwork and applied to Washington and requested it be named Coaneville after himself. Much to Mr. Coane’s disappointment some bureaucrat got the letters mixed up and the place was officially named Cornville.
Contrary to logical assumption