Who is Ol’ Bill Williams… as in Williams, AZ?

April 14, 2011 By 4 Comments
Bill_Williams

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.

Filed Under: Dose of History, Northern Arizona, Small Town Scene Tagged With: , , , ,

Trivia on Arizona Cities & Towns: Can You Pass?

February 9, 2011 By 2 Comments

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?

Filed Under: Dose of History, Northern Arizona, Small Town Scene, Southern Arizona, Valley of the Sun Tagged With: , ,

The Story Behind Cudia Neighborhood in Phoenix

January 14, 2011 By 1 Comment

Q: I recently moved to the area of 40th Street and Camelback Road and my new neighbors tell me it’s the Cudia neighborhood, but I can’t seem to find out the origin of the name. Can you help?

A: Here at the gleaming research laboratories of Valley 101, teams of white-coated technicians pored over your question night and day for weeks before reaching the conclusion that maybe we should just ask somebody else.

So we asked the estimable Gus Walker, a Republic artist and student of Valley history, who soon produced a tattered copy of The Golden Days of Theaters in Phoenix by one Jerry Reynolds in which we found the answer to your question.

Filed Under: Culture, Dose of History, Valley of the Sun Tagged With: ,

Why Doesn’t Sky Harbor Airport have a Terminal 1?

December 5, 2010 By 1 Comment
Sky Harbor Airport at Sunset

Q: Why, when you drive into Phoenix SkyHarbor International Airport, is there a sign that says there are three terminals: 2, 3 and 4? Where I come from, we started counting at “one.”

A: That sign just nags at you every time you see it, doesn’t it? It’s like a picture that isn’t quite straight or like sitting across from someone with a loose thread on their cuff: You just have to fix it.

There is a perfectly good reason for the terminal-numbering system. Actually, it isn’t perfectly good, but it will have to do. And if you think it’s silly now, there is a possibility that in the far distant future, we will only have two terminals — 4 and 5.

First, some history. Time was, children, when we actually had a Terminal 1. It stood a bit west of Terminal 2. It opened in 1952 and was a big deal at the time. Its restaurant, which for a time barred Blacks, was described as “a symphony in chrome, leather and soft-toned wood.”

Filed Under: Odd Observations, Valley of the Sun Tagged With: , ,

Diamond Fields in Arizona?

October 26, 2010 By 1 Comment
Diamond

Q: I have an 1891 map that shows an area in northeastern Arizona as “Diamond Fields.” Have diamonds been found in this area, and if so, are diamonds mined there now?

A: This turned out to be pretty interesting. There is indeed a wide spot on the road near the junction of U.S. 160 and Arizona 118 called Diamond Fields.

For help on this matter I called the Old Scout himself, state historian Marshall Trimble, and asked him if he had ever heard of Diamond Fields. That was dumb. Of course he’d heard of Diamond Fields. That’s why he’s the state historian, and you and I aren’t.

In 1872, a pair of prospectors named Philip Arnold and John Slack walked into a bank in San Francisco with a bag full of diamonds and rubies and other gems they had found at a site that they refused to divulge.

Filed Under: Dose of History, Northern Arizona Tagged With: , , , ,
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