Tag: early arizona
Lost Pick Mine of Old Arizona: Hidden Gold Remains Hidden
Ol' Ma Nature's rough hands couldn't have created a better place on this earth to hide a treasure than right here in Arizona. It's also a good place to lose one and we've got more lost mines here in the heart of Arizona than politicians got plans. Most of these mines have a history of being ...Arizona Place Names (Pt. 2): Origins from Prominent People, Patriotism in Old Arizona
Patriotism was the motivating factor in the naming of one of northern Arizona's most prominent cities. A party of immigrants bound for California camped at the foot of the San Francisco Mountains on July 4, 1876. To honor the nation's centennial, they raised the colors. To celebrate the occasion they called the site Flagstaff. A group ...The Cowboy Mystique (Pt. 3): A Cowboy Isn’t a Cowboy Without His Horse
t was not the cow that made the cowboy; it was the horse. In the early days, it was a range mongrel known as the mustang, those sturdy, unpampered descendants of the Spanish breed that were the greatest contributors to a cowboy's self-image. There was an aura of aristocracy, shared by the fraternity of horsemen, ...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 ...The Cowboy Mystique (Pt. 2): The Story Behind the Garb
The Arizona cowboy was a curious mix of the northern Plains, Rockies, California, Texas and northern Mexico cowboy culture. The influence of all these was strong, yet the Arizona cowboys, or vaqueros, evolved into a unique breed of their own. In a frontier that was closing rapidly at the turn of the century, Arizona offered ...The Cowboy Mystique (Pt. 1): Reality vs. Legend
Out of a frontier history that lasted more than 350 years, Americans have taken the era of the open-range cowboy, a brief 20-year span, given it immortality and called it the West. The heroic figures who emerged have come to symbolize all the manifestations of character we ascribe to the winning of the West. Most ...Early Day Prospecting in Old Yuma County
About 20 miles up the Gila River from Yuma, the community of Dome basks in the desert sun. It's pretty quiet around here these days—a far cry from that prosperous time in the late 1850s when the boisterous boom town of Gila City boasted some thousand rough and tumble prospectors. It was Arizona's first gold ...Old Arizona’s “Ladies of the Night”
There was a limitless market--selling intimacy to lonely love starved men. These colorful lades bore a litany of picturesque nicknames such as Squirrel-Tooth Alice, Crazy Horse Lil, Frenchy Moustache, Lizette the Flying Nymph, and last but not least, Little Gertie, the Gold Dollar. These aliases weren't just to camouflage identity but usually referred to some ...Tribute to a Fallen Earp
Western movies never mention him, but there was another Earp sibling involved in Arizona's history. His name was Warren and, unlike his three more famous brothers, he didn't survive his gunfight. Warren Earp was shot and killed in 1900 at the Headquarters Saloon in downtown Willcox. According to area historians...Old Clifton Jail: A Real Hole-in-the-Wall
It's not much to look at, just a hole blasted into a huge rock, but Clifton's first jail is worth taking a look at because of a couple of notable details in its history. One deals with its construction; the other with its first occupant.
