Tag: native americans
Joe Felmer’s Mule Scheme Goes Awry
Going back a few years, before the mass migration of greenhorns, Joe Felmer was one of Arizona's better-known colorful personalities. Felmer did a little scouting for the Army around old Camp Grant in the 1870s and had a little ranch a few miles from the post. He had been married to an Apache woman for ...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...James Ohio Pattie: Arizona’s First Storyteller
The first Anglo-Americans to penetrate the wilderness regions of Arizona were that reckless breed known as Mountain Men. Prior to their arrival in the 1820s, few people east of "the Wide Missouri" were even aware of the vast, uncharted lands that would, some forty years later, be called Arizona. The earliest written account was the ...Arizona History Trivia 2: Can You Pass?
Test your knowledge of Arizona history with this quick quiz, originally published in Marshall Trimble’s "Official Arizona Trivia." This set of trivia is a little trickier than most on Arizona Oddities, so let us know how you fare! Don’t scroll down too quickly. The answers are posted shortly below the questions. When you’re finished, leave ...How the Nermernuh (Comanche) Tribe Finally Got Respect
Long before the white people migrated to the vast lands across the wide Missouri—and added a new dimension to the struggle for supremacy, native tribes battled continuously for the most desirable lands. As a rule, three things could happen to a weaker tribe and all were bad. At worst they were exterminated. If they escaped that, ...Navajo Legend of Monument Valley
Geologists like to say this vast land of dramatic salmon hued sandstone spires was once buried 3,000 feet beneath ancient seas. Over the next several million years, layer after layer of sediments were deposited, then hardened, followed by an uplifting of the land. It's difficult to imagine, but the tops of these mountains and spires ...The Big Indian Head of Winslow
WINSLOW - Peter Wolf Toth arrived in Winslow in 1979, intent on adding one of his art works to the city's landscape. When he left about four months later, he had turned a single ponderosa pine log into a 30-foot tall Indian head, and he left it there for posterity. The work was one in ...The Case of The Vanishing Train Robbers
On the evening of April 27, 1887, southern Arizona's only passenger train, the Sunset Express, was making its run toward Tucson. The train was a few minutes behind schedule, so the engineer gave her a little more steam to make up time. About 20 miles east of Tucson, the yellow streak from the headlight picked ...A Brief But Fascinating History Of The Hohokam: The Valley’s First Residents
Most scientists believe the Hohokam arrived in Arizona from Mexico around 300 B.C. Apparently, they arrived with a strong culture intact and had an immediate influence on the area and the people already living here. In time their influence would be felt as far west as the Colorado River, to the east, New Mexico and ...A Scary Glimplse Down the Skywalk at the Grand Canyon
Looking down into the Grand Canyon has always been a test for those vertigo because it's thousands of feet from the top to the bottom. And now, in what would appear to be an attempt to make it even scarier, the Hualapai Indians have the Skywalk, a glass-bottomed walkway that allows those with a high queasiness ...
Why Does Downtown Phoenix Seem to Have Two Downtowns?
The Tucson Artifacts are the Southwest’s Greatest Hoax