By Matthew A. Peeples, Ph.D.

Central Arizona is often characterized as a crossroads where different people and environments intersect. This region spans rugged lands between the upland Colorado Plateau and the lowland Sonoran Desert along the beautiful and diverse transition where saguaros meet pinyons and juniper. This landscape is the traditional homeland for many different Indigenous groups spanning millennia, including the Yavapai, Apache and Hopi, and in recent centuries has seen the arrival of Spanish expeditions looking for gold and silver, fur trappers, railroad crews, miners, Mexican and European settlers, soldiers and the Arizona territorial and US governments.