By Mick Woodcock

In 1863, Christmas was new to the list of celebrations for most people in the United States.  Popularized in part by the drawings of Santa Claus and Christmas by Thomas Nast for Harpers Weekly magazine, much of the tradition we know today was in place by 1863. That particular Christmas was remembered and recorded by a number of people.  No doubt the fact that this was the formation year of the Arizona Territory had much to do with it.
 

By Mick Woodcock

Arizonans had much to be thankful for at Christmas in 1918. The guns had fallen silent in Europe as an armistice went into effect on November 11. Soldiers had started to return home, although eight divisions had already been assigned to the army of occupation. A newspaper article from the Associated Press indicated, “Every effort will be made to give preferential passage to those soldiers eager to return home at once.”
 

By Ricky Erway

Last week’s Days Past article detailed the Sitgreaves expedition which mapped the route the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad and Route 66 ultimately followed across Arizona to Kingman.  This article focuses on an important role on most expeditions, the illustrator, and on the most notable Arizona expeditionary illustrator, Richard H. Kern -- who offered the world its first glimpses of central Arizona. 
 

By Bob Harner

By the time the Sitgreaves expedition left Zuni, they knew Simpson’s report about a new way west was incorrect. Leroux, their guide, indicated the Zuni River did not flow into the Colorado, but into the Little Colorado River instead. Leroux proposed an alternative route, following the Zuni to the Little Colorado, following that river to the Bill Williams Fork via the San Francisco Mountains, then to the Colorado and the Old Spanish Trail. Leroux was incorrect about where those rivers went, but he had never been west of present-day Winslow.
 

By Bob Harner

After the Mexican-American War, converging events made finding a southern route to the West increasingly more urgent. The 1849 California Gold Rush launched a flood of westbound travelers, most following existing northern trails from St. Louis. Winter snows made these trails dangerous or impassable. Adding to the pressure was the Army’s need to supply new western posts created following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Army Corps of Topographical Engineers was tasked with answering these needs.
 

By Tom Schmidt

Sharlot Mabridth Hall’s public life has been discussed in great detail. She is remembered as the founder of the Sharlot Hall Museum, Arizona’s first territorial historian, an advocate for Arizona statehood and preserving history, and a poet. However, Sharlot’s life at Orchard Ranch (located on today’s Highway 69 east of Prescott Valley) is the subject of this article. It was here that Sharlot lived a strenuous life as a woman rancher while caring for her parents, Adeline (Boblett) Hall and James Hall.

By Elizabeth Bourgault

John Henry Pruitt was born on October 4, 1896 at Pruitt Hollow, near the small settlement of Fallsville, Newton County, Arkansas to George Benton and Melissa Belle Pruitt.  Many sources list his birthplace as Fayetteville, Washington County, Arkansas, but this appears to be incorrect. 

By Troy Groves

The early history of Arizona cannot be told without acknowledging the newspaper owners, publishers, editors, compositors and pressmen who were present from the earliest beginnings. The wood and iron presses they dragged into the wilderness and kept in operation under the most difficult of circumstances were crucial to developing civilization in the wilderness. The papers and publications they printed kept the local citizens informed and, perhaps more importantly, let the outside world know what was happening in the wilderness that was then Arizona. To a great extent, most of the stories we know about Arizona history today were first printed on newsprint using hand set type when that history was still news.

By Dave Lewis

Last week we concluded that Arizona did not figure prominently in the Mexican-American War, but Army units crossing Arizona led to some lasting results. 

A safe and practical wagon road from New Mexico to California was highly desirable, as it might lead to a good southern route for a railroad.  In 1846, the Mormon Battalion became the first party to cross Arizona by wagon, albeit by a circuitous route. Colonel Philip Cooke, commanding, was effusive about this accomplishment:

By Dave Lewis

Last week:  The United States was at war with Mexico.  General Stephen Kearny took the Mexican capital at Santa Fe and headed across Arizona to take California.  Kit Carson led the way. Carson had been in California with John C. Fremont a month earlier and told Kearny that Fremont had already taken California.  Nonetheless, California was Kearny’s responsibility and he was bound to go.  By mid-October they entered Arizona near the present-day town of Clifton and began struggling down the Gila River.