By Bob Harner

If you have been following our series on “How Arizona Got on the Map,” you’ll recall that by 1821, the land that would come to be known as Arizona was part of Mexico. There were Spanish-speaking settlements at Tubac and Tucson. North of Tucson the land was largely ungoverned. There were no English-speaking settlements; there was no Anglo presence. Into this void stepped a handful of rugged individualists who cared little for governments or boundaries. These were the “Mountain Men” – men like James Ohio Pattie.
 

By Jan Cleere

Few records exist detailing the life of the Apache warrior Lozen who rode beside her brother, Chief Victorio, during the height of the Indian wars. With valor, determination, and perseverance, she played an important role in western history, as did many other women who gave their lives during the early years of westward expansion.

By Leo Banks

Perhaps the most cold-blooded conman early Arizona ever knew, Louis Eytinge suffered from tuberculosis, weighed 119 pounds and had two months to live. He should’ve died unknown, another bankrupt soul in a rugged land struggling to emerge from its frontier past. Yet upon entering Yuma Territorial Prison in 1907, prisoner No. 2608 made a remarkable comeback. By 1922, he was celebrated nationwide.
 

By Heidi Osselaer

The circumstances surrounding Arizona’s deadliest gunfight were so improbable, most people believed vengeance was the only logical explanation. After all, why would a federal posse travel all night on horseback over rugged terrain with a winter storm approaching to arrest men for non-violent crimes?
 

The bungled arrest attempt resulted in the deaths of four men—three Graham County lawmen and the owner of a mining claim in the Galiuro Mountains. Although evidence suggested the officers initiated the gunfight when they surrounded the cabin at dawn on Sunday, February 10, 1918, the surviving occupants of the cabin were found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison.

By Dave Lewis

There was a time that wicker luggage was all the rage.  Families might pack things they needed and head out on a great adventure.  Or they might move from their winter homes to their summer places.  Strong, lightweight wicker served for carrying their possessions.

By C. Gilbert Storms

Soon after the Gadsden Purchase was ratified in April 1854, Americans began settling in the Santa Cruz and Sonoita Creek valleys of southern Arizona. Popular Western travel writer John Ross Browne wrote that by 1861 the Santa Cruz Valley was well populated between Tucson and the Calabasas ranch, fifteen miles south of Tubac. But when he visited the area just three years later, Browne found that the ranches and mine sites of the area were deserted and in ruins. The immediate cause of this sudden reversal was raiding by Western and Chiricahua Apaches.  But early relations between Apaches and Americans in the Southwest had been non-violent.  So how did American settlement in the region come to be wiped out by Apache raids?
 

By Dave Lewis

Previously:  By the late 1700s and into the early 1800s, Spaniards -- explorers, soldiers, priests and settlers -- had criss-crossed Arizona several times.  There were permanent Spanish settlements at Tubac and Tucson, nowhere else.  Spain had tried and failed to establish a foothold at the critical Colorado River crossing at Yuma.  Spanish progress in Arizona seems to have stopped.

Of this period, historian Edwin Corle wrote:

“From the death of Father Garces (1781) up to 1821. . . the history of all of Arizona is meager.  It was a land where nothing happened.”

By Cindy Vaughn

To coincide with the opening of the Sharlot Hall Museum's World War I Exhibit on March 24, it is fitting that we revisit the heroic saga of a remarkable young man, one of Prescott's well-loved sons, whose shining light was extinguished on September 15, 1918, in the skies over France.  While on duty as a pilot with the 147th Aero Squadron of the American Expeditionary Force, Lt. Ernest Love, flying his Spad XIII, was shot down over Tronville, France.  A French priest rescued the mortally wounded pilot, who died the following day and was buried in the Tronville Church Cemetery.  Red Cross records state that he suffered a shattered left knee, injury to his left hand and forearm and hemorrhages, but when his body was disinterred for its voyage to Arlington National Cemetery, it was noted that both of his legs had been shattered.  Love was reinterred at Arlington on June 30, 1921, with the following gravestone inscription, "If I am to give my life for this cause, I am satisfied.  There is no way I would rather go than serving my Country."

By Tom Schmidt

As one travels through northern Arizona, one of the first observations made might be the different types of rocks and physical landscapes. Indeed, the region is a land of geologic diversity, including the Grand Canyon and the red rock formations of Sedona. North of Prescott is the Granite Dells, an area of large boulders of eroded granite, while west of the city is Thumb Butte, a distinctive geological landmark. These awe-inspiring landscapes reflect Earth’s geological history that occurred not just in decades, but throughout millions of years.

By Dave Lewis

Previously:  Spain established its first permanent settlements in Arizona as missions at Tubac in 1752 and twenty years later at Tucson.  The name “Arizona” emerged in the 1730s, but it belonged to a small ranching community in Sonora. 

In the early 1700s, Spain’s optimism over its foothold in its newly-claimed lands was tempered by hard reality.  Native peoples, some of whom were initially friendly and curious, could be pushed only so far in giving up their beliefs and dominion over their lives and lands.  Most accommodating were the Pimas who lived alongside the Spaniards, but they rose up in bloody rebellion at times.  Apaches were unrelentingly hostile.