By Linda Ludington

The Necktie Ranch is one of Arizona's oldest ranches, containing within its holdings the original homestead of the area's first citizen, Paulino Weaver.  Weaver registered 160 acres on the Hassayampa River at a point known as Walnut Grove in July 1863.  Several ancient walnut trees still survive along the river among the willows, mesquite and cottonwoods.  Where Weaver once planted vegetables and produced sorghum sugar for the U.S. Cavalry, there are now fields of alfalfa.

By Harley Shaw

The first scientists to cross the upper Verde watershed were members of the Army Corp of Topographical Engineers.  They traveled horseback from Zuni during the fall of 1851 under the command of Brevet Captain Lorenzo Sitgreaves.  Dr. Samuel Woodhouse was the physician on the trip, hence, by standard practice of the day, the expedition's official naturalist.  As such, he became the first biologist to collect specimens from northern Arizona.  Woodhouse and Sitgreaves had worked together earlier on a survey of the Indian Territory.  Other scientists included engineer Lieutenant J. G. Parke and artist-cartographer, Richard Kern.  The guide on the trip was trapper Antoine Leroux.  Their orders were to locate a wagon road, determine if the Zuni River provided a route to California, and assess the navigability of the lower Colorado River.  The traditional routes from Santa Fe to California were the Old Spanish Trail, which looped northward through Utah, and the other, a southern route down the Rio Grande then west through the worst of the Arizona deserts.  A more direct route through a less severe landscape was needed.

By George Geib

On Palm Sunday 1892, St. Luke's Episcopal Church first worship building was dedicated . On Palm Sunday 2000, at 11:00 a.m., The Right Reverend Robert Shahan, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona, will dedicate the new St. Luke's, the culmination of a dream which started many years ago.  As early as 1910, vestry minutes record a "suggestion by the Rector to put $3.00 from the Easter collection into a church building fund."

By Dewey Born

Jules Baumann was born in Chur, Switzerland in 1855.  At the age of 22 he sailed to NewYork.  An older cousin, Daniel Hatz, had been a member of the Walker Party and was in the hotel and restaurant business in Prescott.  He encouraged Jules Baumann to join him which he did arriving in 1879.

By Al Bates

The first official census of Arizona as a separate political entity was conducted in the Spring of 1864 under orders from newly-arrived Territorial Governor John Goodwin. Today's Yavapai County was included in Judicial District Three (which covered almost all of Northern Arizona) and was counted by the Rev. Hiram Reed, Arizona's first postmaster.

By Mona Lange McCroskey

Olaf Andrew (O.A.) and Louis Edward (L.E.) Hesla, sons of a Norwegian immigrant in Iowa, arrived in Prescott by different means, but their business endured for fifty years. Young Olaf contracted "consumption" (tuberculosis) in Chicago and came to Tucson in 1897 seeking relief. His condition worsened and in less than a week he was sent on the train to Phoenix, not expected to live. When Olaf didn't improve within a few days he was sent on to Prescott, where he became one of its earliest health seekers. He always claimed that he began to feel better as soon as the train got to Iron Springs, and he lived to be eighty-nine.

By Sylvia Neely

Thirteen hundred girls and adults will be celebrating a birthday in the tri-city area this week. Every year since 1912, the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. celebrate that day with parties and special ceremonies or service projects.

The first Girl Guide Company was organized on this date in Savannah, Georgia. In 1913 the name was changed to Girl Scouts, this was also the year the first camp was held.

By Anita Nordbrock and Juti A. Winchester

In their book, FAILING AT FAIRNESS: HOW AMERICA'S SCHOOLS CHEAT GIRLS, Myra and David Sadker write, "Every time a girl reads a womanless history, she learns she is worth less."  There have always been intelligent, capable, and influential American women, but before the 1960s, history books seldom mentioned them, except perhaps as they appeared in the background behind their husbands.  Few avenues of activity outside marriage and the home were open to upper- and middle-class women, while lower-class and minority women worked for most of their lives, whether they were married or not.  Resourceful women of every class took advantage of whatever opportunities were available to them to make a positive impact on their surroundings.  They left behind a wonderful legacy that reflects their love of beauty, harmony and knowledge, as well as their desire for justice and a better world for succeeding generations. 

By Al Bates

By 1874, a single regiment of cavalry at Whipple handled routine patrols, Indian chases and police duty on the reservations.  The Army in the next decade was a combination of a constabulary keeping order on the Indian reservations, and a corps of laborers engaged in building military posts and roads, and stringing telegraph wire.

By Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright

In 1998, the Sharlot Hall Museum's San Juan River float trip enjoyed the adventures and the stunning scenery of Southeastern Utah.  Several adventuresome travelers gathered at Bluff and journeyed down to Mexican Hat.  Some continued on through the stratified wonders of the Goosenecks to Clay Hills.  It was an easy-going trip on that User Friendly River.  No heart-stopping cataracts, no boat-dunking rapids.  Rich colorful high desert scenery and gentle river meanders led them, with just enough white water here and there to add a bit of excitement.