By John P. Langellier, Ph.D.

For over a century and half the United States Army has had a presence in the Grand Canyon State.  Scores of forts, cantonments, and camps provided military protection, as well as contributing to the local economy and the social life in the areas that surrounded them.  Most of the often-isolated outposts have long since disappeared, but some of the garrisons continue to play a significant role in Arizona to this day.  Fortunately several of these sites have museums where the past comes alive through exhibits and programs.

By Melissa Ruffner 

Nantucket, Massachusetts, was the third richest community in the state in the 1830s.  The China trade brought silks, teas and porcelains.  Whaling produced candles sold internationally as well as whalebone for ladies’ corsets and ambergris to scent lace hankies.  Martha Dunham was born into a well-to-do family on October 21, 1846.  She had extensive educational opportunities and on March 16, 1874, she married “my old friend Jack.”

By Andrew Wallace

Part 1 of this article (Days Past November 17, 2013) covered Joe Walker’s early years while he was building a national reputation as trapper, explorer and guide.  This part will add the later experiences that led him to this area.

By Andrew Wallace

Few features of the Far West went unknown to fur trappers of the early 19th century, and most of their knowledge had passed onto maps by the time Prescott was founded in 1864.  Yet Arizona’s central mountain area was one of the last corners of the Far West to be explored.   If we except a few 18th century Spaniards (who published virtually no information), the mountain man Joe Walker gets most credit for pointing the way to settlement of this area.

By Al Bates 

This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year and the next on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.

The most recent episode in this series left the party of Territorial Governor John Goodwin and its military escort at the base of the Raton Pass leading from Colorado to New Mexico—and dreading the prospect.  Fortunately the weather cooperated and the crossing of the 8000-foot divide on November 5, 1863, was uneventful, although some of their weather-beaten and malnourished livestock died on the way.

By John P. Langellier, Ph.D.

For 85 years, Prescott’s Sharlot Hall Museum has been an eye-catching landmark, and a focal point of the local community.  Its unique mix of historic buildings, galleries, research center, living history village, and much more, annually attracts upwards of 40,000 visitors from all fifty states and dozens of foreign countries.

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year and the next on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.

Two weeks ago this series of articles continued narrating events of the first weeks of travel for Arizona Governor John Goodwin, his party of territorial officials, and their military escort, bringing them to Fort Larned, Kansas.

By Andrew Wallace

The story of white settlement in northern Arizona is littered with tales of Indian ambush and white retaliation, mostly exaggerated.  This is especially so in the Prescott region where pioneer settlers indeed regarded the placers of Lynx Creek, ranches in Skull Valley and the whole wide Chino Valley as dangerous on account of “hostile” Indians.  Nothing, however, like a war occurred in these places, much less in Prescott.  Indians did occasionally take food and stray cattle and always mistrusted—with good reason—the approach of heavily armed prospectors.  Miners, in turn, despised “Yampays” and sometimes shot at them in “self protection.”

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in Days Past during this coming year regarding historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.

On October 11, 1863, Governor John Goodwin and his party of territorial officials and their military escort passed the Pawnee Rock landmark near where their route joined the Santa Fe Trail.  Later in the day they reached Fort Larned, Kansas where they camped about a mile east of the fort.

By John P. Langellier, Ph.D.

The arrival of the United States Army in Territorial Arizona brought some of the first medical doctors to the region, and resulted in the establishment of a number of pioneer military hospitals such as the facility at Fort Whipple.  Founded during the American Civil War, the hospital was staffed by a series of surgeons including Medal of Honor winner Joseph K. Corson, MD, who had placed his life in jeopardy near Bristoe Station, Virginia.  On October 14, 1863, he and a comrade returned under heavy Confederate artillery fire to rescue a wounded soldier left behind as their regiment retreated.