By John S. Huff

After marching across the northern expanse of New Spain evaluating the presidios (forts) for King Charles III of Spain, Colonel Hugo O’Conor arrived at the presidio of Tubac (35 miles south of Tucson) in the summer of 1775.

By John S. Huff

In April 1775, Paul Revere made his famous ride. Four months later, the site for the Spanish Presidio (fort) San Augustin del Tucson was established by a red-headed Irishman, Hugo O’Conor, who was a Colonel in the Spanish Army. This is his story. It is also the story of Tucson and how this very important Arizona city has been influenced for centuries by many cultures.

By Tedd deLong

Marcus Aurelius Smith is a name that’s not on the tip of everybody’s tongue but it should be remembered here in Arizona. Why should his name be familiar to us since he was born and educated in Kentucky and worked as a lawyer in San Francisco?

By Ken Edwards

"King of the Cowboys" – not Gene Autry, Roy Rogers or John Wayne, but Tom Mix bore this epithet during his movie career. As cowboy superstar of the silent screen, he was the matinee idol of many cowboy wannabe youngsters in the 1920s. Mix was the clean-cut hero of over 300 short and feature length westerns. But before he became a cowboy star he was a real-life cowboy and a lot of other things besides.

By Judy Stoycheff

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created by an act of Congress in 1933 soon after the election of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The U.S.Forest Service was one of the first agencies to step forward and request the services of the program enrollees. According to "The New Deal in Arizona," the Forest Service had projects in four interrelated categories: resource protection, resource development, improvement of infrastructure and recreational development. One of several CCC camps in the Prescott area was located at Walnut Creek, about 44 miles out Williamson Valley Road, northwest of Prescott.

By Randi Wise

As a newcomer to Prescott, I was curious about that big brick building on the top of the hill just a short distance southwest of the plaza. I thought at first it might be a hospital. It wasn’t long before I learned that it was a state run home for the elderly, commissioned by an act of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Arizona on March 10, 1909.

By Carol Powell

Fred Haas (aka Johann Friedrick Haas) and Minnie Miller were married on January 15, 1896. Prescott’s Sheriff George C. Ruffner signed their marriage certificate as a witness. They were model citizens, living first in Prescott, then Jerome and finally, the Bisbee/Douglas area. But accidents or tragedy can reduce model citizens to degradation. This is the story of Fred and Minnie.

By Parker Anderson

The solemnity of honoring our deceased military veterans on Memorial Day has been weakened a bit in recent years by weekend parties to mark the beginning of summer. However, there was indeed a time when entire communities banded together to pay tribute to our brave soldiers. Prescott was one of them.

By Carol Powell

When the Spanish flu began to cut its deadly path across the country in 1918 it did it with such efficiency that some believed sinister forces to be at work. In March of 1918 an Army private at Fort Riley, Kansas reported to the camp hospital complaining of a sore throat, fever and a headache. As the day advanced more soldiers became sick. The U.S. was at war, which provided a convenient target upon which to heap suspicion. Had the Germans used germ warfare?

By Zach Hirsch

(Ed. Note: Rotary International is an organization of service clubs located world wide. The first club was formed in Chicago by attorney Paul P. Harris on February 23, 1905, meeting with three business friends and choosing the name Rotary because they rotated club meetings to each member’s office. By 1910, the clubs were nationwide and, in 1922, because branches had been formed in six continents, the name was changed to Rotary International. By 1925, Rotary had grown to 200 clubs with more than 20,000 members. Today, there are more than 32,000 clubs and over 1.2 million members world-wide.)