The Long Fight to Become a State

As early as the 1870s Arizonans began pushing for statehood. Haunted by their notorious past, of cattle rustlers, Indian wars, feuds in places with names like Pleasant Valley and gunfights near somebody’s corral, it would be a long struggle before the raucous territory achieved statehood. They held constitutional conventions in 1891 and 1893 but both bills died in Washington committees. The balance of power in the U.S. Congress was shifting west and the more established parts of the country