When one imagines pristine Arizona’s dry, desolate, sunbaked deserts in the 1850s it’s difficult to picture any of it as being a utopian Shangri La...
Charles Poston’s Arizona Utopia
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Arizona
Paladin, Gamblers and the Oregon Trail
Did anybody have a good time on the Oregon Trail? Neal Hathaway Durango, Colorado Interesting question. Many did. Those pioneers were amazingly...
A Land of Anomalies and Tamales
Arizonans like to call this place a land of anomalies and tamales because of the contrasts and contradictions that make the Grand Canyon State...
Climax Jim
Climax Jim was the darling of the Arizona press during the late 1890s. Thanks to the fertile imaginations of the old timers who knew him and the...
Don’t Reach for Your Six-Shooter Unless You’re Sure Somebody Hasn’t Snatched It
Bill Downing was one of the most disliked fellows in Old Arizona. He was moody, morose, bad-tempered, sullen and surly. And that was when he was...
Arizona’s Shangri La
When one imagines pristine Arizona’s dry, desolate, sun-baked deserts in the 1850s it’s difficult to picture any of it as being a utopian Shangri La...
Education in Early Arizona
The three R’s, readin’, writin’, and ’rithmetic, like many other cultural conveniences, were late arriving on the Arizona frontier. The first...
Arizona’s Boundless Boundaries
Did you know Arizona was once a part of western Georgia? Yup, in 1733 King George declared that Georgia extended west all the way to the Pacific...
Aimee Semple McPherson
Arizona played a part in one of the great hoaxes of the 1920s when Aimee Semple McPherson, a popular Hollywood show business evangelist, was...
Long Johns, Dirty Dave and the Bird Cage
What did cowboys wear as underwear? Ethan Cooperrider Coulee City, Washington Long johns were first introduced into England in the 17th century,...
Two-Lane Blacktops and Red Dirt Highways
Pack your bags and head West for adventures filled with fun and history. Road tripping across the West has come a long way from the...
A Marriage Scheme
John Clum’s plan to have the government pay for his wedding. John Clum was the successful Indian agent at the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. His...