By
garydillard on
January 15th, 2009
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If you’re looking for new wallpaper for your computer, Linn’s Stamp News, a magazine about stamp collecting, has some offerings.
One that has a tie to the theme of this blog is “Legends of the West,” whose honorees with ties to heritage sites around Arizona include Buffalo Bill, Bat Masterson, John Fremont, Wyatt Earp, Nellie Cashman, Geronimo and Kit Carson.
Don’t know when we’ll go into detail about heritage sites that relate to them, such as the Nellie Cashman Restaurant in Tombstone or the Fremont House in Tucson, but the wallpaper should certainly keep you in the mood of visiting some of these places one weekend.
Here’s where you can go to check out this one and dozens more.
By
garydillard on
January 7th, 2009
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One type of tourism that doesn’t get a lot of mention is research. It’s not just university historians that haunt the dusty back corners of old libraries looking for tidbits that most people don’t care about.
Among the most avid, and most down-to-earth, users of archives are genealogists. And their upscale cousins, the biographers. There are many other types of users of archives as well. Lawyer, for example, who want to know how a certain state of affairs came to be. Prospectors, who are looking for the best place to seek gold. Journalists, who want a new angle on an old story. Detectives, for a variety of reasons.
Arizona has several “archives” of various types. In my town, our history museum keeps track of shelves and shelves of records and drawers and drawers of microfilm that may or may not list bits and pieces of information about the tens of thousands of men who worked in the mines over the century they were operating. Hundreds of people a year come looking for parents, grandparents and a host of other relatives. That’s above and beyond the more formal research: Some historians spend weeks in that one small library.
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By
garydillard on
December 4th, 2008
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In an undated brochure going back probably to the nineteen-teens, Santa Fe Railway offered up tips to the tourists who used their lines — and most tourists in those days still used the railroad for trips beyond the immediate environs — on what to see while in the Southwest.
Called “Off the Beaten Path in New Mexico and Arizona,” the brochure suggested a variety of sidetrips, mostly north of the railway line, which ran through Santa Fe and Flagstaff. For the most part, it was designed to take the visitor into Indian country, calling it “both the oldest and the newest region in the United States.” Read More »
By
garydillard on
December 3rd, 2008
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As the centennial of Arizona statehood (Feb. 14, 2012) races toward us, it’s appropriate to look at some heritage sites that discuss the creation of the 48th state. The first of these might as well be the first governor’s mansion, which came shortly after Arizona became a territory in its own right.
President Abraham Lincoln signed off on a bill which admitted an area which had come into the possession of the United States in 1848 (the part north of the Gila River) and in 1853 (south of the Gila) as a territory separate from New Mexico on Feb. 24, 1863 in great part because the Union cause needed the precious metals the land produced. The Confederacy had admitted Arizona as a territory in 1861.
The capital was located at the newly established Ft. Whipple, originally near Chino Valley but soon moved to a site near present-day Prescott. Gen. James H. Carleton (leader of the California Column, which maintained a Union presence in Arizona during the Civil War) had just been given military command of the area and he sent two companies to establish a post in Chino Valley.
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By
garydillard on
December 2nd, 2008
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It’s hard to believe that this year is the 20th anniversary of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, the first one in the nation.
Riparian simply means something that’s located on or lives around the banks of a natural watercourse, such as a river. In the desert, however, that’s not so simple.
In years prior to the acquisition of the old Spanish land grant by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the San Pedro was just another site for multiple uses. No one thought about what impact nearby Fort Huachuca would have on the water table and no one was trying to promote birdwatching in the area, much less bring back the long-depleted beavers.
But when Ronald Reagan signed the designation bill in November 1988, he set aside about 40 miles of the Upper San Pedro, which the
BLM now calls one of the “crown jewels” in its National Landscape Conservation System.
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By
garydillard on
November 30th, 2008
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When Hopi dancers put on the masks and garb of their katsinas, a ritual that dates to time immemorial, they are putting on far more: their identity.
“The Hopi Indians represent their gods in several ways,” wrote anthropologist Jesse Walter Fewkes in 1899, “one of which is by personation–by wearing masks or garments bearing symbols that are regarded as characteristic of those beings. The symbols depicted on these masks and garments vary considerably, but are readily recognized and identified by the Indians.”
Another way of representing the gods is through the katsina ”dolls,” which today are considered a high art form as well as religious symbols. And while most of the ceremonies are off limits to outsiders today, many katsinas (also spelled kachinas) have been gathered at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, forming perhaps the most popular core of an extensive collection of masterpieces created by the native peoples of the Southwest. Read More »