Here are some Arizona heritage postage stamps you can use for wallpaper
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 [...]
New repository for old records exciting destination for many
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 [...]
Just as they did a century ago, visitors enjoy Canyon de Chelly
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 [...]
A look at Ft. Whipple, Arizona’s first capital, and its namesake
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 [...]
The San Pedro River, the nation’s first riparian conservation area, turns 20
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 [...]
Phoenix is the place to see a great collection of Hopi katsinas
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 [...]