Few symbols have been more durable than the American cowboy. This program will give an overview of this populist figure, whose image was first defined by painters Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. Also important to the story are brave cowgirls and the Mexican vaqueros. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show showcased mythic cowboy culture, with […]

Early traders traveled through Arizona Territory, selling goods from their wagons, but they soon built stores that evolved into trading and social centers where wool, sheep, and Native Arts were exchanged for food and necessities. Navajo trading posts are best known, but trading posts existed on every reservation in Arizona. Traders became the intermediaries between […]

Winnie Ruth Judd, Eva Dugan, Dr. Rose Boido, and Eva Wilbur Cruz all shared one thing in common. They were all incarcerated at the Arizona State Prison in Florence. These women were players in both the sensational stories that made national headlines and local stories that made Arizona history. Who were these women and how […]

Throughout the ages we humans have had a need to mark the time and place where people make the final stop on their journey from this world to the next. Sometimes it is a simple cross on rock covered earth while others are elaborate tombstones which tell something of the lives of their residents. There […]

Tom Jeffords grew up in Ashtabula, OH, without much education and was promoted to lake captain in his early twenties. The lure of making his fortune called Tom west to the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush, the San Juan Rush and to the Colorado River. He scouted and was dispatch rider for the Army during the […]

We are intrigued by unsolved mysteries, because it would seem almost impossible for anyone to totally vanish from the face of the earth at any time. This is especially true in our day and age when a host of computer data tracks everyone; yet bodies do disappear with astonishing frequency. In some cases it may […]

When America entered the Second World War, Arizona’s sparse population and mild weather made it an ideal location for training facilities and prisoner of war camps. By war’s end, Arizona had trained more pilots than any other state, hosted the country’s largest POW camp, and was part of the largest military training grounds in history. […]

July 1, 2018, marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, an innovation for its time that addressed a healthcare crisis during World War II and improved nurse education across the United States. Participants will learn about Cadet Nurses in participating hospital schools of nursing in Arizona. Also to be […]

Similar to NPR’s “A Prairie Home Companion” but with and Arizona twist, this program uses music, storytelling and live radio-style newscasts to present important but often neglected events in Arizona history. The “Hoosiers”-like story of a Miami, AZ High School basketball team comprised of the sons of Mexican-American mine workers who won the state championship […]

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1942 WWII Executive Order 9066 forced the removal of nearly 125,000 Japanese-American citizens from the west coast, incarcerating them in ten remote internment camps in seven states: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Government photographers Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, and Ansel Adams documented the internment, and artists Toyo Miyatake, […]

U.S. Route 66, known as the “Mother Road,” was built in 1926. It ran from Chicago to L. A. During the depression of the 1930s, it became the major path by which people migrated west, seeking work, warm weather and new opportunities. Shore shares the history of Route 66 in Arizona, including the impact it […]

Salt has been a valuable trade item throughout human history. Native American salt procurement in the Southwest involved dangerous journeys across sacred landscapes associated with a deity called Salt Woman. This presentation describes the history of a famous salt mine in Camp Verde, Arizona, where prehistoric Sinagua tools used for mining salt were discovered in […]

The U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps, an innovation for its time, addressed a healthcare crisis during World War II and improved nurse education across the United States. A number of Cadet Nurses have been interviewed and their oral histories contributed to various digital repositories, including the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. Participants will view video […]

An early viable economic activity of the 1800s in Arizona has been mostly forgotten. Basque, Canadians, Danes among others arrived in the mid to late 1800s to graze sheep on thousands of acres practicing transhumance. Many of these men worked for other established ranchers until ultimately they gained a herd of their own. In the […]

Father Kino is one of two Arizonans recognized in the U. S. Capitol Hall of Heroes. The Padre was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, map maker, explorer, rancher, and friend to the Indians of the Pimería Alta. Journeying on horseback or foot, multiple explorations of the Pimería Alta were made by the padre, resulting in the […]

Cowboy movie star Tom Mix was internationally famous, and many legends and tall tales have been told about his life. This presentation highlights some of the true stories about Mix and his connection to Arizona, debunking some of the Hollywood hype. What brought Mix travel that lonesome highway where he met his death south of […]

Throughout time, but especially in the Middle Ages, individuals have been graced with visions, i.e., personal experiences with God or other saintly beings. Since the twelfth century, European mystics (especially women), reported about out-of-body experiences in which their souls were graced with a direct, personal encounter with the Godhead, which granted them unique and unheard-of […]

Skirting Traditions: Arizona Women Journalists: 100 Years of Change tells the story of the dramatic revolution of the news media in the last century. Many young people today cannot imagine a time when women were not allowed to do any job they chose. Stories of women writers who broke barriers tells the history of change […]

Russian gosudarstvennost’ can be translated as either governance or statehood in Russian. In one of Vladimir Putin’s speeches on the breakaway Ukrainian region of Donbas this word was erroneously translated as the latter rather than the former, resulting in serious political consequences. Numerous similar cases can be found around the globe, from amusing Chinese street […]

Similar to NPR’s “A Prairie Home Companion” but with and Arizona twist, this program uses music, storytelling and live radio-style newscasts to present important but often neglected events in Arizona history. The “Hoosiers”-like story of a Miami, AZ High School basketball team comprised of the sons of Mexican-American mine workers who won the state championship […]