Southern Arizona

The great West that George Bird Grinnell first encountered in 1870 as a 21-year-old man was shortly to disappear before his eyes.  Nobody was quicker to sense the desecration or was more eloquent in crusading against the poachers, the hide-hunters, and the disengaged U.S. Congress than George Bird Grinnell, the “Father of American Conservation.”  Grinnell […]

In ancient times the lessons of life and guides to a moralistic life were taught via fables of ancestors and their adventures in a magical world fraught with monsters and heroes.  INYAHOSKIE is one of those heroes who sets out to explore the world and journeys to the Southwest where he encounters a rude and […]

Meet Teresa Urrea, a curandera (spiritual healer) and reluctant political figure. She was born in Sinoloa, Mexico, in 1873 to a fourteen-year-old Tehueco Indian in the employ of Tomás Urrea, a wealthy hacendado (owner of a hacienda). When she was 16, she lapsed into a cataleptic state that lasted over three months. Upon awakening, Teresa […]

During WWII a select group of young Navajo men enlisted in the Marines with a unique weapon.  Using the Navajo language, they devised a secret code that the enemy never deciphered.  For over 40 years a cloak of secrecy hung over the Code Talker’s service until the code was declassified and they were finally honored […]

Join Stevenson as she traces Arizona history through women who recorded pieces of their lives in their needlework.  Beginning with 1860s Mexican women, through 1990s Hopi women, this presentation introduces women who pioneered Arizona through quilts they stitched. Some of the women featured are Atanacia Santa Cruz Hughes, Tucson; Viola Slaughter, Southeastern Arizona; Alice Gillette Haught, […]

The South Mountains in Phoenix contain more than 8,000 ancient petroglyphs. This program will discuss Dr. Bostwick’s long-term study of these Hohokam petroglyphs and will describe the various types of designs, their general distribution, and their possible meanings. Interpretations of the petroglyphs include the marking of trails, territories, and astronomical events, as well as dream […]

This presentation explains who the mountain men were, how they lived, and why they were in Arizona. Using a colorful presentation, Weber, clad in buckskins, focuses on the life and times of Pauline Weaver, Prescott, Arizona's first white citizen, and other famous mountain men who made their way through this territory. Using photos, maps and […]

In pioneer Arizona, among the best places to experience the performing arts were in the mining towns. Striking it rich meant having disposable income and miners, like the well-heeled of the Gilded Age, wanted to demonstrate their sophistication with culture. From the early popular music of ragtime and minstrelsy evolved orchestras, operas and glee clubs […]

Arizona’s New Deal built sidewalks, post offices, provided school lunches and outhouses. It produced roadside shrines and monuments to encourage tourism, check dams and mud stock tanks to support Arizona ranchers, as well as golf courses and pools for recreation. The federal investment in the built and cultural landscape of 1930s Arizona and the nation […]

In 1933, at the nadir of the Great Depression, the CCC was born. The program was designed to help unemployed and untrained young men learn new skills and earn money to support their families. CCCers fervently claim that the skill-building experiences forever changed their lives. These men built the roads, trails, picnic areas, ranger stations, […]