Arizona Place Names: Our Map and How It Got That Way – Benson

Cochise College Benson Campus 1025 State Route 90, Benson, United States

Place names are like fossil poetry. They afford a kind of folk history, a snapshot in time that enables us to read in them a record of important events, and reconstruct something of the members of a culture at the time they assigned names to the places they saw. The United States has over 3.5 […]

Free

Specters of the Past: Arizona’s Ghost Towns – Bullhead City

Mohave County Library Bullhead City 1170 E. Hancock Dr, Bullhead City , AZ

The promise of unimagined riches is what brought many of the earliest colonizers to the Arizona Territory. Following the trail to the discovery of the mother lode, they built, then dismantled and finally abandoned communities when mines played out – leaving behind tantalizing clues of difficult hardships. Some towns survived like Bisbee, Jerome, Tombstone and […]

Free

Armed with Our Language, We Went to War: The Navajo Code Talkers – Phoenix

Mesquite Branch - Phoenix Public Library 4525 Paradise Village Pkwy N, Phoenix, AZ, United States

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 […]

Free

Riders on the Orphan Train: The Arizona Story – Winslow

Winslow Visitor Center/Hubbell Trading Post 523 W 2nd St, Winslow, AZ, United States

“The Orphan Trains – Arizona’s Hidden History” will be presented at six libraries: Winslow, Prescott, Douglas, Fountain Hills, Wilcox and Prescott Valley. The program is designed to inform, entertain, and engage audiences of all ages and to tell the story of about this little-known chapter of the largest child migration in American and Arizona history […]

Free

Early Western Songs and Singers – Apache Junction

Apache Junction Library 1177 N. Idaho Rd., Apache Junction, AZ, United States

Whether or not you grew up when Western films competed favorably with the popular films of the day, you will definitely want to take yourself back in time to hear the music that made cowboy legends out of the Sons of the Pioneers, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Jimmy Wakely and so many other Western singers. […]

Free

The Ancient Hohokam Ballgame of Arizona – Flagstaff

The Peaks - Senior Living Community 3150 North Winding Brook Road, Flagstaff, AZ, United States

The ancient Hohokam culture of Arizona constructed at least 200 ball courts more than 800 years ago. These oval depressions were likely used to play a ball game that originated in southern Mexico, where the game was played with a rubber ball and had a very important role in reenacting the creation of humans in […]

Free

Along the California Trail – Coolidge

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument - Visitor Center Theater 1100 W Ruins Drive, Coolidge, AZ, United States

An ancient set of Indian paths and the natural flow of the Gila River created a major artery for travel through pioneer Arizona. The Gila provided a route for the earliest traders, including Toltecs of Mexico, who traded with the Anasazi and Hohokam. The intrepid Padre Francisco Garces, performed missionary work during six excursions along […]

Free

Hi Jolly and Mystery of the US Army Camel Corps – Parker

Parker Public Library 1001 Navajo Ave, Parker, AZ

This presentation will explore the US Army’s experiment with using camel from the Middle East to make it more mobile in the newly acquired Southwest.  In order to teach the soldiers about camels, a local from the Middle East, who was called Hi Jolly, was shipped over with the camels.  Even though Secretary of War […]

FRANK Talks: Immigrants and the American Dream – Ajo

Salazar-Ajo Library 15 W. Plaza St. #179, Ajo, AZ, United States

Immigrants and the American Dream: We the People Today and Tomorrow Dr. T.J. Davis, Arizona State University, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies The United States of America has long touted itself as the land of immigrants, and is demographically more diverse than at any time in our nation’s history. Yet the source and […]

Free

FRANK Talks: Information Warfare as the New Battlespace – Anthem

North Valley Regional Library 40410 N Gavilan Peak Parkway, Anthem, AZ, United States

Weaponized Narrative: Information Warfare as the New Battlespace Dr. Braden Allenby, Arizona State University, President’s Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Sustainable Engineering, and Lincoln Professor of Engineering and Ethics Weaponized narrative is the latest term for information warfare, focusing specifically on the role of new media in shaping opinion. Weaponized narratives attack the shared beliefs and […]

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