Native Americans in the U.S. are diverse, and their contributions have enriched our lives in countless ways. People do not always realize the origins of Native contributions to the language, culture, and traditions of the U.S. What are Native signs and symbols? What do they mean? Where do they appear? They can represent animals, astrological […]

Since the earliest days, Arizonans have been visited by entrepreneurs offering all kinds of get rich quick schemes. Benefitting from tales of abundant resources in the territory, limited law enforcement and communication, a scoundrel could create enticing promise of riches and success without much external oversight. Newspapers often fanned the hysteria only to later denounce […]

The agave plant was used by Native peoples for numerous utilitarian items. Mescal served as a valuable food source still being harvested and prepared to this day by many Indigenous groups. For millennia people have pit roasted the heart of the plant yielding a nutritious food staple rich in calcium and zinc. This talk includes […]

Native Americans in the U.S. are diverse, and their contributions have enriched our lives in countless ways. People do not always realize the origins of Native contributions to the language, culture, and traditions of the U.S. What are Native signs and symbols? What do they mean? Where do they appear? They can represent animals, astrological […]

During World War II over one thousand women served as Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), freeing male pilots for combat roles at a critical time during the war. The WASP ferried planes from factories to embarkation points; performed engineer test flying of repaired aircraft and did target towing for gunnery training. By the spring of […]

Theodore Roosevelt exhibited a greater influence on Arizona than perhaps any other president. He was the first sitting president to visit Arizona, employed an executive order to preserve the Grand Canyon, established a variety of wildlife refuges and reclamation projects, and enjoyed outdoor recreation in the area. This program will share Roosevelt’s widespread influence in […]

The first issue of Arizona Highways magazine was published in April, 1925. In this presentation, former publisher Win Holden will share the fascinating story of how a brochure produced by the Arizona Highway Department evolved into one of the most respected and revered publications in the world. With annual economic impact of over $65 million, […]

In 1937, a team of CalTech geology professors and rough-and-tumble boatmen set out in three small wooden boats on a six-week journey through the Grand Canyon to study the ancient rocks of the canyon’s Inner Gorge. At the time, fewer than a dozen river parties had successfully run the canyon–often with a loss of boats […]

Arizona pioneers tell their stories in diaries, letters, and memoirs. Martha Summerhayes’s beloved Vanished Arizona and Captain John Bourke’s On the Border with Crook, plus biographies of Hopi, Pima, and Tohono O’odham women describe their lives and feelings. But we’ll also look at fiction, including Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop, Zane Gray’s Riders of the Purple Sage, and […]

Before AD 1500, Native American cultures took advantage of southern Arizona’s long growing season and tackled its challenge of limited precipitation by developing the earliest and most extensive irrigation works in all of North America. Agriculture was introduced to Arizona more than 4,000 years before present, and irrigation systems were developed in our state at […]