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 […]