Discovered in 1863 by Henry Wickenburg, the Vulture Gold Mine was the first big gold mine in Arizona.  The mine and its colorful cast of characters, along with the town of Wickenburg, were instrumental in stimulating considerable growth and development in Central Arizona. This presentation will share the multi-layered story of the gold mine, thus […]

With the exception of the most ardent collectors and the older generations, the influence and legacy of the big bands is largely forgotten despite their overwhelming popularity and significant role in early radio.  Join Larson as he revisits the sounds that America listened and danced to for more than three decades.  Learn how iconic artists […]

Consider the taco, that favorite treat, a staple of Mexican and Mexican American cooking and an old standby on an Arizonan’s plate. The corn in the tortilla comes from Mexico, the cheese from the Sahara, the lettuce from Egypt, the onion from Syria, the tomatoes from South America, the chicken from Indochina, and the beef […]

This presentation will impart a social interpretation of how life among Indian Nations began to change due to the plight American Indian people were forced into in the name of education.  American Indians are the only ethnic group in the U.S. who were subjected to forced education by the federal government for generations.  Children were […]

With the exception of the most ardent collectors and the older generations, the influence and legacy of the big bands is largely forgotten despite their overwhelming popularity and significant role in early radio.  Join Larson as he revisits the sounds that America listened and danced to for more than three decades.  Learn how iconic artists […]

With the exception of the most ardent collectors and older generation, the influence and legacy of the big bands is largely forgotten despite their overwhelming popularity and significant role in early radio. Join Larson as he revisits the sounds America listened and danced to for more than three decades. Learn how iconic artists like Glenn […]

Knowing one’s culture implies being educated about who you are, what social order expects of you, and it provides the primary steps to individual identity.  Stories of the Emergence, Trotting Coyote, First Man and Spider Woman, among others, teach the past, suggest the present, and create a pathway to a satisfying future.  Through recurring themes […]

Known as the Little Lady of the Governor’s Mansion, Hall was a poet, activist, politician, and Arizona’s first territorial historian. One of the West’s most remarkable women, she was in love with the state of Arizona and, if not for her efforts, much of the state’s history may have been lost. Beginning in 1927, she […]

Sharlot Mabridth Hall was an unusual woman for her time: a largely self-educated but highly literate child of the frontier. Born October 27,1870, she traveled with her family from Kansas to the Arizona Territory in 1882. Her impressions of this journey remained with her all of her life. She loved ideas and the written arts […]

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 […]

In 1929 the newly-formed Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT) company launched an ambitious plan to establish the country’s first coast-to-coast airline service from New York to Los Angeles.  Assisted by famous pilots Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart, the TAT established a series of pioneering airports along the route (including Clovis, Albuquerque, Winslow, and Kingman) and helped […]

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 […]

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 hidehunters, and the disengaged U.S. Congress than George Bird Grinnell, the “Father of American Conservation.” Grinnell […]

The rise of car travel in the 40s, 50s and 60s meant that thousands of people were traversing the broad expanses of the Southwest looking for new landscapes and adventure. As the cars sped past, restaurants, motels, curio shops and gas stations needed large, bright signs to make an impression. This informative and entertaining visual […]

Marking the location of deaths with crosses or descansos is a very old custom which has been traced back to twelfth-century Europe. The custom diffused to the Americas with the arrival of the conquistadors in the sixteenth century.  This presentation traces the evolution and diffusion of the roadside memorial, the typology of the crosses, states’ […]

With the exception of the most ardent collectors and the older generations, the influence and legacy of the big bands is largely forgotten despite their overwhelming popularity and significant role in early radio.  Join Larson as he revisits the sounds that America listened and danced to for more than three decades.  Learn how iconic artists […]

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 the deity Salt Woman. This presentation focuses on the prehistory of a famous salt mine in what is now known as Camp Verde.  In the 1920s, miners discovered prehistoric salt-mining […]

A killer camel, a tornado-riding con man, a dead dragon, and a naked horse thief are some of the characters in the quirky stories from Southwest history that Peach loves to share in his original cowboy poetry.  Laugh at and learn from these very tall and mostly true tales, like how Arizona forfeited a seaport […]

Arizona’s territorial era has the reputation of being a violent and crime-ridden place with ineffective criminal justice institutions. This presentation provides an overview of crime and justice in Arizona Territory. Based on data from court cases and newspapers, it describes the types of crimes most commonly committed and the justice system’s response to them. Contrary […]

The early history of Sonora/Arizona was deeply determined by the Jesuit Order. Padre Eusebio Kino arrived here in 1692 and died in 1711. Subsequently, a large number of German-speaking Jesuit missionaries arrived here, and many of them left highly fascinating reports, letters, diaries, maps, and encyclopedias behind (in German!). This talk deals with those missionaries […]