Old Trails Museum

The history of the New Deal, and how Arizonans responded to its challenges, is an inspirational story of how individuals worked to better themselves; a story of how communities took care of inhabitants and total strangers during drought and Depression; and a story of how we, as a state, could improve the lives of all […]

This visual presentation shows how Indigenous American women have contributed service to Arizona and the US, yet remain invisible in the media and stereotyped in early films. Nevertheless, they have been honored in all areas of public service—law, medicine, literature, military, education, and activism with awards such as, the Presidential Freedom, the McArthur (genius award), […]

Francisco Garcés, a Franciscan friar, arrived in what is now Arizona in 1768. Assigned to the church at San Xavier del Bac south of present-day Tucson, he traveled widely throughout Arizona and California, charting overland routes that later travelers would follow. Near where Garcés would meet his death in 1781, an American soldier named Joseph […]

Health care in early Arizona was hardly reliable and frequently nonexistent. Often, settlers were on their own when tragedy struck with women taking on the responsibility for the well-being of their families. And if women were considered incapable of earning the title “Doctor,” they could certainly save souls. Meet a handful of women who influenced […]

Turquoise has a long standing tradition amongst Native cultures of the Southwest, holding special significance and profound meanings to specific individual tribes. Even before the more contemporary tradition of combining silver with turquoise, cultures throughout the southwest used turquoise in necklaces, earrings, mosaics, fetishes, medicine pouches, and made bracelets of basketry stems lacquered with piñon […]