Salazar-Ajo Library

Native Americans in the US Southwest developed sophisticated skills in astronomy and predicting the seasons, centuries before non-Indigenous peoples entered the region. In this presentation, archaeologist Allen Dart discusses archaeological and ethnographic evidence of ancient astronomical and calendrical reckoning practices seen in petroglyphs, architecture, and settlement layouts in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah, and […]

Many Arizonans call the Sonoran Desert and its striking landscapes home. Long before our urban centers and city lights lit up the dark desert skies, the Tohono O’odham were cultivating and shaping the land with abundant agriculture—from squash and beans to corn and cotton. For generations they passed down their rich knowledge and culture grown […]

The Colorado, the Gila, the Salt, the Verde, the Hassayampa, the Santa Cruz: Arizona’s rivers were lush green ribbons of life flowing through a desert landscape. They became sustaining paths for indigenous traders and immigrants leaving wagon tracks and settlements. The Hohokam built vast canals from the Salt to direct irrigation water for crops. European […]

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 […]