Arizona's First Army Volunteers (1866)

Camp Lincoln C. 1868

 In 1866, Gov. Goodwin organized two companies of “native volunteers”, the first volunteers of Arizona, to be stationed at Camp Lincoln. Historian Donald W Lockhart wrote about them in 1936: They were “unique and almost comical in appearance. They were composed of Mexicans, renegade Tonto and Mohave Indians, Frenchmen, [and others], all poorly clad and practically all barefooted. Many [of the] Indians were in native dress, but all seemed disciplined and obedient to their superior officers. When these volunteers were on duty, the brutal Apaches knew they had met their match.”

The Petrified Forest's Gateway Ghost Town

The Petrified Forest was never a secret, but initially, it was not widely known outside of Arizona (except among geologists, among whom news of the remarkable site spread quickly). North of the first known deposits, adjacent to the Santa Fe Atlantic-Pacific railroad, was Adam Hanna’s cattle ranch. It was at this point that he would found the town of Adamana—the old gateway to the Petrified Forest.

The First Hell Canyon Railroad Bridge, 1901

The first bridge to conquer Hell Canyon was a railroad cut-off that took the entirety of 1901 to complete. The new route would shorten the trip by only three miles, but more significantly, it would bypass “about 34 bridges and some very steep grades,” the Arizona Weekly Journal-Miner described. The project was under consideration for over two years, "but [was] deferred for various reasons, but there is no doubt now, but the work will be done and that at once.”

Wickenburg in 1870

Henry Wickenburg

In 1870, Wickenburg was a young, booming town. Founded in 1863, it wasn’t officially incorporated until 1909. The boom was largely due to Henry Wickenburg's discovery of the Vulture Mine—“The biggest and richest gold mine yet discovered on this continent [the Vulture] is yielding plenty of ore,” the Weekly Arizona Miner stated. Two mills were running at this time, one of which had a whopping 40 stamps to crush the ore.

The Forgotten Pioneer & His Lost Gold

Nathaniel S “Boston” Graves died January 12, 1911, at the age of 88. He was “one of the earliest arrivals in this section of the Territory and also one of the most popularly known miners,” the Weekly Journal Miner explained. “He was more familiarly known as Boston.” He took ill with the flu (or grippe as it was called back then) late in 1910, having spent that year searching for “a ‘pothole’ that contained a vast amount of free gold.”

A Killing in Copper Basin (1895)

It was the morning of February 1, 1895. A Mexican boy who was out hunting was traveling along the Copper Basin road when he came upon a ghastly scene. The night before, a man was brutally murdered.

“His appearance was a frightful one, the right side of his head being smashed so that the bones protruded, while all over his body and on his hands were many knife wounds to be seen,” the Arizona Weekly Journal-Miner described. “The ground too, gave evidence of a struggle, and though losing his life, made a desperate fight to the last.”