Once upon a time, the area of land stretching from Phoenix to New Mexico was part of the Barony of Arizona. At least, that’s what James Reavis, the “Baron of Arizona,” would have had you believe. In the early 1880s, Reavis swindled settlers in the Arizona territory, claiming he had a Spanish land grant for…
There are a lot of gold diggers in Arizona. More specifically, Arizona is host to a mine’s worth of gold legends. These legends are so common in the Southwest because of Spanish and Anglo influences, according to Bill Hartmann, a planetary scientist who has written books on the Coronado era in Arizona. “These Americans come…
The simple monument along the San Pedro River is only the beginning of a larger story. Along the river between Tombstone and Sierra Vista is the site of the only battle in Arizona during the Mexican-American War. The combatants: a Mormon battalion and a herd of wild bulls. It went down in history as an…
When people reminisce about the Old West, they think of air thick with the smell of blood, dust rising off the unpaved streets. They see men in black frock coats facing off in a corral, the pop of gunshots. For residents of Tombstone, such imagery is an inescapable part of daily life. “I wanted to…
