Route 66 in the News
A Little Northern Arizona History
2005-02-27 09:06:25
Oatman southwest of Kingman on old Route 66 was turned into a boom town by a 1915 gold strike. A year later the population increased from a few hundred to more than 3,000 miners, speculators, merchants, saloon keepers, restaurant and hotel operators.
The boom ended in the 1920s when the gold began to run out. The public is welcome to visit today and feed the wild burros...
... whose ancestors once carried supplies for prospectors.
• Long before it was a territory of the United States, Arizona was the northern frontier of Spain's new world empire from the late 1600s to 1821 when it was claimed by a Mexican government independent of Spanish rule. It became part of the U.S. in 1848.
• During the 1850s and early 1860s there were cattle drives by Texas and New Mexico ranchers across the deserts of southern Arizona to California where beef sold at inflated prices. It was a dangerous business, and in 1854, Apache warriors ran off 3,000 head of cattle which was one third of all the herds bound for the West Coast on Arizona trails that year.
• Cynthia Miller was 15 years old and Thomas Sanders was 20 when they got married on a ranch near 1873 Prescott. They rode to California in a horse-drawn wagon for their honeymoon.
• A Phoenix vigilante committee of farmers determined to maintain law and order hanged six outlaws in 1879. Those were the days when the stagecoach line south from Phoenix was being held up an average of twice a week.
• At a March, 1889 dance in Flagstaff celebrating the inauguration of U.S. President Benjamin Harrison women wore gowns of satin, velvet, lace, plush and silk. Colors, according to a report in the local newspaper, were cream, wine, pink, black, gold, brown and blue.
• Dinosaur Canyon on the west side of the Navajo Reservation was named in 1928 because of three-toed dinosaur tracks found there.
~Jim Harvey, for the Arizona Reporter
Comments about this article? Tell us.
Need to Know More?
SEARCH Route 66 University.
Home : Our Campus : Maps : Businesses : Events
Study 66 : COMMUNITY : Photo Tour : Campus Rag : Catalog
