The nationally recognized Roosevelt Row Artists' District in downtown Phoenix originated during the platting of the Churchill Addition in 1888, when fewer than 4,000 people called the city home. The Evans and Churchill Additions enjoyed vibrant, walkable mixed-use growth until the suburban sprawl of the 1950s pulled people and resources away from the downtown city core. Significant decline fell upon the area for decades, until artists began to imagine...

Even by Arizona standards, Coolidge is a relatively "new" town. Its original site was platted in 1925 with a modest 80 acres purchased by Phoenix businessman Richard J. Jones, and it would be another 20 years before the town was incorporated. Nevertheless, the Coolidge environs possess a rich and colorful history going back several thousand years when the ancestral Sonoran people began building permanent structures and constructing canals to divert...

The native people, known today as the Sinagua, inhabited the Verde Valley of Arizona for centuries. From around 700 AD to early 1400 AD, they farmed the land and built large pueblo communities throughout the area. They accomplished this task using only primitive stone tools, materials from their environment, and the strength of their intellect and muscle. One of the largest communal dwellings, and later the most extensively excavated, is called Tuzigoot....

Coronado scorned this region as unpopulated when he labored through southeastern Arizona in 1540, but he could have found 12,000-year-old spear points in the remains of giant bison near Cave Creek Cienega, grinding hollows in boulders, and shamanic figures in high caves of the Chiricahuas towering above valleys and grasslands. Searing drought forced people to abandon their villages by 1400, but Apaches wandered down from Canada about the time Spaniards...

Bullhead City, situated on the east bank of the Colorado River in the Mojave Desert, is built upon the historical site of Hardyville, founded in 1864 by William H. Hardy. Hardyville was a frontier outpost that flourished for 19 years with a ferry service, trading post, and toll road that extended east to Prescott, Arizona. Gold and silver had been discovered in the mid-1800s, and commerce was thriving as steamboats transporting freight and passengers...

On a bed of a primordial ocean floor and in a valley surrounded by jagged mountains, a city was founded atop the ruins of a vanished civilization. In 1867, former Confederate soldier Jack Swilling saw the remains of an ancient canal system and the potential for the area to blossom into a thriving agricultural center. Pioneers moved into the settlement searching for new opportunities, and on October 20, 1870, residents living in adobe structures that...

Casa Grande, Arizona, is located on desert and farmland between Tucson and Phoenix and began as the end of an unfinished railroad line-thus its early name, Terminus. On May 19, 1879, when early summer heat halted construction of the railroad in what would soon become Casa Grande, only three buildings and five residents constituted the town. The names reflect the ethnic diversity of the sparse population: Buckalew, Ochoa, Smith, Watzlavocki, and Fryer....

Before Bisbee became a bustling mining camp, it was a haven to Native Americans for centuries. However, their presence brought the intrusion of army scouts and prospectors into the Mule Mountains. The coincidental discovery of vast mineral wealth at the future site of Bisbee permanently affixed the fate of the land forever. Rising from the remote desert was a dynamic mining city, a city that grew into one of the most influential communities in the...

For more than 140 years, the Hash Knife brand has intrigued Western history lovers. From its rough-and-ready-sounding name to its travels throughout Texas, Montana, and Arizona, the Hash Knife sports a romance like few others in the cattle industry. Several outfits have been proud to call the brand their own, and the stories behind the men who worked for these companies are the epitome of Western lore and truth combined. Beginning in 1884, the Hash...

Three surveyors in the late 19th century were so attracted to the area's desert beauty that they named it "the Paradise Valley." Starting in the 1920s, adobe homes were constructed in various revival styles. In 1936, the Camelback Inn resort set a high-quality standard with an inviting and relaxed character. Other guest lodges arrived, including the Hermosa Inn and the El Chorro Lodge. The 1950s brought more luxurious resorts, including the Paradise...