The front cover of this absorbing read features a 1925 painting by Arizona artist Maynard Dixon called The Saguaro. (Photo Source: ✍️ Author’s Book 📕 Collection)
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It’s been nine long months since I’ve added a post about books to my repertoire and my choice today is a book about Arizona I’d completely forgotten was in the house! After rummaging around in storage I found Arizona – A Celebration Of The Grand Canyon State which my partner bought for me probably eight years ago! Why I hadn’t read it and posted about it sooner is beyond me, but I’m sharing it now.
This comprehensive, hardcover edition contains 330 pages of detailed text and gorgeous photos of all aspects of Arizona’s unique geographical traits, and its tempestuous history of the first indigenous inhabitants right through to publication in 2011. This was in anticipation of Arizona’s centennial birthday to celebrate 100 years of statehood from 1912 through 2012. Also, it was the last territory in the continental United States admitted to the Union and becoming the 48th state.
The author of this much welcomed addition to literature of the Grand Canyon State is Jim Turner who has lived here most of his life and is an Outreach Historian for the Arizona Historical Society. He has worked with many museums throughout the state and studied all aspects of its history to make this treasure trove of a book possible. As Turner also has received his master’s degree in U.S. History from the University Of Arizona in 1999, he is well-placed to dispel the many myths surrounding the state’s past like the story of the relentlessly exaggerated “Gunfight At The O.K. Corral”.
There have been more movies, tv shows, novels, and other written accounts, and constant re-enactments of this event than any other in Wild West history…and we’re talking about a great number of things to phrase it mildly! This seminal event of October 26, 1881 NEVER occurred at the O.K. Corral to begin with. It happened in a vacant lot next to a photography studio and lasted for 30 seconds only. Entertainment media makes it appear as though it went on for hours and then the conflict was abruptly over. The reality, though was quite different. Turner’s book relates how the causes of the shooting were numerous and complex. Movies and tv tend to simplify the shooting which nonetheless spawned further violence in the territory.
Tombstone was hardly the only town in Old West Arizona to have such an unsavory reputation although it gets the lion’s share of this kind of attention. Many others such as Bisbee, Globe, Holbrook, Jerome, and Yuma were also magnets for gun violence and all sorts of other criminal activities. In fact, these episodes, real or exaggerated were setbacks for Arizona and were a major reason why the state took so long for the federal government to finally admit it to statehood. One of the aspects that most interested me about Arizona – A Celebration Of The Grand Canyon State was how the development of the railroads eventually and effectively closed the frontier in the state as they did throughout other western states.
The back cover features the photo Sunset Reflections, Cathedral Rock, Sedona by Victor Beer Photography (Photo Source: ✍️ Author’s Book 📕 Collection) Cathedral Rock 🪨 strikes me as a monument to eternity, and never ceases to amaze me.
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With so much attention focused on gunslingers it’s easy to overlook how mightily important mining and railroads were to launching the state into the modern era of the early 20th century. Improved transportation systems allowed families, stable social structures, and sustained economic development to finally take permanent hold here. Over time Arizona was able to develop manufacturing industries of its own and evolved from an extracting mining and agricultural base into high-tech industries spawned by the Second World War — and which continues to this day.
Of course, Turner’s book details the history of the many indigenous tribes which had flourishing societies of their own in Arizona long before the first European explorers, missionaries, miners, ranchers, or anyone else arrived here to change it forever, both for bad and good. Arizona – A Celebration Of The Grand Canyon State is the definitive account of all important aspects of the state’s history and development going well beyond the standard-issue cowboys and Indian tales that have been focused on too much and for too long.
