On this day, in 1912, Arizona, which had been signed on as a Territory by Abraham Lincoln, officially became a State. The first governor, George W.P. Hunt (a rather portly gentleman), walked from the Phoenix city hall on Washington street to the Capitol. He was offered two rides, but said that he walked into the Territory, and he was going to walk the Territory into the State.

At the time, my dad was two months shy of his second birthday in Kentucky.

My mom was a three-month fetus in my grandmother's womb in Bisbee, Arizona. At the time, Bisbee was a thriving copper mining town with amenities the rival of any city between St. Louis and San Francisco. She liked to say that she was conceived in the Territory, but born in the State of Arizona.

Arizona was the last of the contiguous 48 states. It was known not only as the Grand Canyon state, but as the "baby state" as it was the youngest until the admission of Alaska and Hawaii into statehood.

Transportation at that time was a mixture of horses and buggies and automobiles.

Since my mom was born in Bisbee in 1912, here's a picture of that city taken in that year:



And for comparison, here's a shot I took from about the same vantage point in recent years of Bisbee as it now appears. The original building on the right, which was the old Phelps Dodge mercantile building, burned down in 1938, and was replaced by the new structure in 1939, built by a young Del Webb, who later launched the Phoenix retirement suburb of Sun City. Most of the other original buildings you see in the 1912 photograph still stand.



It's been an eventful 100 years for Arizona - from cowboys and copper mining to the modern state we have today. We're still a special bunch, fiercely independent and committed to both our past and our future.

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

Congrats to Arizona! Beautiful scenery, a rich history, and great people. And thanks for the pics, John! I always enjoy them.

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Happy Birthday Arizona!! Great pics, looks like a beautiful place.

Here's another thanks for the pics, and posts, John! I love your pics of Bisbee. I still plan on seeing your state in person before God calls me home. The building on the left, with the arches and balcony, is that a hotel? Also, in the 1912 pic, in the center foreground, middle of the street, there's something that looks like a fountain. What is, or was, that?

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Misty

Happy Centennial! I lived in Tucson for a decade and a half and miss the desert....

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Mr. Marshall --- Great post with juxtaposition of the photos. It's remarkable how little has changed in the intervening 100 years!

Happy Centennial!

I've only been to Arizona once and that was to Phoenix for business. I did manage to drive over to the Dillon Precision shop while I was there - best part of the trip!

Happy birthday ARIZONA !
and thanks for the pics, i love the old one!!.....not to much extension of the town since this ol'time.Very nice town indeed.
R.

Happy 100th to my soon to be home state! (Hopefully about 5 years.) I'll be there for 2 weeks in April making sure my land is still there.

Theresa and I visited bisbee two years ago the very time that rancher robert krentz was killed rideing a quad by illegals. I was impressed with the town. I have a colt saa that was sent to the copper queen mine in 1906.

Your very lucky to live in that beautiful town.

Americana at its best, again just beautiful.

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Doesn't hasta call me Johnson

Misty,

Thanks for the kind words. The building on the left was, and is, the combination post office and library. Bisbee, because it is so hilly, does not have doorstep postal delivery. Instead, each resident has a post office box, and each did, and does, pick up their mail there. I was able to determine from the postmaster which mailbox was my grandfather's - and it's still in use today, albeit by some other person. The top two floors were, and are, the town library, originally funded by the Copper Queen Mining Company, which became Phelps Dodge. My mother studied there as a child, and when we visited Bisbee with her in 2001, they were having an historical society meeting in the Library. She was able to recall for them that the streetcars were green - the old black and white photos do not show that. You can see the streetcar (trolley) tracks curving through the first picture. They are still there under the asphalt.

And yes, what you see in the first photo is a fountain - to water horses. As mentioned, transportation in 1912 included horses and buggies as well as those newfangled "horseless carriages."

My offer still stands - when you decide to visit Arizona, my wife and I will be pleased to give you a complete tour of Bisbee. We don't live there, but my roots are there, and we're a short four hours away by automobile. I remember the town from when I was only four years old, and we've been visiting regularly since my grandmother died and was buried there in 1960. We usually stay at the old Copper Queen Hotel, which is more clearly visible in the second picture just to the right of the church steeple.

John

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- Cogito, ergo armatus sum -

Great comparison on the pictures. Super. Happy Birthday to Arizona.

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James

For those who are interested in what it was like back then, and haven't read the book yet, I highly recommend Jack O'Connor's "Horse and Buggy West". It's not about Bisbee, but about Phoenix-Tempe.