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Early Sedona settler faced many hardships and isolation.
Cowboys in Sedona area had problems finding wives, because there were few women in the region.  They would go to Cottonwood, where there were school teachers.  Few teachers were signed to contracts longer than 1-2 years because they were wooed and wed in very short order!!
In early 1900s the Verde Valley was wet and full of mosquitoes. Malaria was rampant and quinine was much in demand.
You might try riding a burro through the canyons, deserts and many ravines, or doing some river rafting on the Colorado River.

There are many sunny days, but watch out for cloud bursts and sudden flooded washes and low roads.

Did you know trees cover 1/5 of Arizona?

How about the fact that Arizona has the oldest rodeo in the USA?  Prescott?  

Did you know Arizona has more national parks than any other state?


Here are some Arizona facts

The state capital is Phoenix.  It went from Prescott to Tucson to Prescott again,  finally to Phoenix in 1889 (then a town of 3,000).

Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912.

The state gemstone is the turquoise.

Humphreys Peak is the highest point at 12,670 feet.

Arizona is called The Grand Canyon State.

The state bird is the Cactus Wren.

The saguaro cactus is frequently called the Monarch of the Desert in Arizona. It does not grow in the Sedona area.Too cold!

The state tree is the Paloverde.

The state flower is the saguaro blossom, a creamy white blossom, appearing in         late May or early June.

The state mammal is the Ring-tailed Cat.

The area of Arizona is 113,909 square miles.

The population estimate in 1995 was 4,072,000. It has been growing since then.

Arizona has four deserts.The Great Basin, a land of deep canyons has skylines of sandstone where you see mesas, cliffs, and spires.The Mojave desert spreads across the northwestern edge of the state. It is hot and dry with fluid sand dunes.The Chihuahuan desert goes into southeastern Arizona and is mostly flat wasteland.The Sonoran desert stretches south into Mexico. Its signature plant is the saguaro, which may live 200 years and hold several tons of water. The Indians found it a most useful plant. Warning--today the plant is protected by state law. Saguaro nappers will be prosecuted. Don’t remove anything living or dead from state parks or Indian lands!That includes rocks, petrified wood, flowers, and artifacts.  

Much of the preceding information obtained from UNIQUE Arizona by Tom Barr of John Muir Publications Sante Fe, New Mexico copyright 1994

Other Arizona attractions are: Slide Rock State Park, in scenic Oak Creek Canyon (Sedona area). Camping in many locations, Prescott Frontier Days, the World's Oldest Rodeo in July.


Desert images: saguaros saluting the sky, the salad bowl around Flagstaff--an important area for producing lettuce.

Try a salad in Sedona of greens grown in Flagstaff, or prickly pear cactus jams and jellies. Try some baby tumble weeds in your salad.

Try pinon nuts, acorns, mesquite tea and alcohol, beans for hair dye, cakes and flour.  

Try mesquite for fuel and flavor in meats and fish. Take cholla buds for calcium.  



Neat Images for the poet and poetry lover

birds journeying to old nesting places
smoky mornings
silky furred or prickly viscid foliage
hills rank with cacti
after the pinon harvest--
more wickiups than two make a great number
ragged-walled ravine
summer paved with parched red earth
a woman’s long hair cut for making snares--during famine
long-leafed pines, in the purlieus of
thickets of scrub oak and manzanita, rife with nests of baby quail?
lizards swallowing their skins in safety of prickle-bush in early spring
myriad of lizards on the mesas--quick gray darts
shaggy, browbeaten ponies
game slung across saddle-bows
small sailing hawk or lazy crow
eagle hanging lazily--
blue tower of silence in the skies
buzzards high in thin, translucent air circling as a merry-go-round
wattles of huts warped into heaps of desert brush
secret store of seeds unearthed by--
to seek and spy then drift down the wind for killing
gray hawks beating slow circles about the doors of creature’s exit
Indian name-giving, an eye’s grasp, a fashion setting well for the
various natures inhabiting within us all
a creek with close-locked pines nourished about its borders
sodden drifts of pine needles and acorns caught by driftwood
picking a blossom of manzanita in a hushed, wondering way
flowers keeping up a constant trepidation in time with the hasty water
beating at their stems
babble of watercourses always approaching articulation or
babble of coursing creek making like talk in the afterglow of twilight?

Above ideas--thoughts--much inspired by The Land of Little-Rain by Mary
Austin with 1903 copyright, reprinted by publishers of Houghton Mufflin
Company (discovered in Sedona Library)

more images to consider

homemade toys, mosquito netting with draw string for bags of hard candy,
apple and orange
Easter eggs died red with beet, yellow with alfalfa, brown with walnut hull,
and blue with bluing
Victrola and records--big morning glory horn
bobcats killing and eating calves
skunks getting the Leghorns
woodpeckers getting the persimmons
mules having more sense than horses
coming down a hill better and faster than a roller coaster, when wagon
brakes might give way
shoes made from backs of overalls--like moccasins
Eva Girdner Stone--the first Miss Arizona 1912?
Spelling bees, reciting poems and stories while they worked in the kitchen.
Evenings sitting in the porch singing with neighbors singing back to them
across the creek         
centipedes 13 inches long--living in a tent with wooden floor supported by
tin cans with water to keep centipedes away
farms from 35-120 acres--cattle on open range--first cash crop of watermelons
filaree as high as a horses stirrups? before drought and overgrazing
mail between Cottonwood and Indian Gardens in 1890 came by pack
mule--one for riding and one for hauling--later the mail carrier got a buggy
and team of mules
crossing the creek with a cable and box--dead or alive
making butter in a Mason jar before they got a churn
carrying water from the creek, putting lye in it, boiling it, skimming the mud
off and it would be clear--for laundry or bath?
wild horses--wide board fences to keep them from kicking them down
kerosene lamps, weekly dances, native cottonwoods, willow thickets
timber cut from Schnebly hill to Munds Park and trucked to Cottonwood
for milling
canyons and arroyos filled with live and dead grass
abundant game animals, a stockman’s and hunter’s paradise
one-roomed homes out of stone, adobe, or logs with nary a window
never locking doors
sometimes the Verde River would be a half-mile wide, but generally a
muddy trickle
snuggling in a bedroll, listening to a storm
“Worn out in service”--old spades, shovels, picks, etc.
small animals snared
smelter making it difficult to grow fruit crops
the Walter Jordans moved to Sedona in 1880, to plant apple orchards
Walter Jordan’s mother moved to the valley in an ox-drawn wagon in
1865

Much of the above is from Cottonwood, Clarkdale and Cornville History
copyright 1984 from Cottonwood Chapter 2021, AARP--Sedona Library



Fry Bread: A Common Food in Most Native American homes,
but perhaps also common with many Mexican and Caucasian pioneers

Fry Bread–the recipe not too different from any other.
This one gotten from an Apache school children’s recipe project.  

INGREDIENTS
4 cups white flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
Lard or Shortening

DIRECTIONS
Combine all ingredients. Add about 1 1/2 cups lukewarm water and knead until dough is soft, not sticky. Shape enough into balls the size of a small peach. Shape into patties by hand; dough should be about l/2 inch thick. Fry one at a time in about 1 inch of hot lard or shortening in a heavy pan. Brown on both sides. Drain on paper towels and serve hot with honey or jam. If you want an Indian Taco, add beans, tomatoes, onions, cheese and salsa on top.
----------

ACORN STEW--a popular recipe in Apache homes

INGREDIENTS
21/2-3 pounds of round steak (elk or deer meat), cut into bite-size pieces
Sweet Acorns (enough to make 3/4 cup of acorn flour) Salt

DIRECTIONS
Cook beef in about 1 quart of water. Let it simmer for about 3 hours or until meat is well done. Salt to taste. Shell acorns and grind them into very fine flour, until you have approximately 3/4 cup of flour. Strain the broth from the meat (it will be used later). Shred the meat, place it in a wooden bowl, and mix it with the acorn flour. (Note: metal utensils or bowl will discolor the flour). Pour hot broth over the mixture and stir. It is now ready to serve in individual bowls. Usually served with fry bread.