Historical Fiction
The Arizona Territory
From the time President Abraham Lincoln signed the documents which established the Arizona Territory in 1863 until February 14, 1912, when Arizona gained statehood, I present the true story of the many pioneers who gave their all to colonize the Arizona Territory. This is a historical fiction, cited for use in the classroom and based on true events and the actual characters who fashioned the Arizona Territory.
Within the forty-nine years of difficulty to gain statehood, we become well acquainted with the settlers, and pioneers of five major towns in the Arizona Territory. Their lives provide us with high adventure, gunfights, massacres, horse chases, tragedy, love stories and evil intrigue of the darkest nature.
The first town is Tucson/Fort Lowell with Captain Wrightson and the Hernandez Family (the fictional characters of this historic drama) then to Tempe/Phoenix area, settled by Charles and Sallie Hayden and Jack Swilling. The many silver, gold, and copper mining camps in the Arizona mountains are represented in Jerome, Arizona with Butter Brown, a famous Madame in the wickedest city in the West. Pinedale, Snowflake and Holbrook, towns in the northeast White Mountains of Arizona were settled by Mormon pioneers, with the Flake, Hatch, Hunt, Kartchner and Standifird families and their unique, but essential stories filling the pages of actual Arizona history. Finally, we explore the Riordan families in Flagstaff, Arizona and the logging camps in the world’s largest stand of Ponderosa Pines.
My story, “Taming the Arizona Territory” concludes as the railroad chuggs across the top half of the Arizona Territory in 1882, bringing outlaws, easterners and more citizens and industry to the Territory.
You will find this to be a fascinating read of how the wild west was tamed in the Arizona Territory.
