Everything was up for grabs. For three centuries, England, Spain and France sent soldiers, trappers and merchants to plant flags, move goods, build forts. They drew maps to mark territory, signed treaties abused the natives, but their hold on North America was weak. All that time, Americans had put down roots along the eastern seaboard,…
Tag: history
A short history of Jerome
Arizona’s mining towns frequently went up in flames Jerome burned. And burned and burned. Three years in a row, the town burned, and merchants rebuilt the tents and shacks that sheltered saloons and cathouses. It was a mining town, where men dug furiously by day and drank away the night. Jerome ran on whiskey, dreams…
Why history matters, and why we are losing it
Arizona is losing its history. Rats build nests in historic documents, old buildings sag and buckle, roofs leak and records blacken with mold. Collectors slip a few papers into their collections and looters plunder archeological sites. Historians and archivists say the problem is getting worse as budgets are slashed and as information is processed digitally,…