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The United States government was impressed by the mining in Arizona. It finally made Arizona a separate territory from New Mexico. Leaders in Washington, D.C. chose people to be in charge of this new territory.
A Governor for the Territory
President Abraham Lincoln chose John Goodwin to be the new governor of Arizona Territory. Goodwin had to chose where the capital of the new territory would be. Tucson seemed to be a good place because many people already lived there, but Goodwin decided to chose to start a new town. He picked a spot near the mine in the Bradshaw mountains and named it Prescott. Settlers came to live in Prescott and the new town grew.
An eleven room Governor's Mansion and a two-room capital building was built. The seats and tables of the capital were made of rough boards. It had dirt floors and no windows. This was the beginning of Arizona's territorial government.
Later, Arizona's capital moved from Prescott to Tucson, then back to Prescott. Finally, it was moved to Phoenix, where it remained the capital of Arizona.
The Civil War
At the same time that the mining boom was happening in Arizona, a terrible war broke out between the United States. This civil war was fought between the people of the states.
This war began when the states of the North and the South disagreed over many things. The South wanted the states to have more power in the government. They also wanted to be able to keep slaves on their huge cotton, tobacco and sugar plantations. Many people in the North though slavery was wrong.
During the war, the North was called the United States of America, or the Union. The South was called the Confederate States of America or the Confederates. The southern part of Arizona became a part of the Confederacy. They wanted Confederate soldiers to protect them from Indians and attacks from outlaws. Some Arizonans did not want to be part of the Confederacy. They wanted to stay with the Union.
Most of the battles in the Civil War were fought outside of Arizona. There were many fierce battles in the East and only a few small battles in Arizona. One of these battles happened in a place called Picacho Pass near Tucson.
Learn more about Arizona Civil War Battles
The Magic of Water
Water was very important to Arizona. It can turn Arizona's dry deserts into good farmland. The Hohokam Indians were the first people to irrigate crops in Arizona. As more and more settlers came to Arizona to farm the land and start towns, they too began to dig canals to bring water to their farms.
Swilling's Ditch
A man named Jack Swilling lived in the mining town of Wickenburg. Swilling realized that people were paying high prices for food because their was little farming in the area. To solve this problem, Swilling stared a canal company to bring water to the farms in the Salt River Valley. With the help of men from Wickenburg, Swilling dug a canal that was called Swilling's Ditch which brought water to the area. Farmers began irrigating their crops and new canals were dug. A village of adobe houses grew up near Swilling's Ditch The people grew many crops including pumpkins. The farmers called the town Pumpkinville.
Phoenix Grows
Later the town of Pumpkinville move to higher ground. Mexican men worked in the sun, hacking away desert plants to make streets for horses, carts and wagons. People from the farms and mines liked to "go to town" to do business and see the sites.
The village was named Phoenix after the Phoenix bird. The legend says that the bird lived for 500 years and then burned itself in a fire and was born again from its own ashes. Phoenix, the town, had arisen from the place of the prehistoric Hohokam Indian villages.
Soon Phoenix grew into a modern city. Within twenty years good dirt roads ran in every direction. The railroad came and made trade and travel easier. It was lighted by gas and electric street lights. There were schools, hotels, banks and ice plants. In those days ice was very important!
Scottsdale and Glendale
Just outside of Phoenix the land was covered with cactus and there were no farms. A man named William Murphy and a crew of men built a canal that brought water to the Scottsdale and Glendale areas. Farms sprang up in the area.
Murphy helped the valley grow in other ways too. He brought land in Phoenix and planted citrus trees. He planned places for people to live and planted trees to shade the streets. " I would like to come back in a hundred years from now and see this county." he said.
Mormon Towns
Mormon people came from Utah and started farming towns in Arizona. They brought tools, seeds and animals with them. Their first settlement was in Pipe Springs, north of the Grand Canyon. The land was dry. They built a fort for protection from the Indians.
Jacob Hamlin was a Mormon missionary to the Indians. He blazed a wagon road from Utah to the Little Colorado River. About 200 families followed the road and came to live along the river. They built earth dams and used the water to irrigate , but in the flood season, the river swept away the dams. this happened year after year. Soon the people left. Today, only Joseph City remains.
Many more Mormons came from Utah. Oxen pulled their wagons to eastern Arizona and they founded many towns that still remain today. Woodruff, Pine, Heber, Shumway, Taylor, Snowflake, Springerville, Eager, St. Johns, Pima and Thatcher were all started by the Mormons.
Mesa Grows
Mormon men began digging the Mesa Canal with the help of the Tohono O'odham Indians. They had no time to rest even though the hot summer sun, dust storms, and rattlesnakes made life miserable. They finished the canal, planted beans, wheat, corn and vegetables, and built the town Mesa.
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