Communication

Early Communication

Native Americans communicated with other tribes by using sign language. They could also communicate with each other over long distances using smoke signals. They had runners who carried messages from one place to another.

Newspapers

When miners and pioneers arrived they stared newspapers. Tombstone had three daily newspapers. Most of the early papers had strong ideas about politics. Officers of the first territorial government brought a printing press with them from the East. Later, the printing press was used to publish a paper called the Arizona Citizen. Today the Citizen is Tucson's evening newspaper. Phoenix had the Salt River Herald. It became part of the newspaper that is now named the Arizona Republic.

View a Video of the Tombstone Epitaph

(Be patient it takes time to load)

Telegraph

A company from Utah built the first telegraph line into Arizona. It let people in Pipe Springs communicate with people in Utah. The US Army built a telegraph line from San Diego, California to Fort Yuma and then to Maricopa Wells. This telegraph line helped the army get messages from one fort to another.

Telephones

Arizona was not far behind the rest of the nation in getting telephones. Five years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone a switchboard was used in Tucson. The switchboard connected many phone lines so people could talk to each other.

View a picture of a switchboard

Radio

The nation's first radio station was in Pennsylvania. By 1930, nearly one in five Arizona families had a radio. People could listen to news, talk shows and music. At first radios could only get local broadcasts. Then KTAR joined the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). For the first time people could listen to national broadcasts live on their radios.

Listen to a broadcast of the Lindberg Crash

Let's Go to Work!

You have learned how Arizona began to grow and reach out. Now it is time to complete the activities for this section. Click on the Journal icon at the top of the page an complete the activities for Chapter 8. When you are done you can continue to explore Arizona.

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