Flagstaff

By James E. Babbitt and John G. DeGraff III

On July 4, 1876, immigrants from Boston traveling to California were camped at Antelope Spring in a valley just south of the San Francisco Peaks. To celebrate the nation's centennial, the pioneers stripped the branches off a tall pine tree and ran up Old Glory. This event gave Flagstaff its name. Six years later, in 1882, the Atlantic and Pacific Railway reached Flagstaff, and a small settlement was born. Railroad construction crews used local ponderosa pine trees for rail ties, beginning a timber industry that thrived in the region for the next century. Flagstaff also became a center of tourism as visitors came to see spectacular natural sights in the surrounding territory, including the Grand Canyon, Oak Creek Canyon, and Sunset Crater, and to experience the Native American cultures of the American Southwest. This volume traces the establishment and early development of Flagstaff and depicts many facets of life in Arizona's "Mountain Town."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Nov 23, 2009
• ISBN: 9781439649848

James E. Babbitt

Authors James E. Babbitt, a descendant of a pioneer Flagstaff family, and John G. DeGraff III , an avid collector of historical photographs of Flagstaff, have showcased over 180 vintage images from their own collections, as well as from the Arizona Historical Society, Babbitt Brothers Trading Company, the Northern Arizona Pioneers Historical Society, and Northern Arizona University, to tell the story of early Flagstaff.

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INTRODUCTION

A travel article published in the February 27, 1892, edition of Chicago’s the Graphic, an illustrated magazine, described Flagstaff and the surrounding country as one of the most interesting regions between the Missouri River and the Pacific. The writer went on to note that Flagstaff offered majestic scenery and natural resources such as timber and grazing lands, as well as geologic features and native cultures of great scientific interest. The reporter predicted that Flagstaff would become a truly great summer resort and a world-famous gateway to some of the greatest natural marvels and most interesting native cultures to be found in any portion of the globe. This book traces the story of how these predictions were born out as Flagstaff was settled, industries and tourism were developed, scientific and educational institutions were established, and a tiny railroad community grew to be the Mountain Town we know today.

At an elevation of some 7,000 feet, Flagstaff is surrounded by an area of intense volcanic activity known as the San Franciscan Volcanic Field. Ancient seas and vast deserts once covered this landscape, and they deposited layer upon layer of sedimentary rocks. Uplifting, faulting, and erosion sculpted these strata into jagged mesas, immense cliffs, and deep canyons. In more recent geologic time, magma erupted from deep below the Earth’s surface, building lava flows, cinder cones, and large volcanoes like Sunset Crater as well as the towering volcano of the San Francisco Peaks.

Thousands of years ago, peoples of the Archaic Period inhabited this landscape. Evidence of this early culture includes delicately shaped arrowheads and beautifully executed rock art images. Other Native American cultures followed, including the Ancestral Puebloans, who built impressive cliff dwellings, and the Hopi, who established pueblos on the high mesas to the northeast of Flagstaff. Hallmarks of these cultures include fine ceramics, basketry, and interesting rock art. Later still, the lands surrounding Flagstaff became home to several other tribes, including the Apache, Hualapai, Havasupai, Navajo, and Paiute peoples. These native cultures continue to thrive, and their rich traditions play a vital role in the life of Flagstaff and northern Arizona.

The first nonnative people to travel across northern Arizona were Spanish explorers and missionaries. In 1540, the Coronado expedition, searching for the fabled golden cities of Cibola, visited the Hopi mesas. A detachment of soldiers under the command of Pedro de Tovar was the first group of Europeans to view the Grand Canyon, probably from a point on the south rim near present-day Desert View. By 1629, the Spanish were establishing missions among the Pueblo tribes of the Southwest. In 1680, the friars were expelled during the Pueblo Revolt but later returned to resume their work of conversion and conquest.

In the decades preceding the Civil War, America was expanding across the western frontier in fulfillment of the country’s Manifest Destiny. Congress became interested in the construction of a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific Ocean. It was hoped that the proposed railway would facilitate trade with Asia and would stimulate settlement and development of the frontier west. In 1853, Congress authorized surveys of several transcontinental railroad routes, including one along the 35th parallel across northern Arizona. That survey, under the direction of Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple, along with another in 1867 led by Gen. William Jackson Palmer, demonstrated the feasibility of the 35th parallel route to the Pacific. In 1857, this same route was followed by Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who constructed a wagon road along the 35th parallel from Albuquerque to Southern California. The Beale road brought early settlers into the Flagstaff area, including Thomas F. McMillan, probably the area’s first permanent resident. A native of Tennessee, McMillan brought sheep to the Flagstaff area in 1876 and established a homestead just north of Flagstaff’s present-day downtown.

On July 4, 1876, a party of emigrants from Boston traveling the Beale road to California was camped at Antelope Spring near the McMillan homestead. To celebrate the nation’s centennial, the pioneers stripped the limbs from a tall ponderosa pine tree and raised the Stars and Stripes on the makeshift flagstaff. The name persisted, and the area’s first post office—called Flagstaff—was established in 1881.

In the spring of 1882, the Atlantic and Pacific Railway was being constructed across northern Arizona. The area’s vast ponderosa pine forest provided a limitless supply of wood for cross ties for the rails. A Chicago industrialist and