Recent stories
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By Stan Brown
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December 31, 2008
- As the newly settled town of Payson grew, so did the services it provided.
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By Stan Brown
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December 17, 2008
- In the spring of 1886, a settler named Frank Alkire came through Payson on his way to lay claim to Indian Gardens along Tonto Creek. Years later he recalled how the town appeared.
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By Stan Brown
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December 3, 2008
- The excitement and terror of Apache raids in the Rim Country had culminated on July 17, 1882 at the Battle of Big Dry Wash. Daily life was becoming less anxious, and settlers could get down to the real business of cattle raising and prospecting.
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By Stan Brown
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November 13, 2008
- By the year 1884 the village of Union Park was growing along the crossroads that came from Ox Bow Hill on the south, the mines around Marysville to the west, Pine to the north, and settlers under the Rim to the east. Businesses and homes intermingled as residents claimed the tillable properties on the meadow by the springs. The wash came to be called The American Gulch, named after the American Mine at its mouth on the East Verde River.
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By Stan Brown
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October 29, 2008
- In 1883, the news broke throughout Union Park that eastern financiers, including magnates of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, were sponsoring a railroad line that would come from Flagstaff down through the Tonto Basin, passing near Union Park.
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By Stan Brown
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October 15, 2008
- Early in 1882, Henry Sidles, who still maintained his ranch at Flowing Springs, was living in his poured-mud adobe house in Green Valley. Across from his “mud house” he built the community’s first mercantile store and saloon.
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By Stan Brown
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October 1, 2008
- Before Green Valley became a village, a mining camp almost took the honors in 1881 three miles to the west. A cluster of miners’ tents mushroomed beside the military road established more than a decade earlier by the army. The road from Tonto Basin followed Wild Rye Creek to its headwaters, and then continued to the mouth of Pine Creek.
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By Stan Brown
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September 16, 2008
- In the 10 years from 1867 through 1876, 60 skirmishes were fought between the Indians and the army in and around Green Valley (Payson) and in the Tonto Basin.
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By Stan Brown
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September 3, 2008
- Green Valley was left to the Apaches for six years following the army's failure to establish a military post there.
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By Stan Brown
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September 3, 2008
- Green Valley was left to the Apaches for six years following the army’s failure to establish a military post there. In July of 1874 De-che-ae, the last Apache chief to hold out against the white invasion was killed and the remnants of his band surrendered to the Rio Verde Reservation.
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