Party of the Century

Celebrate! Celebrate!! Celebrate!!!
I’m just getting my chant ready because it’s going to be time for merrymaking like we’ve never seen before in less than nine years. That’s when Arizona – America’s “Valentine” state – marks her 100th birthday. February 14, 2012, to be exact. It’s never too early to start planning.
The long road to statehood took nearly a half-century and was littered with bodies and promises and little white lies and pleas and entreaties and angst. So it’s no wonder that the good folks of 1912 put on the best party Arizona had ever seen when President William Taft finally signed the papers of statehood that Wednesday morning, making Arizona the 48th state.

“Arizona will Don the Garb of Statehood,” The Arizona Republican newspaper proclaimed in its main story of the day. “Population is small but it possesses the spirit that has made the West.” Now, nearly 100 years later, the population is large, but it still possesses the spirit of the West, and so I think it’s time we get serious about planning how we’re going to celebrate our centennial.
I’ve been asking friends around the state, and we’ve come up with some nifty ideas and some lofty dreams. I’m hoping the bug will spread, and everyone will start planning today for Arizona’s birthday party in 2012.

It was my friend Jim Bishop of Sedona who first posed the issue: “We should be knocking ourselves out over the centennial – it’s only nine years away.”
Over lunch, he and I started dreaming up what great things Arizona could do, not only to commemorate the milestone, but to observe everything that got us here and everything that’s taking us into the future. Jim hopes we all remember Governor Napolitano’s words as she was inaugurated. She said that by the time of the 100th birthday, she doesn’t want Arizona to be first in car thefts, second in homicides and third in teen pregnancies, and she doesn’t want to see more people in jail than in public schools. (“Amen,” we both said over our desserts.)

So I started asking around, a friend here, a friend there. I found out Governor Janet Napolitano has already named two prominent Arizonans to lead the centennial effort, and I called them to see what they have up their sleeves. I also learned over breakfast one Sunday at Katz Deli that folks at Phoenix Art Museum are already thinking outside the box. I found many of my friends pondering grandiose thoughts, and my own head started swimming with a whole array of ideas. But before we get to the partying part – to the grand ideas and ambitious projects and fun events – we need to understand a little about what it is we’re celebrating.

In most states, you wouldn’t need to do this part because everybody would know the history. But Arizona isn’t like most states. It’s not only a “new” state, but one in which natives are as rare as a cool day in August. No, most Arizonans these days are transplants, like me, who grew up elsewhere and studied some other state’s history in school (North Dakota, in my case). So most folks who now call Arizona home don’t have a clue about what it took to gain statehood. Many think that Sharlot Hall is just a museum in Prescott.
Well, friend, it’s time you took a peek at the wild and wonderful story that brought Arizona into the Union.

Nobody thought much of this desert-to-mountain Arizona Territory that President Abraham Lincoln created on February 24, 1863. Someone said the new Territory was just like Hell – all it needed was water and good society. People here took umbrage (even though the statement was close to the truth), and Arizona spent the next 49 years proving it had water and good society, and a whole lot to add to these United States of America.

President Lincoln appointed territorial officers who could barely find this place on a map, and they realized the wild new land demanded great effort just to survive. They set up the first seat of government at Camp Whipple in Chino Valley.

They were immediately confronted with Arizona’s “rough edges.” For centuries, this land had been home to native people of many tribes. (Many of the water canals we still use in the Valley were built by the Hohokam, who vanished hundreds of years before white men ever set foot on this land.) Navajos, Hopis, Apaches, Pimas… these people had their own societies and their own traditions, but none of that mattered to the “Manifest Destiny” philosophy of white settlers who saw this as “open land” available for settlement. Clashes between whites and Indians would go on for decades. They were bloody and awful.

Arizona also was known as one of the renegade spots of the Old West, where “law and order” was hard to come by. Gunfights in the streets, unpunished murders, instantaneous hangings, unruly mobs and drunken louts – that was early Arizona.

Some notorious moments will live forever, like the gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone in 1881 – perhaps the bloodiest 27 seconds in all of Western history. Then there was the massive search for Geronimo and his “renegade” band that refused to be relegated to a reservation – a full one-third of the entire U.S. Army was sent to the Arizona Territory to capture this 100-person band that included many women and children. (Geronimo eventually surrendered in 1886.)
Notorious names like Wyatt Earp, Wild Bill Hickok, Pancho Villa, Bat Masterson and Big Nose Kate populate the early days of Arizona history.

But so did Martha Summerhayes and Sharlot Hall and George W.P. Hunt and Carl Hayden, all of whom worked tirelessly to “tame” this wild place.
As the 1800s came to a close, Arizona didn’t see being a territory as a badge, but as “bondage.” It needed the respectability and power of statehood, and efforts to get that began in earnest in 1888. As historians note, this was a nonpartisan issue, Democrats (who then ran the joint) and Republicans alike agreed on this when they could agree on nothing else.

Ironically, the first stumbling block was this: Republican senators in Washington didn’t want another state run by Democrats. And the most powerful senator of them all – Albert J. Beveridge of Indiana, chairman of the crucial Committee on Territories – saw Arizona and New Mexico populated by “unlettered” Mexicans and Indians, “who probably could not speak English and would be poor risks as citizens,” according to an Arizona Highways history called “The Road to Statehood.”

Senator Beveridge did come for an on-site visit in November 1902, but those who watched the man in action were sure he came looking for ignorance, corruption and sin (and feared he found all three). The Arizona Republican wistfully hoped Beveridge found “a high degree of civilization” in Phoenix, Tucson and Bisbee, but alas, he declared Arizona too sparsely populated, too illiterate and too lawless for statehood. (They laughed out loud in Washington when Arizona countered that someday it would have 200,000 residents – impossible, everyone else agreed.)

If you think we get upset these days about slights, you can imagine how furious those “respectable Arizona citizens” were when Congress dismissed their dreams of statehood. To add insult to injury, Beveridge advanced the idea that maybe Arizona and New Mexico should be submitted as one state – one local pundit quipped that while Beveridge was rejecting one rotten egg, he thought two rotten eggs would make a good omelet. (Oh, those early folks had such a sense of irony.)

In 1906, the idea of “jointure” actually went to a vote: Folks in New Mexico favored it, but Arizona rejected it almost six to one. Into this fray came an unmarried, feisty, determined, talented and independent woman named Sharlot Hall, who made history as the first female to ever hold office in Arizona when she became territorial historian.

Hall was a Prescott girl (transplanted from the Midwest), and her love and respect for Arizona history would not only produce some wonderful books of both prose and poetry, but would help assure Arizona became a state. (And yes, Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott is named in her honor to acknowledge all she did.)
Hall’s impassioned writing about the virtues of this state and its massive potential helped sway the day in Washington – a copy of her stories was put on the desk of every lawmaker before a crucial vote that finally allowed Arizona to call a Constitutional Convention toward statehood.
It would be the most progressive constitution in the nation, with voting rights for women, initiatives and referendums for the popular vote on crucial issues, and a recall of judges. The last point wasn’t acceptable to the president, and until Arizona removed it, he wouldn’t allow us in. (But the year after we became a state, citizens reinserted recall – so there, Washington.)

As the Arizona Highways history notes, Statehood Day was something to behold:
“At 10:23 a.m. Washington time on St. Valentine’s Day, motion picture cameras whirred for the first time at an official presidential ceremony. Abruptly, in Phoenix, a telegraph key clattered out the official message from the president: ‘I have this morning signed the proclamation declaring Arizona to be a state….’
“A stack of forty-eight sticks of dynamite echoed the people’s approval in Bisbee.
“In Globe, a cannon spoke forty-eight times.
“Engineers yanked whistle cords on boilers of locomotives, laundries, factories, mines, creameries and mills.
“In Tucson, the siren at the waterworks wailed, while University of Arizona R.O.T.C. cadets crisply executed close-order drills.
“In Prescott, Whiskey Row raised a toast of firewater and pistol shots, and Arizona-born boys and girls tossed handfuls of earth to nurture a native white oak transplanted on the plaza [still standing to this day]. A parade marched around the Yavapai County Courthouse.
“In Flagstaff, a newsman wrote, ‘Now, b’gosh, even the grub tastes better.'”
We’re going to have to work hard to make a bigger splash than that.

My friend Jim Bishop wants every one of Arizona’s 15 counties to have an official history written in honor of the centennial. And what a varied history that would be. Remember, at statehood, the seat of power wasn’t Phoenix or even Maricopa County, but Cochise County in Southeastern Arizona, where Bisbee and Tombstone were major forces. Oh, they have such stories to tell.

Meanwhile, Jim Ballinger, who runs Phoenix Art Museum, says he’s already planning a massive display of Arizona art.
If Phil Boas of The Arizona Republic has his way, Arizona will sponsor a massive “expo” that will bring visitors from all over the world.
Marjorie Rice of Wells Fargo Bank wants high school students to gather the oral histories of old-time Arizonans.
Sue Gerard, who advises the governor on health issues, notes that fourth- and eighth-graders in Arizona study state history, and so those grades should be primed for special projects to note the centennial.

Shelly Cohen, who runs the Arizona Arts Commission, sees the centennial as a time to spotlight the great talents of Arizonans. She notes that during the nation’s centennial, each state was asked to sponsor a project to reflect the nation’s history. Arizona’s project is a fabulous mural at the Heard Museum. Cohen notes that “each city should do a project,” and said it’s important that this not be “imposed” from the capital. “The art project would recognize the diversity of each community,” she says.

Dan Schilling of the Arizona Humanities Council notes that Arizona has already started celebrating, under Governor Napolitano’s “Countdown to the Centennial.” This year, 500 fourth-graders came to the state Capitol to celebrate Statehood Day, and until the actual anniversary, the governor will invite more children to the Capitol every February 14. By 2012, the state intends to have a weeklong celebration.

Heading up the governor’s centennial committee is Arizona’s official historian Marshall Trimble and longtime lady of letters Lorraine Frank.
Trimble tells me that Jerry Colangelo has already promised him that the Diamondbacks will win the World Series in 2012, and the Phoenix Suns will win the NBA Championship. He says the Cardinals have promised him that they’ll win three games that year – honest, that’s what he told me.

Seriously, he says, “this is a rare opportunity for educators to promote the history of Arizona,” so he sees it as a major learning experience for kids. “We want to make sure every town is doing something,” he adds. “Awareness is our key word – everyone needs to know what a wonderful place this is.”
Lorraine Frank says the committee “welcomes any and all ideas” about the centennial. “The governor expects to do something special every year from now until 2012, so there’s lots to do,” she adds.

Here’s a good idea from lobbyist Janice Goldstein: Have kids experience “A Day in the Life” of Arizona in 1912 – imagine how they’d handle that. (We already have some terrific “historical interpreters” who act out the lives of legendary leaders, and we should have those actors touring the state in 2012.)
And let’s not forget we’ve got Pioneer Living History Museum just north of Phoenix, which is a replica of an Old West town – that should be a major part of this birthday. Of course, we still have some actual Old West towns that look like they did in 1912, and the centennial would be a great time for those restoration projects that have been put on the back burner.

Retired lawmaker Jim Skelly would like to see Arizona’s media give us all a complete history of Arizona throughout the entire year of 2012, starting in Territorial days and doing in-depth stories about each decade of Arizona’s life. Considering that PHOENIX Magazine has produced some terrific perspective issues to commemorate previous birthdays, I’m looking to them to once again shine.

I’d also like to see a Symphony commissioned to honor our birthday, and also a ballet. I think Arizona libraries should spotlight Arizona authors. The Heard Museum, which tells the history of Native Americans every day, should certainly do even more massive projects. And if this isn’t a moment made for Arizona’s historical societies, nothing is.

I also want to see a copper coin minted for the centennial – and it could be a nice little fund-raiser for some special project that would be a lasting reminder of our 100th birthday. (Not a statue, please, but something “living” that would continue to benefit our state.)
It would also be great to have a medallion or door knocker made of copper – since we’re the nation’s No. 1 producer – that could be sold to homeowners like me who’d adore having our homes carry an historical adornment.

If Prescott children could plant a tree 100 years ago, how many trees or parks could we create for our birthday?
If we want to be authentic, we won’t have a “ball” or a “dance,” but a “fandango,” which is what they called dances in those days. We’ll have giant picnics and ice cream socials and bands in the streets, and parades.

As you can see, once you start thinking, the ideas keep coming. I just realized that in 2012, I’ll be what they call a senior citizen. But that’s OK. I’ll still be up for a great fandango!