The official Arizona Centennial Conference will be held April 18-21, 2012 at Pointe
Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort, Phoenix. On February 14, 1912, Arizona became the last continental territory to be admitted as a state. Delaware, the first state, had already been in the union one hundred and twenty-five years. Trains, planes, and automobiles had shrunk wide-open spaces and generated the kind of enthusiasm we now see for iProducts. The telephone was starting to supplant the telegraph, so the year before, American Telephone & Telegraph took control of Western Union Telegraph Company, to create "Ma Bell." The University of Arizona had already existed for twenty-seven years. In the same year, Oreo cookies would be introduced, and the Titanic would sink.
Some blame the gunfight at the OK Corral in 1881 for Arizona's late statehood. The national notoriety gave the rest of the country the impression that Arizona was an unruly remnant of the Wild West.
Perhaps they were right. After all, if it doesn't bite, and it's not posionous, it's not native to Arizona.
This ought to be a fun and enlightening conference. Check out the
Arizona Centennial Conference website. You might also want to read
Murder at Thumb Butte before the conference. It will put you in the mood to learn more about Arizona territorial history.
