Sunday, Aug. 27
On this date in 1915, four passengers were killed and 16 were injured when the Santa Fe, Prescott and Phoenix train crashed through the Date Creek bridge.
On this date in 1925, Picacho Dam broke and thousands of acres in the vicinity of Picacho and Randolph were flooded.
On this date in 1929, the airship Graf Zeppelin sailed over Tucson on its world-girdling journey. Citizens watched from their rooftops as the bells of St. Augustine Cathedral were rung.
Monday, Aug. 28
On this date in 1868, Theodore Dodd, first agent to the Navajos after Fort Sumner, issued the first trading license at the agency to Lehman Spiegelberg of Santa Fe to trade at the Fort Defiance Agency or at any place of his choice on the reservation.
On this date in 1920, the mustering out of Pancho Villa and his army was completed. The men surrendered their arms and ammunition, were given three months of pay and transportation to their homes.
Tuesday, Aug. 29
On this date in 1905, James H. Tevis, who settled the town of Teviston, now known as Bowie, died. Also on this date, Dr. Richard A. Harvill, former President of the University of Arizona, was born.
On this date in 1935, four passengers were drowned when the bus on which they were riding was swamped by a seven-foot wall of water in an underpass near Dragoon, Arizona.
On this date in 1987, Lee Marvin, a tough-guy actor who won an Academy Award in 1966 for his role in “Cat Ballou” and played an unwanted part in a landmark palimony suit that set a precedent for legal cases involving property rights for unmarried couples, died at a Tucson hospital at age 63.
Wednesday, Aug. 30
On this date in 1881, troops from Fort Apache, under the command of Gen. Eugene A. Carr, arrested the Apache medicine man Noch-ay-del-klinne in his camp at Clibicue Creek, thus setting off a battle in which the medicine man, several soldiers and Apache Indians were killed.
On this date in 1913, G.W. Caywood, returning from a cross-country auto trip, found the last leg of his journey from Phoenix to Tucson the most difficult. It required 36 hours to drive, the time being spent mostly digging out of flooded arroyos.
Thursday, Aug. 31
On this date in 1886, Jacob Himblin, Mormon missionary, scout and explorer who was in charge of colonization along the Little Colorado River and served as guide to Maj. John Wesley Powell over the Lee’s Ferry route, died.
On this date in 1896, Territorial Gov. Benjamin J. Franklin received cuts, bruises and loosened teeth when the train on which he was riding was damaged as a result of a broken coupling.
On this date in 1902, Thomas Rynning was sworn in in Bisbee as captain of the Arizona Rangers.
On this date in 1936, an enraged burro attacked and critically injured a woman near Ash Fork. The burro knocked the woman down, pawed and bit her.
Friday, Sept. 1
On this date in 1865, the first public mail to reach Tucson since the beginning of the Civil War arrived from California.
On this date in 1876, Dr. Nelson Bledsoe, chief surgeon of the Calumet and Arizona Mining Co. at Bisbee and for many years a practicing physician in Southern Arizona, was born.
On this date in 1894, a cloudburst in the Graham Mountains swept Willcox with 2 feet of water, causing the adobe buildings in town to crumble away.
On this date in 1921, detachments of U.S. troops from Camp Stephen D. Little were ordered stationed at Ruby, Arizona, following the murder of the Ruby postmaster and his wife there.
On this date in 1932, fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon destroyed the main dining room and cottages valued at more than $500,000.
Saturday, Sept. 2
On this date in 1895, an ad in the Phoenix Daily Herald stated that “good meat is the basis of civilization. A man whose arteries and veins are filled with rich blood made with choice meats from Hurley’s Central Market has pluck, courage, endurance and noble impulses.”
On this date in 1896, the Phoenix Gazette announced the death of Judge J.T. Fitzgerald of Solomonville. Fitzgerald arrived in Arizona in 1878 and founded the newspaper the Clifton Clarion.
On this date in 1898, Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon Church, died in San Francisco at the age of 91.
On this date in 1921, grading of the new athletic field at the University of Arizona was completed and tentative plans for a new gum were under consideration.
On this date in 1929, a new $50,000 steel bridge was opened over the San Pedro River at St. David.
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