The New Deal in Vail In 1935, little Shirley Temple was singing “Animal Crackers in My Soup” and cheering up a country devastated by the Great Depression. Meanwhile in the White House, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) was busy crafting a restorative economic recipe of his own for the nation. It was a hearty bowl of Alphabet Soup, chock...
Arizona made Christmas official in 1881, eleven years after it was declared a federal holiday in 1870. It was not the commercial event that it is today. Having enough toys to actually have a Toy Box was almost unheard of. Boys may have had homemade marbles of baked clay, glass aggies or coveted steelies were treasured items. Some also had a jack...
The past is a significant part of what defines who we are on a personal level, as well as the world around us. It is both a mission and a joy for me to study and share a look back at the colorful history of the greater Vail area through the articles I write. Like so much of Arizona, Vail has a rich past with many stories worth telling. At the same...
It was a brisk winter morning in the Empire Mountains. John Harvey and John “Jerry” Dillon rode out on horseback to officially document what they hoped would be the next Tombstone. “Jerry, what are you going to call your latest claim?” asked John Harvey, who was filling out location notices. “I don’t know,” the Empire Ranch cowboy replied. “It’s a...
By J.J. Lamb Ads and articles in newspapers from 1963 and ‘64 touted life in “New Tucson” as having all of the perfect ingredients to make your ‘suburban living dream come true.’ “Ingredients” included a 9-hole golf course, five-years of free country club membership, use of an Olympic size pool, a restaurant, commercial area (all at Corona), horse...
By J.J. Lamb Visionary, is how the Arizona Daily Star described the farming operation of business partners, Carter Crane and John Fraker near Vails Siding in 1897. The Star reported that Crane and Fraker “have probably the finest single ranch there is in Southern Arizona. They have 600 acres under fence with more than sufficient water to irrigate...
By J.J. Lamb,Vail Preservation Society The Last Flat Piece of Land… Vail’s Siding.“In the Cienega a large number of China men are engaged excavating, as they there encounter considerable elevation throughwhich cuts have to be made, and the grade has to be raised a number of feet above the low, marshy ground…”— Arizona Weekly Star, April 15...
Continued from January 2022 Vail Voice. By J.J. Lamb …Owners of the larger ranches near Vail often hired Bee Atkins, the Rancho del Lago Foreman, to hunt predators that were killing their cattle. In November of 1936, Bee and George Davis were laying traps on the La Casa Blanca ranch owned by J. Rukin Jelks. Born in 1903 in Texas, Bee was one of...
By J.J. Lamb On a Monday afternoon in February 1936 teachers Esta Trotter and Edwin Van Doran hiked with their students to “El Rancho del Lago” to see Bee Adkins’ hunting dogs. His daughters, Alpha and Gladys attended the Vail school. Their younger sister Vina was still too young, but liked to tag along to class when she could. The Vail school...
By JJ Lamb and Gerald Lamb We usually take our roads for granted. But sometimes we have to fight for them. On June 26, 1926, 11 Vail residents—including brothers Guy and Carl Monthan and Colossal Cave Park Operator Frank Schmidt—petitioned the Pima County Board of Supervisors to declare the “the concrete dip over the Pantano Wash on the old Vail...
