Walter Vail stepped out of a stagecoach onto the dusty streets of Tucson in 1876. Twenty-four years old, with a keen sense of purpose, Walter intended to become a successful businessman and...
Category - Vail Preservation Society

Tea, Dancing and Bridge – 1930s High Society in Vail
Tea, Dancing and Bridge – 1930s High Society in Vail “Mr. and Mrs. Cleaveland Putnam entertained Sunday for [newlyweds] Mr...
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The New Deal in Vail
The New Deal in Vail In 1935, little Shirley Temple was singing “Animal Crackers in My Soup” and cheering up a country devastated...
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Making a Difference for 25 Years
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...
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The Whole Damned Hill is a Total Wreck!
It was a brisk winter morning in the Empire Mountains. John Harvey and John “Jerry” Dillon rode out on horseback to officially...
Read MoreVail on the Silver Screen
By J.J. Lamb,Vail Preservation Society Ready, Set, Action! As cameras roll inside Colossal Cave, ranchers are attacked by monstrous fish creatures falling through ‘The Barrier’ inside the...
New Tucson – A New Way of Life
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.’...
The Big Plan — a Master Planned Community in Vail In...
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...
Steam & Steel Rails – No Match for the...
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...
One Hundred Springs
By J.J. Lamb, Vail Preservation Society One hundred springs, a wet grassy meadow, a place where grasses could be cut for feed, where horses and cattle could graze. Cien, Spanish for 100...
Quilts, Fences, Hunting Dogs, Disney, and a...
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...
Quilts, Fences, Hunting Dogs, Disney, and a...
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...
Vail Preservation Society: Vital Links to Home
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...
Evie Schley, Saved by Bud the Dog
By J.J. Lamb Sarah Eveleen “Evie” Rae Schley arrived in Arizona in 1900 from New Jersey with her husband George Rae, who was ill with tuberculosis, and their daughter Jessie. They were...