Ernest Talks Series: Arizona Colonists, Pioneers, and Immigrants – A multicultural history
McFarland State Historic Park
Friday, March 21 3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
FREE Public Event
Arizona’s past goes far beyond Hollywood’s Wild West stereotypes of gunslinging cowboys, lawmen, and outlaws. In addition to miners, merchants, and ranchers, faith-based farmers, health seekers and women entrepreneurs of many creeds and cultures braved the West’s harshest and most treacherous territory, working together to forge lasting communities. This presentation describes Arizona history’s notables and notorious characters from common folk to public heroes including U.S. Colonel Sarah Bowman, war hero and inn keeper, and Hi Jolly, the Greco-Syrian camel driver.
About the Speaker: Before retiring from the Arizona Historical Society, Jim Turner worked with more than 70 museums across the state. He co-authored the 4th-grade textbook The Arizona Story, and his pictorial history, Arizona: Celebration of the Grand Canyon State, was a 2012 Southwest Books of the Year selection.
This program has been made possible by Arizona Humanities, AZ Speaks Programs. Arizona Humanities is a statewide 501(c)3 non-profit organization and the Arizona affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
MORE EVENTS
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Friday, January 17
Ernest Talks Series: History and Mystery of the Gila River
This program explores the geology that formed the Gila and the dinosaurs that splashed in it. You’ll learn about the history of prehistoric people who mastered and relied on the river. The human side of the Gila is brought to life through personal memoirs, field journals and anecdotes of the missionaries, explorers, and adventurers who followed it, to the pioneers who settled alongside it. The Gila River provided life giving water for agriculture, transportation, recreation, and inspiration for generations of people.
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Friday, February 28
Ernest Talks Series: The Vanishing Trading Posts
The stories of trading posts in the Southwest are a unique snapshot of life almost one hundred years ago. In the early 1900’s, trading posts in the Four Corners flourished. There were over one hundred trading posts on the plateau, but today only five remain. Why did they vanish?
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Friday, April 4
Ernest Talks Series: Cochise, Geronimo, and the Apache Wars
McNamee delves into the tangled history that surrounds the so-called “Apache Wars”, when fully half of the active U.S. Army descended on the territory to combat a relative handful of indigenous warriors. Ironically, the Apache peoples of the Southwest had once welcomed the arrival of the Americans as a buffer against Mexico, which regularly attacked Apache settlements.
