United States or Turkmenistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In these upper Gila communities the Mormons have created a veritable garden, where careless cultivation had been known. Graham County was created by the Arizona Legislature in the spring of 1881, the settlement south of the Gila theretofore having been in Pima County. The first county seat was Safford, but county government was transferred to Solomonville by an act of the Legislature in 1883.
Now under consideration is a comprehensive irrigation system that will cost several millions of dollars, with a great concrete diversion dam above Solomonville and with two head canals that economically will serve both sides of the river. But in the early days the colonists did what they could, not what economically was advisable.
Early Days Around Safford A few Mexicans were in the valley as early as 1871, farming in the vicinity of Pueblo Viejo, immediately below which later arose the town of Solomonville.
On the morning of December 1, 1885, Lorenzo and Seth Wright were killed by Indians who had been combing the valley for horses. The Wrights had started, with members of a posse, from Layton, and were joined at Solomonville by Sheriff Stevens and two other men, after there had been recovered a number of the stolen horses, for the pursuers rode harder and faster than the fleeing thieves.
Solomonville was so named, in 1878, by none other than Bill Kirkland, who raised the American flag in Tucson in 1856 and who, for a while, carried mail from Fort Thomas to Clifton. Apostle Erastus Snow appears to have been the first of the Mormon faith to cross this Gila Valley region. His party arrived on the San Pedro River, October 6, 1878.
Over a dozen communities are contained within this section and all are distinctly Mormon in settlement and local operation, save Solomonville, at the upper end, and Safford, the county seat and principal town. Most of the land is owned by the Saints, who control, as well, a dozen small canals.
Word Of The Day