Celebrating One Hundred Years Arizona Centennial 1912-2012

Arizona's Centennial was intended to be a really big party. The planning to celebrate one hundred years of statehood (1912-2012) in the Valentine State, the Copper State and now the Grand Canyon State, prompted groups to start formulating ideas for the Centennial celebrations over ten years ago. As with all good parties, we would set the guest list, have a number of events and entertainments and dazzle our citizens and guests. But alas, the reality of the poor economy and number of home foreclosures, a deep division over illegal immigration issues, and the tragic shooting in Tucson the exposure of wrong doings with the Fiesta Bowl has relegated the Centennial to a bit watered down.. While Arizona's largest newspaper The Arizona Republic has highlighted historic places and events of the last one hundred years, in their Sunday editions, the mood has been somewhat short of celebratory. The anticipated budget hoped for was thirty five million, and the actual budget is five million.

The first statehood celebration was simple but enthuastic. The New Mexico Territory had just been admitted to statehood in January of 1912, and the citizens of the Arizona Territory were anxiously awaiting President Taft to sign the bill of admission that would authorize the statehood for Arizona which at the time only had 250,000 residents. On February 14, 1912, when the news arrived at the telegraph office in Phoenix around 8:00 AM that Taft had signed, and Arizona was officially a state, Arizona's first governor, George W.P Hunt was sworn into office and the celebration began. History recorded that the event was celebrated with wild yells and the ringing of bells. Several souces not that flags and colored lights were hung around the downtown area of Phoenix.

Of course life in the Arizona Territory and before statehood wasn't a picnic either. A wonderful diary about life in early Arizona that has captured readers' hearts for generations is Vanished Arizona by Martha Summerhayes. Martha's account of her life as a new bride with her Army officer husband, and the dangers of disease, heat, dust, poisonous critters, travel by mules and wagons and hostile natives would boggle the minds of Hollywood writers. Our first official Arizona Territorial historian Sharlot Hall wrote poetry and gathered tales of the miners around Prescott who always worked with the hope of striking it rich. Ranchers, miners, shady ladies, farmers, priests, salesmen, nuns, and wives and mothers have all told their stories but they are buried in our archives and need re-telling. The early Hispanics who settled Southern Arizona, the Jewish traders who brought supplies, and the Native peoples such as the Hopi who still farm using traditional methods all deserve to have their history celebrated.

Some of the deeds and misdeeds of our politicians during the last one hundred years should be celebrated or mourned. Mostly mourned I believe. One cruel trick of timing was that most visitors who want to learn about our state and its history visit our Arizona State Parks. From the old Territorial Hell Hole Prison Park in Yuma to the beautiful Riordan Mansion in Flagstaff, many of the State Parks have been closed, or cut back on days and hours to cut back expenses. Some of the State Parks have looked for funding from private sources such as support foundations.

Even worse than the loss of our state parks, was the closing of many of our highway rest stops. For awhile, travel blogs about Arizona should have said, "Come to Arizona, Bring Your own toilet paper." While most of the rest stops have reopened, it also remains unclear for how long, unless we find more tax revenue.

Our grade school children were charged with raising $48,000 in copper pennies to clean the coper dome of our state capitol in Phoenix for the Centennial. Shortly after the fund raising began, a major hail storm caused so much damage to the copper dome that insurance covered the cost of replacement and the funds raised by the school children are being saved to be used for the next cleaning.

One enterprising Arizona Representative Jerry Weiers hired Paul Yaffe, a custome bike designer, build the Copper Chopper motorcycle to display over a period of 17 months leading up to the Centennial throughout Arizona. The gleaming bike is clad with copper mined in Arizona and is built for speed. The engine was designed to run from 0-60 in seconds. The Copper Chopper will be given away at a raffle at the Arizona Best Fest in Phoenix. The Arizona Best Fest will take place on the State Capitol Mall, and the Copper Chopper can be seen on Feb. 11th and 12th from noon to ten pm.

The Yuma Sun newspaper is reprinting articles on Arizona history, the quilters in Arizona have created a fabulous Centennial quilt to showcase Arizona's history, and the citizens of Sedona plan to ring the Sedona Schnebly memorial bell and have the citizens ring their own bells on the exact minute that Arizona was signed into statehood on Feb 14, 2012. A web site sponsored by Arizona State University, The Arizona Republicand other corporate agencies called Arizona StoryTellers encourages people to use this forum to tell their personal history stories of life in Arizona,

The United States Postal Service has created an Arizona Centennial Stamp to celebrate Arizona's big day. The first class stamp features a design by Arizona artist Ed Mell of beautiful Cathedral Rock in Sedona. The release of the design took place in Prescott Arizona, the site of the first Territorial Capitol. The stamp will be available across the United States beginning on Statehood Day, Feb. 14th, 2012,

While I've ranted about what is certain to be a budget centennial celebration, I confess that I love Arizona, and I plan to share stories of some of our more interesting characters in Arizona history on Hub Pages.

The amateure radio operators plan to contact listeners all over the world about the Centennial events.

The City of Glendale AZ will hold a Folk and Heritage Festival of bluegrass and Cowboy music and sponsor historic seminars on March 24-25th.

A 900 vehicle Route 66 run will take place on May 4-6 from Seligman to Topock.

On February 14th, Statehood Day, a mass wedding ceremony will be held on the steps of the State Courts Building. All Arizona marriage laws must be met and a license purchased by Feb. 6th.

So much of Arizona history is tied to Mormon history that it is only fitting that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir from Salt Lake City will perform at the US Airways Center downtown Phoenix.

Volunteer groups who have pledged 100 hours of their time.