I knew this was Arizona's 100th birthday but just found out today that it became a state on February 14th...I thought, boy, I should have waited a few days to post all those cactus pictures! :-) But, I will try to embellish this post with a few of my own photos as well as internet photos because I have some fun-facts to share with all of you!
Happy Birthday Arizona!
Subject: INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ARIZONA
1. Arizona has 3,928 mountain peaks and summits—more mountains than any
one of the other Mountain States (Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New
Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming).
2. All New England, plus the state of Pennsylvania would fit inside
Arizona.
3. Arizona became the 48th state and last of the contiguous states on
February 14, 1912.
4. Arizona’s disparate climate can yield both the highest temperature
across the nation and the lowest temperature across the nation in the same
day.
5. There are more wilderness areas in Arizona than in the entire Midwest.
Arizona alone has 90 wilderness areas, while the
Midwest has 50.
6. Arizona has 26 peaks that are more than 10,000 feet in elevation.
7. Arizona has the largest contiguous stand of Ponderosa pines in the
world stretching from near Flagstaff along the Mogollon Rim to the White
Mountains region.(Show Low)
8. Yuma, Arizona is the country’s highest producer of winter vegetables,
especially lettuce.
9. Arizona is the 6th largest state in the nation, covering 113,909
square miles.
10. Out of all the states in the U.S., Arizona has the largest
percentage of its land designated as Indian lands.
11. The “Five C’s” of Arizona’s economy are: Cattle, Copper, Citrus,
Cotton, and Climate.
12. More copper is mined in Arizona
than all the other states combined,
and the Morenci Mine is the largest copper producer in all of North America.
(See Video Below)
13. Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, two of the most prominent movie stars
of Hollywood’s Golden Age, were married on March 18, 1939, in Kingman,
Arizona.
14. Covering 18,608 sq. miles, Coconino County(Flagstaff) is the second
largest county by land area in the 48 contiguous United States.
15. The world’s largest solar telescope is located at Kitt Peak National
Observatory in Sells, Arizona.
16. Bisbee, Arizona is known as the Queen of the Copper Mines because
during its mining heyday it produced nearly 25 percent of the world’s copper
and was the largest city in the Southwest
between Saint Louis and San
Francisco.
17. Billy the Kid killed his first man, Windy Cahill, in Bonita, Arizona.
18. Arizona grows enough cotton each year to make more than one pair of
jeans for every person in the United States.
19. Famous labor leader and activist Cesar Chavez was born in Yuma.
20. In 1912, President William Howard Taft was ready to make Arizona a
state on February 12, but it was Lincoln’s birthday. The next day, the 13th,
was considered bad luck so they waited until the following day. That’s how
Arizona became known as the “Valentine State.”
21. When England’s famous London Bridge was replaced in the 1960s, the
original was purchased, dismantled, shipped
stone by stone and reconstructed
in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, where it still stands today.
22. Mount Lemmon, in the Santa Catalina Mountains, is the southernmost
ski resort in the United States.(Tucson)
23. Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch in Picacho, Arizona is the largest
privately-owned ostrich ranch in the world outside South Africa.
24. If you cut down a protected species of cactus in Arizona, you could
spend more than a year in prison.
25. The world’s largest to-scale collection of miniature airplane models
is housed at the library at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in
Prescott, Arizona.
26. The only place in the country where mail is delivered by mule is
the
village of Supai, located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
27. Located on Arizona’s western border, Parker Dam is the deepest dam in
the world at 320 feet.
28. South Mountain Park/Preserve in Phoenix is the largest municipal
park in the country.
29. Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, located about 55 miles west of
Phoenix, generates more electricity than any other U.S. power plant.
30. Oraibi, a Hopi village located in Navajo County, Arizona, dates back
to before A.D. 1200 and is reputed to be the oldest continuously inhabited
community in America.
31. Built by Del Webb in 1960, Sun City, Arizona was the first 55-plus
active adult retirement community in the
country.
32. Petrified wood is the official state fossil. The Petrified Forest in
northeastern Arizona contains America’s largest deposits of petrified wood.
33. Many of the founders of San Francisco in 1776 were Spanish colonists
from Tubac, Arizona.
34. Phoenix originated in 1866 as a hay camp to supply military post Camp
McDowell.
35. Rainfall averages for Arizona range from less than three inches in
the deserts to more than 30 inches per year in the mountains.
36. Rising to a height of 12,643 feet, Mount Humphreys north of
Flagstaff is the state’s highest mountain.
37. Roadrunners are not just in cartoons! In Arizona, you’ll see them
running up to 17-mph away from their
enemies.
38. The Saguaro cactus is the largest cactus found in the U.S. It can
grow as high as a five-story building and is native to the Sonoran Desert,
which stretches across southern Arizona.
39. Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme
Court, grew up on a large family ranch near Duncan, Arizona.
40. The best-preserved meteor crater in the world is located near
Winslow, Arizona.
41. The average state elevation is 4,000 feet.
42. The Navajo Nation spans 27,000 square miles across the states of
Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, but its capital is seated in Window Rock, Arizona.
43. The amount of copper utilized to make the copper dome atop
Arizona’s
Capitol building is equivalent to the amount used in 4.8 million pennies.
44. Near Yuma, the Colorado River’s elevation dips to 70 feet above sea
level, making it the lowest point in the state.
45. The geographic center of Arizona is 55 miles southeast of Prescott
near the community of Mayer.
46. You could pile four 1,300-foot skyscrapers on top of each other and
they still would not reach the rim of the Grand Canyon.
47. The hottest temperature recorded in Arizona was 128 degrees at Lake
Havasu City on June 29, 1994.
48. The coldest temperature recorded in Arizona was 40 degrees below zero
at Hawley Lake on January 7, 1971.
49. A saguaro cactus can store up to nine tons of water.
50. The state of Massachusetts could fit inside Maricopa County(Phoenix)
(9,922 sq. miles).
51. The westernmost battle of the Civil War was fought at Picacho Pass on
April 15, 1862 near Picacho Peak in Pinal County (I was NOT there. DS).
52. There are 11.2 million acres of National Forest in Arizona, and
one-fourth of the state forested.
53. Wyatt Earp was neither the town marshal nor the sheriff in Tombstone
at the time of
the shoot-out at the O.K. Corral. His brother Virgil was the
town marshal.
54. On June 6, 1936, the first barrel of tequila produced in the United
States rolled off the production line in Nogales, Arizona.
55. The Sonoran Desert is the most biologically diverse desert in North
America.
56. Bisbee is the Nation’s southernmost mile-high city.
57. The two largest man made lakes in the U.S. are Lake Mead and Lake
Powell—both located in Arizona.
58. The longest remaining intact section of Route 66 can be found in
Arizona and runs from Seligman to Topock, a total of 157 unbroken miles.
59. The 13 stripes on the Arizona flag represent the 13 original colonies
of the United States.
60. The
negotiations for Geronimo’s final surrender took place in
Skeleton Canyon, near present day Douglas, Arizona, in 1886.
61. Prescott, Arizona is home to the world’s oldest rodeo, and Payson,
Arizona is home to the world’s oldest continuous rodeo—both of which date
back to the 1880s.
62. Kartchner Caverns, near Benson, Arizona, is a massive limestone cave
with 13,000 feet of passages, two rooms as long as football fields, and one
of the world’s longest soda straw stalactites: measuring 21 feet 3
inches.(its privately owned and something to see. south & west of Tucson)
-----Happy 100th Birthday
Arizona!-----
Here are a few more beautiful shots from the internet of the Sonoran desert...
