Happy Bike Month!

Bicycle Race Scene, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C., LC-DIG-ppmsca-08935

May is National Bike Month, and next week is Bike to Work Week, but some of us like to celebrate our bicycles all year round! I first fell in love with bicycling when living in Portland, Oregon (Portland has a way of doing that), but biking in Phoenix is unique in that it isn’t raining all the time.  And while Library of Congress has some of the finest vintage bike photos (see the Penny-Farthing below!), we have some pretty great bike-related resources here at the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records!

Times High Bicycle, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-F8- 7876 [P&P]

Photograph of Gertrude Hughes with a bicycle in San Francisco (Calif.), RG 99 Arizona State Library, Archives & Public Records, 97-6897.jpg

For instance, here is an example of a tough lady bicyclist ahead of her time. Gertrude Hughes is pictured above in San Francisco in 1894.

Photograph of Lucius D. Copeland standing beside motorized bicycle that he invented in Phoenix (Ariz.), RG 99 Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, 02-0133.jpg

And Lucius Copeland was a pioneering inventor from Phoenix who experimented with steam-powered bicycles way back in 1884! Read more about him HERE.

But our agency has lots of other resources! For instance, our State Docs department has placed several useful publications onto the Arizona Memory Project that are of use to cyclists! Share the road: a guide for bicyclists and motorists and Arizona Department of Transportation bicycle safety action plan final report are just a couple of the titles that offer tips on bicycle safety and bicyclists’ rights and responsibilities. And perhaps my favorite bicycle artifact held by the agency is the old Peugeot that arrived on the Merci Train in 1949! Read more about it HERE, though I highly recommend viewing the bike in person at the Arizona Capitol Museum!

 

What do ADNP, NEH, and the LOC all have in common?

They all want to provide youth with educational opportunities and access to America’s history!

By Carey Clifton-Myers

Every year the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) sponsors National History Day; and this year’s theme is Turning Points in History.  The Arizona Digital Newspaper Program (ADNP) is pleased to note that the NEH has advertised the Library of Congress’s website Chronicling America, of which the ADNP has played a vital role, as a valuable tool for this national contest.  Throughout the spring students from across the nation have engaged in this competition, hoping to be a part of the National Contest that will occur on June 9-13, 2013.  The NEH has several resources available on their website http://edsitement.neh.gov; this includes National History Day, the upcoming National Contest, and Chronicling America.  ADNP has been working with the Library of Congress (LOC) and the NEH to digitize historic newspapers from Arizona.  For more information on ADNP and its efforts to make Arizona’s history more available visit http://adnp.azlibrary.gov/.

The Nefarious Granville Johnson

There must have been something in the water in Coconino County in 1926. Earlier this week when I was researching the Harry Miller case (see previous post), I discovered that the Miller trial happened just four cases ahead of another case we know well around here – the Granville Johnson case. We normally don’t accept three-dimensional artifacts around here, but the Johnson came in as such a fascinating collection of material that we couldn’t possibly get rid of it. In addition to the textual court records we have in our Coconino County Superior Court criminal case holdings, we also have the murder weapon (a hatchet), photographs of the victim, and images of a very fascinating bit of 1920s car culture – something called a “garage cabin.”

As the story goes, Mr. Granville Johnson married a wealthy widow from California, and decided to take her on a trip to visit his family in the Midwest. The couple stopped on May 2, 1925 to stay in the garage cabin at the Mountain Spring Ranch…you can see from the images below that the guests would literally drive their car into the building, and sleep in a bed on an elevated platform. THIS SITE describes the establishment as being along an early alignment of Route 66. (Route 66ers, any ideas?)

Images of the “garage cabin” near Williams. Hazel Johnson and her son. Collage by Wendi Goen, Photographs Archivist, Arizona State Archives.

A page from the Mountain Spring Ranch Register, entered as evidence in the case against Granville Johnson.

The hatchet. Photographs by Wendi Goen, Photographs Archivist, Arizona State Archives.

That evening, Mr. Johnson reported that his wife had been murdered. The Williams police arrived, and a “search was made for the instrument which caused the wounds, and a blood-stained hatchet was discovered sticking in the ground about one hundred feet from the door of the cabin.” Mr. Johnson apparently forgot that the murder weapon has his name etched in the handle! See photos above. The other aspect of the story that emerged is that Mr. Johnson had taken out multiple life insurance policies on his wife. See records from the case below for more details.

We are happy to report that Granville Johnson lived out the remainder of his days at the State Prison in Florence, Arizona, until he passed away in 1950. But the story doesn’t end there! Our Photographs Archivist, Wendi Goen, shares the following:

“About five years ago, just before the Archives moved to the Rosenbaum Building, I received a reference call.  The woman on the other end of the phone told me that she was looking for information on a criminal case.  I asked her if she could give me more information.  She said ‘Well, my great-grandmother was killed by her second husband while they were traveling through Arizona.’    She and her family had no information beyond that regarding the murder. I asked a few more questions before I realized that I knew the case well.    It was a 1925  case and the perpetrator’s name was Granville W. Johnson.  He was a conman and saw a widow with a small son as an easy target.  The caller’s grandmother was a widow and owned land in Los Angeles.  Johnson saw the opportunity to pull off another con.  He wooed and courted the widow and eventually married her.  Unbeknownst to his blushing bride,  Johnson had taken out several life insurance policies on her and named himself as the beneficiary on all of them.  Shortly after their wedding, he said that he wanted to introduce his new wife and step-son to meet his family in Missouri.  They packed up the car, took money out of the bank to finance the trip and headed out for Missouri.

They reached Williams. Arizona and checked into a ‘garage motel.’  Each guest had their own ‘cabin’ in this type of motel.    Soon after they checked into the motel, other guests noticed Johnson driving back and forth in front of the motel.  Several hours later, Johnson showed up at one of the other cabins, holding his stepson and banging on the door.  When the guest staying at the cabin opened the door they discovered Johnson covered in blood claiming that robbers killed his wife and took her money.  In reality, there were no robbers.   Johnson claimed he had been in Flagstaff when his wife was murdered and offered his odometer reading as ‘proof.’   Other guests informed authorities that they had seen Johnson driving back and forth in front of the motel earlier in the day.   Johnson had killed his wife with a hatchet (that had his name on the handle) and threw it into the surrounding woods where authorities quickly discovered it.  Johnson was convicted and sent to prison.

The woman on the phone was grateful to finally hear the details of how her great-grandmother had died.  I told her that we had the case file here and that we had some evidence.  Included in the evidence was a photograph of the caller’s great-grandmother and the caller’s grandfather as a small boy.   She was silent for a few seconds and I asked her if she was okay.  I thought that perhaps I had revealed a bit too much.  She cleared her voice and said, ‘My grandfather died before I was born, I have never seen a picture of him or my great-grandmother.’  I was able to send her a copy of the photograph.”

Route 66 Revisited

Abandoned Cars, Route 66, Arizona. Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. (Click on picture to view on Library of Congress Site).

I recently had the good fortune to be invited to serve as the Arizona State Archives representative of the Route 66 Archives and Research Collaborative (ARC). This year’s annual meeting was held at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. The project, sponsored by the National Park Service and headed by Kaisa Barthuli in Santa Fe, brings together representatives from archives all along Route 66. (The website is currently a work-in-progress, but to learn more about the founding institutions, see: http://www.nps.gov/rt66/ARC/)

I saw representatives of this group (Kaisa; Sean Evans at Northern Arizona University; and Jennifer Day, then at Oklahoma Historical Society) present at the Society of Southwest Archivists/Conference of Inter-Mountain Archivists conference in Mesa last year, and it was before a packed room. The session really brought home the impact that Route 66 continues to have on constructions of American identity. The nostalgia and myth that has grown up out of the Mother Road has extended far beyond U.S. borders, and has become a fascination for folks all over the world. On a personal note, my mom grew up along Route 66 in California. A classic Route 66 story, her family lost their business along the highway when their stretch of road was bypassed by the freeway. (Amazingly, a postcard featuring their family cafe is featured on the Illinois Digital Archives!)

In light of the pop-culture/kitschy/mainstream appeal that Route 66 has, I was really excited to think about how our collections at the State Archives might fit into the larger narrative of the Mother Road. Sometimes, government archives collections have the tendency to be a bit dry, lacking the same appeal that a fantastic manuscript or photograph collection might have. But our collections do have the potential to contextualize, corroborate, or even contest myths that evolve. Here’s one of my favorites research projects that emerged out of my trip north.

Zoo Remains, Two Guns, Arizona. Photo by Libby Coyner. March 2013.

I don’t think I can even begin to describe the mind-bogglingly bizarre stories that surround the Two Guns site that occupies a deserted stretch of Route 66 between Flagstaff and Winslow. Long story short, it involves the remains of TWO zoos, the skeleton of a KOA campground, something called the “Apache Death Caves,” a cement bridge across Canyon Diablo, old crumbling service stations, and a story about a gunfight that left one Mr. Earl Cundiff dead. The story got even stranger when rumors began to circulate that in trade publications that Russell Crowe had purchased the site for $3 million (not true). For a more detailed account, the Arizona Daily Sun has published this article. Or just Google it! You’ll find about a million different versions of the story.

Just across an old cement bridge that was part of the first inception of Route 66, the ruins of the Cundiff store are still a fun spot to climb around. Just watch your step with the little porch out front, which appears to be rotted through! Photo courtesy of Sean Evans, Northern Arizona University. March 2013

At the very least, I thought maybe our Coconino County Superior Court criminal cases might shed some light on the situation. I was delighted to learn that the case itself was very rich! Not only did we have information on the jury, the case transcripts, but we also had all of the testimony! (Pardon the quality of the testimony scan…it didn’t want to cooperate!)

But the best part was what I found next…

That’s right! We had the bullet from the case filed in with the rest of the paperwork!

But if you’re wondering why Mr. Miller never shows up in the Department of Corrections prison registers for the Florence Prison, here’s why…

on June 26, 1926…

the jury found Miller not guilty!

 

All in all, this was a great experience, and I’m looking forward to further collaboration with these folks! Here are a few other highlights from the trip…

Kaisa Barthuli, the driving force behind the Route 66 ARC group, was not able to travel from Santa Fe. With the aid of technology, she was able to join for much of the meeting. Photo by Sean Evans.

Standin’ on the Corner Park in Winslow. Photo by Sean Evans.

Naturally, we had to tour the Mother Road Brewing Company! Photo by Sean Evans.

The beautiful La Posada Hotel, a Harvey Hotel in Winslow. They make a mean lunch! Photo by Sean Evans

Some members of the group walk across the old bridge at Two Guns. Photo by Sean Evans

The Twin Arrows were recently restored! Photo by Libby Coyner.

Preservation Week – Bring Your Family Treasures!

In honor of the American Library Association’s Preservation Week, Conservator Jim Neal will be hosting one-on-one sessions on how to care for your family’s archival materials. Please call 602.926.3720 to reserve a spot!

Welcome to the Archives, Forestry Division Records!

This poster adorned my bedroom door growing up for as long as I can remember.

I’ve long been interested in forest fire history. My soils scientist Dad always missed my birthday growing up because he was away at forest fires, but when he returned, he would tell me about how forest fires were part of an important natural cycle. He talked about how stumps and snags provided habitat for critters, and how the best Huckleberries grew in areas burned by forest fires. Years later, I read about forest fires in books like Stephen Pyne’s Year of the Fires and Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn. (Fun fact: Stephen Pyne teaches right here in Arizona at ASU, and has also written about the Grand Canyon and other local topics!)

With that in mind, I was really excited when we got some new forest fire records in from the Arizona State Forestry Division yesterday. (It wasn’t just me…my coworker Dennis and I were drawing straws over who gets to process the records!) The Forestry Division records document the Rodeo–Chediski Fire, the Monument Fire, and others. And I have to say, they did an amazing job of creating dream records that will be fantastic research resources.The collection is chock full of comprehensive reports (complete with images, maps, tables, etc.), photographs, maps, and many other documents. Check out a couple of examples of what we received below! We’re delighted to add this to the stable of wonderful records we have here at the State Archives.    -Libby

Happy Valentine’s Day from the State Archives!

Was it the romantic allure of the Mohave County Courthouse in Kingman that attracted Clark Gable and Carole Lombard?

Or was it the fact that getting married in Arizona was quite a bit easier and faster in 1939? Many of our volumes of marriage records feature couples from California who drove across the border to avoid the wait and the complications.

The following year, you can see that Gable and Lombard showed up in the federal census at 4525 Noeline in Los Angeles.

And don’t forget to search the Arizona Digital Newspaper Program for other gems like this!