Are you ready? Entry number 8. Really chugging along here, like a high speed rail across the country to different corners. Small counties? You got it. Populated counties? Yessir! ... or ma'am. I won't be sexist. No sluts or prostitutes here, no way.
Here is how this project of mine goes. Each and every week (or more often), using a random number generator I pick one county from the United States and give a little bit of information on that county. I am going with five general pieces of information - historical, cultural, news, natural, political, etc. - to share about the county I choose. Ideally, I'll stick it out until every single county in the United States is completed.
Here we go, Round 8!
This entry is the seventh of the counties. The randomly selected celebrity county is...
Gila County, Arizona
Incorporated: February 8, 1881
Population: 53,597
Total Area: 4,795.74 square miles
County Seat: Globe
Senators: John McCain (R), Jeff Flake (R)
Representative: Ann Kirkpatrick (D)
1st Congressional District
(1) The current county seat, Globe, AZ, was established in July 1876, before the county existed. The city was founded as a mining town in an area with ample water. Once the county itself was incorporated, the town of Globe was "important enough" to have a stagecoach connection to Silver City, NM. Despite this big time connection, Globe was a frontier town, complete with murders, stagecoach robberies, outlaws, lynchings, and Apache raids from the nearby San Carlos Apache Reservation. In modern Globe, mining, tourism, government, and retirees are the main source of income in the city's economy.
(2) The original Gila County Courthouse in downtown globe was the center of legal action in the county. The second county courthouse in the state, it was build in September 1888 and is now a member of the registry of National Historic Places. It was built from stone from the San Carlos reservation and lasted until the 1970's when the demand outgrew the size of the courthouse. The basement to the courthouse was home to the Sherrif's office, the County Jail, and sixteen cells.
It is now home to the Cobre Valley Center for the Arts, featuring fine art exhibits, theater, artist studios, classes, a music academy, dance studio, frame shop and gift shop.
(3) Bet you didn't know that Gila County had a twelve year feud between two families; the cattle-herding Grahams and the sheep-herding Tewksburys. The Pleasant Valley War lasted for over a decade and was one of the most deadly feuds in American history with both families both being nearly completely destroyed. The feud was fought over water rights, grazing rights, property rights, and border disagreements. Anywhere from 20-34 people were killed during this period.
The weapon below is that of the famous American scout Frederick Russel Burnham, who was dragged unwillingly into the conflict and even marked for death, although he did manage to escape the feud lands.
(4) In 1967, the Supreme court came to a decision that held that juveniles accused of crimes in a delinquency proceeding must be afforded many of the same due process rights as adults, such as the right to timely notification of the charges, the right to confront witnesses, the right against self-incrimination, and the right to counsel.
When fifteen-year-old Gerald Gault of Globe, Arizona, allegedly made an obscene phone call to a neighbor, he was arrested by the local police, who failed to inform his parents. After a hearing in which the neighbor didn’t even testify, Gault was promptly sentenced to six years in a juvenile “boot camp” for an offense that would have cost an adult only two months. Even in a nation fed up with juvenile delinquency, that sentence seemed over the top and inspired a spirited defense on Gault’s behalf. Led by Norman Dorsen, the ACLU ultimately took Gault’s case to the Supreme Court and in 1967 won a landmark decision authored by Justice Abe Fortas. Widely celebrated as the most important children’s rights case of the twentieth century, In re Gault affirmed that children have some of the same rights as adults and formally incorporated the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process protections into the administration of the nation’s juvenile courts.
(5) Tonto National Monument is a National Monument in central Arizona, United States with well preserved cliff dwellings dating back to the 13th century. The people of the Salado culture that lived here farmed in the Salt River valley and were considered some of the finest craftsmen of the area.
These are no small dwellings! The lower dwelling has sixteen rooms in three floors, and the upper dwelling has forty rooms in two floors.
Well I really enjoyed this. Did you? DID YOU?!? Good.... I thought so.