Flagstaff

Indian groups had settled near the site of present-day Flagstaff, but their villages were long abandoned when the first white settlers arrived. Many ruins of old pueblos lie near town.

Spanish explorers and missionaries knew of the Flagstaff area, but they had little interest in the place that offered no valuable minerals to mine or souls to save. Beginning in the 1820s, mountain men such as Antoine Leroux became expert trappers and guides in this little-known region between Santa Fe and California.

Thomas Forsythe McMillan, who arrived from California with a herd of sheep in 1876 became Flagstaff's first permanent settler. Other ranchers then moved into the area; the total population of the area in the 1880 census was 67. On August 1, 1882, the rails reached Flagstaff.

Construction of the railroad brought new opportunities, new stores, restaurants, saloons, banks and Flagstaff's first physician.

It's obvious that Flagstaff was named for a flagpole, but the question is, which flagpole. The first Boston group in the area claimed that they had put up a flagpole in April or May of 1876, before the Fourth of July celebration of the second group.

Both groups later claimed that their pole was the town's namesake. Some early settlers regarded a tall tree, trimmed of all branches, at the foot of the McMillan Mesa as the flagstaff.

But others disputed the origin, some claiming that Lt. Beale had delimbed the tree in the 1850s, and others saying that it was a relic from a railroad surveying party later on, no record exists that a flag ever flew from the tree. Another flagpole, said to have stood near Antelope Spring, did fly a flag.