9th Annual Western History Symposium

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Sponsored by the Sharlot Hall Museum

and

The Prescott Corral of Westerners International

9th Annual Western History Symposium at Hassayampa Inn, 122 E. Gurley St., Prescott, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  The public is invited to this free annual gathering of historians, educators and authors that features informative and intriguing presentations about the Old West and the Arizona Territory. For more information, call Fred Veil at 928-443-5580.

Arizona Territory Buffalo Soldiers: Described in Military Records, Personal Correspondence, the Territorial Press, and the Art of Frederic Remington

Time: 10:00 am

Speakers: Dr. Thomas Phillips & Dr. John Langellier

Place: Arizona Room

Beginning in 1885, the African American troopers of the 10^th Cavalry played an important role in military operations in Arizona Territory. The service of these Black regulars was widely, if not always favorably covered in the local press. Remington’s illustrations and reporting brought the presence of these so-called buffalo soldiers to a national audience. In this dual presentation, Tom Phillips discusses how Remington depicted these troops and where the nick name came from, and John Langellier examines their field service and off-duty activities.

Tom Phillips holds a Ph. D. in history from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  An independent historian, Dr. Philips has been on the trail of the buffalo soldiers for nearly fifty years. He is the co-author of The Black Regulars, 1866-1898, published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 20001. Dr. Phillips’ current research is focused on an examination of how these Black soldiers were shown in period art, and the story of Henry O. Flipper, the first African American graduate (in 1877) of the United States Military Academy.

John Langellier is the executive director of the Sharlot Hall Museum.  He received his BA and MA in history and historical archeology from the University of San Diego and his Ph.D. with an emphasis in U.S. military history from Kansas State University. He also undertook work at the Ph.D. level at Marquette University with an emphasis on U.S. government relations with the American Indian. Dr. Langellier is the author, co-author, or editor of more than 40 books and monographs, and has served as a consultant to motion pictures and television since 1973.  Prior to assuming his current position at the Museum his career in public history included nearly fifteen years with the Department of Defense, a decade at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles, and most recently as deputy director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

The Marvelous Country: Artists of the Ives Expedition Confront Grand Canyon and the Colorado Plateau

Time: 1:30 pm

Speaker: Dr. David Miller

Place: Arizona Room

The 1857-58 expedition of Lt. Joseph Ives up the Colorado River and into the lower end of the Grand Canyon resulted in a report that included maps and lithographs of the Canyon drawn by German-born cartographer Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Egloffstein.   Since they were first published in 1861, historians, river runners and Grand Canyon enthusiasts have puzzled over Egloffstein’s monotone representations of Grand Canyon.  They are so atypical of the better-known majestic Grand Canyon panoramas of artists such as Thomas Moran and William Henry Holmes that it has been recently argued that they are not really representations of Grand Canyon at all.  The truth is that the Baron was a cartographer, not a trained artist.  His published renditions were based upon tracings he made using a camera obscura, and were subject to the limitations imposed by that device, as well as modifications which incompetent copy artists and lithographers made in preparing his tracings for publication.  In this presentation the speaker will compare Egloffstein's original tracings to the lithographs and woodcuts published in Ives' Report upon the Colorado River of the West, and will evaluate the various interpretations of the Baron's work.

David Miller holds a Ph.D. in Southwest history from the University of New Mexico.  He retired after a thirty-five year career in higher education.  His research is focused on Army exploration in the Southwest in the 1840s and 1850s.  Dr. Miller is currently president of the Southern Trails Chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association.

Flour Milling in Territorial Arizona

Time: 2:30 pm

Speaker: Thomas Jones

Place: Arizona Room

Flour milling was an essential component of frontier settlement and development in the United States and Arizona was no exception. In the decade preceding the American Civil War, several flour mills were constructed in southern Arizona in the vicinity of Tucson and Tubac. Following the Civil War (ca.1867–1900), more than 40 mills were constructed across Arizona, a number of which were owned by well-established freighters and merchants, like Charles Hayden, William Hellings, JYT Smith and Solomon Warner. Others were custom mills, serving the needs of nearby settlers and small communities. Late 19^th century trends in milling technology, including New Process Milling and Gradual Reduction, as well as the invention of the Roller Mill significantly impacted the milling industry in Arizona and across the entire country as national merchant mills began producing tremendous quantities of flour and increasingly

expanding regional distribution.

Thomas Jones is employed with Archaeological Consulting Services, Ltd. of Tempe, Arizona. He has over 15 years’ experience in archeological investigations, historic artifact analysis, historic research, NRHP nominations, HABS/HAER documentation, and historic building inventories. Between 2006 and 2008, Mr. Jones served as the Historical Archaeologist, Historian, and Historic Artifact Analyst on the Hayden Flour Mill project in Tempe. He assisted in supervision of the archaeological field crew, conducted extensive archival research, and wrote the majority of the historic context for the property, including that of Flour Milling in Arizona.

The Apache Scout in Arizona’s Indian War: Ally, Renegade or Pragmatist?

Time: 3:30 pm

Speaker: Fred Veil

Place: Arizona Room

The American Indian has played an important role in the military history of North America.  Beginning with the Spanish conquest of Mexico and continuing through America’s French and Indian and Revolutionary Wars, Indian tribes allied with Spanish, English, French and colonial forces provided an important combat resource to the armies of these nations and revolutionaries.  In the post-Civil War period, Indian scouts and auxiliaries were utilized extensively by the U. S. Army in its effort to subdue the Western Indians, as many Indian tribes were more than willing to join forces with the Army against other tribes with whom they had long-standing disputes.  In Arizona, the Apaches were unique in the sense that they not only scouted against other Apaches but fought against “their own” as regularized soldiers in the U.S. Army.  This presentation will focus on this aspect of the Army’s employment of Apache scouts and auxiliaries in Arizona’ Indian Wars.

Fred Veil is a retired lawyer who has lived in Prescott since 2000. He is a graduate of Washington and Jefferson College, where he majored in history, and the Duquesne University School of Law.  A Past Sheriff of the Prescott Corral, he conceived and organized the Western History Symposium that has been held annually in Prescott since 2004.  Mr. Veil has presented talks at the Symposium and other venues, and is the author of several articles published in the Journal of Arizona History. His papers on his great-granduncle, an early Arizona soldier and pioneer, and an 1874 murder trial won the Don Bufkin Awards for the Best Territorial Period Papers at the 2008 and 2009 Arizona History Convention, respectively.

On the Wrong Side of Allen Street: Businesswomen in Tombstone, 1879-1884

Time: 7:15 pm

Speaker: Dr. Heidi Osselaer

Place: Marina Room

One of the most repeated comments about the early mining town of Tombstone is that a proper woman would never be caught walking down the wrong side of Allen Street, where the prostitutes plied their trade.  But in a frontier mining town, lines were not so clearly drawn.  Woman’s traditional role as homemaker was not rigidly enforced in territorial Arizona – the work of all residents was necessary for the budding extractive economy.   Women worked as partners with men and competed with men   running saloons, boarding houses and hotels, restaurants, dress shops and general merchandise stores.  Many women were forced to work after being widowed, divorced or abandoned.  Others chose to remain single and financially independent of men.  This presentation takes a look at some of the well-known women of Tombstone, like Nellie Cashman and Molly Fly, as well as other lesser known women such as Belle LeVan, Helene Younge, Samantha Fallon, Inez McMartin, Jessie Brown and Emma Warren.

Heidi Osselaer received her undergraduate degree in History at the University of California, Berkeley, and earned both her master’s degree and doctorate in U.S. History at Arizona State University.  In April of 2009, the University of Arizona Press published her first book, Winning Their Place: Arizona Women in Politics, 1883-1950.  She is a lecturer for the Arizona Humanities Council  and her paper, “Nellie Trent Bush: Arizona Politician,” garnered two awards at the 2008 Arizona History Convention: the Barry M. Goldwater award for best paper presented and the FAzA (Friends of Arizona Archives) award for best use of archival sources. Importantly, Dr. Osselaer was also the recipient of Goldwater Award and the Don Bufkin Award (best territorial period paper) for her “Tombstone Women” paper at the 2012 Arizona History Convention. Currently Dr. Osselaer serves on the Scholars’ Committee of the Arizona Women’s Heritage Trail.