Arizona Parks

Historic Trails of Arizona

“Arizona’s historic trails have many stories to tell. These dirt traces were the lifeblood of the region, the supply, trade, and travel routes for Native Americans, conquistadores, explorers, surveyors, traders, trappers, miners, soldiers, missionaries, emigrants—men, women, and children—and yes, even gunfighters, renegades, bounty hunters, and bandits, always following the streams or heading to where there were springs of water. Today, a few vestiges of that stalwart past still remain, wagon tracks embedded in rock surfaces, iron traces left by metal wagon wheels, ruts and swales worn over time, bypassed now by modern vehicles.”

Text from Historic Trails of Arizona

Voyage down the historic thruways of Arizona’s past thanks to the Historic Trails of Arizona program. The program preserves many routes, including:

• El Camino del Diablo (Devil’s Highway), a centuries-old rote to Yuma used by American Indians, Spanish conquistadores, missionaries, gold seekers, and boundary surveyors, including a military detachment ordered by Coronado in 1540.
• Juan Bautista de Anza Na​tional Historic Trail, which carried 240 people from the Presedio at Tubac through the Santa Cruz River to the Pima Villages on the Gila River, the Colorado, and eventually San Francisco in 1775.
• Prescott to Phoenix Stage Coach Routes, which provided much needed passenger, mail, and freight service to the newly established Territorial Capital of Prescott and to the thriving Vulture Mine in Wickenburg in the mid-1800s.
• Arizona will be hosting hundreds of trails leaders during the American Trails International Trails Symposium (ITS) scheduled for April 14 to 17, 2013 at the Yavapai Nation's Radisson Fort McDowell in Fountain Hills, Arizona.

Preserve our Land and Heritage

Opportunities to preserve our heritage occur every day, in many locations. Volunteer to monitor garter snakes at Dead Horse Ranch State Park or research hummingbirds at Patagonia Lake State Park. The Site Stewards, an extensive volunteer program that maintains and monitors cultural sites, were able to recover a lost piece of Arizona history in the Coconino National Forest. 

In February 2009, site stewards Christine Stephenson and Rich Rogers and Bern Carey were out monitoring sites in the Coconino National Forest with Dr. David Wilcox of the Museum of Northern Arizona. Rich Rogers spotted a piece of pottery at the bottom of a gully created in a slope of volcanic cinders. What was thought to be a small shard was a large prehistoric pot, 2 feet high and 20 inches in diameter—totally intact! Due to nearby footprints and offroad vehicle tracks, the pot was immediately excavated according to proper archaeological procedures. Imagine the surprise of the group when the removal of the first pot let to the discovery of another whole, intact pot—thought to be from an entirely different culture! Experts estimate that the pots were buried in the volcanic cinders around 1075–1125 C.E.

Bern Carey elaborates on the find: “Based upon the general understanding of pottery types in the Flagstaff region we think that these two pots came from two different cultures and two different geographic regions. One pot was made by the Cohonina culture, a Deadman's Fugitive Red pot. This pot may have been made up by the south rim of the Grand Canyon. The other was made by the Kayenta Anasazi culture, a Sosi type pot and may have been made over towards Monument Valley. Somehow over those long distances they came together in the Wupatki region, most probably when the population was flourishing there.”

These 900-year old relics are considered one of the most significant prehistoric artifact finds ever made in the Coconino National Forest. Thanks to a collaboration between the U.S. Forest Service, the State Historic Preservation Office, and the National Park Service, the pots are proudly and securely on display at the Wupatki National Monument Visitor Center.

Ancient mysteries remain to be discovered! Please do your part in protecting historical, cultural, and natural artifacts of Arizona’s wild places. 

Park information from Arizona State Parks.