Arizona Trivia & Tidbits - Page 5

Looking for Arizona trivia? Try our list Arizona little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

—Cosmo was the first dog to serve on Gilbert’s police force and now has a park named for him. Opened last summer, Cosmo Park is dedicated to dogs and commemorates the canine that served on the town’s police force from 1993 to 1999. The park features separate areas for active and timid dogs, drinking fountains, exercise equipment, a small swimming lake and dog wash areas.

first appeared: 2/27/2007

—W.T. McClelland and his wife Winifred founded Shamrock Farms in Tucson in 1922 with 20 cows. Today, Shamrock is one of the Southwest’s largest family-owned and operated dairy farms. Now located in Stanfield (pop. 651), the farm boasts some 10,000 cows that are milked twice daily, 200 at a time. The operation even has its very own “spokescow” named Roxie.

first appeared: 2/11/2007

Up to 64 of the world’s top golfers soon will arrive at The Gallery Golf Club at Dove Mountain in Marana (pop. 13,556). On Feb. 19-25, The Gallery’s South Course, a par 72 featuring 7,351 yards from its championship tees, will serve as the new home of the Accenture Match Play Championship, part of the World Golf Championships.

first appeared: 2/11/2007

—Construction began on the Fox Tucson Theatre in Tucson in 1929, and the price tag totaled $300,000 before the movie house-vaudeville venue opened the following year. The theater closed its doors in 1974, but thanks to a $13 million, six-year rejuvenation that was featured on the History Channel’s Back to the Blueprint television show, re-opened for movies and live performances in 2005.

first appeared: 1/28/2007

The Navajo “fry bread” taco is a favorite dish at Cameron Trading Post in Cameron (pop. 978). Fry bread originated in the mid-1800s when displaced Navajos at Fort Sumner in New Mexico received flour as part of their primary rations from the U.S. government. Today, the flat, fried bread is the taco’s base, which can then be topped with ground beef, beans, green chile, lettuce and tomato.

first appeared: 1/14/2007

The 18-hole golf course at the San Marcos Resort in Chandler opened in 1913 and was seeded with Bermuda grass soon afterward, making it the state’s first grass course. Dr. Alexander Chandler founded the resort, as well as the city.

first appeared: 1/14/2007

—The new Cardinals Stadium in Glendale is the first in North America to combine a retractable roof and a mobile grass playing field. The natural grass field lies on top of a 234-by-400-foot movable tray that usually sits outside, enjoying sunlight and rain. On game days, the tray moves into the stadium, taking about 45 minutes to make the journey.

first appeared: 12/17/2006

—In the mid-1980s, teacher and hiker Dale Shewalter of Flagstaff (pop. 52,894) came up with the idea of a non-motorized trail across Arizona. Today, about 92 percent of the 800-mile trail is complete, beginning near the U.S.-Mexico border in the Coronado National Memorial and extending north, including through the Grand Canyon, to the Utah border.

first appeared: 12/3/2006

—Each year, some 50,000 people don slickers, helmets and headlamps to travel 1,500 feet into the Queen Mine in Bisbee (pop. 6,090), which produced more than 8 billion pounds of copper between 1877 and 1975. More than a million people have toured the mine since it opened to the public 30 years ago, including visitors from all 50 states and more than 30 countries.

first appeared: 11/19/2006

—Born in Prescott (pop. 33,938) in 1952, John Denny was 21 when he debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1974. Primarily a pitcher, Denny went on to play for the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds and earned the Cy Young award as the National League’s outstanding pitcher in 1983.

first appeared: 11/5/2006

—The Four Peaks area of the Mazatzal Mountains, near Fountain Hills (pop. 20,235), is known for producing top-quality amethysts. Spanish explorers reportedly knew of the gems centuries ago, but their modern history dates to a discovery by Jim McDaniels in the early 20th century. Amethysts are a type of quartz, gaining their purple hue from manganese and iron.

first appeared: 10/22/2006

Located on Mount Hopkins—at 8,550 feet, the second-highest peak in the Santa Rita Range of the Coronado National Forest—the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory is the largest field installation of the Smithsonian Institution Astrophysical Observatory outside Cambridge, Mass. Accessed by a mountain road near Amado (pop. 275), the observatory’s telescopes are used for experiments that require dark skies and a dry climate.

first appeared: 10/22/2006

—The Arizona Game and Fish Department reports that while the state has 1.6 million hunter days each year, it averages only four hunting-related accidents annually—thanks in part to the department’s Hunter Education Program begun in 1955. The program certifies more than 4,800 students a year, with 800 volunteer instructors teaching firearm safety, hunter ethics, wildlife conservation, first aid and more.

first appeared: 10/8/2006

Nearly 30,000 acres, White Tank Mountain Regional Park is Maricopa County’s largest regional park. The local mountain range gained its name from a series of depressions, or “tanks,” that have been carved into the white granite rock by flash floodwaters pouring out of the mountain canyons.

first appeared: 9/24/2006

A thousand years ago, Hohokam Indians who lived in the White Tank Mountains region, west of Sun City (pop. 38,309), may have witnessed and recorded a supernova—the bright light of an exploding star. Scientists have discovered a petroglyph in the park that shows a scorpion and an eight-pointed star. The supernova that occurred in 1006 appeared near the constellation Scorpius, in similar sky positions to those depicted in the rock art.

first appeared: 9/24/2006

When 7-year-old Braxton Bilbrey swam the 1.4 miles of San Francisco Bay between Alcatraz Island and San Francisco's Aquatic Park in May, he became one of the youngest people ever to complete the crossing. The grade-schooler from Glendale-who swam the stretch in 47 minutes-prepared by practicing for two hours a day, four days a week.

first appeared: 9/10/2006

At 39 feet tall, the kachina statue built 40 years ago near Carefree (pop. 2,927) is one of the world’s tallest. It recognizes the tradition of the Hopi people, who carved doll-like statues, known as kachinas, as representations of the spirit world.

first appeared: 9/8/2006

Earlier this year, six U.S. zoos rescued 33 young monkeys that had been orphaned in Africa. The zoos, including the Wildlife World Zoo in Litchfield Park (pop. 3,810) and the San Diego Zoo, worked with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums to import the monkeys so they can live in family groups with their own species as part of conservation programs.

first appeared: 8/27/2006

Canyon de Chelly National Monument, near Chinle (pop. 5,366), encompasses 83,840 acres that are entirely Navajo Tribal Trust Land, making the monument unique to the National Park Service. Along with protecting American Indian dwellings built in its canyons between 350 and 1300 A.D., the archeological sanctuary remains home to a Navajo community, with whom the National Park Service works to manage the monument's resources.

first appeared: 8/13/2006

Established in 1931, during which it hosted 423 visitors, Canyon de Chelly (pronounced "shay") National Monument earned its name from the Navajo word for a rock canyon: "tsegi." Some three decades earlier, the building that today serves as a restaurant for Canyon de Chelly's only hotel, Thunderbird Lodge, was built as a trading post.

first appeared: 8/13/2006

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