Territory of Arizona

Detailed government survey of the Arizona Territory published near the end of the “Wild West.”

This map reflects a period of transition for Arizona and the frontier west. Produced fifteen years after the shootout at O.K. Corral and ten years after Geronimo’s final surrender, order is finally taking root among surveyed townships, ranching claims, military outposts and Indian reservations. Mining operations, farming and a fledgling tourism industry at the Grand Canyon brought settlers to the area in droves. Population increased from 40,000 in 1880 to over 125,000 in 1900. In the period of 1873 – 1891, herds of cattle increased from 40,000 head to over 1.5 million.

Native Navajos, Apache and Hualpai were less fortunate, losing their ancestral homelands and forced onto reservations set away from white settlement. Dates of such treaties and cessations that facilitated the shift to reservations are listed on the map, almost as if to provide justification for the claims. Note the extent of the survey progress is focused largely around the availability of water.