Item Detail
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25820
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0
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0
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English
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Story of the American West : Told Through the Lives of Apaches, Mountain Men, Hispanics, Soldiers, Mormons, Cowboys, Blacks, Outlaws and Others, who Struggled in Arizona's White Mountains, one of the Last Untamed Regions of the West
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Pinetop, AZ
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Wolf Water Press
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438
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The legends of the American West — from Indian wars and massacres, to outlaw gangs and the struggles of settlers — come alive in the history of east-central Arizona. The forests, grasslands, mountain peaks and deep canyons have been witness to lost civilizations, conquistadors, Mountain Men and explorers. ... Mormons clashed with other settlers over land and the practice of polygamy. ...
Mormons, sent by their leaders to settle the area, found water scarce and the growing season short. Their early communal settlements soon collapsed, but since the region was secluded, it became a haven for their practice of polygamy. The Latter-day Saints braved Indian attacks, repeated dam washouts and outlaws as they struggled to build communities and make a living on small farms.
The family of William Flake was first ostracized because he bolted from a Mormon commune. Later he fought outlaws and became a patriarch. Flake purchased land for many Latter-day Saint communities before being sent to prison for polygamy. His son Charles was shot to death trying to arrest a bank robber, and a grandson was the first to die in the American Expedition to Revolutionary Russia. A granddaughter, warming herself by the fire in one of the Flake’s Victorian homes, burned to death. Yet, his 15 sons and five daughters produced thousands of descendants.
In another heartbreaking incident, a seven-year-old Mormon girl was lost on the Reservation. Apaches helped in the desperate search, which consumed local communities for a month.