Old Pueblo Almanac

Notable May Dates: 

May 1, 1880: John P. Clum printed the first issue of the Tombstone Epitaph in a tent.
May 2, 1873: The first legal hanging in Arizona is said to have taken place at Yuma across the
street from the school. The teacher, not wishing her students to witness the hanging, dismissed classes for the day.

May 2, 1904: Birthday of Emil Walter "Doc" Haury, influential archaeologist at the University of Arizona, who specialized in the archaeology of the American Southwest. He is most famous for his work at Snaketown, a Hohokam site in Arizona (d.1992).
May 4, 1872: Birthday of Harold Bell Wright, a best-selling American writer (The Mine with the Iron Door, When a Man’s a Man) of fiction, essays, and nonfiction (d. 1944).
May 5, 1887: George Hand, a Tucson pioneer, wrote in his diary that an earthquake struck
southern Arizona causing two-story buildings to sway and entire mountainsides to give way in the Catalina Mountains.
May 9, 1922: the last federal troops left Fort Apache, just as the first Lutheran Mission was
dedicated there with the baptism of 100 Apaches.
May 10, 1869: the Tully and Ochoa wagon train was attacked in Canyon del Oro by 300 Indians. Five men were killed and many more wounded, mules were stolen and the wagons burned.
May 17, 1885: a number of Apache including Nana, Mangus (son of Mangas Coloradas),
Chihuahua, Naiche, Geronimo, and their followers fled the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona after a show of force against the reservation's commanding officer Britton Davis.
May 18, 1912: acts of the first Arizona Legislature provided for the establishment and
maintenance of a general and uniform public school system and provided free textbooks for
public schools.
May 20, 1862: the advance guard of the California Column reached Tucson under the command of Lt. Col. Joseph West and established a military camp in Tucson which later became Camp Lowell.
May 22, 1894: Dr. A. E. Douglass selected a site at Flagstaff for the Lowell Observatory.
May 23, 1832: Birthday of Richard Cunningham McCormick, Jr., an American politician,
businessman, and journalist. He served as the second Governor of Arizona Territory, three-time Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives from Arizona Territory, and as a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York (d. 1901).
May 24, 1869: John Wesley Powell and his party began their historic exploration of the Colorado River.
May 25, 1942: Birthday of Jon Kyl, American politician, U.S. House of Representatives from
Arizona (1987-95), born in Oakland, Nebraska.
May 25, 1943: Birthday of Jessi Colter, [Miriam Johnson], American country singer (Not Lisa), born in Phoenix, Arizona.
May 26, 1894: the town of Flagstaff was incorporated.
May 26, 1949: Birthday of Stevie [Stephanie] Nicks, American singer songwriter (Fleetwood
Mac, Bella Donna), born in Phoenix, Arizona.
May 28, 1905: Birthday of Clara Lee Tanner, an anthropologist known for studies of the arts and crafts of American Indians of the Southwest (d. 1997).
May 29, 1873: a troop of the 5th Cavalry established a camp on the San Carlos River near Gila.It became the headquarters for the military government of the San Carlos Indian Agency.
May 30, 1848: Mexico ratifies treaty giving US; New Mexico, California & parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million.
May 30, 1864: a group of residents along Granite Creek established the town of Prescott, named after historian William Hickling Prescott.
May 30, 1899: one of the last stagecoach robberies was committed between Globe and Florence, AZ by Pearl Hart and “Joe Boot.” She was caught and convicted, and served time in Jail in Tucson, and at the Yuma Territorial Prison.