History of Tucson

erritory, the eastern capital being Mesilla. In 1862 the California Column drove the Confederate forces out of Arizona. Tucson and all of what is now Arizona was part of New Mexico Territory until 1863, when it became part of the new Arizona Territory. From 1867 to 1877, Tucson was the capital of the Arizona Territory. Southern Arizona was legally bought from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase on June 8, 1854. Tucson was incorporated in 1877, making it the oldest incorporated city in Arizona.

From 1877 to 1878, the Tucson area suffered from a rash of stagecoach robberies. Most notably, however, were the two robberies committed by masked road-agent William Whitney Brazelton. Brazelton held up two stages in the summer of 1878 near Point of Mountain Station approximately seventeen miles northwest of Tucson. John Clum, of Tombstone, Arizona fame was one of the passengers and Brazelton would eventually be tracked down and killed on Monday August 19, 1878, in a mesquite bosque along the Santa Cruz River three miles south of Tucson by Pima County Sheriff Charles A. Shibell and his citizen's posse. Brazelton had been suspected of highway robbery not only in the Tucson area, but also in the Prescott region and Silver City, New Mexico area as well. Brazelton's crimes prompted John J. Valentine, Sr. of Wells, Fargo & Co. to send special agent and future Pima County sheriff Bob Paul to investigate. Fort Lowell, then east of Tucson, was established to help protect settlers from Apache attacks. In 1882, Frank Stilwell was implicated in the murder of Morgan Earp by Cowboy Pete Spence's wife, Marietta, at the coroner's inquest on Morgan Earp's shooting. The coroner's jury concluded that Spence, Stilwell, Frederick Bode, and Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz were the prime suspects in the assassination of Morgan Earp.  Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp gathered a