Arizona's Pioneer Women

Arizona's frontier is usually told through prospectors and cavalry, so this 1968 monument does something quieter: it honors the women. Among those who came west before 1875 were Arizona's first schoolteachers and the publisher of its first newspaper, and in 1876 wagon families ferried across the Colorado to settle the desert. The bronze credits them with helping the desert bloom and with seeding the settlements their descendants carried across the territory. It is a reminder that pioneering was domestic and institutional work as much as it was gold and gunfire.

What the plaque says

Before 1875 hundreds of women came to Arizona from the East and South. From this group came Arizona's first schoolteachers and the publisher of the first newspaper., In 1876 a group of pioneer women and their families came from the north, ferrying their covered wagons across the Colorado River. They helped make the desert blossom into a green oasis, and their descendants pioneered in many settlements throughout Arizona. Their courage and self-denial is the rich heritage of their posterity.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Phoenix — 1.2 mi
  The fifth-largest US city, built on the canals of a thousand-year-old one
• Heard Museum — 2.1 mi
  The Native Southwest, told in the first person
• Taliesin West — 18 mi
  Frank Lloyd Wright's desert masterwork, grown from the ground it stands on

More markers nearby

• Eusebio Francisco Kino — steps away
• The Capitol — steps away
• Boras Headframe — steps away
• Arizona Copper Company's Locomotive #2 — steps away