Flagstaff

The town's name hangs on a stripped pine. By tradition, an emigrant party cleared a ponderosa's branches to raise the flag for the nation's 1876 centennial, and the flag staff gave the place its name. Water at nearby Antelope Spring made the spot worth stopping at, and when the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad pushed west in 1882 it became a construction camp, then a town. Everything Flagstaff became, from lumber and ranching to tourism and astronomy, grew from that railroad grade and that improbably named pine.

What the plaque says

Flagstaff. , Named for a pine tree stripped of its branches by a party of immigrants and used as a flagpole for a patriotic celebration on July 4, 1876. Nearby Antelope or Old Town Spring provided water and led to the establishment of a railroad construction camp when the Atlantic and Pacific pushed west in 1882.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Flagstaff — steps away
  The ponderosa town where they found Pluto and saved the dark
• San Francisco Peaks — 10 mi
  The sacred mountain of the west — 12,633 feet, and a live argument
• Walnut Canyon National Monument — 11 mi
  Sinagua cliff dwellings in the limestone — the Hisatsinom
• Sunset Crater Volcano — 14 mi
  The volcano northern Arizona watched erupt, around 1085

More markers nearby

• Logging Wheels — steps away
• Walkway of Flags — steps away
• The Milligan House — steps away
• Methodist Episcopal Church — 0.2 mi