My Arizona Adventures

About the Book

My Arizona Adventures is the true first-person account of an authentic American pioneer. When Tom Sanders came to Arizona’s central highlands there was nothing there; there were no roads, no towns, no law, and no protection from marauding Indians. There was nothing there but opportunities for the strong, resolute and lucky.

The year was 1863, Arizona had just become a separate Territory and its vast central interior was “the last unknown area of the United States.” That changed when a party of adventurers led by the legendary Joseph R. Walker found gold at the headwaters of the Hassayampa River and a new gold rush was underway.

One of the early arrivals was young Tom Sanders who turned 18 shortly after his arrival at the new diggings. In the next six decades Tom was a miner, farmer, freighter and rancher while Arizona evolved from wilderness territory to 48th state.

Tom was a gifted storyteller. His descriptions of the difficulties and challenges of freighting over the primitive roads between the isolated communities of Arizona Territory are understated but vivid and add much to our understanding of the frontier economy.

About the Author

About the Author: Tom Sanders (1845-1927) began his Arizona experiences in 1863 as a teenage adventurer in search of gold. When he arrived in what was described as “the last unknown section of the United States,” Arizona had been a separate Territory for less than a year. In the decades that followed, he mined, freighted, ranched, had scrapes with Indians and encountered both success and setbacks, while helping to change a wilderness into America’s 48th state. About the Editor: Al Bates writes and lectures about people and events of Territorial Arizona and is a past Sheriff of the Prescott, Arizona, Corral of Westerners International. Cover photographs are courtesy of the Sharlot Hall Museum, Prescott, Arizona Publisher: Westerners PO Box 11086 Prescott, AZ 86304