Happy Birthday Arizona!

While everyone in the rest of the country has been celebrating Valentine's Day today, here in Arizona we are starting a centennial birthday celebration that will last all year.  Today, February 14, 2012, is the 100th birthday of the State of Arizona.  Arizona was the 48th state to enter the Union and the last in the continental U.S.

It took 56 years for Arizona to gain statehood and couldn't even get the Union to recognize it until the Confederate States of America named it as a territory exactly 50 years before statehood.  Arizona has always been a wild and rugged place.  Here are some fun facts you definitely don't know about Arizona:

• Arizona is built on the "Five Cs":  copper, cotton, citrus, cattle & climate
• The saguaro cactus grows exclusively in the Sonoran desert, which is in Arizona and parts of Mexico

• The hottest day recorded in Arizona was on June 29, 1994 in Lake Havasu City - 128 degrees.  Strangely enough, even though I didn't live in Arizona at that time, I was there.
• Arizona has more golf courses than Scotland
• The first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor grew up, practiced law, was a judge and legislator in Arizona before being appointed to the Supreme Court
• The town of Show Low was named during a card game when two men agreed the one who could draw the lowest card could stay and the other would go.  C.E. Cooley turned up the Deuce of Clubs and said "show low it is".
• The London Bridge was purchased and moved to Lake Havasu City on the Colorado River

Arizona has plenty of natural resources (especially copper, silver and gold) and gorgeous places to visit.  Everyone knows about the Grand Canyon, but some other great places include:

Monument Valley

Bisbee

Tombstone

Arizona is a different place and not always in a good way, but different is also unique.  It's not like anyplace you will ever visit, which is why we would love to have you come visit.  Happy birthday Arizona!

cindy