Long before statehood, Americans outside of Arizona were marveling at our exotic desert landscape, flora and fauna.
Our colleague at Axios Salt Lake City uncovered this humorous, uncharitable view in an 1862 edition of the Deseret News, which advised readers how to make "Arizona in miniature."
The report, originally published in the San Jose Mercury, comes from a soldier who appeared to take issue with California newspapers' description of Arizona's healthy climate and rich, fertile valleys in a letter to a friend.
šµ The soldier wrote that to re-create Arizona, one should fill a large dry goods box halfway with sand, a few stones, an "armful" of cactus and a thimble of water.
Add a horned rattlesnake, horned toad, tarantula, centipede and scorpion, along with a wild thistle, "and you have in miniature a fair description of the beautiful, fertile Arizona, at least of the greater portion of it."
Between the lines: The soldier was actually stationed in what's now Mesilla, New Mexico.
The Confederate territory of Arizona was then composed of what's now the southern portion of the two states.
Yes, but: The description still sounds like Arizona to us.
