Filmed on Friday, March 8 2024, I drive around Flagstaff, AZ to see what's going on.
The area was first known as Antelope Spring, after the spring at the foot of Mars Hill. The name Flagstaff comes from an actual flagstaff made from a stripped pine tree that was erected at the spring.
The common story tells that the flag-raising for which the town was named occurred when a ponderosa pine flagpole made by a scouting party from Boston was raised to celebrate the United States Centennial.
The name Flagstaff was solidified in 1884 when a post office by that name was introduced alongside the railroad depot.
The first White settlement in the area was established by Edward Whipple, who opened a saloon on the wagon road in 1871. The first permanent settlement came in 1876, when Thomas F. McMillan built a cabin just north of the present-day main town.
During the 1880s, Flagstaff began to grow, and by 1886, Flagstaff was the largest city on the railroad line between Albuquerque and the West Coast of the United States.
In 1894, A. E. Douglass recommended Flagstaff to Percival Lowell as the site for the Lowell Observatory.
On January 1, 1900, John Weatherford opened the Weatherford Hotel in Flagstaff. Weatherford opened the town's first movie theater in 1911; it collapsed under heavy snowfall a few years later, but he soon replaced it with the Orpheum Theater. The Weatherford Hotel and Orpheum Theater are still in use today.
In 1926, Route 66 was completed and ran through Flagstaff. During the Great Depression, Route 66 brought unemployed workers heading to California, known as "auto nomads" in Flagstaff, who became unpopular as they could not afford to buy gas or food, financially damaging the city by taxing its resources and not contributing to the economy.
During the Apollo program in the 1960s, the Lowell Observatory was used by the United States Geological Survey to map the Moon for the lunar expeditions, enabling the mission planners to choose a safe landing site for the lunar modules.
Flagstaff has a thriving tourism industry, and has since the early 1900s, primarily stemming from its proximity to the Grand Canyon National Park and other natural wonders, giving it the nickname 'City of Seven Wonders'.
The Grand Canyon is about 80 miles northwest of Flagstaff. The first stagecoach tours to the Grand Canyon from the city began running from the Bank Hotel in 1892. In 2000, about 5 million people visiting the Grand Canyon also visited Flagstaff.
The first hotel of the Ramada Inn chain opened in Flagstaff in 1954.
Lowell Observatory celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2019 and continues to be a leading astronomical research center, as well as a popular destination for visitors. More than 100,000 people visited in both 2018 and 2019.
Flagstaff has its own New Year's Eve tradition; in the city, people gather around the Weatherford Hotel as a 70-pound, 6-foot tall, metallic pine cone is dropped from the roof at midnight.
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