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Woolsey Ranch

Yavapai County · Arizona Highway 69 at the site of the present wooden plaque. (Ruins of Woolsey's Ranch are visible about a third of a mile to the east. · location approximate

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Ruins of WOOLSEY'S RANCH This was the first Anglo-American irrigated farm in northern Arizona. It was established in 1863 by King S. Woolsey, a miller, guide, merchant, miner, trail-blazer, Indian fighter, and legislator. Woolsey built the original Black Canyon Road to connect Yavapai County settlements with southern Arizona. It was called the Woolsey Trail.

Named in the Arizona Department of Transportation's 1997 list of markers standing in its right of way. That 1997 list covers only state highway right of way, so it does not reach markers on city streets, on tribal land, or in state and national parks.

1958 text, presented as a historical document. It uses the period's terms for Native people. The book proposed 100 markers for Arizona's highways and records 14 as cast when it went to press.

Arizona still marks its history under the same law: the State Historical Advisory Commission approves a marker, the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records certifies that its text is authentic and historically correct, and the Arizona Department of Transportation erects and maintains the markers on state highway right-of-way. Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records ↗

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Marker data: Historical Markers in Arizona, Vols. I-II (Arizona Development Board, 1958), text by Bert Fireman

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