Arizona republican., 1910-06-09
MAJOR BEN TRUMAN
 AN ARIZONA PIONEER
The Man Who Named the Phoenix
 Postoffice Talks of Early Times.

 in California for d short stay lately, he spent d part of the time most pleasantly at Arrowhead Hot Springs, near San Bernardino, in company with Mir and Mrs. George F. Gardner. the latter MT. Stacy's daughter. While the springs were enjoyed, for their beauty of environment and for the baths, one of the experiences that will live long in the memory of the vis- itors was meeting with Major Ben Truman, who is spending part of the summer at Arrowhead with Mrs. Truman, who happens to be an aunt of Mrs. Frank Ainsworth of Phoenix.
 Though Major Truman had not stopped in the territory for more than thirty years, he still claims to be an Arizonan by virtue of pioneer eX- periences. MT. Stacy soon learned that Major Truman had been special agent of the postoffice for the Pacific coast department in 1867, and that his jurisdiction embraced Arizona, and that he had received instruction to carefully examine into the mail con- ditions of the territory and to re- establish the old Butterfield route, be- tween Los Angeles and Santa Fe via Yuma and Tucson, and that he spent sixty odd days in Arizona, from Feb ruary Is to April 16, visiting Mari copa Wells. Prescott, Tucson, Tubac, Wickenberg. Casa Grande and other places. He established new pOstof- fices and new mail routes during his stay, many of which still exist. This was before there was any Phoenix nt. LHlpranpa. he said fbara only stage stations between Yuma and Tucson, about 300 miles, although there was a big store at Maricopa Wells, owned by Hooper, Whiting X Co. After an hours running conver- sation and "reminiscences, the major said, in substance, as remembered:
 Tt may be of interest to you to know that l named PhoeniX-that is. officially. As a matter of fact, Gov ernor k. C. Mccormick asked me to have the spot called Phoenix, the name the settlement had previously been called, and l so recommended to the postoffice department. and thus gave it its name officially. Shortly afterward I named Florence. after d maiden sister of the governor Flor ence Mccormick. At the time l crossed the Salt river on my way from Tucson to Prescott, via Camp Mcdowell and the Nulture mine, near Wickenburg, the Apaches were very dangerous, and the only white man our party met for lJ0 miles was a man named White. who owned a small flouring mill some distance from MaricOpa Wells, within the safety of the Pima Indians, who were about 12,OO0 strong and who fought and whipped the Apaches often. and whose boast it was that they had never killed a white man. The Maricopas numbered about 1,5OO, and these and the Pimas were friendly and inter- married, but each spoke d different language.
 "I stayed over at the Vulture mine twenty four hours, in March, 1867, and was greatly interested. as it was the first gold mine and the first stamp mill l had ever seen. The owners were taking out lots of gold and gave me a fine little cube and a free gold specimen of quartz. which in 1877 I presented to John Sherman, secretary of the treasury department under President Hayes.
 We were five days going from the Nuture mine to Prescott, the latter place having been so named by Me Cormick after Prescott, the historian. Here I was entertained by the officers of the army, and at one of the din- ners given me saw a roasted wild turkey that had weighed thirty eight pounds after being dressed There were deer and wild turkeys only a few miles from camp, but also Apaches.
 Tn 1878 I again visited Arizona as special agent of the postoffice depart ment, and stopped over near Phoenix as the guest of man named Hayden, who had a fine house and was build ing a big corral. Phoenix was then quite a town, and had good hotel, | several stores and trees along one or more of it's streets. The Southern Pacific only ran as far as Yuma. so made the trip between Yuma and Tucson in a blackboard.
 "Of course. Icould tell you a good many stories of this trip, how I was received at Tucson at receptions and | balls given by Lord X Williams, the | and others, and of the | good treatment I received at Phoenix, | but I will call myself off, now that have presented the above salient l features. But I have always had mighty warm spot in my heart for and have hoped for years that it would be made state"
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