Arizona republican., 1911-06-29

Fifteen of the aristocracy of the
 United States of America, the men of brain and brawn and bravery who
 laid the foundations of great states
 like California, Nevada, Oregon.
 Washington. Idaho and Montana. the
 Dakotas and Utah, the vanguard of the ever westward pushing American
 civilization which conquered rivers.
 forests, fires, famine, pestilence and
 the fiercest of American aborigines
 had reunion dinner at the noon
 hour yesterday in the Bank Exchange as the guests of Attorney Joe Alexan-
 der, who came to Phoenix in 1880,
 thirty years ago, and yet, in point of pioneer years, the baby of the flock
 Not man present but who had reached the now assured metropolis of the great southwest on foot, on the top of a Concord or astride of cayuse or a burro. The dean of the fifteen was Dr. O. l.. MahOney, who camped on what afterwards became the townsite of Phoenix in 1866. The country was not fit for much in those days. According to the "reminiscences which flOated around the tables at the Bank Exchange, the valley adja- cent to Phoenix didn't become fit even for the habitation of Indians until after the arrival of the Osborns in the early part of the year 1870.
 It was in the fall of 1870 that meeting had been called at the foun- dation of store which had been laid one and one-half miles east of Phoe- nix by Jim M'Kinney, John Alvany and Captain Hancock. The meeting was called for a certain Saturday. An uncle of Johnny Moore then owned what is now known as the Germania tract, and had offered forty acres of that tract aor a townsite.
 The Friday preceding the called meeting Neri Osborn. and his father, John P. Osborn, visited the present site of Phoenix to get a load of wood. They found two men quarreling over the quarter section which lies direct ly east of Center street. Father Os- born asked the men why one did not take the quarter in dispute, and the other the quarter adjoining to the west Lacking the enlightenment of forty-one years later, the two were mulish in their obstinancy. It Oc- cured to the elder Osborn that the two quarter sections would make an excellent townsite, and after a little dickering and Quarreling the two men agreed to settle their dispute by quit claiming on the payment of twenty five dollars to each before the follow ing Monday. At the meeting the fol- lowing day the fifty dollars was raised by popular subscription and what is now the thickly settled DOT tion of the city of Phoenix, worth millions of dollars, was surrendered for a pittance. Maricopa county had not then been organized It was a part of Yavapai and the probate judge of that county transacted the, neces- sary work to make the townsite transfer legal The following F'ebru- ary. in the year 1871, the legislature created the county of Maricopa.
 It was all talked over, with many fascinating interjections by the old boys present, at the luncheon yester- day One of the Osborns told of the first election the following May, and the tragedy connected herewith. East Phoenix. the center of which was the old mill, located about three miles east of Center street on the Tempe road, And West Phoenix, which became the permanent townsite, were rivals for county seat honors. The