Mona Lange McCroskey is a fourth-generation Arizonan. In 2000, she received the Sharlot Hall Award for her contributions to the preservation of Arizona history. She was named an Arizona Culturekeeper in 2005. Mona has also edited and published Summer Sojourn to the Grand Canyon: The 1898 Diary of Zella Dysart; The Journey with Tom: Memories of an Arizona Pioneer Woman; A Mule’s Eye View of the Grand Canyon: The Photograph Collection of Trail Guide Ray Tankersley and Chasing Cattle and the Cure: Oral Histories from Yavapai County, Arizona. Watch for her new book, Non-Renewable Resources: More Oral Histories from Yavapai County, Arizona, in production at this time.

Books are available at The Phippen Museum, Sharlot Hall Museum, Hastings, Peregrine Book Company, Ogg’s Hogan, The Rancher’s Wife, and from the author.

Becky and Mona looking over her newly published book.

Now Available!

And We Danced: More Oral Histories from Yavapai County, Arizona
ISBN: 978-0-9651067-5-7

And We Danced: More Oral Histories from Yavapai County, Arizona picks up where Mona McCroskey’s Chasing Cattle and the Cure left off in 2012. This volume contains World War II experiences and a few “guest authors.” Included are Robson’s Mining World, the History of Mining in the Bagdad area, and Senator Boyd Tenney’s remarkable legislative career. Fewer narrators with longer stories mine the cultural history lode of this area a little deeper. These appealing from-the-heart accounts will make you smile and perhaps long for the simpler days in Yavapai County in the first half of the 20th century. 400 pages; fully indexed.

Chasing Cattle and the Cure: Oral Histories from Yavapai County, Arizona
ISBN: 978-0-9651067-4-0  
$40.00 retail

Chasing Cattle and the Cure: Oral Histories from Yavapai County, Arizona is a delightful and interesting account of the early days of Yavapai County. This book captures the everyday life of one hundred residents in their own words and includes hundreds of family photos never before published. This is an engaging cultural history of the area in the early years of the 20th century. 384 pages; fully indexed.

A Mule’s Eye View of the Grand Canyon: The Photograph Collection of Trail Guide Ray Tankersley
ISBN: 0-9651067-3-X  
$17.50 retail

David Raymond Tankersley was a Texas cowboy who came to Arizona in the 1920s. He was a trail guide at the Grand Canyon. The date of his exact arrival is unknown; a few of his pictures are dated 1921. It appears that he was there for some time before the Fred Harvey Company acquired the mule franchise in 1927. He worked for them until about 1931. A handsome, romantic figure of the Old West, Tankersley was immensely popular with women. This photo essay from his collection is replete with snapshots of female tourists, mule riders, and wannabe cowgirls.

The Journey with Tom: Memories of an Arizona Pioneer Woman
ISBN: 0-9651067-1-3   
$20.00 retail

Alice J. Curnow had a keen eye for detail and a wonderful sense of humor. She describes people and places that played a significant part in Arizona’s history, as well as day-to-day life, from an “Everywoman’s” viewpoint. The Curnows were in Globe City when the first elections were held. They witnessed floods and droughts and the change in the environment brought on by lumber and overgrazing. She wrote about domestic violence, the loss of a child to diphtheria, and the heartache of failed business ventures. The Arizona pioneer family is well represented by this story of domestic life in the Victorian age.

Summer Sojourn to the Grand Canyon: The 1898 Diary of Zella Dysart
ISBN: 0-9651067-0-5   
$12.50 retail

Summer Sojourn . . . is a wonderful combination of nostalgia and travel writing for both Arizona history buffs and armchair tourists. The young travelers endured rattlesnakes, bad roads, summer rainstorms, lack of drinking water and finally a falling horse. In addition to seeing the Grand Canyon, they took a side trip to the Hopi Reservation to see the famous Hopi Snake Dances. This was at a time when visitors and cameras were allowed. Zella Dysart . . . is “a precocious and observant 17-year-old” . . . her journal is an opportunity for Arizonans to make this traditional trip in a quieter, less complicated time.  —Tucson Daily Star