Historical Society celebrates AZ history in 150 objects

Heath was sentenced to life in prison for arranging a robbery in Bisbee that left four dead, including a pregnant woman.

The five men who committed the robbery and the murders had been sentenced to death.

That didn’t sit well with the citizens of Cochise County, who took Heath from his cell and lynched him on a telegraph pole in the county seat of Tombstone on Feb. 22, 1884.

Heath’s saddle is among 150 objects chosen for display by the Arizona Historical Society in a statewide exhibition celebrating its 150th year. The exhibit at the society’s Tucson museum opens Saturday and features 40 of the 150 objects. Others are on display at Historical Society branches in Tempe, Yuma and Flagstaff.

It was tough whittling down the list from all those proposed, said Laraine Daly Jones, the museum’s collections manager, and it’s tough for museum curators to pick a favorite.

“I have some of the 12-year-old’s fascination with Wyatt Earp’s pistol,” said Les Roe, southern division director for the society.

Other items are more significant in Arizona history, he said, including the pen used by President William Howard Taft to sign the state of Arizona into being on Feb. 14, 1912.

Daly Jones said her favorite object is an olla, or water jug, decorated by a young Tucson woman with figures from Tucson life, circa 1880. Saguaros and prickly pear share the oversized jug’s surface with depictions of Geronimo’s Apache band and the great ruins of Casa Grande.

The Historical Society, at first called the Society of Arizona Pioneers, was founded in 1864, as part of the legislation that created the territory of Arizona, said Daly Jones.

The society has been collecting significant treasures ever since. The newest object in the exhibit is a “Together We Thrive” T-shirt, created when President Obama visited McKale Center for a memorial to the victims of the Jan. 8, 2011, shootings in Tucson.