In this year leading up to Arizona's centennial, on Feb. 14, 2012, we'll reprint a story each day from the Arizona Daily Star or Tucson Citizen archives.
March 5, 1912
About 12 years ago, Sharlot M. Hall, who for years past has been the official historian for Arizona, while making researches in the prehistoric ruins of the Aztec cliff dwellings in the Verde Valley, near Camp Verde, found a partially crumbled wall, disclosing an aperture in the rear of one of the chambers.
After excavating and removing the partition, Miss Hall found two mummies, near which were placed two ollas (porous Indian jars), sealed. In the ollas were found other vessels, in which beans of extraordinary size and resembling very closely in shape and other characteristics the white navy bean of commerce, were found.
Miss Hall gave a Camp Verde farmer several of the beans, which measured over an inch in circumference and ran pretty uniformly as to size. From the beans planted, only two vines sprouted. These were trellised on poles, growing to the height of five feet and yielding about 60 pods each, with an average of three beans per pod.
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Just before they had thoroughly matured, the farmer missed them one morning. The thief was not discovered and the beans did not reappear until two years ago, when several farmers near Prescott obtained a few for seeding.
In 1911, from these seeds, several barrels were harvested. A peck was shown at the International Dry Farming Congress at Colorado Springs. This bean, which has been named the Aztec, is attracting a great amount of attention all over the United States through this exhibition, where it took the gold award for the most remarkable variety of bean listed of prizes in the bean class. At the 7th Arizona fair at Phoenix in 1911, two lots of Aztec beans also took first and second prizes in the class mentioned.
Aztec beans exceed the well-known lima bean in weight, solidity of texture and flavor, and will no doubt be received with acclaim by the lovers of this vegetable in Boston and other centers where bean-eating is an honored ceremonial.
Growing to perfection with little precipitation and with thorough cultivation yielding at least 100 beans to a seed, it goes without saying that the Aztec bean will be extensively propagated when seeds are distributed for that purpose.
- Arizona Daily Star
The Sundt Cos., O'Rielly Chevrolet, the University of Arizona, Research Corp. for Science Advancement, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., Rosemont Copper, Tucson Realty & Trust. Co. and Jack Furrier Tire & Auto Care are sponsors of the Star's Arizona Centennial project.