I’ve traveled all over the country for 50 years, and I’ve really realized something. We have one great country of hers, and each state has one or more of her own unique traits and characteristics.
Our state today is the great Arizona. It is known as the ‘Grand Canyon’ state because one of the seven natural wonders of the world lies in the northwestern part of the state. The Grand Canyon, Painted Desert and Petrified Forest draw millions of people to the state each year. Once considered a desert of little value, Arizona has since become a rich state rich in agricultural and mineral resources. Currently, the state is experiencing rapid manufacturing and population growth, largely due to the development of air conditioning and the spread of irrigation.
Arizona is a border state in the Southwest, irregularly shaped and bordered by California and Nevada to the west, Utah to the north, New Mexico to the east, and Old Mexico, Sonora to the south. The northeast corner of the state is the only place in the United States where her four states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah meet. Arizona she became a state on February 14, 1912 as her 48th state. The name “Arizona” comes from the Papago Indian word meaning “little spring”. The state flower is the waxy flower of the saguaro cactus, the state tree is palo verde, the state bird is the cactus wren, and the state motto is “God will be rich.”
With a surface area of 113,000 square miles, it is the sixth largest in the state. Arizona has only 14 counties, but Coconino County is her second largest county in the United States. The state capital and largest city is Phoenix. Other important cities in the state include Tempe, Flagstaff, Tucson and Scottsdale. Arizona’s “father” was Charles D. Poston, who promoted Arizona in business and Congress. He helped organize mining companies in his 1850s and became the territory’s first member of parliament. There are many other celebrities who have played important roles in the history of this beautiful state. Among them are Wyatt Earp, Cochise, Barry Goldwater and Sandra Day O’Connor.
There is one final statistic that I would like to draw your attention to that explains why this is happening. In the 1960s, Arizona had a population of about 1.8 million. Arizona currently has a population of 7,379,346. The reason for the population explosion is that California’s next-door neighbor, the most populous state in the nation, has major problems such as homelessness, violence and tax problems. Because of this, people are leaving the state en masse. Many of them immigrated to Arizona. Florida, Texas, and a few other states are also seeing population growth because of this.
