History of Tucson

w friends he could trust and accompanied Virgil Earp and his family as they traveled to Benson for a train ride to California. They found Stilwell lying in wait for Virgil in the Tucson train station and killed him on the train tracks. After killing Stilwell, Wyatt deputized others and rode on a vendetta, killing three more Cowboys over the next few days before leaving the state.

In 1885, the University of Arizona, was founded as a land-grant college on over-grazed ranch land between Tucson and Fort Lowell. In 1890, Asians made up 4.2% of the city's population.

By 1900, 7,531 people lived in the city. The population increased gradually to 13,913 in 1910. At about this time, the U.S. Veterans Administration had begun construction on the present Veterans Hospital. Many veterans who had been gassed in World War I and were in need of respiratory therapy began coming to Tucson after the war, due to the clean dry air. Over the following years the city continued to grow, with the population increasing to 20,292 in 1920 and 36,818 in 1940. In 2006 the population of Pima County, in which Tucson is located, passed one million while the City of Tucson's population was 535,000.

In 1912, when Arizona statehood became reality, the total number of different flags that had flown over Tucson now numbered five: American, Spanish, Mexican, Confederate, and the State of Arizona.

During the territorial and early statehood periods, Tucson was Arizona's largest city and commercial center, while Phoenix was the seat of state government (beginning in 1889) and agriculture. The establishment of Tucson Municipal Airport increased its prominence. Between 1910 and 1920, Phoenix surpassed Tucson in population, and has continued to outpace Tucson in growth. In