Arizona Territory edit extracted from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (using Wikipedia Reflection Script)

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Territory of Arizona Organized incorporated territory of the United States ←   ← 1863 – 1912 →   → Flag A map of the Arizona and New Mexico territories, showing existing counties. Capital Fort Whipple Prescott Tucson Phoenix Government Organized incorporated territory Governor  - 1863-1866 John Noble Goodwin  - 1909-1912 Richard Elihu Sloan Legislature Arizona Territorial Legislature History  - Arizona Organic Act February 24, 1863  - Statehood of Arizona February 14, 1912

The Territory of Arizona was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 24, 1863 until February 14, 1912, when it was admitted to the Union as the 48th state.

A forerunner, identical in name but largely differing in location and size, was the Confederate Territory of Arizona that existed officially from 1861 to 1863, when it was re-captured by the Union, after which the Union created in 1863 their Territory of Arizona. Though the Confederate Arizona government of continued to rule in exile until the end of the war in 1865. The two territories played a significant role in the western campaign of the American Civil War.

Civil War

After the expansion of the New Mexico Territory in 1853 by the Gadsden Purchase, proposals for a division of the territory and the organization of a separate Territory of Arizona in the southern half of the territory were advanced as early as 1856. The first proposals for the Arizona Territory divided the territory along a line of latitude rather than the later division along a line of longitude that would divide Arizona from New Mexico

The proposals arose from concerns about the effectiveness of the territorial government in Santa Fe to administer the newly acquired southern portions of the territory.

The first proposal dates from a conference held in Tucson that convened on August 29, 1856. The conference issued a petition to the U.S. Congress, signed by 256 people, requesting organization of the territory and elected Nathan P. Cooke as the territorial delegate to Congress. In January 1857, the bill for the organization of the territory was introduced into the United States House of Representatives, but the proposal was defeated on the grounds that the population of the proposed territory was yet too small. Later a similar proposal was defeated in the Senate. The proposal for creation of the territory was controversial in part because of the perception that the New Mexico Territory was under the influence of southern sympathizers who