Hello dear friends,
We here at Preserve Arizona are still waiting to become incorporated so we can start accepting donations and advertising in earnest. Unfortunately, the documents submitted to the Arizona Corporation Commission were rejected due to a misspelling and a missing date. Hence, the documents had to be corrected, and resubmitted. We expect to hear some positive news in the next month. Of course, then we have to submit more documents to the Internal Revenue Service so we may obtain tax-exempt status. Who knew trying to save a few old buildings could be so - well - trying.
In other news, we will be traveling to Holbrook in early October for Old West Fest. While we are there we are going to fim a short documentary video inside the Bucket of Blood Saloon and Wattron's drugstore, recounting the history of these places and giving people a peek inside these historic structures. We are given to understand no one has set foot inside these building is almost a decade, so this will be something quite special. In researching the history of these edifices, we learned Frank Wattron, who served as the Navajo County Sheriff from 1897 to 1899, actually died in the backroom of his store, the victim of a drug overdose. It seems on the evening of August 2, 1905, Mr. Wattron was having trouble sleeping, and took twenty-five drops of laudanum (a mixture of alochol and opium). When this did not have the desired effect of bringing about sleep, Mr. Wattron took fifty more drops. He was discovered in his bed, dead, the following morning. He was forty-four years of age, and was survived by his wife, Estelle, and their six children. His remains were interred in Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.
We hope to have the video online by the end of October.
Regards,
David Grassé
President
Preserve Arizona
Incorporation Delayed
06.09.2021