Surviving Summers in Territorial Tucson before and after Statehood

If your air conditioning has ever broken down in the summer, you likely thought, “How did people live here before AC?!”  There was a grudging acceptance that when May rolled around, one had to decide whether to stay or leave the Old Pueblo for the summer. Local historian, Ken Scoville, discusses the summer routines developed around sleeping outside and enduring and evading the heat like all desert dwellers must do. Travel before the railroad arrived in 1880 was especially difficult given the physical hardship of the crossing and the ever-present possibility of an Apache ambush. George Hand’s Saloon Diary provides a first-hand (pun intended) account of the distinct way of life in the summer including his first encounter with ice cream in 1870’s Tucson.  Everyone had to come together to get through the summer while having some fun along the way!