“When settler were headed West, I could never figure out why they stopped in AZ.”
Arizona was a haven for those with tuberculosis in the era before modern medicine.
There was an electrician in Superior whose family put him on a train at the age of ten. He got off in Phoenix and, after a time in a tent city, went up to the Superstition Mtn, Iron Mtn. area and worked for the Barnett brothers and found and brought Indian artifacts for the Picket Post before working at the mine.