“Prime source material, readable reporting of the day-by-day observations, preoccupations, and ideas of an Arizonan in 1870. . . . Marion, editor of the Arizona Miner in Prescott, details the inspection trip on which he accompanied General Stoneman and others. His little book, widely read in Arizona at the time, remains, says Donald Powell, ‘one of the best and least known such accounts from this period.’ . . . The book is notable for its descriptions of the frontier forts, the mesquite forests of southern Arizona valleys, and the adobe town of Tucson with its population of 3,000. . . . This well-edited volume . . . is a welcome addition to the Western shelf.”—Southern California Quarterly

“A valuable and well written document, now made available to the general public and enhanced by the addition of an introduction and notes by Mr. Powell. . . . the publication will be of value to serious students of Arizona history.”—Journal of Arizona History
 

Donald Moore Powell is a native New Yorker, graduate of New York schools, and of Swarthmore College. He received the degree of Master of Arts in English from Duke University and of Bachelor of Arts in Library Science from the University of Michigan. An employee of the New York Public Library, he interrupted his career to serve three years with the U.S. Army in North Africa, Italy, Frances, and Germany during World War Two.

Mr. Powell came to Tucson in 1946 as reference librarian of the University of Arizona and has been here since that time, except when he was consultant to the library of the Iraq College of Agriculture in 1957. He later became Chief of Public Services of the Library here, and in 1965 was appointed Assistant Librarian. His other publications include three books: The Peralta Grant (University of Oklahoma Press, 1960), An Arizona Gathering (Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society, 1960), and Arizona Fifty (published as a keepsake for the Arizona History Conference, 1962), and several articles on history and librarianship in professional journals.