Riordan Mansion State Historic Park is pleased to announce the following upcoming special events for the month of July 2010. We would appreciate inclusion of these events in your public service announcements. These events are free and open to the public.

Please note that we are now on our Summer hours, open Thursday – Monday, 9:30am – 5:00pm with tours beginning at 10:00 a.m. and continuing throughout the day at the top of the hour, the last tour of the day is always 4:00 p.m. Reservations are always recommended. (closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays) Riordan is OPEN all weekends and holidays (except Christmas)-bring your friends, spread the word!!

Riordan Mansion State Historic Park is open under an agreement with the Arizona Historical Society. This is because the Arizona State Legislature has swept the funds of Arizona State Parks. Funding comes entirely from fees charged at the Park and donations, and funds raised by the Riordan Action Network. For more information, please email RiordanActionNet@aol.com or see their website www.riordanmansion.org

On-Going Series of Brown Bag Lunch Lectures, 2nd Monday of Each Month 12:15pm

Monday, Jul 12
An Arizona Century Progress Report
Presented by Lisa Schnebly Heidinger
Lisa Schnebly Heidinger has been working on the state centennial book for several years. During the process of putting together a timeline with between five and a dozen events for every year between 1912 and 2012, she’s learned a lot about our state..and found out some things she thought she knew weren’t true! From where the Yuma Territorial Prison cells are to who the Buckey O’Neill statue is, Lisa will give us an update on what’s been happening in Arizona for the past 98 years!
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Evening Slide Presentation Series, 7pm RSVP Free!
(Program is Free. Reservations are recommended due to limited availability.)

Saturday, July 17
Arizona Rangers
Presented by Richard and Sherry Mangum
During the 1880s and 1890s the Wild West disappeared from the American landscape. The last holdout was Arizona, which was still a lawless territory when the new century dawned in 1900. While Arizona’s stage robbers, rustlers, cardsharks and gunfighters liked the wildness just fine, the cattlemen, miners, railroad companies and law-abiding citizens wanted statehood and an end to lawlessness. It was obvious that the existing system was unable to cope, so under the governor’s urging the legislature created a special crime-fighting force in 1901 called the Arizona Rangers. RSVP!!

There were only fourteen men in the unit, but this brave and determined group soon began bringing the outlaws into line, using whatever force was necessary. The Rangers were soon expanded to twenty-six men, allowing them to put more pressure on the badmen and to cover the entire territory. They were so effective that by 1909 the legislature decided the Rangers were no longer needed and disbanded the outfit.

The Arizona Rangers wrote the last chapter in the saga of the Wild West, and a more colorful group never wore a badge.

Friday, Jul 23
Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway: Selections from Their 50 Year Correspondence
Presented by Kristie Miller, Historian
For half a century, Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway, two of the most remarkable women of our times, wrote to each other of their lives, losses, and families, of their political ambitions and their outlooks on life. They met in their teens, supported each other as they nursed invalid husbands and desperately ill children, and, eventually, became key players in the public life of their times – Eleanor as First lady and Isabella as Arizona’s only Representative in Congress during the New Deal. Isabella Greenway’s biographer, Kristie Miller, editor of A Volume of Friendship: The Letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Isabella Greenway 1904-1953 and Riordan Mansion’s Kathy Farretta will read selections of these letters.