Gila’s history is
mostly unwritten
The public archives hold just one old photo of Gila. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The Gila River valley was attractive for human settlement because the river was one of the few dependable water sources in the arid southwestern United States. In the 18th and 19th century, the Gila valley near the present day town was the homeland of the Bedonkohe band of the Chiricahua Apache. One of the birthplaces proposed for the Apache warrior Geronimo is Turkey Creek Hot Springs in the Mogollon Mountains, 20 kilometres (12 miles) north of present day Gila and within the Gila Wilderness. In 1792, the Spanish rulers of Mexico established a rancheria at Gila, one of a chain of settlements in northern Mexico designed to keep peace with the Apache. The Spanish built a ten room adobe building on the site. About 1829 American mountain men built a "frontier hacienda" at Gila for trade with the Apache and fur trapping. The hacienda they built (presumably with Apache help) was substantial,…
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Start Gila’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Gila’s history is told.
0 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🗓️Date a photo1 archive item has no date+2 🔁Retake an old viewL. C. Ranch Headquarters: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people close to Gila
See all 11 →
Gila, decade by decade
2000
unknown1 item
1 historic place in Gila
1 place in Gila is on the National Register of Historic Places, the country’s official list of buildings and places worth saving.
Where they are
When they were listed
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as L. C. Ranch Headquarters and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (4) and the Library of Congress (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.