It is startling to remember that Anglo settlement in northern Arizona goes back only about a century and a half. Native American tribes have made their homes here for centuries, and their reverence for the Peaks is legendary. My own knowledge of that deeper history is a raindrop in an ocean, so for Native history, start at your local library. What I can offer is the founding story of Flagstaff itself, and one name sits close to its very beginning: Thomas McMillan.
How settlers found the mountain
The end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 brought the land that is now northern Arizona into United States territory. Expeditions soon pushed along the 35th Parallel, including those led by Whipple and Beale, followed by migrating sheepherders and wagon trains. The San Francisco Peaks became the landmark of the route. The trail was notorious for haphazard markings, so the mountain guided travelers, and it clearly awed them too. Historian Platt Cline quotes General William Palmer, a railroad surveyor: "…the people of the eastern half of our continent have scarcely a conception of the physical pleasure of mere existence in the pure air and fine weather of this…northern plateau."
Who was Flagstaff's first settler?
Most accounts give that credit to Thomas McMillan, a sheepherder who homesteaded at the base of the Peaks in 1876. The details vary with the telling. He had passed through this country on his way to California, and some accounts say he went west seeking gold. Either way, McMillan was no rube. He had lived in Australia, and his aunt was married to President James Polk. When a California drought forced a rethink in 1876, he herded his stock back to this area and settled close to where the Museum of Northern Arizona stands today, tending flocks and farming. Other settlers soon joined him: the Eldens, the Brannens, the Riordans and the Babbitts. Six years later the railroad arrived, and the little settlement became a boomtown.
Walk this story
The McMillan Building still stands in historic downtown, carrying the name of the man who got here first. Our guides pass it on the Flagstaff Haunted History Tour, nightly at 7 PM with an extra 8 PM walk on Fridays and Saturdays, 75 minutes, $29 for adults. The building's stranger stories are best heard on the sidewalk in front of it, after dark.
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