Sallie Pierce Harris papers
Cyanotype of unidentified Patagonia area mine building, ca. 1914 (MS 638 Box 1 Folder 1).
Collection area: Arizona and Southwest
Collection dates: circa 1912-1989
Paper and photographs including correspondence, collected reminiscences, photocopies of newspaper articles, along with an article by Harris relating memories of the Mansfield Mining Camp in Patagonia, Arizona. Reminiscences are contributed by members of the Rood and Etchells families. Correspondents include Bob Lenon and Doris Seibold. There are photographs and a photograph album, dated mostly from 1912 to 1917, with images of family and the Patagonia, Arizona and Mansfield Canyon areas of Santa Cruz County. These include views of the Patagonia Development Company, the railroad depot, freight teams, miners and mining activity. Also included are images of Mexico, both photographs and postcards, particularly Nogales, Sonora, and Nogales, Arizona. These include images of the international line, customs house, school, and a July 4th parade. Two cyanotypes in folder 5 show a mine building and town. The photograph album is numbered in pencil on the top of the pages and there is a document inside the album that notes information about hte images on several pages of the album.
Sallie Pierce was born in 1911 in Colorado to Colwell and Mary (Rood) Pierce. They moved to Patagonia, Arizona in 1912 where Colwell worked as a mining engineer at the Mansfield Mining Camp. Later Sallie studied archaeology at the University of Arizona graduating in the 1930s. She married Jim Brewer, a ranger for the National Parks Service (NPS) and worked with him at various northern Arizona national monuments. During World War II, she became the first permanent woman park ranger in the Southwest working at Casa Grande and Tumacacori. She was divorced after the war and in the 1950s, married Richard Van Valkenburgh, a NPS archaeological researcher working with the Navajo. They divorced in the 1960s. She later worked at the Southwest Archeological Center in Globe and married William Harris, Jr. In retirement, she lived in Prescott until her death in 1994.
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