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Arizona approaches its 110th birthday as a state in 2022, but did you know that Arizona Territory didn’t start in the United States?
Then part of New Mexico Territory, petitioners wanting a separate territory for Arizona were rebuffed by the House of Representatives in 1857. Frustrated by that, when other U.S. states seceded to join the Confederacy, future Arizonans applied to be a Confederate territory instead.
The Confederacy accepted the petition in January 1862, but Union troops pushed the Confederates out of the territory within six months. President Abraham Lincoln officially signed Arizona Territory into U.S. law the next year.
– Alex Simon, The 100 Companies