Flagstaff is the county seat of Coconino County, the second largest in the United States.  The city sits at the base of an ancient volcano, San Francisco Peaks.  The mountain rises 12,670 feet and is Arizona’s highest point.  The peaks are sacred to Indians in the region because they are considered to be home to the Hopi kachinas or “ancestor gods”.  The Peaks are also one of the 4 sacred mountains of the Navajo.

Flagstaff started as a railroad town on the Atlantic & Pacific (now Santa Fe) line in 1881.  Before the railroad arrived, the town was clustered around Flagstaff Spring.  The entire business district moved one mile east when the railroad depot was built in that location.

The first large-scale industrial company in Arizona was the Ayer Sawmill in Flagstaff.  E.E. Ayer of Chicago spent $150,000 in 1882 to ship and set up a complete sawmill.  Flagstaff was the perfect location for his lumber business since the town sits at the northern end of the world’s largest ponderosa pine forest, a timberland extending 200 miles into New Mexico and about 50 miles wide.

Flagstaff takes its name from a flag-raising ceremony commemorating the nation’s 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  A party of colonists from Boston camped at the foot of the San Francisco Peaks on July 4, 1876 and held that flag-raising ceremony.