Arizona Plays Its Own Jolly Name Game

BUMBLE BEE, Ariz. — All that’s left in this dusty town once known for its gold-filled creek is an empty schoolhouse, a couple of ranches, a diner, a gift shop and the legend of a swarm of angry bees that supposedly stung early settlers and gave Bumble Bee its name.

With a population of just 10, this spot about 60 miles north of Phoenix is one of dozens of Arizona towns with quirky names left over by early settlers. Check a state map and you’ll spot towns such as Why, Happy Jack, Inspiration, Tombstone, Snowflake, Arsenic Tubs, Two Guns, Friendly Corner or Surprise.

“They’re names of a whimsical nature. It was almost as if the people didn’t expect to be there very long,” said Marshall Trimble, Arizona’s state historian and author of “Roadside History of Arizona.”

Those who make the drive to Bumble Bee, five miles down a dirt road off Interstate 17, will find the Bumble Bee Trading Post, where a worker hands out flyers on the town’s history.

“One of the first questions a visitor usually asks is: How did Bumble Bee get its name?” the flyer reads. Thankfully, the bees don’t seem to be much of a problem anymore.

Head south to Why and John Brown tells the story of his winter home, which used to be called “the Y” because of the fork in the road where state Highways 85 and 86 meet about 130 miles west of Tucson.

“People ended up settling here, and we finally got enough for a post office,” he said. “So when they had to name the town, they changed it from the Y to Why. And that’s why Why is Why.”

The legends behind other odd town names are as varied as the communities themselves.

Many towns in central Arizona were named when settlers found any one thing in abundance. Wild strawberries, cherry trees or sunflowers filled open fields in towns now known as Strawberry, Cherry and Sunflower.

“I think it’s neat. It’s unusual,” said Lucy Sisco, a Strawberry resident. “People don’t forget it when you say you live in Strawberry, Arizona.”

Strawberry also was once known as Wah-poo-eta, named for a Tonto Apache war chief known as “Big Rump,” Trimble noted.

Many areas were named by local miners, a legacy that has lasted longer than the gold and silver they were looking for.

One legend says Inspiration in southern Arizona was named when a man had a dream about a mine and then discovered it there. Another town got its name after a group of men argued over ownership of a claim. The winners named the mine Contention.

Some were named for geological formations, such as Dos Cabezas, which means “two heads” in Spanish, because of two prominent domes atop adjacent mountains in southeastern Arizona.

And one settler must have been awfully hungry when he spied some buttes 40 miles east of Phoenix and thought they looked like a stack of tortillas. The area has been called Tortilla Flat ever since.

Suzy Lankford, at the Happy Jack Information Center, hasn’t been able to confirm tales about this jolly-sounding town located halfway between Payson and Flagstaff, but said one story refers to a happy logger who lived there in the 1940s. Jack chopped timber by day and drank a bit too much by night. Happy Jack was born.

Tombstone is the southern Arizona frontier town made famous by Wyatt Earp and the notorious gunfight at the OK Corral. But Trimble said the name actually came from Ed Schieffelin, a prospector warned by soldiers that all he would find in the mountains would be his tombstone. The stubborn Schieffelin went anyway, and when he found silver, he named the area Tombstone.

In a more lighthearted tale, two competitive neighbors in eastern Arizona decided there wasn’t enough room in town for both of them. They played a game of Seven-Up to decide who should stay and who should go. Legend has it that Marion Clark told Corydon C. Cooley to “Show low and you win.”

When Cooley drew the two of clubs, he won. “Show low it is,” he replied.

And Show Low it became.

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A Town by Any Other Name

Unusual town and city names found on the Arizona map:

Places to spend eternity:

Carefree

Friendly Corner

Happy Jack

Hope

Inspiration

Liberty

Paradise Valley

Surprise

For blissful couplehood:

Dateland

Date Creek

Groom Creek

Honeymoon

Punkin Center

Valentine

Stuff on a farm:

Cherry

Grasshopper

Many Farms

Strawberry

Sunflower

Bumble Bee

Watch your back in:

Arsenic Tubs

Bitter Springs

Fort Defiance

Dos Cabezas

Gun Sight

Two Guns

The weather should be nice in:

Summerhaven

Sun City

Sunrise

Sunset

Sun Valley

Other oddities:

Chloride

Constellation

Cowlic

Golden Shores

Hermits Rest

Hindu Canyon

Jake’s Corner

Show Low

Snowflake

Superior

Sweetwater

Tortilla Flat

Tuba City

Why

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Arizona state historian: https://www.marshalltrimble.com