What to See in Safford - Top Sights and Attractions

The current Graham County Courthouse is a courthouse located at 800 W. Main St. in Safford, Arizona that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a two-story red brick building above a concrete foundation that includes a raised basement. The main part of the east-facing building is 83 feet by 62 feet, and there is a one-story 17 feet by 49 feet north wing made of brick, and a small ell in the back.

It is the fifth courthouse of the county, following one in Safford during 1881–83, two in Solomonville, Arizona during 1883–1915, and the 1901 Riggs building at Main and Central in Safford during 1915–16. After Arizona achieved statehood in 1912, Safford was chosen as the location for Graham's county seat in a 1915 election, moving it four miles west from Solomonville, the county seat since 1883. A $50,000 bond was authorized to finance construction of a courthouse with courtrooms, offices, and jail. The Classic Revival/Neo-Classic style courthouse was built in 1916. Its construction cost $44,404.

J. A. McAllister, a justice in the Arizona Supreme Court, and Jesse A. Udall, a chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court, began their careers here.

In 1982, the interior public areas retained the original wooden moldings, interior doors, door trim, and wainscoting, and wooden balustrade and newel post of the main staircase. An ell at the back, 29 feet (8.8 m) by 49 feet (15 m), that held a jail, was demolished in 1978, leaving markings from where it joined on the current small ell at the back.

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

Although the building is historic, it still serves as location of Graham County's Superior Court, in 2016.^[1]

Hotel. The historic Buena Vista Hotel in Safford, Arizona was built in 1928 at cost of $80,000. The 2-story, 46-room hotel was built by Fred and Minta Waughtal, who owned the nearby Olive Hotel, and opened Oct. 15, 1929. It featured swimming pool and two bars; the Tap Room, and the Matador Room, which both featured live music and entertainment, including jazz and country and western music. The hotel closed in 1979 and was damaged in a fire. The building was demolished in 1994.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

It is or was a two-story, 80 feet (24 m) by 100 feet (30 m) steel frame and stucco building designed by Henry O. Jaastad of Tucson and has been deemed to be the finest example of Mission Revival architecture in Safford. It has a corbeled brick parapet. It is the only hotel in Safford surviving from its historic era.

Part of the interior of the building was damaged by fire in 1979.

The building no longer exists.^[2]

Region in Graham County, Arizona. The Point of Pines Sites are a set of archaeological sites on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of Arizona. Located around the settlement of Point of Pines, they are significant for associations with Ancestral Pueblo, Mogollon and Hohokam cultures. The sites were chosen as a field school location by Dr. Emil Haury because of the unusual presence of all three major prehistoric cultures of Arizona. The field school ran from 1946 to 1960, collecting large amounts of evidence from numerous sites. The site were collectively declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964.

Point of Pines is a region in the eastern interior area of the San Carlos Reservation, occupying a high plain bounded by the Nantack Ridge and the Willow Mountains. The Nantack Ridge is a deeply folded escarpment, and it and the plain above have extensive evidence of prehistoric occupation for an extended period of time. Due to this wealth of archaeological material, it also a good location for continuing research that had begun by the University of Arizona at Kinishba and Forestdale. For most of its early history the sites in the area fit the model of the Mogollon Culture identified by Haury and others. Later on, after the 13th century there was apparently an influx of Anasazi from the Colorado Plateau and possibly the Hohokam of the Safford region.

The presence of Jeddito ware, a pottery type associated with the Hopi heartland, indicates at least trade with that area if not actual movement of people. Terah Smiley, a student of Haury's at Point of Pines, excavated and identified the rectangular Western Pueblo style kiva, forms of which are still in use today, at several of the sites.^[3]