I was looking at a map of the Navaho reservation, the majority of whose territory is in Arizona. And then I noticed the strange shapes of the three Arizona counties that overlap the reservation – Apache, Navajo, and Coconino. They seem oddly elongated on the north-south axis, with their county seats in the southern part (well away from the reservation).
I got to wondering whether there was some sinister purpose surrounding the drawing of these lines. Why was the reservation sliced up into three narrow counties? Was it an attempt to dilute the Navajo populations in the north with Anglo residents in the south?
Anyone know the story here?
Coconino County used to be part of Yavapai County, but then when the railroad came through there, and that area got populated, people didn’t want to have to go all the way down to the county seat to do business. Apache and Navajo counties also used to be one country, so the original combined county is less elongated. Like you said, the county seats are in the south because the reservations are in the north, and were closed to white settlement. So, people settled in the south, and since that’s where most white settlement was, that’s where the county seats were.
But why was the reservation sliced into thin pieces by the county lines? I suspect some sort of gerrymandering.
It wasn’t gerrymandering for the sake of the Indians. Indians in Arizona didn’t have the right to vote until 1948. I think it’s more that, if you picture Apache and Navajo counties together, which they were until 1895, that’s not so narrow.