His Story

Greetings and Thank You for visiting AZITWAS, a catchall blog for our various Arizona history-related media resources.  This blog is maintained by John Parsons of The Verde Valley in Arizona.

Contact Parsons via: arizonahistorystories@gmail.com

As of January 2020 our online resources include:

https://azitwas.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ArizonaHistoryStories/

https://triviaofhistory.blogspot.com/

http://myarizonatales.blogspot.com/

https://leotheflyinglion.blogspot.com/

https://canyondiablo.blogspot.com/

http://www.us89team.com/

Susun & John love studying history together.

John Parsons was born November 1947 in Tippecanoe County, Indiana.  He grew up with the rich history of French exploration, Indian wars, pioneer settlement, freighting on The Wabash River, a spider web of history railroads and the beloved 19th Century architecture of Lafayette, Indiana.

Parsons graduated from Purdue University in 1970 with a degree in Journalism and History.  He owned and published paid circulation weekly newspapers based in Zionsville, Indiana.  He moved to Tucson, Arizona, in 1979 and then relocated to Flagstaff in 1980. He worked as a Grand Canyon River Guide through most of the 1980's and also served as a paid publications consultant for the former Grand Canyon Natural History Association.  Over the course of 20 years, Parsons worked in the natural resource conservation field.  He is widely known in The Verde Valley as "Mr. Verde River" for his efforts to "save" the iconic stream for which the region is known.

From 2001-2007, Parsons served as a US Forest Service Volunteer in a variety of capacities throughout the West.  From late 2007 to 2010, Parsons was Director of The Eastern Idaho Retired & Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) in Idaho Falls.

Currently, Parsons is devoted to bringing new life to old tales by researching and retelling already legendary Arizona History Stories.