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HolsumAZ.com > About Us > History

Historical #3

The date: February 20, 1863. The place: in the U. S. Senate. The subject: passage of the Arizona bill, which effectively created the Arizona territory. Four days later, President Abraham Lincoln placed his signature on the bill, paving the way for statehood some 49 years later.

Let us now take you back to Saulgau again. By the time Edward turned 16, his mother and father agreed to let him travel to England where he would spend one year working and - more-importantly - learning to speak English, since they believed being able to speak English would benefit Edward throughout his life.

Soon-after his arrival in England, Edward suffered a very unfortunate mishap. Somewhere between the port and London, Edward was mugged and - among other things - lost his suitcase and all of his other belongings. Several days later, when he presented himself where he had been promised employment, he was turned away. Thus, being far from his home, in a place where he could not speak the language and without a job, he decided to retrace his steps to the port and find passage back to Germany and - eventually - back to Saulgau.

Edward boarded a boat that was - purportedly - headed to Hamburg. However, all of the young men who boarded that same vessel were slightly-misled about its destination by the boat's master. For nearly two years, their boat plied the waters off the Northwest coast of Africa, hauling cargo to various ports but never moving alongside any pier (where they might have been able to sneak away). It was during this time that Edward became a cook and - among other things - he learned to bake. It wasn't until two years later that this small vessel disembarked in a new place with a strange name: Philadelphia.

At this point, Edward was now eighteen years old. In Germany, being eighteen was the age when all young men were drafted into military service. With that in mind, along with the excitement of actually being in America, Edward wrote to his father to let him know he was still alive and that he intended to stay in this new place to see if he could make a success of his life.

Edward applied for work and was hired immediately as a cook/baker at a coal mining company. However, soon after he went to work at the coal mine, Edward heard about a wagon train headed West that needed cooks. Since the opportunity appeared be an interesting one - and with slightly better pay - Edward applied for and was awarded the job.

The wagon train that Edward joined was commissioned to haul mining equipment to Colorado and also to the territory of New Mexico. Can you imagine what it must have been like, traveling by wagon from the East coast all the way out to New Mexico? But, that wasn't to become the end of the story, either. Once they delivered their final load of mining equipment in New Mexico, the wagon master learned of a need for labor to help in the construction of a water canal in the territory of Arizona. With no other job, the wagon master headed to what has become the Valley of the Sun, camped in what is now Paradise Valley, and his crew helped in the final construction of the Grand Canal, which was completed in 1881, the same year President James A. Garfield was assassinated. This was the same year - 1881 - when the City of Phoenix was incorporated.

With their work now completed, the crew on Edward's wagon team disbursed in every direction, each going his own separate way. Edward elected to walk into the newly-incorporated town of Phoenix, population of nearly 1,500, where he immediately found the Phoenix Bakery which - at that time - was owned by Mr. J. Heinson (a fellow German). He began working for Mr. Heinson and soon-after, Edward began buying the bakery until 1884, when it became his bakery for $300 and all of the outstanding debt!

This photo was taken in front of the original Phoenix Bakery, located at 7 West Washington Street in downtown Phoenix. As you can see by the signage in both windows, the Glendale-Phoenix stagecoach and the Tempe-Mesa-Phoenix stagecoach stopped at the bakery. Edward's hope was to always be able to sell passengers getting off of either stagecoach a cookie or two. Today, this is the site of Patriot's Park in downtown Phoenix; a bronze plaque is in the brick sidewalk commemorating the original site of the Phoenix Bakery.

Here is a picture of Edward Eisele taken in the late 1880's.

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