Are you a neon sign enthusiast? Please visit my neon sign blog!Click HERE.
THERE IS NO FINAL CONTAINER as of September 2016. It keeps going missing so I will replace it soon. DO NOT go tot he old location, as the property owner on that part of the road gets irate, and when I do place a new one it cannot be there. Cartridge updated Oct 2016. If you have a completion code, you may count this as a "found it."
The entire history of territorial architecture can be seen along the streets of Florence, with lovely examples of almost every style and building tradition developed during its history. There over 140 historic buildings in Florence, many of which are constructed of adobe brick. This Wherigo is not so much about the buildings themselves, but the interesting tidbits of history that lie behind those ancient adobe walls.
Florence is the fifth oldest white settlement in the state. Only two years after Arizona was established as a territory, the community of Florence was created with just a post office in 1868 and a general store in 1869. In 1875 Pinal County was formed with Florence as the county seat.
Early in its history Florence was a stagecoach hub and a center for freighting supplies to the mines located nearby, but with the completion of two dams in the area it became more agricultural. In 1866, Levi Ruggles came to the area and ran the first United States Land Office south of the Gila River. In 1875 he decided to transfer the title of his land claim to the town, and that land became the town’s main section.
There are several stories about how Florence got its name. It is possible that Florence was named after Levi Ruggles daughter; or the sister of the Territorial Governor, Richard McCorrick; or Governor Anson Safford’s sister; or Italian soldiers from Florence, in the service of the United States Army, were reminded of Florence Italy by the hills and mountains surrounding the area.
Florence was incorporated in 1908, and is probably best known for its prisons; there are five of them in town. In 1909 the territorial prison in Yuma was closed and those prisoners were transferred to Florence where the Arizona state prison was just built. There are two private prisons that contract to import prisoners from other states, one Immigration and Naturalization Service detention center, one county prison and the Arizona State Prison.
FTF Bucky McGee!
New to Wherigos?
Wherigo FAQs Here is a play anywhere Wherigo tutorial. And Wherigo forums are the best place to find information about WIGs and your device.
Here are some quick tips:
To play the Wherigo, you will need a Wherigo-enabled device. (For Andriod the app is called "WhereYouGo") info here First upload the Wherigo application to your device, then download the cartridge you want to play from the Wherigo web site, using the app. There is a link to this cartridge above.
As with all Wherigos, make sure you have uploaded the most recent version of the cartridge before you go. Often COs sometimes make changes to the cartridge and if you have the older version you will have glitches when you go to use it. So just upload it again just before you plan to go.
While using the cartridge, if you are at a zone and there is a glitch of some kind, step 30 feet away and try to enter the zone again. (Wherigo dictates the zones are only 10 feet around.) All zones/ locations are located on public property.
Save frequently during cartridge use.
Choose times of low traffic. Bring paper and pencil to jot down completion code (or take a screen shot) and to sign the log.
Unique to Wherigos, there are two places to log them once found. Post a find on geocaching.com as usual. Groundspeak created another web site just for Wherigos: http://wherigo.com. Note there are no GC codes on this site; you have to do a search by area. You can also log it there (but not required), and give the cache a rating of 1-5 stars, but you will need your completion code to do so. The cartridge will give you this code after the very last stop of the cartridge. Have a pencil and paper ready, or take a screen shot. Be ready as it is only given once!
Special thanks to cacher KennyV for allowing me to feature his dog Echo in this Wherigo. Thanks again to Ranger Fox for his easy-to-use Wherigo kit! RF WIG kit
References: http://www.delange.org/FlorenceAZ/FlorenceAZ.htm, http://visitflorenceaz.com/Walking%20Tour%20Brochure.pdf, Wikipedia, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=30520263, http://azstateparks.com/Parks/MCFA/, http://parentseyes.arizona.edu/carondelet/cammack_florence.html
GCRM