Having a lot of time on my hands, am writing you a lot of old time experiences. This is about a near killing of your Uncle Bill.
Deathbed Letters: The Young Swede
Dear Bill: The old red blood count has not gone up yet so still have to stay in bed so another laugh for you if you can find it. Your Uncle Will [William Boyce Thompson] and I put on our skis at the old Boulder Chief mine to go to the Basin to spend Xmas […]
Legendary Frontiersman William Thompson Lost Everything–Several Times
In 1859, William Thompson won an important commission to build a government fort and houses in Yankton, then the extreme frontier of the Northwest Territory. Unfortunately, before the young frontiersman could get paid for his work tragedy struck: Indians burned the buildings. The situation left the 21-year-old penniless. It wouldn’t be the first time. An unusual number of financial tragedies befell the hard-working William Thompson […]
Walking in the Thompson Party Footsteps
Though I had never ventured this deep into the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona, as I looked at the rock jutting over the path, I felt like I had been here before. Then I realized: I had seen this site in the infamous Arboretum Picnic pictures. I say “infamous” only because my grandfather, William […]
Jimmy Filor and His Family Died in Plane Crash
Tony Thompson vividly remembers the day in 1951 that his uncle, Jimmy Filor, died in a plane crash. “I remember coming home from swimming at the Bronxville Field Club to find my mother in tears after having learned that Pop’s cousin, who they were very fond of, had crashed, along with his wife and two boys, […]
Hunt for Homes Built by J.E. Thompson Turns Into Wild Goose Chase
Great grandfather Joseph Edward Thompson must have wanted future generations to find the homes he built as a young man in Bisbee, Arizona, in 1905-06. Why else would he have paid an architect to brand them with his initials, J.E.T.? Unfortunately, the J.E.T. brand, which was painted on the homes, was nowhere to be found on a recent […]