Entrepreneurs offering assorted “get rich quick” schemes and “cure-alls” have visited Arizona since the early days. Benefitting from tales of abundant resources in the territory, limited law enforcement and communication, a scoundrel could create enticing promises of wealth and health without much external oversight. Newspapers often fanned the hysteria only to later denounce and expose the same schemes. People from across America came west to seek a better life. When that better life proved too slow in materializing, they often fell prey to quick and easy alternatives being offered by schemers. Sometimes even the well-educated and worldly could not resist the lure, despite later admitting they should have known better. This program illustrates through newspaper articles, quotes, photographs and ephemera, some of the most famous, and some of the lesser-known, embarrassing scams and hoaxes that have found gullible Arizonans.
This program is made possible by Arizona Humanities.