What is the Data Source?
The Gila River News Database is built from decades of tribal newspapers, starting with the Pima Central Gazette in 1935 and continuing through papers like Skoek Oidak Chick Pan, Gila River News, Pima-Maricopa Echo, and into the modern Gila River Indian News. I reviewed physical and digital issues from local archives, the Arizona State Library, ASU, the Arizona Historical Society, and even rescued papers once nearly thrown away. Every entry was created by reading through each issue—page by page—and recording what I found.

Why did I do this Project?
This project began as a small side effort while working on the Unofficial Action Sheet Database. As I read through old newspapers, I started tagging interesting stories—anything that felt historically important, funny, or worth remembering. That side list grew bigger than I expected. I realized there was a bigger need here: to organize and preserve our printed history so others don’t have to start from scratch.

Our Ancestors have left behind so much amazing knowledge – we just need a way to find it!
This database is about helping people reconnect with that knowledge. These newspapers hold generations of voices—announcements, poems, council decisions, sports scores, land issues, graduations, even jokes. We’ve always been recording ourselves. Now we just need ways to search and read those records more easily.

You can check out my blog post for the project if you want to learn more about how I built the database and what I discovered along the way.