Free Republic

DOUGLAS — Faint wagon routes and stories of a battle with bulls at the San Pedro River may be the only traces left of the Mormon Battalion’s trek through Cochise County, but Kevin and Denny Henson are reliving that history as best as they can. In 1846 about 500 Mormon men from Iowa Territory joined what became known as the Mormon Battalion for the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War. The battalion’s primary mission was to build a wagon road to San Diego. On Sunday at the Twin Buttes RV Park near Douglas, Kevin Henson gave a presentation about the...

Explanation: Last Sunday's bright fireball meteor falling through skies over California and Nevada produced sonic booms over a broad area around 7:21 am. Estimates indicate the meteor was about the size of a minivan. Astronomer Peter Jenniskens subsequently recovered these fragments of a crushed 4 gram meteorite, the second find from this meteor fall, in the parking lot of the Henningsen-Lotus state park, not far from Sutter's Mill. This is now known as the Sutter's Mill Meteorite, the location famous for its association with the California Gold Rush. The meteorite may well be astronomer's gold too, thought to be a...