ARIZONA, USA — Is there anywhere in the world quite like Arizona?
From animal encounters to water worries, from Native futures to Valley history, the weird and wonderful Wild West continues to inspire us.
With 2024 just weeks away, we're taking a look back at the Top 10 "Most Arizona" stories that 12News brought you. Below is a selection of the stories that we believe encompass just what it means to live in State 48.
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10. Water woes stop California couple in their tracks
Pete and Judy Dorazio thought they'd found their dream retirement home.
The couple lives in California, but with the area becoming more and more expensive, they wanted to move to a place where their money would stretch further.
But their move to Arizona wasn't to be. After the couple found a 12News story on dwindling groundwater in the West Valley, they began to worry about the sustainability of their potential home.
At the beginning of 2023, newly-elected Governor Katie Hobbs unsealed a report that showed all groundwater in the area had been spoken for. In some urban parts of Arizona, new homes must prove that they have access to 100 years of water. But in most cases, that water is groundwater.
As Arizona's groundwater continues to fluctuate, fewer and fewer developers are able to meet that demand. And those that can may not be able to in the near future. For now, the Dorazios said they will stay in California to plan their next retirement move.
HERE'S THE STORY: 'That was the deal breaker': California couple halts move to Arizona over water woes
9. A little kindness goes a long way for Lake Pleasant donkey
Hundreds of donkeys roam free around Lake Pleasant. But only one of them approached a kayaker for help out of 'thorny' situation.
Travis Ward started kayaking about a year ago. He lives near the lake and goes kayaking nearly every weekend to enjoy the desert scenery and the feeling of gliding through the water.
Ward was about to get a connection like no other. Out of the blue, one of those donkeys came up to him. At first he was nervous, but as he put it, "I could just tell he was in pain."
The poor thing had gotten a faceful of cactus spines, and needed his help to get them out. Ward was able to capture the moment on video.
“He was being very still very calm and he just let me get all of them out,” Ward said.
HERE'S THE STORY: A wild donkey approached a kayaker. You'll never guess why.
8. Arizona AG shuts the valve on Saudi water deal
Bill Farr doesn't need to wonder when the water in his well will get low.
"I'm there now," he said, leaning on his truck, parked near the well. It's a mass of pipes and valves behind a chain-link fence, all leading to a big pipe that disappears into the ground.
Farr is 74 years old, with a face that shows a lifetime spent outside in the Arizona desert.
For years, a water rights deal with Saudi Arabia left rural farmers high and dry. Commercial alfalfa farms used up massive amounts of water for the crop — the growing of which is banned in Saudi Arabia. The harvests would then be sent overseas to fuel the Saudi dairy industry. Meanwhile, local wells ran dry.
Residents, and the newly-elected attorney general, were fed up. In January, Attorney General Kris Mayes kicked off a 10-month-long process to terminate the largest of those Saudi Arabian water leases.
12News was there every step of the way.
HERE'S THE STORY: Saudi farms are sucking Arizona's groundwater dry. The state's new AG vows to stop them
7. Scorching hot pavement sends Mesa man to the hospital
It started out as a typical commute - typical for Timothy Young.
"I was switching to the light rail," Young said. "I got an addiction to Pokémon, I was playing Pokémon downtown Mesa. I was waiting at the light rail station, next thing I know I was being woken up by EMTs."
This summer was one of the hottest ever recorded — July was the hottest month on record for Phoenix. And with those temperatures came injuries. Hot pavement gave some residents severe burns.
Young was fortunate enough to recover, but 10 minutes on the pavement led to burns down the left side of his body. As temperatures trend hotter for much of the Valley, hydration and caution become more important with every year.
HERE'S THE STORY: Mesa man suffers serious burns after passing out on hot pavement
6. Grand Canyon national monument becomes a reality
It was no secret that Arizona was built on mining, and at great cost to indigenous communities. But times are changing, and during his upcoming visit, President Biden designated a vast swath of land near the Grand Canyon as a national monument -- a move that would render it off-limits to uranium mining.
The Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni -- Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument sets protection standards for 917,618 acres of land in three distinct areas north and south of Grand Canyon National Park. The new monument contains over 3,000 known cultural and historic sites. It also designates 12 indigenous tribes associated with the canyon to help oversee the protected land.
With nearly a million acres of land now under protection, and tribal leaders given a large say in how it's handled, the designation marked a significant shift in the support given to indigenous people.
HERE'S THE STORY: There are 3,000 known cultural and historic sites at Biden's new Grand Canyon national monument
5. Treasure trove of Valley history found at Maryvale elementary school
On the corner of a Cartwright School District campus is a small red-brick building. With its dusty trim and whitewashed windowsills, it looks old -- and from the outside, you'd never guess that it was full of artifacts predating Arizona.
It's called the Cartwright Heritage House, and the building itself was constructed in 1928. But the land it sits on has an even deeper history.
In a city with a bad habit of paving over its history, one little school building survived Phoenix's explosive growth. And good thing, because it came to house artifacts dating back to the 1860s. With records of a pioneer family's journey west and the roots of Phoenix as a city, the house stands as a reminder of just how far Arizona has come.
HERE'S THE STORY: 'My God, to see it in person': 160 years of Phoenix history were discovered at a Maryvale elementary school
4. Teenager survives frightening fall into Grand Canyon
What was supposed to be a trip of a lifetime for a North Dakota family, nearly turned into a tragedy, when a 14-year-old boy slipped and fell nearly 100 feet from a cliff at Bright Angel Point at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on Tuesday.
The good news is that he's on the road to recovery, and was officially discharged from the hospital over the weekend. His family is hoping for a safe and boring drive back home.
No surprise that the Grand Canyon is the single most recognizable icon of our state. With it's scenic vistas and stunning topography, the canyon is beautiful. But its beauty needs to be taken with some respectful distance.
When a selfie attempt went wrong, Wyatt Kaufman went tumbling into the canyon. It took first responders nearly two hours to get him out. Incredibly, Wyatt survived to tell the tale.
HERE'S THE STORY: The teen who survived a nearly 100-foot fall into the Grand Canyon is out of the hospital
3. Javelina home invader thwarted by doggy door
Javelinas in southern Arizona have recently attempted getting inside local residences by crawling through entry ways intended for dogs.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department in Tucson said it has recently responded to two similar reports of a javelina trying to get inside residences through a doggy door.
Ah, wildlife. So beautiful. So ridiculous. And sometimes peckish peccaries decide to push their luck with where they forage. Fortunately this hungry javelina was eventually rescued by AZGFD.
It's a good reminder that as cool as our local creatures can be, you should just let the wildlife stay wild.
2. Homeowner records collapse of 50-year-old cactus
Arizona's obnoxiously hot summer is not only smashing records, but ruining landscapes left and right. The damage is leaving valley homeowners like Jessica Lin without iconic saguaros in their front yards.
Lin's saguaro was a landscape centerpiece, and had stood out front of her home since the 70s. But now, under insurmountable pressure from the heat, it's lying in scraps. While family members hope to propagate the beloved cactus, there's not much hope following its massive tumble last week.
2,000 pounds of cactus went tumbling down outside of a Phoenix home this summer. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but the landscape staple was a total loss.
The video is crazy enough on its own, but this was one of several cacti that was hit hard by the massive heat wave that plagued July and August.
HERE'S THE STORY: Caught on camera: Homeowner records collapse of saguaro that had been outside home for nearly 50 years
1. A snake. In a toilet.
You've heard of a toilet snake, right? The plumbing tool that can be easily found in Home Depot.
But what about a literal toilet snake?
Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you: that's a coachwhip snake being pulled out of a toilet. The extremely unorthodox case turned heads all over the country back in August and had people everywhere saying, "Of course it was in Arizona."
Fortunately for the homeowner (and the snake) no one was hurt.
HERE'S THE STORY: 'I slammed the lid back down': Arizona woman returns from vacation to find snake in her toilet
Honorable mentions:
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