George Hand and His Iconic Arizona Diary As a saloonkeeper in Tucson, Arizona, during the last quarter of the 19th Century, George O. Hand drank to excess, often frequented prostitutes, and ran a saloon where violent behavior was a nightly affair. Nevertheless, Hand, shown here, became an Arizona legend simply by the expedient of keeping a diary of his life and times. Hand was born in 1830 in Whiteside, Oneida County, New York, the son of Ira W. and Sybil Foster Hand, the oldest of six children. His father was listed in the 1850 federal census as a manufacturer, indicating a reasonable amount of wealth in the family. The boy likely had a secondary education. A brother became a well known dentist. George himself had a wanderlust and with the hint of gold in California in 1849 set his sights on the West Coast. Hand’s success as a gold miner is unknown but when the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in August 1861 at Nevada City, California, joining Company G of the C