"More with complacency than with enthusiasm, Phoenix celebrated the event," The Arizona Republican reported.
"The city was crowded, to be sure, hundreds came long distances to see the governor take the oath of office and to shake his hand at the evening reception.
"But it was not a boisterous, din-creating crowd. The spirit was true, true enough, but it took the form of contentment rather than a glad frenzy."
Police estimated the crowd at 5,000 to 8,000, a size swelled by "outsiders" who came to town by buckboard, wagon, rail and auto.
Shops shut for the day, the newspaper reported, unless they catered to "pleasure seekers."
The newspaper included a detailed account of a parade, including this entry: "Forty veterans of the Union army and 10 veterans of the Confederate army participated ... riding together in one battalion."
The Pioneers Band was followed by "the men of organized labor. Their immense banner headed this section of the parade, and behind it marched 500 workers who wore the Union badge. The backbone of progress - labor - the men who build cities and counties and states, and as they marched past their new chief executive they looked at him with pride; pride, it seemed in him and in their state and in themselves."
Gov. George W.P. Hunt's inaugural speech was relatively brief, the Star reported. But another politician, William Jennings Bryan - a national bigwig in the Democratic party - spoke for two hours.
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