The Story of Arizona’s Sedona Sedona Arabella Miller Schnebly was born on February 24, 1877. She was born on a small farm in Gorin, Missouri. Her mother liked the name Sedona. She decided it would be a good name for her young daughter. Sedona grew up in a northeastern Missouri town. She believed that this would be her home forever. But, luckily for Arizona, fate had another plan. Sedona married her childhood sweetheart, Theodore Carlton Schnebly, on her 20th birthday. Together they began their farming lives. But T.C. had an older brother, Ellsworth, who had moved to the Arizona Territory. One day a letter from Ellsworth arrived at Sedona and T.C.’s Gorin farm. Ellsworth had a crazy idea: Sedona and T.C. should join him in a place called Oak Creek Crossing in the Arizona Territory. Could they possibly leave their families and friends and go West? In the summer of 1901 T.C. and Sedona joined Ellsworth in the red rock country. They soon built an eleven-room house on an eighty-acre farm. They opened their home to travelers as a place to stay. T.C. became a very successful farmer. He sold his crops in the railroad town of Flagstaff. Their small Arizona town soon grew and needed a post office. T.C. became the first postmaster. r The red rocks of Sedona, Arizona are caused by the “rusting” of the iron found in the sandstone rocks. He needed an official name for the growing town. The first two names he suggested to the United States Postal Service were too long to fit on the cancellation stamp. What would he do? Where would he get a good name? His brother Ellsworth had an idea. Name the town after your beautiful wife, Sedona! The rest of the story is history! A sad event caused T.C and Sedona to leave their beautiful Arizona home. The second of their six children had died after being stepped on by a horse. They moved back to Missouri, then on to Colorado. But they never forgot the beauty of the red rocks of Sedona. Soon, they returned to Sedona to live for the rest of their lives. Sedona died in 1950 and T.C. died in 1954. They are both buried in the Schnebly family cemetery in Sedona, Arizona. r Chapter 1 • Arizona Faces and Features  13