Look what we found!
It’s a page from a notepad that belonged to Con Cronin, tucked into the pages of a the 1913 Civil Code, which we recently had rebound! More on that below.
Con Cronin was the first State Librarian of Arizona. His actual title was State Law & Legislative Reference Librarian. The State Library was established on March 24, 1915 (Laws 1915, Chapter 62, page 156 of PDF). Con Cronin was appointed the librarian in the enacted provision. Along with his extensive duties to organize and manage the new state library, he had a role in the legislative process:
He served until 1932.
We tried to decipher the tidy penciled notes that were taken on the Con P. Cronin notepad. Apparently, it is the 2nd page of a research request:
It appears that Mr. Cronin had been asked about the process for paying or showing payment of the Road Tax, but the citation doesn’t match: Paragraph 505 (page 351 of PDF) pertains to legal grounds for postponement of a trial.
The 1913 Revised Statutes governed road taxes in Paragraph 5056 and the following sections. As if we needed a reminder that 1913 was a long time ago, Arizona’s law in 1913 provided for collection of a tax to maintain the roads. The law stated that “every able-bodied male resident of the state, over twenty-one years and under sixty years of age…shall be required to pay a road tax of two-dollars per annum to be collected by the county tax collector…”. Upon payment, the resident would receive a receipt. Here’s the provision from 1913 R.S. §5056:
This seems to answer the patron’s question. And here we are, some 105 years later, still answering patrons’ research questions about Arizona legal history.
The Shining S.T.A.R.L. 