Sedona and T.C. Schnebly, and the Post Office That Named a Town

This town carries a woman's first name, and the story of how that happened begins with a wagon and a rejected postmark. Theodore Carlton Schnebly, known as T.C.

, came from Maryland by way of Missouri, and in nineteen oh one he and his wife settled along Oak Creek, buying eighty acres and an orchard from a neighbor named Frank Owenby. T.C.

grew apples and vegetables and hauled them by wagon over rough roads to sell in Flagstaff and in the mining town of Jerome. When the little community needed a post office, T.C.

applied to become its first postmaster. He proposed two names, Schnebly Station and Oak Creek Crossing, and the Postmaster General rejected both as too long to fit a cancellation stamp. T.

C.'s brother Ellsworth offered a simpler idea, why not name it for T.C.'

s wife. Her name was Sedona Arabella Miller Schnebly, and so in nineteen oh two the post office, and eventually the town, became Sedona. The family knew hardship here too.

Their young daughter Pearl died in nineteen oh five. Sedona Schnebly herself died in nineteen fifty, and today a memorial bell rings in her honor, for the woman whose name a million visitors now speak without knowing it was ever hers.