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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

So far, we found very little information about Bonita. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>

We've added Bonita to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with Bonita, please Contact Us.


We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Bonita (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Bonita. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most hospitals were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Although our information shows that the community of Bonita is historic, it would have been located within present day Graham County.

To see how the shape of Arizona's counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Graham County: Apache, Cochise, Gila, Greenlee, Navajo, Pima & Pinal.

Below are the counties that are near Bonita. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Bonita:

  • Graham County     (The home county of Bonita)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bonita, with the one closest to Bonita listed first.
    • Fort Grant
      (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
      • Fort Grant is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Grant
    • Artesia
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northeast)
      • Artesia is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Artesia
    • Swift Trail Junction
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
      • Swift Trail Junction is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Swift Trail Junction
    • Cactus Flat
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
      • Cactus Flat is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Cactus Flat
    • Lebanon
      (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
      • Lebanon is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Lebanon
    • Central
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
      • Central is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Central
    • Safford
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Thatcher
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Pima
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
      • Pima is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pima
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,588 people
      • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pima <2>
    • Graham
      (23 miles [37 km] to the northeast)
      • Graham is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Graham
    • Bryce
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
      • Bryce is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bryce
    • Solomon
      (25 miles [40.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Eden
      (26 miles [41.8 km] to the north)
      • Eden is located in Graham County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Eden
  • Cochise County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Bonita, with the one closest to Bonita listed first.
    • Light ‑ Historic
      (7 miles [11.3 km] to the southwest)
      • Light is located in Cochise County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Light
    • Willcox
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Bonita, see our County-by-County Page for Bonita.

Cemeteries Near Bonita ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Bonita.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Bonita - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Bonita covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Bonita, with the one closest to Bonita listed first.

  • Bonita Cemetery
    (Less than 2 miles to the northwest)
  • Johns Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
  • Kennedy Cemetery
    (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
  • Lindsey Grave
    (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Mountain View Cemetery
    (14 miles [22.5 km] to the southwest)
  • Whalen Cemetery
    (16 miles [25.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Artesia Cemetery
    (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northeast)
  • Lebanon Cemetery
    (18 miles [29 km] to the northeast)
  • Safford City Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Safford City Cemetery
    • The Safford City Cemetery has also been known as:
    • Layton Cemetery
    • Safford Union Cemetery
    • Union Cemetery
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #57108 <3>
  • Thatcher Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Old Central Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
  • Central Cemetery
    (20 miles [32.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Central Cemetery
    • To give a relative sense of its location, the Central Cemetery is a large cemetery that is located outside and to the southwest of Central.
    • Jump to Find-A-Grave: FG ID #56989 <3>
  • Continue List   (15 more) ...
    • Pima Cemetery
      (21 miles [33.8 km] to the north)
    • Rogers Cemetery
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Glenbar Cemetery
      (23 miles [37 km] to the north)

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.

Bonita itself is historic and was described in the Rand McNally Atlas as having a population of 117 people in 1895 with a post office and no railroad service.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Bonita, with the one closest to Bonita listed first.

  • Fort Grant
    (2 miles [3.2 km] to the northeast)
    • Fort Grant is located in Graham County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Fort Grant
  • Safford
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Thatcher
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Central
    (21 miles [33.8 km] to the northeast)
    • Central is located in Graham County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Central
  • Pima
    (22 miles [35.4 km] to the north)
    • Pima is located in Graham County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pima
    • Population from the 2020 Census: 2,588 people
    • Jump to TripAdvisor's Tourism page for Pima <2>
  • Willcox
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the south)
  • Bryce
    (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
    • Bryce is located in Graham County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Bryce
  • Luzena
    (25 miles [40.2 km] to the southeast)
    • Luzena is located in Cochise County
    • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Luzena

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Bonita. See our List of 1890's Communities around Bonita.

Newspapers Published in Bonita ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 21 newspapers that have been published in the area around Bonita.

Although we're unaware of any newspapers that were published in the immediate area of Bonita, there are papers which were published within 24 miles [38.6 km]<4>. A list of those papers, sorted by paper name, can be found on the Extended Newspaper List for Bonita.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we begin with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Bonita:

Footnotes ...

<1>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Bonita, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>The Find-a-Grave website is an excellent research tool with information about a cemetery's location and interments. They also offer a forum for their members which can provide additional help. More information about Find-a-Grave can be found on their website: findagrave.com.
<4>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line drawn from Point A (ie- Bonita) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.