By Marjory J. Sente

Miners wanted to call the townsite Granite City. Others thought Goodwin City was an appropriate name for Arizona's territorial capital. John N. Goodwin was appointed governor of the Arizona Territory after original appointee, John A. Gurley, died in 1863 before the Governor’s Party left Ohio. Some wanted the town named Aztlan in honor of the Aztecs who were thought to have been in the area. Granite Dells, Fleuryville, Gimletville and Audubon were also suggested.

The first printed mention of Prescott as a name for the new town appeared in the May 25, 1864, Arizona Miner. “It is certainly an attractive locality and the name of ‘Prescott’ proposed for the town will be an appropriate commemoration of the great American authority upon Aztec and Spanish-American history.”