By Richard Gorby

In 1865, with Prescott only a year old, the first post office, a wood frame building on Montezuma Street, just a few feet north of Goodwin, was occupied by the Reverend Hiram Walker Read, the town's first postmaster.  After a year, with a total postal return of $23.16, the Reverend Read left in disgust, and Prescott's first post office became G.M. Holaday's Pine Tree Saloon, in 1866.

There was a government rule that a post office should not be in the same room with a saloon, so the Prescott Post Office was moved across the Plaza to Cortez Street, inside Calvin White's store, and White was made postmaster. 

On today's Cortez Street, opposite the Plaza, all the business establishments are north of Union Street. In the first five years however, most of the businesses were south of Union, as was Calvin White's store, where today's First Baptist Church children play basketball. 

White's store sold "a large assortment of all kinds of vegetables, which he will sell cheap and a large assortment of boots and shoes."  Small town post offices were often combined with stores, as they still are today.  A modern example is Crown King (changed from "Crowned King" by the Postal Service) where the post office is in the near century-old General Store. 

Next door to the north, facing Union Street, was S.C. Gray & Co., the first store on the Plaza, managed by Charles Thomas Rogers, in charge of the store until 1877 when he bought land near Bill Williams Mountain and became founder and owner of Williams, Arizona.  One of the frustrations in exploring Prescott's first few years is that few (no) photographs have been discovered.  In Maine, before leaving for the west, Roger's occupation was that of photographer, something that apparently and sadly, he failed to continue on the Plaza. 

Calvin White's neighbor to the south was one of Prescott's first saloons, Brichta's Exchange.  Augustus Brichta was captain of one of the squads in King Woolsey's second expedition against the Apaches and was the first public school teacher in Tucson; today's Brichta Elementary School in Tucson is named for him. 

William J. Berry's Sportman's Emporium was next door to Brichta's Exchange.  Berry, later Judge Berry, sold shotguns, rifles, pistols, powder horns and flasks, buckshot, Bowie knives, "and other necessities", mostly imported from San Francisco.  He also advertised: "Guns, Rifles and pistols repaired in the best manner."  Outside the Emporium was a sign shaped like a big gun, but inside was also Berry's law office.  In addition to being Prescott's first gunsmith, he was also an attorney-at-law.  A huge and hearty man, captain of the "Barbarians", an early Prescott drinking club, he reportedly wore the first top hat seen in Prescott. 

But back to Postmaster White: like the Reverend Read, his term was short.  He was removed in October of 1866 after what would appear to be a rather petty confrontation with Governor McCormick.  The Governor asked White to delay the acceptance of mail from eight in the morning until ten.  White refused.  From Arizona Miner editor John Marion: 

"Calvin White, the gentleman whom Governor McCormick had turned out of the post office because he would not keep the mail waiting over its regular time for His Excellency...The removal of Mr. White is about the only thing McCormick's great influence at Washington has ever accomplished, and that one out of petty spite worked great injury to our people, as Mr.White was the best postmaster we ever had." 

Since Calvin White was only our second postmaster, and had only served about a year, it seems doubtful that his removal would "...[work] injury to our people."  More likely, it is possible that Editor Marion was using the incident to "work minor injury" on Governor McCormick, whom he disliked. 

Richard Gorby is a volunteer at the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives and a regular contributor to Days Past articles.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number: (st137p). Reuse only by permission.
This 1880s photo of Cortez street looking at the intersection with Goodwin shows the approximate site of the post office (the lumberyard). The large building at the right of the photo is where city hall is today.