by William "Bill" Peck

If there is one lesson history teaches, it is how fast we forget. When I was a boy in Hillside, Arizona, the occupants denied there ever were any Indians or gold mines of significance, even though less than a man's lifetime had intervened between those most notable events. One need only venture into the hills in search of Indian artifacts, arrowheads, pottery or search the mine dumps for evidence of early workings such as old bottles, metal objects or crucibles to realize that you are much too late. Earlier visitors have denuded these places.

By Linda Ludington

(This is the second part in a two-part series on the Perkins Family) 

Annie Perkins, like her daughters-in-law later, was a resourceful ranch wife. She grew large gardens and canned fruits and vegetables throughout the summer. She also canned meat-venison and beef-and dried some beef into jerky. There was no refrigeration. Annie also made good use of her treadle sewing machine, generously sharing with her Yavapai Indian neighbors.

By Linda Ludington

Perkinsville, Arizona, 1963. The Hollywood movie cameras zoom in for closer shots. The frontier sheriff is about to confront the hardened outlaw who has just come into town on the train. The final episode of "How The West Was Won" is being filmed. The movie is fiction; the movie set is, however, real. What could be more authentic to the spirit of the West-its land, its history, its people-than Perkinsville and the Perkins family!

By Parker Anderson

One of the best known outlaws in Arizona western history, and without question the least deserving of the notoriety, is the female stagecoach robber Pearl Hart. Her story has been told countless times, with very few versions that match each other. 

According to interviews that Pearl herself gave, she was born in Ontario, Canada, and came to the American Southwest to flee an abusive husband. She moved around Colorado and other states, eventually winding up in southern Arizona, where she found work in various mining in and around Pinal County and Globe. It was 1899.

By Ken Edwards

Horrible: terrible, awful, dreadful, revolting, repulsive, disgusting, and more. What could be more entertaining for a Fourth of July celebration than a parade of "Horribles"? Not to be outdone by New Orleans' Mardi Gras, an intrepid group of prominent Prescott citizens under the direction of Messrs. W. F. Holden and John F. Meador, organized an adjunct to the annual Fourth of July festivities in downtown Prescott in 1881.

By Dr. Sandra Lynch

Early in the 1970s, the Forestry Department of Colorado State University teamed up with my department, Agricultural Economics, in a joint project with New Mexico State University. We compiled a feasibility study that recommended some Navajo and Ute Indians become Christmas tree farmers, thus providing a new industry using unemployed resources on the two reservations.

By Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright

Recently we've been hearing about the "She-DISK-y" wildfire. Radio and TV commentators new to the Southwest, and even those who've been here a long time, had not heard of this remote spot in Arizona until a devastating wild fire broke out there in June. Their guesses at pronunciation were sometimes wild and funny. Just as newly arrived newscasters have usually said "Mongolian" when talking about Arizona's Mogollon Rim Country. Of course most of us forgive them because we also mispronounced these words (if we pronounced them at all) when we first came to Arizona.

By Al Bates

A chance encounter at a Fourth of July outing in 1869 led to the adoption of an orphan Indian child and, many years later, to one of Territorial Arizona's most bitter estate settlements. Feelings over the estate settlement were so intense that at one point a rifle was fired into a room occupied by a woman and her two young children.

By William "Bill" Peck

Once upon a time Hillside had a store-two if you counted Darnall's. So did Congress, Skull Valley, Kirkland and Yarnell. But, all that Bagdad had was a commissary. These were real honest to goodness general stores that stocked meat, fruits, vegetables, Blazo, kerosene, rabbit feed, Levi's, gas and an assortment of veterinarian supplies. Bag Balm was used most likely as hand lotion even though the label didn't specify it for people.

By Carolyn Bradshaw

(This is the second part of a two-part article regarding Jerome Union Stage War.) 

The real fireworks would not start until the Jerome Union Stage Line was awarded a contract for postal service between Jerome and Prescott in 1923. In the mail contract, the government asked the bidders to take into account the revenues that might accrue from carrying passengers. Elijah Flummerfelt's Jerome Union bid of $6,700 vs. the Arizona Bus Company's bid of $21,000 was clearly designed to get Flumerfelt the contract.