By Karen Carlisle 

On September 15, 2007, Sharlot Hall Museum will present Prescott Book Festival: Sixth Edition. Since it is a history museum, I wondered: What is the history of bookselling in Prescott? To get to Prescott, we have to start at the beginning of bookselling in the Americas. 

by Kathryn Reisdorfer 

The relationship between Sharlot Hall and Charles F. Lummis was based on more than their shared love for literature. Both the Arizona ranch woman and the California celebrity were dedicated to preserving the history of the American Southwest; the activities each engaged in ranged from collecting stories and writing histories to acquiring and preserving historical artifacts, including buildings. Prescott's residents and visitors are direct beneficiaries of Hall's work and indirectly that of Lummis' as well. Hall learned a great deal from him. 

By Kathryn Reisdorfer 

As those who frequent Sharlot Hall Museum know its founder was an interesting lady, quite unique for her era. Born in Kansas in 1870, Sharlot Hall came west with her family in 1881, ending up in the Prescott area in 1882. Although she had little formal schooling, Sharlot become a literary figure of note, regionally as well as nationally. The person who placed her in the spotlight was Charles Fletcher Lummis, another colorful character who made his own trek west shortly after the Halls.

By Mona Lange McCroskey 

David Jenner first became interested in the cattle business when his parents, who lived in a Chicago suburb, bought a farm west of the city. It was a farmer-feeder operation where they raised crops and brought cattle in from the west, fed them and then sold them as fat cattle. As Jenner grew up, he took more and more of an interest in the farm, and he got along well with the farmer who ran the business for his family. 

By Sharlot M. Hall 

Edited by Parker Anderson 

Editor's Note: The following article first appeared in the Prescott Courier on March 19, 1932. It seems particularly timely today, with all of the development that is appearing on and around Glassford Hill.

Men make strange friendships as they go through life - sometimes beautiful as they are strange and unusual. There was such a friendship between the rounded brown hill lying to the east of Prescott, and one of the finest of the old-time army officers who served at Fort Whipple. 

By Randi Wise 

Taking a ride on Senator Highway deep into the Bradshaws, you will come upon a log home sitting right off by itself. It may look a little forlorn to you right now but there was a time that it was a bustling enterprise. Sitting on the busiest road in the Bradshaws, this unassuming little cabin was soon to be known as Palace Station. Please, let me start at the beginning.

By Sandra Lynch

(Note: This is a reprint of the original Days Past Indian Art Market article printed October 18, 1998).

Today marks the final day of Sharlot Hall Museum’s Tenth Prescott Indian Art Market featuring over 100 American Indian artists. The idea of Indian art, as a market commodity, evolved within a history both Native and American. Long before Spain’s galleons put to shore in the Caribbean, American Indians had established art markets. Pacific shell pendants, etched by acid and wax, crossed Arizona deserts in human caravans.

By Stan Brown 

My fascination with steel span bridges began as a kid on my grandfather's farm in Illinois. Old family photos reveal the wooden plank deck and triangular steel network of that one-way bridge across the Little Wabash River. Imagine my nostalgia when I came upon three spans just like that, close to my home in Prescott. My excitement increased when I realized they were identical to the span that had bridged the East Verde River near our family cabin north of Payson.

(The following article was printed in the Prescott Journal-Miner on July 4, 1907.) 

"Nine years ago, July 1, as the American soldiers, members of the Rough Riders, lay entrenched before San Juan Hill, awaiting the order from their superior to charge the foe, there walked back and forth, before his men, a captain of one of the troops of that famous fighting command, who, despite the repeated entreaties of his followers, would not seek shelter from the rain of Spanish bullets that swept down the hill.

By Tom Collins 

Visitors to the Sharlot Hall Building will find in the military exhibit a faded photo of Carrie Wilkins, the second daughter of Colonel John D. Wilkins of Fort Whipple. Carrie and her sister Ella were, according to military legend, much courted and much desired by the young officers in the 1870s, when women were scarce in this Arizona Territory's rough and male-dominated mining town.