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.

by Parker Anderson 

The initial crime had gone unnoticed for months and the victims were not missed. Once the crime was discovered, it became a story that chilled Yavapai County citizens in 1887, and still resonates to this day. 

By Karla Burkitt 

An artist, historian or living history interpreter whose job is to bring historical activities or people to life for an audience, faces a tremendous challenge. Sharing details of another time period or another person's experience with sensitivity and accuracy is a delicate balancing act.

by Robert L. Spude 

Among the collections at Sharlot Hall Museum is a finely hand-made wooden box. Inside, slid between wooden tracks, stand the glass plate negatives of Clarence H. Shaw, photographer of Arizona Territory during the 1890s and early 1900s. 

By Pat Atchison 

Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was then called, was first widely observed in the United States on May 30, 1868. The original intent was to honor the Union soldiers killed during the Civil War by decorating their gravesites.

By Rhonda L. Tintle

During the latter nineteenth century, immigrants from the Eastern and Midwestern parts of the United States, along with immigrants from around the world, invaded the homeland of Indians and took possession of over 430 million acres of land. Some of those immigrants settled in Prescott and the surrounding districts. The children of those immigrants would become the first American-style Arizonians. On the ranges in and around Prescott, harried parents struggled in cabins, shacks, and tents simply to sustain their families.

By Al Bates 

On May 10, 1863, at a location just a few miles south of today's Prescott, an event happened that had a significant impact on the future development of both this area and of Arizona Territory. On that date, twenty-five men signed a contract that established the first mining district in the Central Arizona Highlands.