By Marie Slayton
Having worked at the Gurley Street Grill for the better part of the last six years, I am quite familiar with the folkloric history associated with the building. However, as most people know, folklore and stories that are passed down through generations can bear little if any resemblance to history.
Of course, there are some wonderful stories that have spilled out over the years. A rather friendly and benign ghost named George is said to live upstairs. This easy-going poltergeist is known for licking lights on and off, rearranging coffee cups and occasionally reconfiguring the computer system. Whether he was a disgruntled tenant, someone who was simply lonely, or someone who was shot in a barroom brawl is a matter of contention. It would be a great story, I think, if he met with some unusual or tragic death, but it is not my place to speculate. Though I have long been familiar with the lore of the Mulvenon Building and its current resident, The Gurley Street Grill, I knew little of its history, till recently.
After some years of doing work as a lawman, miner and a stable-keeper, William J. Mulvenon settled here in Prescott in 1876. He served as a sheriff's deputy for four years after which he was elected sheriff in 1885. During the bloody Pleasant Valley War, a feud between the Graham and Tewksbury families, Mulvenon made a name for himself by leading a posse into the Tonto Basin and killing members of each clan. Later, he served as a territorial legislator, and his 1897, biography credits him with no less than three captures of notorious outlaws in Arizona and beyond. Mulvenon was said to have "paved the way for civilization's progress in the Southwest."
In the midst of this rather hectic life, Mulvenon also had time to aid in establishing the Prescott Crystal Ice Works and was a primary stockholder in the Arizona Brewing Company. He had the Mulvenon Building built and when it was finished in August of 1901, it replaced the ill-fated Exchange Saloon. The Exchange, built before 1890, and typical of construction of the time, was made of thin wood boards with a broad overhang to both the South and West. In the fire of 1900, when nearly all of Prescott's downtown area burned, the Exchange Saloon burned right along with it. Coming to the conclusion that wood was perhaps not the most sound of construction materials, local merchants, William Mulvenon included, made the change to brick.
On the ground floor of his building of local brick construction, Mulvenon was the owner-operator of a saloon. During the prohibition years, The Mulvenon Saloon supposedly served "sodas." Various city directories from the first decade of the 20th century list A.V. Mulvenon as a resident and bartender at the same address. It has long been rumored that a collection of women "notoriously abandoned to lewdness" worked in the furnished rooms that were offered upstairs. While rumors of this sort are difficult to substantiate or completely refute, there is a bit of evidence. Being on the corner of Gurley and Granite Streets, the Mulvenon Saloon fell just outside of confines of the area designated for houses of ill-fame and prostitution. Since this ordinance was put into effect late in 1900, it would have been illegal to have any operation whatsoever in the Mulvenon Saloon after it was finished. Of course, there exists the possibility that such women were "plying their vocation" outside of the Red Light District. So, the rumor remains as it is.
In the 100 years since its construction, The Mulvenon building has gone through few structural changes. Until 1990, there remained two businesses on the bottom floor, split by the staircase. Various types of businesses have occupied those spaces over the years, ranging from an auto mechanic to a furniture store. For many years, the upstairs was listed as a hotel having six nearly identical rooms. Later, they were subdivided differently, stocked with a few amenities and turned into small apartments with kitchens and bathrooms. In fact, if one looks with a careful eye at the brick wall of the back patio of the Gurley Street Grill, one can see the words "ROOMS FOR RENT" painted faintly in white.
In 1991, Paul Murphy undertook the restoration of the Mulvenon Building. While the staircase and original doors were left in place, Murphy's team undertook minimal rearrangements of the upstairs rooms to equip them for banquets. Major additions to the restaurant include banquet and industrial kitchens, restrooms and a patio area to the North. The unexcavated and somewhat unsturdy crawl space beneath the building has also been refurbished and is now used, in part, for a wine cellar. For ten years now, the Gurley Street Grill has flourished as an integral part of downtown life. I do wonder what William Mulvenon would make of all this were he here to see it. One hundred years have passed since it was built, ten years since it was restored and the Mulvenon Building retains the appeal of its territorial construction with pleasure of its modern conveniences.
Over this last century, businesses and their owners, tenants and workers have come and gone. Still, though, the building stands relatively unscathed and unchanged. Built in an era thrusting toward longevity in construction, I'd say the building has been just exactly what it was built for.
Marie Slayton, an avid, though unintentional Grill enthusiast, is a graduate of the University of Arizona living and writing in Prescott this summer.
Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(pb049f1). Reuse only by permission.
William J. Mulvenon, fifth from the left, built what is now known as the Gurley Street Grill. This year the Grill celebrates its tenth year and the building its one-hundredth year on the corner of Gurley and Granite Streets. Many stories of its past are wrapped in truth and fiction from prostitution to garages.