By Brad Courtney

Tombstone boasts Arizona’s most famous gunfight, but Prescott can claim its most famous saloon story.  If there is one better, it has not yet surfaced.  It speaks of a baby won in a gambling game after being abandoned atop a counter of a prominent Whiskey Row saloon.  Unlike the OK Corral legend, however, Prescott’s renowned saloon story has undergone minimal scrutiny over the years.

This affair has come down through time in two versions.  The actual dates surrounding its primary events are January 17 through January 28, 1898, and can rightfully be called the true story of Violet “Baby Bell” Hicks.  Thenceforth, it immediately disappeared from print and passed into the realm of oral history.

In 1927, Edmund Wells, shown here, wrote the story of a baby left on a Whiskey Row saloon counter, a story that was accepted as historical truth for over 7 decades (Photo Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum Call Number: PO-1233).

That is, until 29 years later when an original Prescottonian, Edmund Wells, published his memoirs: Argonaut Tales.  Within this classic combination of frontier history and folklore, Wells, one of the most respected and accomplished personages in Arizona history, recalled within a 3-chaptered, 43-page section entitled “Chance Cobweb Hall,” the story of a baby whose mother had left her with the Chinese laundry proprietor, George Ah Fat.

After several days had passed, Ah Fat realized the mother was not going to return.  Something had to be done.  So, he waited until a cold snowy evening when a larger than usual crowd had been driven into a Whiskey Row saloon often patronized by the more educated portion of male Prescott society: Cob Web Hall.  That night, Ah Fat surreptitiously placed the baby on the “Cobweb’s” counter, and blended into the crowd.

After the baby was discovered, it was concluded that she’d been abandoned.  Arguments commenced regarding the baby’s immediate and future welfare.  Dissension radiated throughout the saloon.  Before the situation got out of control, someone interjected with a proposal: all desirous of adopting the child should partake in a game of dice—ten dollars for one throw of four dice for the pretty stranger.  None dissented.  Player after player rolled until Robert Groom (Prescott’s original surveyor) appeared to win the baby after a roll of four fives.

According to Wells, Prescott’s most famous saloon story occurred in Cob Web Hall, shown here in this 1890’s photo of Whiskey Row (Photo Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum Call Number: BU-B-8035p).

 That is until Judge Charles Hall, taking the last roll, beat him by miraculously rolling four sixes.  Groom suspected cheating but could not prove it.  Hall had won the baby.  Groom though demanded the honor of naming the abandoned but now coveted waif.  A lengthy, poetic christening followed; the child would be forever known as Chance Cobweb Hall.  The judge and his wife soon adopted the baby girl.  Wells noted that it was then “forgotten as one of the romances of the town.”  However, his story had a postscript.

Twenty-five years later Wells found himself in San Francisco attending a benefit dinner for “dependent girls,” and sitting across from a young couple, the female member of which was especially attractive and strangely familiar.  He couldn’t help but overhear their conversation and heard enough to conclude they were in love and happy, well-educated and well-to-do.  Then Wells heard mention of a town called Prescott.  After questioning the pretty lady, she divulged she’d indeed been born and raised in Prescott, Arizona.  Her name?  C. C. Hall; short for Chance Cobweb Hall.  How she received her unusual name, she did not know: “I suppose that some kind of western romance was connected to it . . . Perhaps I will know sometime.”

Such was the only full-length version of these events for more than seven decades.  For that reason, among others, it was accepted as historical verity.  However, recent research has revealed several mistruths, perhaps intentionally supplied by Wells.  At least two of the characters in Wells’s narrative were dead; the judge who wound up with the baby was not Charles Hall, but Charles Hicks; the cherub did not need to be named because she already had a name: Violet Bell.

This story is ripe is ripe for retelling.  It has lately been a subject of attention, even by the Daily Courier itself.  Part two will appear next Sunday in this column, wherein the true story of Violet “Baby Bell” Hicks will be concluded.  Or simply join Brad Courtney at Sharlot Hall Museum’s Theater (Lawler’s Exhibit Center) at 2 PM on Saturday, May 10, whereby he will reveal the fuller story of Prescott’s, if not Arizona’s most famous saloon story.

(Brad Courtney is a retired educator, having taught in inner city Phoenix for 19 years, and on the Navajo Indian reservation for 12.  For 6 years he was a guide on the Colorado River as it coursed through northern Arizona’s famously mighty canyons).

Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). The public is encouraged to submit articles for consideration.  Please contact SHM Library & Archives reference desk at 928-445-3122 Ext. 14, or via email at dayspastprescott@gmail.com for information.