By Terry Stone

If you walk around downtown Prescott, you might have certainly taken notice of all the references there are to cowboy culture. A statue of a cowboy resting beneath his horse decorates the Courthouse Square. A statue of a broncobuster is in front of City Hall. Many restaurants and real estate offices have framed pictures of cowboys in their various establishments. On Whiskey Row you can buy cowboy hats and John Wayne toilet paper. If you were here during the Frontier Days Parade in July, you witnessed dozens of participants decked out in the over-ripe habiliments of cowboy couture. All of this affectation might lead the casual observer to believe that, historically, early Prescott had something to do with cattle, spurs, and pointy-toed boots.

But, the truth of the matter is, that for the first seventy-five years of Prescott's history, cowboys had virtually nothing to do with this town. If you could travel back in time to the period between 1864 and the 1930s, you would have rarely even seen a cowboy on the streets of Prescott. Back then, you would not be talking to your friends about branding, rustling, or how pretty are the eye lashes of a cow. The primary topic of those early days was one thing only - mining. Prescott was founded by miners, occupied by merchants who catered to miners, and was the focus of a vast mining community that occupied almost every hillside and stream in a hundred mile radius. Almost no one cared a whit about cattle! 

I know this must come as a shock to many of you. Mining is not nearly as sexy as exuding rugged individualism from a saddle while rounding up little dogies. Nobody wants to wear a miner's lamp on his head in place of a Stetson. And who has ever heard of a miner poet? (Well, Rod McKuen would be considered a minor poet, but that's a whole other topic.) Regardless, our collective assumptions of what Prescott looked like over a hundred years ago will be found to be mostly a product of imagination created by Hollywood and refined by land developers. This mistaken view of the past explains a lot to me. For instance, it explains why we seem to be indifferent about the impact housing development and modern ranching has had on the environment. We are so in love with playing cowboy that we subconsciously create an artificial world to accommodate our fantasies. Reality suffers in the mean time. 

One place that you can go to get the unvarnished lowdown on Prescott history is Citizens' Cemetery over on Sheldon Street. Moldering beneath the arsenic-tainted earth are the people who lived and worked around this town in those early years. There are around 850 grave markers left at Citizens', an excellent representation of the people who first settled here. Close study of those decedents will bring you a deeper and more authentic understanding of our local history. 

Consider tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was the number-one killer of those interred at Citizens' Cemetery. Why is that? Because, in those days when the "white plague" was a common affliction, people who suffered from it would often go to cooler, less humid regions to relieve their condition. Prescott was an important destination for those with tuberculosis. 

Consider who lived in Prescott at the time: Anglo-Americans, Italians, Danes, the Irish, Germans, African-Americans, Chinese, the English and Mexicans. Although Prescott prided itself as "the town of white people," suggesting some kind of racial homogeneity, it was probably not uncommon to hear many languages and accented English as you walked its dirt avenues. 

Finally, consider the occupations. Death records and newspaper articles reveal that those men who are buried in Citizens' were predominantly miners, making a living by opening holes in the surrounding landscape. Of all of the hundreds of graves still remaining, only one person was listed in the death records as a "cowboy," and that was Jose Montano, a Mexican, who died from pneumonia in 1901. (A case could be made for Fay Harbeson, being a latter-day cowboy. A horse rolled over him as he was chasing cattle in 1933, the approximate beginning of the "cowboy era" in Prescott.) 

Every town in the world wants a history that reflects modern ideals and mores. History cannot comply with our wishes. Early Prescott was not a land of enchantment, populated by church-going cowboys and cowgirls, bringing sunshine into the lives of the less fortunate. It was a hardscrabble existence on a raw frontier. There were more sheep than cattle in the early days. There were more saloons and brothels, by far, than churches. And, in lieu of shootouts in the streets, there were plenty of suicides and mining accidents. There was little love for fellow human beings; a strong anti-Indian, anti-Chinese, anti-Mexican streak ran through our origins. If you want to understand who we are today, you can study who we were just a dozen decades ago. Technology aside, our fears and concerns have stayed pretty much the same. We've just learned to shade them differently. 

Perhaps it is our restless nature that keeps us at odds with our past. Our lives propel us forward, leaving little time to honestly reflect on what happened yesterday or, especially, what happened a century ago. For this reason, author Gore Vidal calls us the "United States of Amnesia." Building our culture and economy on chimeric notions will, in the long run, be our undoing as a nation. Our chances for a progressive future might be greatly enhanced if we were to turn a more critical and realistic eye to our past. 

(T. Stone, author of "Grave History: A Guidebook to Citizens' Cemetery, Prescott, Arizona,'" will be giving a lecture on the book and the cemetery on Thursday, September 7, 2006, at 2 p.m. at Sharlot Hall Museum. Admission is free.) 

 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(m119pb)
Reuse only by permission.
Unidentified miners in the Bradshaw Mountains, c. 1890. 

 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(m139p)
Reuse only by permission.
A group of miners at the Blue Bird Mining Camp, c. 1890s, with their Chinese cook in the doorway. 

 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(m342pb)
Reuse only by permission.
A group of miners, c.1870, holding candles in a shored-up mine.