By Arthur Ensign & H. G. Grey - Federal Writer's Project

As told by Mrs. Lillybelle Morshead to Arthur Ensign and H.G. Grey of the Federal Writer's Project 

(Beginning with this week's Days Past article, we will begin to unearth the stories of Yavapai County as told to the Federal Writer's Project. The FWP was created by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression of the 1930s to create income to writers, educators, and historians dedicated to documenting 'American Life.' The project published guidebooks, organized archives, indexed newspapers, and collected folklore and oral history interviews. The following story is of John G. Campbell, the proprietor of the first store in Prescott, as told by his daughter, Lillybelle Morshead to the FWP writers. The manuscript, located in the Archives of Sharlot Hall Museum, is from the John G. Campbell Collection of photographs, essays, and biographical information on this important pioneer.)

When Governor Goodwin proclaimed Arizona a Territory of The United States and established its capital at Prescott, my father opened a store there, which gave the newly made capital a total of two well-made buildings. The other was the Governor's Mansion. 

The store was a big square adobe building and its most striking feature was its great iron door. As a matter of fact, there were two big double doors, so made that when closed, they completely covered the door-opening-framework, leaving nothing exposed on the outside except unburnable adobe and iron. These great doors typified the needs of the country in those days, not only as protection against marauders, but against fire. The store stood through two big fires but succumbed to the fire of 1900, which burned down most of Prescott. 

The iron doors protected a valuable stock of goods, including the stock in the cellar, most valuable of all. The supply in the cellar also typified the needs of the territory, for men came from 100 miles and more to buy its rare wines, whiskeys, and imported brandies. At one time, so it was said, the cellar was worth more than $100,000. This, at the time when money was scarcely ever seen! 

Money wasn't seen, because cattle were seldom seen in the territory: as a matter of fact, the only herd was brought in by the Governor himself. Mining was Arizona's industry and men paid in gold and gold dust. My father's gold scales are beside me here: more than $20 million have been weighed in its pans. 

My father was a '49er in California: that was when bread cost $2 a slice. Then he went to Ehrenberg to Arizona, and came here to Prescott in 1864 when he built the store. Ehrenberg is now a ghost town, but I can take you there and show you the exact spot where father fought for his life against the old time gunmen. 

A general store in those days carried everything in the way of merchandise, and the only store in the territorial capital carried more than that, if such is possible. Of course, ready-to-wear dresses hadn't been invented, so yard goods formed the ladies' department, and calico was the rage. This, beside me, is the first printed calico ever made: my father imported it from France. It cost, in those days, more than gold cloth costs today. 

There was no need to advertise, and no means of advertising, until the Journal-Miner was established. The store was located in the middle of the block on Montezuma Street, which later became Whiskey Row. My father's letterhead, on ruled paper, which he had printed after a few years, says: 

John G. Campbell 
Hardware, Groceries, Liquors, Cigars, and Tobacco 
Established 1864 

My father was elected congressmen from the territory in 1878 and served on the extra session in 1879, elected by a plurality of 580 votes, a big majority in those days. Twice he was called to the Territorial Congress as member from Yavapai County and for years was county supervisor. He refused, however, to run for governor. 

He was quite a character, my father. He'd put up $10,000 of $15,000 dollars for a fellow's bond, or lend him $5,000 of $6,000, and absolutely refuse to take a note or any written memo of the loan. "Why, I wouldn't insult a fellow by asking for his signature," he'd say. In all his business dealings he was the same: a man's word was better than his bond. One day, as the territory imported a different sort of character, a man did my father out of $20,000; my father's way of doing business was outlived by then. 

Dad would never sit down to a good table without having company, thus our house was always full. He'd always help the underdog and he made no attempt to collect the thousands of dollars owed him when he finally sold the store and went into the cattle business. 

A big hitching post stood outside the store, about a foot and a half wide and thick rough-hewn timber. I remember my father, as if it were yesterday, by the iron door looking out into the unpaved, muddy street, thick-set, with a big head and magnificent white mustache and flowing beard, wearing a conservative black coat, rather long, and full cut checkered trousers of dark hue, coming down over his boots in the respectable fashion of that day and age. He wore a straw hat with a black band and a sort of parson's collar. Beside him was my little brother, in cut down breeches, with a round hat and knee-high boots. The youngest clerk, in vest and black round hat, is now working in the sheriff's office in San Diego...I mean, he wore that outfit when he worked in my father's store. I remember another man, very tall, about 6'7", I think, sinewy and strong, with a lean face and drooping black mustache, leaning against the store with hand on hip. Then there was a dandified sort of fellow there, with white shirt and collar and round hard derby hat. He represented the younger and slicker generation. 

My father sold boots and shoes, canvas, oil lamps, blasting powder and guns and anything you can name that was made in the 19th century. They drilled into the bed of Granite Creek for their water supply. Costs were high, but then so were retail prices. Nails were $1.50 per lb: Beef, $2.50 a pound (remember this was before the cattle days) and flour $1 per pound. Risk of Indian attacks on transports, and so forth, made prices high. Sometimes my father would lose whole shipments though Indian attacks. One fine pair of shoes sold for $65: another pair of high boots, very well stitched with fine workmanship, for $125. I have a man's hat, which first brought $80; and was sold, used, for $20. 

A lot of dad's store business was done in an indirect way, by grub staking miners and prospectors. He would supply rations and equipment for a share in whatever their mines developed. He took a loss, of course, on many mines and claims, but the paying ones made up such losses. The store became a sort of social and civic center, and a business center, in this way and others, second only to the Governor's Mansion. 

The store also became a news-distributing agency. Through his many connections, my father would get reports from the outside world often before such news came through official government channels and people would come to the store to find out what was going on. Even the saloons were runners-up in the matter of authentic details of new government legislation, newly found mines, rich strikes, Indian attacks and dangers. 

That adobe, iron-door building was one of the landmarks of the territory and, so long as Prescott remained the Territorial Capital, the most important store and the second most important building within an area of 160,000 square miles. It is strange to see how different Arizona has become. Later on, my father went into the cattle business, a pioneer in this line also, but that is another story. 

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(st192p)
Reuse only by permission.
The John G. Campbell Pioneer Mercantile Store seen at front right, just to the left of the horses, in this view of Whiskey Row from atop the courthouse c.1879. This was Campbell's second store in the same location, the first operating from 1864-1874, and the second operating from 1875-1883.