By Kristen Kauffman
He was Arizona Librarian of the Year, a deacon, and a family man. He expanded two of the area’s libraries and oversaw a youth center built in Chino Valley in 1995. He was universally acknowledged as a decent human being, fostering mentorships with various community organizations, including the Kiwanis, where he was a charter member. His name was Allen Rothlisberg, and he would have been eighty this year. 

Energetic Rothlisberg was hired in 1963 after two previous library directors sounded the alarm that the Prescott Public Library, formally on Gurley Street, was running out of space. He had just graduated with his Master of Science Degree in Library Science from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. The first thing he tackled was space; when City Hall was built in December 1963, Rothlisberg worked to coordinate storing some library overflow in the basement of that building. He worked with the Prescott Sunrise Lions’ Club to bring a mobile Talking Books Library, a product of the Arizona Regional Library, for the blind and physically handicapped. He also started the first local large print collection at the Prescott Public Library on Gurley street.

By Brenda Cusick

Many Prescott residents know of Kate T. Cory, the painter who lived with the Hopi from 1905-1912 in Northern Arizona and then moved to Prescott. Recently two of her paintings were found that were in danger of being lost during the razing of our old city hall buildings. On a tip from a retired city employee, this writer (a living history presenter of Kate Cory) worked with several city employees and found two of Cory’s paintings, hidden from view, high on a shelf in the former City Council Chambers. 

These paintings are approximately 18” x 24” and depict historic buildings that were demolished long before Kate Cory painted them. The first painting is of Prescott’s second courthouse in the center of the Plaza, (the first structure used as a courthouse was a wooden building on North Cortez St. that was not owned by the county and was also used for other purposes). The second courthouse was constructed of locally made red brick. This poorly constructed building had to be demolished in 1916 due to deterioration. The courthouse we now know, made of more sturdy granite, replaced it in 1918. It’s speculated that Kate Cory (a well-known photographer) had pictures of the second courthouse with its bell tower, community well and wooden fences. She recreated a colorful painting from her memories, referencing her black & white photographs with oil paints.

By Stuart Rosebrook

On February 10, 2026, 160 years since the first known Arizona baseball team was organized in Prescott, pitchers and catchers will report to their Cactus League clubhouses in the Salt River Valley.  Arizona’s Major League Baseball spring training tradition dates from 1929, when the Detroit Tigers were the first MLB team to choose Arizona for their regular season tune-up. The Detroit nine played on a “scratch” diamond of gravel and sand at Phoenix’s Riverside Park, near Central Avenue and the Salt River. The state also hosted the six-team Arizona State League, a D-Class minor circuit.

Two decades earlier, the Chicago White Sox, en-route home from their spring home in San Francisco, stopped in Yuma to play a local team, the first recorded game between a major league squad and an Arizona ball club in territorial history. The White Sox beat the local Yuma’s 11-1 (or 8-1 or 9-1 depending on the source) on March 30, 1909, before a capacity crowd, but since that rowdy day on the Colorado River, Arizona and MLB have cultivated a profitable, fun spring training relationship, benefiting residents and winter visitors.

Aaron M. Wright, Ph.D.
As the country celebrates its 250th anniversary, it helps to put Arizona’s history in context. Arizona wasn’t part of the United States until acquired from Mexico in the mid-1800s. In 1776, as eastern colonies were signing the Declaration of Independence, the Tucson’s Spanish presidio was less than a year old, and Yavapai County remained uncharted territory.

But Arizona has a 250th anniversary to commemorate. The National Park Service calls it Anza250—marking a colonizing expedition from the Province of Sonora to the San Francisco Bay region, the northern reach of New Spain. Led by Spanish Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, the 1,800-mile journey from late 1775 to mid-1776 included about 250 people—mostly soldiers and their families—and roughly a thousand head of cattle. Remarkably, only one person died, while three were born, meaning the party grew during what must have been a grueling trek.

By Parker Anderson
When the Organic Act of 1863 officially created the Arizona Territory, President Abraham Lincoln appointed a slate of government officials to travel there and set up a new government.  John N. Goodwin was to be governor, with Richard C. McCormick serving as secretary of the territory.  

Once deciding to set up the new territorial capital of Prescott on the west side of Granite Creek, the new officials lived in tents until Goodwin and McCormick contracted to have a suitable log structure built for them to occupy. Samuel Blair, Daniel Hatz and John Raible were contracted to build what would come to be known as the First Governor’s Mansion, completed in the fall of 1864.

Governor Goodwin disliked holding the position of governor out in the wilds and got himself elected territorial delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives the following year, so he could return east without looking like he was abandoning Arizona. He left for Washington and never returned. Secretary McCormick succeeded him as governor.  

By Paul Fees

In 1882, when I was twelve years old, my parents moved from Barbour [sic] County, Kansas, (in which state they had been among the earliest pioneers), to Yavapai County, Arizona. We started on the third day of November with two covered wagons drawn by four horses each.  I rode a little Texas pony and drove a band of horses.  We followed the old Santa Fe Trail nearly all the way. . . .

– Sharlot Mabridth Hall, 1924

Sharlot Mabridth Hall’s parents, James Knox Polk and Adeline Boblett Hall, were both 37 years old when they decided to bundle up the kids, 11-year-old Sharlot and her little brother, Ted, (7) and move south. It was late in the fall. 

“Winter” drives the story of the Hall family’s migration from Barber County, Kansas to Yavapai County, Arizona. The killing winter of 1880-1881 was sandwiched between seasons of severe drought. When Adeline’s brother, John Boblett, wrote from Prescott in spring of 1881 suggesting a new home, James was quick to decide. He and his partner, Adeline’s and John’s younger brother, Sam, sold their farms, loaded the wagons, and headed northwest a hundred miles to catch the Santa Fe Trail at Fort Dodge.

By Stuart Rosebrook

In the sixteenth century, the Spanish came north from New Spain in search of treasure, especially silver and gold. In 1540 Francisco Vazquez de Coronado led his famous expedition from the West Coast of Mexico to Northern New Spain, including Arizona and New Mexico, looking for “the seven cities of Cibola”. While cities of gold were never found, every generation of explorers and miners since Coronado have sought veins of precious metals across the Southwest.

In Arizona Spanish explorers Antonio de Espejo and Juan de Oñate ventured into the Verde Valley in the late 16th century, noting deposits of silver and copper. As the Spanish Empire sent missionaries and soldiers north, silver and gold were discovered and mined successfully in multiple locations, including the Santa Cruz River Valley and the Santa Rita Mountains south of present-day Tucson. In the 1750s, Spanish settlers mined copper in Ajo, southwest of Tucson, with limited success. In 1855 early American settlers discovered the Spanish copper mine and began reworking the rich deposit of ore. Little did they realize that copper would someday usurp gold and silver as the state’s most valuable ore.

By Andrew Somerville, and Bailey Cacciatore

Human and canine companionship dates back thousands of years. In North America, a recent University of Arizona study suggests that the first human and canine companionship began forming 12,000 years ago, based on archaeological evidence found in Alaska. For generations human and canid relationships were more utilitarian, as canids performed a variety of tasks for people, which can still be true today.

In Arizona archaeological evidence shows the first possible human and canid connections along the Santa Cruz River in Tucson dating between 1200 to 800 BCE. These early relationships between dogs and Indigenous Peoples in Arizona were potentially both spiritual and pragmatic compared to modern counterparts today. Dogs were revered in many Native American cultures and were seen as guides to the spirit world.

By Kristen Kauffman

In celebration of America’s 250^th birthday, Sharlot Hall Museum is drawing attention to Arizona’s involvement in American milestones. Many of our readers know that the histories of Prescott and Tucson are tied to the American Civil War.

Even before the Civil War, there were efforts to establish Arizona as a territory separate from New Mexico.  The territorial capital, Santa Fe, was so remote that administration was cumbersome and unreliable.  War created an urgency.  In April, 1861, the Confederate government declared New Mexico and Arizona to be territories of the Confederacy and sent an invading army.  Union forces from California countered the threat, and on May 2, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the act creating Arizona Territory.  To prove that timing is everything, the Joseph R. Walker party discovered gold in the Bradshaw Mountains in 1863.  Because Tucson and southern Arizona were known to be sympathetic to the Confederacy, the territory’s first governor, John N. Goodwin, established the new capital at Prescott, adjacent to the gold fields and next door to the Union’s Fort Whipple.  In 1867, with the war over,  Governor Goodwin’s successor, Richard McCormick, moved the capital south to Tucson, still the territory’s most populous city.

By Jody Drake                                                                                              

Sharlot Hall, a child raised on the frontier, was a true pioneer shaped by westward expansion. She was among the courageous early explorers who dared to reach for a better life. Migrating from Kansas to Arizona, she had firsthand experience in the early exploration of the West. Her fascination and understanding of preservation were truly remarkable.