By Tom Brodersen

(It was in 1928, seventy-five years ago this coming June 11, that the first guest signed the Governor's Mansion register and the Sharlot Hall Museum began. We are running a series of articles over the coming months that will explore the people and events that have shaped the museum's long journey. This Sunday we will look at the museum's beginnings up until 1928.)

Today the Old Governor's Mansion, which Sharlot Mabridth Hall called the "Arizona's Mount Vernon," is the heart of the Sharlot Hall Museum.

By William Peck

The school at Hillside in 1940 was located at Yava, a distance of 4 miles toward Prescott from Hillside, and consisted of a one room, clapboard shack, propped up on some granite rocks that was its sole foundation. The wind howled beneath its board floor that had half-inch cracks between the shrunken planks. When sweeping the floor, it was unnecessary to employ a dustpan, because everything but large scraps of paper filtered through the cracks and blew away.

By Doris Theriault

Let me warn you before you begin reading, this is yet another Prescott love story. 

I grew up in Montreal, Canada, and spent my working years in the harbor area of Los Angeles. I'm a city gal through and through. While in Los Angeles, I commuted for an hour to work each way. I'm used to fast freeways, fast cars and even more relevant to this story, fast-talking car salesmen.

By Anita Nordbrock, Mike Ruddell, Norm Tessman, and Michael Wurtz

Red Light District to Prescott's quietest downtown lot: 
From the late 1860s until the 1900 fire, this site was home to two populations that were segregated from Prescott's other citizens - the Chinese community and the "red light district." Although both groups are well-known stock characters in the "old west" past, little is known of their day to day lives. There is a general study summarizing Prescott's Chinese community in the Journal of the Southwest Spring 1989 issue.

By Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright

Happy Birthday Sharlot! Yes, if Sharlot Hall were here this Sunday she would be 132 years old. Of course, she is here today, not only in spirit, but in her writings and in the museum which bears her name.

Let us continue the story of Sharlot M. Hall's life: 

The year 1895 was a pivotal one for Sharlot: It all started in January, when the Hall family drove their buckboard into Prescott to attend a lecture by the renowned Freethinker, Samuel L. Putnam.

By Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright

(It was in 1928, seventy-five years ago this coming June 11, that the first guest signed the Governor's Mansion register and the Sharlot Hall Museum began. Over the next few months the Museum will celebrate this anniversary with a major exhibit and several kinds of programming. We will also run a series of articles sporadically over the next months that will explore the people and events who have shaped this museum's long journey. The first will document our founder, Sharlot Mabridth Hall)

By Ann Hibner Koblitz

A controversial issue in modern medicine in America is the widespread prescription of powerful drugs such as Ritalin and Prozac to deal with psychological conditions. Contrary to what most people might think, this is not a new practice. Material in the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives reveals that the situation was not much different in Arizona in territorial and early statehood days. In fact, all that appears to have changed are the names of the drugs.

By Norm Tessman

The bottling of soda water is one of the frontier occupations which is frequently overlooked by historians. The soda works, however, was certain to exist in every town of even moderate size and permanence, and left more artifacts to record its existence than did many better-known businesses.

The bottler with his team and wagon was a prominent part of the Victorian summer scene in Prescott, perhaps selling nickel pop directly from the wagon or plodding by on his way to deliver a case or two to a saloon or other retailer.

By Parker Anderson

In January of 2001, this author related in this column the story of the grisly murders of Charles Goddard and Frank Cox at a popular New River stage stop known as Goddard Station. Two Mexicans, Hilariao Hidalgo and Francisco Renteria, were tried, convicted and hanged in Prescott on July 31, 1903, even though no motive for the murder was ever concretely established.

By Fred Patton

In the morning you would pick all the nannies that looked like they were close to giving birth, which was called kidding out. These nannies were staked by a peg and rope to one front leg in rows with a swivel in the middle. Daily you would have to go out with the pick-up at noon and pick up the nannies and kids that had birthed out. After kidding, the kid was pegged there by the same method except tied by one hind foot. A kid box was placed near the kid for protection from the elements, and the kid and nanny were numbered using a small brush and house paint so you could match the nanny with the kid if they became separated.