By William "Bill" Peck

I'm not starting out declaring how good or bad the "good old days" were.  It suffices to state that they are apples and oranges.  It remains for us as individuals to judge whether our present creature comforts come at a price of social loss when compared to the past. 

By Tom Brodersen

Sometimes "days past" leave traces that cannot be forgotten.  This year marked the 50th anniversary of nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site and many still suffer from cancer and other diseases caused by fallout from the United States atomic testing program half a century later.  It may come as a surprise that Yavapai County residents are included in the official list of people affected.  The areas in Arizona recognized by the government as affected by fallout are Yavapai, Coconino, Apache, Gila, and Navajo counties.  One out of every seven tests dumped radioactive fallout on northern Arizona. 
 

By Marie Slayton

Having worked at the Gurley Street Grill for the better part of the last six years, I am quite familiar with the folkloric history associated with the building.  However, as most people know, folklore and stories that are passed down through generations can bear little if any resemblance to history.

By Anne Foster

Sometimes, local legends are actually true.  Proving it, however, can be quite another story.  Just like the childhood game of "Gossip," where a whispered sentence is slowly transformed from one end of the line to other, the original tale is slowly lost in the retelling.  The essence of the story is there, but it takes some creative thinking and a great deal of research to find the truth behind the legend.

By Ruth Noggle

Prescott was a quiet town in the 1950's and early 1960's.  My introduction to school began with kindergarten at Dexter with teacher, Doris Mylott, who remembers me as a "real nice kid."  Our report cards graded Music, Art, Science and Social Studies, Number Readiness, Reading Readiness, Language, Work Habits, Health and Social Growth, along with 31 sub-headings. 
 

By Goodwin Berquist

Why would an organization "begun out on the dusty fairground with sort of a drunken brawl and an imitation snake dance" thrive in Prescott for seventy years?  Cowboy poet Gail Gardner, a charter member of the Smoki People, provides some answers. 
 

By Linda Luddington

Tall, stately cottonwoods along Kirkland Creek shade the Rigden Ranch headquarters from the hot Arizona sun.  Built by hearty settlers over 120 years ago, the rambling old ranch house beckons visitors inside.  Walls of every room are covered with oils and watercolors painted by the Rigden family; most furniture surfaces hold Rigden sculpture.  In this ubiquitous Western art is the story of the history and essence of the Rigdens and their ranch, the featured family ranch of the 2001 Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering.

By Warren Miller 

Dobie rode a bronc to breakfast. 
That cayuse was plumb green. 
He fed ol' Dobe some biscuits, 
Still in the fire, I mean.

The camp cook wasn't none too pleased 
When Dobe went in the fire. 
That bronc spilled all the coffee; 
Stomped the bacon in the mire. 

Now, Dobe was some preoccupied, 
That biscuit dough was hot, 
And the lid from that dutch oven 
In his galluses was caught. 
 

These lines begin cowboy poet Mike Logan's poem, "Bronc to Breakfast," from his book of the same title.  The poem continues through sixteen more stanzas to tell a great story, rich in detail and humor, of an early morning roundup camp incident that left the cook hopping mad and breakfast and hot coals scattered all around the chuckwagon. 
 

By Parker Anderson

The mountain town of Jerome, today a quiet, tourist-oriented hamlet, was a wild and wooly mining camp in the late 19th century.  A vast array of respectable and not so respectable characters congregated there.  Among them a barber named Richard Cross.  Very little is known of his background, except that he hailed from Illinois.  Why he ended up in Jerome is also unknown.  What is known is that, while he was there, he became infatuated and/or obsessed with a woman who did not return his love. 
 

By Leo Banks

A Hualapai Indian murderer was hung outside Prescott in 1925.  The now-forgotten case was extraordinary for its drama and absurdity.  It was a frontier hanging in the age of the telephone and Model-T.  The killing of cab driver A.M. Cavell by George Dixon Sujynamie aroused deep passions in Prescott.  The white population hollered for the head of the 19-year-old Indian, while members of the Hualapai tribe reportedly held war councils and threatened reprisals if the government went through with the execution.