By Richard Gorby 

In 1864 Prescott, the capital of the new Territory of Arizona was surrounded by pine trees. However, the town's first real building, Michael Wormser's store at the southwest corner of Goodwin and Montezuma, was made of adobe. That paradox ended immediately with the arrival of Alfred Osgood Noyes and his sawmill.  Soon Prescott became a town of wood, not of adobe.

By Jody Drake and Michael Wurtz 

Vaudeville is as old as humanity, and in one form or another will endure as long as people seek laughter, good tunes, mystification and surprise. Often presented at the Elks Theater, it was a boost to the spirit and a temporary escape from fear, anxiety and pain. Prescott, like America, lost a rich mine of humor as vaudeville went from two-a-day to one daily showing, down to a weekly, and lastly, to a rare event presented by a local civic organization. 

By Sylvia Neely 

In the summer of 1973, Dr. Kenneth Walker, Superintendent of the Prescott Public Schools, suggested that an outdoor laboratory be incorporated into the design and construction of the new junior high school. The lovely twenty-two acre site was established on Williamson Valley Road, one-fourth mile north of Iron Springs Road, adjacent to what is now Granite Mountain Junior High. The property was purchased by the school district at a cost of $90,000.

By William Bork

A generation before Zane Grey and companions in the United States created historical tales and adventure novels about life in the American West, there appeared in serial form in 1877-78 in a German periodical publication, Frohe Stunden, translates to Happy Hours, an adventure tale set in Arizona Territory about 1868 Der Oelprinz, translates to The Oil Prince. Rewritten and published in book form in 1897, it has not gone out of print in the 100 years (minus one year) since that time. Further, it has been put on the stage, made into movies, and re-told in several comic book series.

By Warren Miller 

When the cowboy poets gather next weekend at the 10th Annual Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering, which opens Thursday evening, August 14, 1997 and runs through Saturday evening, August 16, 1997, they will be continuing a tradition that has been important in the ranching country around Prescott since before the turn of the century. Several of the best known and revered old-time cowboy poets lived and worked in this area in times past.

By Karla Burkitt 

STEP RIGHT UP, LADIES AND GENTS! 
Dr. Acker's English Elixir, Boker's Stomach Bitters, Cooper's Magic Balm, Kickapoo Cough Cure, Roback's Blood and Liver Pills... 

Before the FDA and truth-in-advertising there was a time when anyone with an imagination and a bathtub or washtub could create a wonder drug and put it on the market. Following the Civil War hundreds of 'doctors' and experts sprang up, each with their special 'blend' of secret ingredients, to cure everything from hair loss to cancer. Patent medicine sales soared between 1870 and 1930 and most of those products were never patented at all. In 1905 a writer for Collier's Weekly estimated that Americans would spend about seventy-five million dollars purchasing patent medicines in that year alone.

By Jody Drake 

A friend introduced me to her. She was a petite woman in her nineties who still wore the beauty she had been born with. Her stories were full of the realness of life that strikes humor in all of us. For too few Thursday mornings I sat at her feet, looking up into those sparkling eyes, enchanted with the stories she was telling. "I changed the names," she said, "to protect the innocent." When I asked who the innocent were, she replied, "Why, me, of course!" 

By Norm Tessman 

This past week Prescott's home town hero, William Owen "Buckey" O'Neill, lived and died again. Turner Network's "Rough Riders" featured Sam Elliott as Buckey in the four-hour "Rough Riders" special. Only this time his name is spelled B-u-c-k-y O'-N-e-i-l, his wife wears striped pants (no proper Victorian lady ever wore trousers in that time), and he departs with the Rough Riders from a railway station called "Sidewinder" instead of the Prescott depot.

By Carolyn Bradshaw 

In February 1902, my great grandfather, Alfred Averyt Jr., fell off his bicycle on the icy Gurley Street hill in front of the Elks Theatre. The handlebar injured his lung, causing pneumonia. Seeking a change in climate, Mr. Averyt traveled by train to Phoenix. On his return to Prescott, he died in Wickenburg at the age of 33 on October 10, 1902. The Arizona Journal Miner reported, "He was an upright, conscientious young man, without an enemy in the world."

By Richard Gorby

On July 4th, 1864, Prescott held its first Fourth of July Celebration. Like all celebrations should be, it was happy and exciting, and like all Prescott celebrations should be, it was held in Prescott's Plaza. Prescott was only thirty-five days old, born at the May 30th meeting of Governor Goodwin and his staff just down the street (Montezuma Street) in a log building (now moved to the grounds of Prescott's Sharlot Hall Museum). In the southeast corner (across from the present downtown post office) of a Plaza covered with pines and junipers, a tall pine staff was erected for the Stars and Stripes.