By Worcester P. Bong

Last week’s article outlined the visits to Prescott by Fiorello and Marie LaGuardia in April 1935 and September 1938. Grand celebrations were held during each visit. They were greeted by Prescott’s dignitaries and former Fiorello classmates.

On September 20, 1947, at 64, Fiorello died from pancreatic cancer. His passing prompted the Sharlot Hall Museum to have a memorial exhibit at the Old Governor’s Mansion. The October 1, 1947 edition of the Prescott Evening Courier noted the exhibit included several photographs and a worn set of cowboy boots that Fiorello wore when living in Prescott.

By Worcester P. Bong

Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia was born in the Bronx on December 11, 1882. As a child, his middle name was changed to Henry, the English form of Enrico. Fiorello, affectionately known as “Little Flower” (“Fiore” in Italian means “flower”) moved with his family to Fort Huachuca, Arizona in 1890. In 1892 they moved to Fort Whipple in Prescott. His father, Achille, was the U.S. Army bandmaster at both forts. Fiorello attended Prescott’s public elementary and high schools and played cornet in his father’s orchestra. For health reasons, his father was discharged in 1898. The family then moved to his mother's hometown of Trieste, Italy. Fiorello often expressed fond memories of growing up in Prescott. His upbringing here ultimately led to naming the bridge over Granite Creek on North Montezuma Street after him.

By Nancy Burgess

The Prescott High School ( PHS) Class of 1922 wanted to present the City of Prescott with a special “parting shot.” When the idea of a letter “P” came up, senior Harold Block suggested the site on the West flank of Badger Mountain. Somehow, it all came together. The seniors picked a spot and marked out a “P.” The boys of the Class of ’22 carried buckets of lime whitewash up the mountain, a long, steep hike. There were no subdivisions or roads and only game trails to follow. They camped out at a stream at the base of the mountain (Government Creek) and every day the girls of the Class of ’22 brought food for the hard working boys. According to Harold Weiland, P.H.S Class of ’22 who was interviewed about the project many years later, at the upper left-hand point of the “P” is a huge boulder. Cut into that boulder is the date 4-14-22, the day the project was completed. Once the “P” was finished, the Class of ‘22 had a picnic above the “P” and had an after-dark ceremony to name the letter “Twenty-Two.” They “stumbled down the mountain in the dark, pleased as punch” with their accomplishment.

By Nancy Burgess

This is a true story about an automobile – a 1913 Studebaker SA25 “machine” and the people who took it on an approximately 1,000 mile tour of Arizona in 1913.

“An Arizona Auto Adventure: Clarence Boynton’s 1913 Travelogue” is the story of the excitement, sights, experiences, trials and tribulations of a road trip in the early days of automobile travel in a place and time when the “Wild West” of Arizona was still in evidence.

By Bob Baker

Around 9:00 P.M on Friday, February 12, 1875, gunshots rang out on Montezuma Street (Whiskey Row) in Prescott, Arizona Territory. The gunfight resulted in the death of Jim Carroll and the wounding of John Evans, both employees of the California and Arizona Stage Line.

On February 15, 1875, the Arizona Weekly Miner reported the verbatim testimony of William Reid to the coroner’s jury on February 13. Reid, a stage driver, witnessed the gunfight between John W. Evans, the Station Agent, and Jim Carroll, a stage driver, in front of the California & Arizona Stage Line office on February 12.

By Parker Anderson

On October 15, 1962, the cornerstone for the new city hall building was laid. U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater spoke at the ceremony, which was attended by most of Prescott’s city officials, as well as Sam Steiger, then a State Senator. The ceremony was marred by the boycott of State Senator David Palmer, a Democrat, who denounced the gathering as “a political hack type presentation of the Republican party.”

By Parker Anderson

The Prescott city government has put the old city hall building at the corner of Goodwin and Cortez streets up for sale. This has brought about questions concerning the history of the building and of the property itself.

In 1962 prominent Prescott historian Budge Ruffner was Chairman of the Prescott Centennial Commission, which was in charge of preparations for Prescott’s 100th anniversary two years later. With the city administration planning to build a new city hall on a then-vacant lot, Ruffner asked commission member Bert Fireman to document the history of the site.

By Barbara Patton

The first settlers in the Central Highlands of the Arizona Territory in the 1860’s were seeking gold, as was Albert Noyes, an early pioneer from Maine. He had traveled to California during the Gold Rush, but without a lot of success there, Noyes decided to try Arizona. In 1863 he arrived in Arizona where he and fellow miners established a mining district in the mountains south of present-day Prescott. Other miners asked Noyes and his friends George Lount and E.M. Smith to draw up rules for the Quartz Mountain Mining District. By February 1864, Noyes had claimed his quarter section of land where he intended to mine for gold.
 

By Bob Harner

 “The Tiger is Dying!” was a headline in Prescott’s Weekly Arizona Journal-Miner, April 3, 1907. The tiger in question was the illustration on the backs of faro cards and its demise was caused by the new Arizona anti-gambling law.

Prescott was a stop on the circuit for professional gamblers (called sporting men or sports). Some became well-known (most notably Doc Holliday, who gambled here before Tombstone), but others became historical footnotes, like ill-tempered John Wilcoxon (alias Jim Moon) who enjoyed a three-month hot streak in Prescott in the 1870’s. Prescott newspaper coverage was often ambivalent about sporting men and their presence in Whiskey Row saloons.

By Elizabeth Bourgault

Yavapai Cemetery Association (YCA), a volunteer group formed in 1995 to restore and manage Citizen’s Cemetery on E. Sheldon St. in Prescott, created an “Adopt a Grave” program in 2013. YCA worked with the public to not only “adopt” graves which the adopter would then care for, but to also purchase markers for any of the hundreds of graves without them. This effort resulted in about 125 new markers added to graves. Betty Bourgault adopted the grave of Jesse Baxter and purchased a new marker for it.