Items 1 to 10 of 1347 total

Memories of McCabe

May 13, 2017

By Dana (Brisendine) Sharp

The group of mining claims known as the McCabe Group existed as a working mine for 110 years.  The town itself actually existed for about twenty-seven years, reaching its height around 1900.  The Post Office closed October 31, 1917. There are many stories about McCabe that have been passed down through the generations of families who still live in the area. Following are some scenes from the lives of one of those families.

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By Yavapai Prescott Indian Tribe

In the 1870s the Army was still hunting Geronimo.  He was known as Goyathlay by his tribe (Bedonkohe Mescalero-Chiricahua) and Gajeesah by the Yavapai (for the name of the place his mother, wife, and three children were massacred by Mexicans).  According to Geronimo's biography he was made war chief of all the Apaches with this name (his spelling: Kas-ki-yeh). 

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By Yavapai Prescott Indian Tribe

This is Part One of an article on Yavapai Indian scouts who served with the U. S. Army in the late 1800s.  [Note:  Last year there was a Days Past article on Apache Scouts who won the Medal of Honor.  That article misidentified Sergeant Rowdy, a heroic Yavapai Scout, and did not cover the exploits of other Yavapai Scouts.  This article picks up the story of the Yavapai.]

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Cowboy Poetry

Apr 22, 2017

By Sally Bates

“Cowboy” poetry is as old as the trail driving days following the Civil War when young men working horseback in the great American West brought with them elements of the British ballad tradition. Using the form of poetry they had learned to recite in school, kitchen, or parlor they recorded events and passed on traditions. Favorite songs and stories about experiences on the cattle drives or ranches became their unique way of sharing experiences — past and present. It was not strange to hear many different versions of old ballads revised to hold new personal experiences. Nor would it be unusual for them to write lines to old songs and spirituals using the rhyme and meter presented therein. 

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By Mick Woodcock

The year 2017 commemorates the 100th anniversary of the United States' involvement in what is known as World War I. Arizona had only been a state for five years when the European conflict became more than headlines in the newspaper. It touched the lives of everyone residing in the state, whether a citizen or a sojourner. For the first time since it was created as a separate territory in 1863, Arizona was about to take full part in a very national experience.

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By Al Bates

On the evening of March 13, 1997, widely scattered reports came in from across Arizona—including Prescott, Prescott Valley and Dewey-Humboldt—of mysterious lights crossing the sky.  This phenomenon, now popularly called “The Phoenix Lights,” is still a topic of controversy.

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By Ken Edwards

Before the “Great Fire” of 1900 in downtown Prescott, a three-story stone and brick hotel stood on the southwest corner of Montezuma and Goodwin streets.  Generally known as the Scopel Hotel, it was officially the Grand View House.

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By Ray Carlson

Moving the Territorial capital back to Prescott in 1877 increased exposure for the Prescott Free Academy.  That school had been built a year earlier to replace the town’s one room schoolhouse. A good-sized two story multi-room brick building with a bell tower, it was the most impressive building in town. As a result, offices for the Governor, Territorial Secretary and Chief Justice were created on the Academy’s second floor.

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By Ray Carlson

According to the newspaper, 1876 was a good year for Prescott.  There were “about two hundred” attractive new buildings including the impressive school. Stores and saloons were busy, and prostitutes and robbers who followed wealth were plentiful.  

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For many Americans today, the name “Baylor” brings to mind a major college in Texas known for sports and scholarship. Founded in 1845, it’s the oldest university in Texas and one of the oldest in the west, named for Judge Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor. In Arizona, the name Baylor is remembered because of Judge Baylor’s nephew, John R. Baylor, who created the Confederate Territory of Arizona in August 1861, setting off a chain reaction leading to the establishment of the United States’ Territory of Arizona.

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