By Gretchen Hough Eastman

Amateur theater was a popular and important pastime at remote Army camps in the late 1800s.  Ft. Whipple, founded in Prescott in 1864, did not have a theater troupe in its first several years, a void lamented by the editor of the local newspaper, the Arizona Miner:  Theater, he suggested, would be “. . . much better than the sort of amusement indulged in by a great many of the Fort Whipple boys, i.e., getting drunk and shooting one another. . . “

By Amy Hale Auker

So history’s mostly a horseback song

And set to the thud of the hoofs.

~~~from Horseback Men, by Charles Badger Clark

The horseback man has long been revered worldwide. From Genghis Khan who kept showing up where he wasn’t expected to the Argentinian gaucho to the Guardians in the South of France, the romantic figure of a man on a horse has become part of the folklore of many cultures. The cowboy, relatively new on the scene, has become the most recognized symbol of our once-wild American West. He is our shiniest hero. And here in Yavapai County, he is a huge piece of our present as well as our past.

By Dave Lewis

Clarence Dutton, protégé of John Wesley Powell, was the most poetic and eloquent scientist ever to study the Grand Canyon and its surrounding deserts and plateaus.  He saw the area for the first time in 1880 and was struck by the contrast to the green fields, forested mountainsides and softly eroded geology he had always known in the eastern United States.

By Allan Englekirk and Cathie Englekirk

Historians, in chronicling Arizona’s eventful past, have tended to overlook the significant contributions of Mexican-heritage citizens of Prescott in the early 20th century.  A review of local newspapers of the period reveals that Mexican-Americans served their community and their country with greater devotion than most people know.  The pages of the Prescott Evening Courier of the 1930s and 1940s demonstrate convincingly that those citizens participated fully in the entire spectrum of community life, and in World War II numerous soldiers of Mexican heritage put their lives on the line as part of our national legacy of sacrifice.

By Jay W. Eby

By 1900 the Prescott Free Academy (Days Past, 29 Aug 1999) had proven to be too small for Prescott’s growing population, and the Board of the School District enlisted David Kilpatrick to design a larger and more modern building which came to be known as the Washington School.  (Kilpatrick also designed Prescott National Bank and the Hotel St. Michael.)

By Ray Carlson

In March 1871, the Weekly Arizona Miner noted: “Rev. Mr. (Alexander) Gilmore, Chaplain at Fort Whipple, is about to commence instructing the youth of Prescott, some encouragement having already been given him for the carrying out of the laudable object.”  During Prescott’s first five years, at least eight people opened private schools in homes, but none of these schools lasted more than six months.  Sam Rogers built a school and taught for eighteen months, but Rogers, as a father of six, could not survive financially on the fees parents paid. Gilmore in contrast had no family and had housing and financial support from the Army.

By Brad Courtney

In July 1868, Albert Noyes, a transplanted New Englander, began circulating a rumor throughout Prescott. Noyes was the co-owner and operator of the four-year-old town’s first sawmill, the Quartz Mountain Sawmill, and he promised that he was going to build a house of business the likes of which early Prescottonians had never seen.

By Mick Woodcock

As more and more Anglo miners and settlers moved to Arizona, conflict with the local inhabitants was generally inevitable. This constant state of warfare with the various tribal groups caused the Army to send Lieutenant Colonel (later promoted to Brigadier General) George Crook to be commander of the newly created Military Department of Arizona in 1871.

By Mick Woodcock

When Anglos first came to the Prescott area, initial contact with the indigenous people was peaceful enough, but as more miners arrived who shot the Yavapai’s main food supply, the mule deer, things became tense. With an invasion of their homeland and assaults on their families, they fought back in the only way they could. Raids on small groups of men, freight teams and isolated ranches accelerated until no one felt safe, anywhere.

By Marjory J. Sente

Last week’s Days Past told of tribulations with early Prescott mail service as experienced by Margaret McCormick, wife of Governor Richard McCormick.  This week continues those experiences, including the sacking of the postal contractor for non-performance  and an insider’s look at the competition to succeed John N. Goodwin as territorial governor.