By Allan and Cathie Englekirk

In the fall of 1863 when a young Albuquerque merchant named Manuel Yrisarri learned that the U. S. Army would establish a military outpost near the recently discovered gold fields of the Central Arizona Highlands, he determined that this would be a business opportunity too promising to miss.  It was obvious that the few settlers of this isolated area were eager if not desperate to obtain essential goods and would be happy to pay for them with gold.

By Jan MacKell Collins

Prescott’s wild women—the harlots who worked on the line along both Whiskey Row and notorious Granite Street—were an interesting bunch.  They rolled into town beginning with Prescott’s establishment in 1864, and were making headlines shortly thereafter.  For nearly one hundred years, the wanton women of the town were subjected to the usual run-ins with the law, addictions, illnesses, bar fights, domestic disputes and killings common to any western town.

By Allan and Cathie Englekirk

Arizona today, with some of the most beautiful scenery, best weather and greatest variety of things to do, is one of the fastest growing states in America.  However, it wasn’t always so popular.  Only Native American tribes, adventurous mountain men in search of pelts, and perhaps a thousand Mexican citizens lived in present-day Arizona at the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848.  These resident Mexican nationals had the option of claiming American citizenship (“by election”) under treaty terms that transferred Arizona (and, later, the Gadsden Purchase) to the United States.  This was not an option for those Mexican citizens who came to Arizona at a later time.

By Al Bates

A chance encounter at a Fourth of July outing in 1869 led to the adoption of an orphan Indian child and, many years later, to one of Territorial Arizona’s most bitter estate settlements.  Feelings were so intense that at one point a rifle was fired into a room occupied by a woman and her two young children.

By Al Bates 

Last week’s Days Past told the tangled story of Charles Leib, earlier an eastern politician and later an Army contract surgeon in early Arizona Territory.  This week we turn our attention to his widow and her future with a new husband.

By Al Bates

When General James Carleton needed a medical officer to accompany the Fort Whipple founding party in late 1863 he selected a former Santa Fe newspaper owner and politician with somewhat dubious medical qualifications.  Although Charles Leib claimed that he had graduated from a “Philadelphia Medical College and had practiced medicine briefly,” his checkered career was largely as a political operative in support of Republican Party objectives in Kansas and Illinois.

By Debra Matthews

“There she is, Miss America” is the line famously sung by Bert Parks that spawned many Americans to take a look at beautiful bathing beauties.  However, long before the televised Miss America pageants, there were bathing beauty contests held in places across the country, including the little frontier town of Prescott, Arizona.  Within the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives there are vintage photos of bathing beauty contests held at the Granite Dells swimming lake, later named the “Granite Dells Resort,” owned by the Wing and Payne families.

By Jay Eby

Recently, Days Past brought you the story of Sam Curtis Rogers and his underfunded attempt to provide a school system for Prescott in the late 1860s.  This experience ended when he moved his family to a farm on Walnut Creek some 40 miles to the northwest where he would again engage in the teaching trade among other ventures.

By Victoria Wilcox

Prescott is famous for the Wild West exploits of some of its former citizens—including stories of dangerous dentist John Henry “Doc” Holliday, who paused here before moving on to the silver mining camp of Tombstone.  But one bit of Holliday’s Prescott lore didn’t actually happen here—if it ever happened at all.

By David R. Berman

Arizona has had its share of colorful politicians but none more so than Democrat George W. P. Hunt, our state’s first governor, who voters elected to that office seven times.  He was deeply involved in most of the important Arizona political battles for over forty years—from the 1890s to the 1930s.