By Al Bates

In the late 1800s there were significant mineral deposits in Central Arizona and fortunes were waiting to be made.  But without any nearby navigable rivers, and given the rugged terrain, mine development was impeded.  Railroads—if they could be built—offered the solution.  So for a time there were two railways into Prescott but with only enough business to support one.

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial and the founding and establishment of Prescott as the Territory’s first capital.

April 1864 had been a quiet but windy month.  Once Governor Goodwin had left for an extended visit to southern Arizona, there was little going on politically except the tedious task of completing the first census and Indian Agent Poston’s travels in his search for votes as Territorial Delegate to Congress.

By Alexandra Piacenza 

The following is a continuation from the “Days Past” of March 30, 2014.

It is perhaps overly romantic to think that the lives of John C. Frémont, fifth Territorial Governor of Arizona, and Jessie Benton, once the belle of Washington D.C., were fated to become entwined.  But it is a notion hard to resist in light of one early escapade in the life of Jessie’s father, Thomas Hart Benton. At the outset of the War of 1812, Tom was appointed Andrew Jackson’s aide-de-camp, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. However, he was subsequently demoted from the battlefield to a “desk job” in Washington. Still bitter from his demotion and enraged at an insult offered his brother Jesse, he quarreled bitterly with Jackson who publicly threatened to horsewhip him.

By Brad Courtney

Last week’s “Days Past” told the legend of Chance Cobweb Hall, which spoke of a Prescott baby abandoned atop a Whiskey Row saloon counter, then gambled for and won by a local judge named Charles Hall.  It’s arguably Arizona’s best and most famous saloon story.  However, recent research has uncovered significant differences between that oft told romantic tale (which was based on true events) and what actually happened.

By Brad Courtney

Tombstone boasts Arizona’s most famous gunfight, but Prescott can claim its most famous saloon story.  If there is one better, it has not yet surfaced.  It speaks of a baby won in a gambling game after being abandoned atop a counter of a prominent Whiskey Row saloon.  Unlike the OK Corral legend, however, Prescott’s renowned saloon story has undergone minimal scrutiny over the years.

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial and the founding and establishment of Prescott as the Territory’s first capital.

When most of what is now Arizona came into the United States following the Mexican War, the area above the Gila River was an isolated, unsettled western outpost of New Mexico Territory with no separate identity and of little perceived value.  It was only after the Gadsden Purchase of land below the Gila River that the idea of a separate political entity named Arizona emerged.

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial and the founding and establishment of Prescott as the Territory’s first capital.

Before there could be a Prescott there had to be an “Arizona,” and that required both a war and a large land purchase President James K. Polk presided over the final land acquisitions that satisfied America’s “manifest destiny” making the United States a bi-coastal giant.  In his single term as president, he settled the boundaries for our Pacific Northwest by negotiation with England.  Then he created the American Southwest by setting in motion a monumental land grab from Mexico.

By Dr. Rhonda T. Davis

Users described opium as the perfect drug.  Westerners often called it the celestial drug and hailed it as a cure-all.  In small doses added to a cup of tea, opium combatted the many pains that plagued people who lived with irregular medical treatment on the frontier.  In medium doses, it was effective in easing insomnia.  Opium was used by frontier households as a tranquilizer, analgesic, to treat fatigue, depression, the ague, and malaria.  A wide range of patent medications including laudanum contained opium.

By Al Bates

This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial and the founding and establishment of Prescott as the Territory’s first capital.

By early April of 1864 Governor John Goodwin was on the road again; this time headed to southern Arizona to visit the Tucson and Tubac areas.

By Alexandra Piacenza

The Fremont House on the Sharlot Hall Museum campus stands as testimony to John C. Fremont’s service as territorial governor of Arizona, from 1878 to 1881, and the year he resided here with his wife, Jesse Benton Fremont, and their daughter Elizabeth.  The genteel interior belies the dramatic lives of its occupants, who plumbed the depths of personal drama and scaled the heights of national prominence preceding their time in Prescott.  The powerful balance struck between the adventurer and his articulate, fiercely loyal wife still reaches out from the names, dates and places of history to touch the mind and heart.