By Dr. Ken Edwards

Brothers Michel and Joseph Goldwater escaped from Poland during the Russian persecution of Jews and immigrated to California in 1852. Their first business venture was a saloon in Sonora. When it failed, they moved to Los Angeles where they found their niche in the mercantile business, eventually peddling their goods to the goldfields of southern Arizona Territory.

By Dr. Ken Edwards

His father was a peddler, his brother founded a highly successful department store in Phoenix and his nephew was a famous Arizona senator who ran for president of the United States. But Morris Goldwater established his legacy in Prescott. This is the first of four articles about Morris and his family who played an important part in the early history of Prescott.

By Mary Dahl

Since the rough early days of Prescott when the population was mainly miners and cowboys, whiskey has been a standard characteristic of the city. It's difficult to talk about nearly any event in the city's history without mention of liquor.

By Stan Brown

By 1864, the local native population had mixed feelings about the growing intrusion of miners and ranchers onto the Yavapai and Apache hunting grounds. They were glad to have livestock brought into their territory so they would not have to travel so far to the south in their raids, but they also recognized the threat to their freedom and life style from this growing alien population. The newly settled town of Prescott and the surrounding mining camps felt somewhat secure from Indian attack because of nearby Fort Whipple and its company of troops. But, tensions continued to rise as each side held to its own point of view.

By Stan Brown

Before the founding of Prescott in 1863, Apache raids on ranches and wagon trains occurred in the southern part of what would become the Arizona Territory. Mining between the Gila River and the Mexican border brought new investors and laborers. To protect these settlers, military posts were built and, in 1861, a skirmish at Apache Pass in the Chiricahua Mountains brought Cochise and his warriors into a full scale conflict with the Americans. That same year, the Civil War broke out, and the soldiers left their frontier posts to fight the Confederates back east. The Indians concluded that their intensified raids during the 1850s had finally won them a victory, causing the white men to withdraw. The Apache, Yavapai and Mohave took heart and became more ferocious than ever.

By Vicky Kaye

Ellen "Nellie" Cashman was a mere five years-old when she immigrated to America in 1850 with her mother and sister. Today, she is remembered as a pioneer, miner, entrepreneur, businesswoman, organizer, leader and "angel" throughout the West, Canada and Alaska. She was always searching for opportunities related to her first love - mining. She always paid her own way in the mining boomtowns by establishing businesses, buying and selling mines and actual hands-on mining. With any excess funds, she supported charities (and encouraged fellow miners to do the same), established hospitals, churches and schools, grubstaked other miners and helped the poor or needy from Arizona to Alaska, wherever she happened to call "home" at the time.

By Vicky Kaye

On a lonely stretch of the Richardson Highway near Paxson, Alaska, is a highway historical marker that gives tribute to the "gold rush women." With a backdrop of the Alaska Range, Prescottonian Melissa Ruffner and I (a recent transplant to Alaska) discovered quite by accident that one of our heroines from our home state of Arizona had a much more exciting life than we had imagined.

By Kathy Krause

It was July 1973 when the new Sharlot Hall Museum director, Dr. Ken Kimsey, came on board to lead activities for the next 17 years. Up until the early 1970s, the University of Arizona "museum studies" classes made field trips to visit Sharlot Hall Museum in order to observe "museum problems" and learn how not to run a museum! According to museum curator Norm Tessman, "It was Dr. Ken Kimsey's era, the fruits of his hard work and insight" that ended the field trips to Prescott. Under his leadership, "the quest for museum quality was to continue and accelerate in the years ahead." There was a new sense of professional pride, not only by the museum workers but by the community as well.

By Kathy Krause

Sharlot Mabridth Hall died on April 9, 1943 and accolades about her life achievements rolled in from across the state.  Dwight B. Heard, co-founder of the Heard Museum in Phoenix said, “In Sharlot Hall this country found the unusual combination of the sturdiness of the pioneer with the beautiful spirit of the poet.  She will be long remembered for both characteristics.”  For the previous 16 years she exhibited those traits in the museum she founded.

By Kathy Krause

Soon after the Territorial Governor's Party arrived in 1864, to what would later be named Prescott, a log house was built near the banks of Granite Creek to serve as both home and office for Governor John N. Goodwin and Secretary Richard McCormick. The rough-hewn log house was built hastily using oxen and mules to drag the logs to their position, the very position where they may be seen today.