By Tom Collins

On July 14, 1900 a roaring fire raged through Whiskey Row and Gurley Street, destroying Prescott’s most cherished business buildings. Ironically, the magnificent $60,000 hotel on the southwest corner of Montezuma and Gurley Streets, advertised proudly as Prescott’s only “fireproof” hotel, collapsed into smoking rubble along with the Palace Saloon, the Bashford-Burmister Company mercantile store as well as many others businesses. The hotel had stood for nearly eleven years as one of the architectural gems of Yavapai County.

By Parker Anderson

A few years back, the Elks Opera House Foundation named me the Official Historian of the Elks Opera House because I had spent over four years compiling a list of all known bookings in that facility in 100 years, as well as collecting other data and records.

By Parker Anderson

Admirers of the life and work of our museum’s founder, Sharlot M. Hall, contend that a key event in her life was her participation in an event called, "The Hassayamper’s Evening." It was there that she made her first public call to preserve the old Governor’s Mansion (then decrepit), as well as to start a museum to preserve Yavapai County history.

by Laura Clonts

It was June 18, 1910 and President William H. Taft had just signed the Enabling Act for Arizona. By this act, Congress authorized the people of the Territory of Arizona to frame a constitution and meet all the prerequisites for statehood. It was announced that official declaration of statehood would occur in February of 1912. After decades of waiting for this day, the people all over the territory were ecstatic.

By Laura Clonts

(Days Past Editor’s note: Many Arizonans do not know what a long and arduous struggle Arizona had in order to go from "Territory" to "State." Way back in 1877, then Territorial Governor A. P. K Safford predicted, "Arizona will soon be a state." Little did he realize it would take another 35 years! This ambition to be a state did not even attract attention of the U.S. Congress until 1889 when the first bill was proposed and dropped. In 1891, the First Constitutional Convention met in Phoenix and another bill was presented to Congress but, again, no action was taken.

By Terry Munderloh

Edited and expanded by Kathy Krause

On Saturday morning, June 19, 1915, 17-year-old Esther Ross of Prescott and the Arizona entourage of dignitaries arrived at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York for the launching of the USS Arizona super dreadnaught.

By Terry Munderloh

The USS Arizona, sunk at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, was launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York on June 19, 1915. Next Saturday will be the 95th anniversary of the event. She would be the third ship to bear the Arizona name.

By Lane Burkitt

A military encampment in Chino Valley in 1863 for the purpose of protecting what many hoped would be the richest gold fields in the West, led to the founding of the town of Prescott. General James H Carleton, military commander of New Mexico Territory with authority over Arizona, was convinced of the mineral riches in this area by reports from the early "placers" (prospecting miners looking for loose gold in the creeks). He especially wished to secure the gold deposits for the Union, as the Civil War was being hard-fought in the East at the time. Carleton wrote several times of "extraordinary developments of gold and silver in Arizona," and it was this belief that prompted him to act with urgency to establish a fort near what would, within a year, become the town of Prescott.

By Kathy Krause

It was the summer of 1857 and two shipments of camels had arrived in Texas from the Middle East bringing the total number to about 75. Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale was in charge of the Camel Corps and was assigned to survey a route from Fort Defiance, NM (now Arizona) to the Colorado River with plans to build a wagon road and scout out a route for a southern transcontinental railroad.

By Kathy Krause

Many have heard tales of camels in our state, but few realize the significance they have in our history. Actually, the camel family originated in North America where fossils of many kinds of camel ‘prototypes’ have been discovered. Eventually, the American camels migrated; some into South America, where today they appear as llamas and alpacas; others migrated northwest towards Alaska and the ancient land bridge into Asia, gradually evolving into the camel of today. It wasn’t until the early 1700s that a few were re-introduced as curiosities in Massachusetts. Then came the real test of their usefulness in the United States.