By Al Bates 

On May 10, 1863, at a location just a few miles south of today's Prescott, an event happened that had a significant impact on the future development of both this area and of Arizona Territory. On that date, twenty-five men signed a contract that established the first mining district in the Central Arizona Highlands. 

By Dewey E. Born 

In 1935 and 1936, Prescott had a population of about 5,000 and, like the rest of the country, was in the middle of the great depression. The surprising thing is that this small town had some 25 grocery stores. They varied from the national chain stores to small family stores, but they all seemed to make a profit.

By Parker Anderson 

Those familiar with the history of comedy in entertainment have heard legions of stories about the vaudeville circuit, which began in approximately the late 19th century and started to fade in the 1920s as motion pictures became more sophisticated. 

By Carol Powell 

Sometime in the late 1860s, Clara S. Olmstead Howard, a widow with children, met Louis Miller, an immigrant from Germany. They met and were married in Texas, where seven more children were born, including the sons who were destined to go on the become Arizona railroad men; two of them lost their lives on the trains.

By Mona Lange McCroskey 

In January, Prescott lost one of its grand dames with the passing of ninety-year-old Alice Mackin. She was the eighth child of Irish immigrant Peter Mackin and Alvina Bennett, who herself was born in what is now "the smack dab middle" of Goldwater Lake. Peter went riding by Alvina's home, saw her shoeing a horse and took a fancy to her because she was able to do such things; they married in 1902. Alice was born in 1916 and lived at Groom Creek in a house that was also a bar and stage stop (the house is still in the family).

By Tom Collins 

For decades, the Sharlot Hall Museum has possessed in its archives a fine photo entitled "Interior of an unidentified opera house, c. 1890s." And, since the Museum lacks photos of the interiors of the Prescott Theatre on the corner of Alarcon and Liberty streets (1878-1883); the so-called Prescott (or Bashford's) Opera House in the Howey building on the southeast corner of Cortez and Goodwin (1884-99); nor Patton's Opera House on the south side of West Gurley Street (1894-1897) (or known later as Dake's Opera House from 1897-1903); this, until-now unidentifiable photo, is a rare historical artifact of some significance and curiosity.

By Stan Brown 

In 1912, the Santa Fe Railroad built a spur line through the Perkins ranch from Clarkdale to Drake. This greatly facilitated the shipping of the Perkin's cattle and the depot, not far from the ranch house, was called Perkinsville. In the same year, the railroad had secured an easement across the Marion Perkins's ranch and created Perkinsville as a watering station.

By Stan Brown 

Our three children bounced eagerly from window to window in our camper as we went through the iron gate and completed the last mile on a well used gravel road. Our Chevy pickup truck rumbled along the western reaches of the Deep Well Ranch outside of Prescott, Arizona, heading for the 21st Annual Cowboy Camp Meeting in this area.

By Terry Munderloh

Arizona's first governor journeyed through Central Arizona in the 1860s. Letters written by members of the expedition mention Fossil Creek by name and commented on abundant "petrifactions" in one of the streams they crossed. Fossil Creek is identified on maps dating from the 1860s.

By Nancy Burgess - Caption courtesy of Richard Sims, former Director of the Sharlot Hall Museum.

A restored and resplendent elk returns home 

The Elks Club, B. P. O. E. #330, of Prescott, Arizona Territory, was chartered in January 1896 and is the "mother lodge" of Arizona. Desirous of a building of their own in which to hold their meetings and social events, in 1899, a committee was appointed by the Elks Club to investigate the feasibility of erecting an Elks Building in downtown Prescott.