By Dr. Kathryn Reisdorfer

When we think about the Old West, we often conjure up images from movies about gun-slinging desperadoes and barroom brawls. Though Hollywood tends to exaggerate and romanticize these events, it is true that violence was widespread, and murders, especially in the early days of prospecting and mining, were frequent.

Suicides were also common in those days of wild dreams and dashed hopes. 

By Jay Eby

Alexander Oswald Brodie III, like most Prescottonians of his day, and most of us, was not a native of Arizona. However, he was "a thorough Westerner" Arizonan.  Brodie was born November 13, 1849, in the family mansion near Edwards, New York to Joseph and Margaret (Brown) making him the heir of a long line of royal Scots.

By Parker Anderson

For a number of decades scores of western movies, pulp magazine writers, and even some respected historians have expounded the idea of "frontier justice," intimating that law and order in the old Southwest was swift, sure and often unfair. We have been historically fed this so often that nearly everyone accepts it as fact.

I beg to differ. I don't pretend to speak for other areas of the West, but pioneer Arizonans were a high-toned people who fashioned a set of high-toned laws to live by.

By Ken Edwards

(This is the second art of a two-part article regarding the history of early automobiles in Yavapai County)

By April 1904, just a year after the first cars arrived in Yavapai County, many of the wealthier residents had made purchases of these new vehicles. On Friday, April 22 of that year, four cars set out from Prescott on a journey to Tucson, which they expected to reach in three days. An automobile tournament was to be held there the following week.

By Ken Edwards

(This is the first part of a two-part article regarding the history of early automobiles in Yavapai County) 

The Main Circus came to Prescott in November of 1899, arriving by train. Among the attractions was a new-fangled contraption from the east called an automobile. This particular vehicle was powered by an electric storage battery and, the Weekly Journal-Miner reported, "runs perfectly noiseless."

By Parker Anderson

The first legal hanging in Prescott’s history of Manuel Abiles is not remembered as an extraordinary event.  The people involved are not colorful and legendary, though it has been written about a number of times.  (Note: There are three spellings in various documents and accounts of the first Prescott hanging pertaining to his last name.  The oldest documents at the time of the hanging spell his last name Abiles.  Later written accounts use Aviles.  There is even one newspaper article that spells his name Abelis.  To maintain consistency, we will use the name as given in the oldest documents.)

By William "Bill" Peck

In 1887, Morris Darnell built a store and bar which probably had rooms for rent upstairs across the railroad tracks abut 500 feet south of the depot in Hillside. Finding he was on the wrong side of the tracks and had built in a mud hole, he somehow moved the rather cumbersome building in about 1900 to its present site where it serves as the Hillside Store, a cooperative affair run by our town's retired women.

By Kathryn Reisdorfer

The Irish, who had not been well received in the East, were more accepted and far more successful in mining areas of the American West. In Prescott, Frank Murphy (b. 1855 - d. 1917), who had his hand in mining, contributed tremendously to the local community.  Another Murphy Beatrice lived in Butte, Montana, which like Prescott was a major mining hub. Although she was not Frank's relative, she was also Irish. She was full of exuberance and appreciation for life, and, luckily for us, she kept a diary.

By Terry Munderloh

Long before the Spanish occupation of what would one day become Arizona and the arrival of Euro-American explorers and settlers to the western frontier, a unique aboriginal population lived in present-day Yavapai County. Ruins of many of the structures built by these Amerinds dot the hilltops throughout our surrounding countryside.

By Parker Anderson

The art of live drama and performing plays goes back to the days of the ancient Greeks but the noble art of theater has seen much change and evolution over time. For instance, plays, such as those of Shakespeare, used to run 3 to 4 hours, some longer. Today audiences don't seem to have the tolerance to sit that long. Today's average theatrical performance runs two hours or so.