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.

One of the resolutions unanimously adopted at the May 30 meeting at Don Manuel’s store on the banks of Granite Creek was that a mass meeting be held at Prescott on Monday, July 4, 1864, at noon to celebrate the 88^th anniversary of American Independence.

by Heidi Osselaer

On February 10, 1918, four men died in a gun battle between lawmen and the Power family living in Rattlesnake Canyon in the Galiuro Mountains of southeastern Arizona.  This was not only the deadliest single gunfight in Arizona; it was probably the deadliest slacker battle during World War One.  At the time the Bisbee Daily Review called it the “only armed resistance in Arizona to the military draft.”

By John P. Langellier, Ph.D.

During the Victorian era a publication called Outing: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Recreation exposed its many subscribers to the work of an up-and-coming new addition to the pictorial periodical scene.

By Al Bates

Prescott’s first railroad, the Bullock line from Seligman, with all its problems, was continuing to limp along when a new player appeared on the scene.

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.