Reba Wells Grandrud moved from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Phoenix in 1982.  For the next 30-plus years she has been involved in historical research, writing and publishing, as well as serving on a variety of boards and historical societies all over Arizona.  She holds degrees from the University of New Mexico in education, Southwest history, and history of the American West.

By Ken Edwards

Before the “Great Fire” of 1900 in downtown Prescott, a three-story stone and brick hotel stood on the southwest corner of Montezuma and Goodwin streets.  Generally known as the Scopel Hotel, it was officially the Grand View House.

By Ray Carlson

Moving the Territorial capital back to Prescott in 1877 increased exposure for the Prescott Free Academy.  That school had been built a year earlier to replace the town’s one room schoolhouse. A good-sized two story multi-room brick building with a bell tower, it was the most impressive building in town. As a result, offices for the Governor, Territorial Secretary and Chief Justice were created on the Academy’s second floor.

Benson-based Winifred “Winn” Bundy, a historian, preservationist and archivist of Southwest literature, has been named the Sharlot Hall Award honoree for 2015, and will be presented it at the Western History Symposium, August 6, 2016.  As a small child, Winn was drawn to books – her first love! – and would follow grown-ups around with book-in-hand demanding it be read to her. 

By Ray Carlson

According to the newspaper, 1876 was a good year for Prescott.  There were “about two hundred” attractive new buildings including the impressive school. Stores and saloons were busy, and prostitutes and robbers who followed wealth were plentiful.  

For many Americans today, the name “Baylor” brings to mind a major college in Texas known for sports and scholarship. Founded in 1845, it’s the oldest university in Texas and one of the oldest in the west, named for Judge Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor. In Arizona, the name Baylor is remembered because of Judge Baylor’s nephew, John R. Baylor, who created the Confederate Territory of Arizona in August 1861, setting off a chain reaction leading to the establishment of the United States’ Territory of Arizona.

By Barbara Patton

On a hot July day in 1864, a group of settlers rolled into the frontier town of Prescott.  The wagon train in the company of soldiers bound for Fort Whipple and under the leadership of Joseph Ehle had traveled down from Denver through Indian country.  Three of the wagons carried the household goods of the Ehle family, and Mrs. Margaret Ehle and their five daughters rode in a repurposed hearse.

Cynthia Maria (Miller) Sanders was born on December 28, 1858 in Princeville, Peoria County, Illinois to Jane Maria (Reeves) and Jacob Leroy Miller. Her father was a freighter and left the family for long periods. Jacob and Sam, his brother, were part of the Walker Party, which prospected in Yavapai County, Arizona Territory in 1863.

By Cindy Gresser

The year was 1935.  At the Fair Grounds there was a giant pile of stone and debris that would make excellent base fill for roadways and foundations around the growing City of Prescott.

By Mick Woodcock

The hydraulic method of mining was developed in California in 1853 to better exploit gold-bearing gravel deposits. It used a canvas hose with a metal nozzle to direct a high-pressure stream of water to erode dirt along rivers and stream beds. The resulting slurry, gold-bearing mud and water, was then directed through a sluice box where the gold settled out and the rest was deposited at the edge of the river.