By Nancy Burgess
This is a true story about an automobile – a 1913 Studebaker SA25 “machine” and the people who took it on an approximately 1,000 mile tour of Arizona in 1913.
“An Arizona Auto Adventure: Clarence Boynton’s 1913 Travelogue” is the story of the excitement, sights, experiences, trials and tribulations of a road trip in the early days of automobile travel in a place and time when the “Wild West” of Arizona was still in evidence.
By Bob Baker
Around 9:00 P.M on Friday, February 12, 1875, gunshots rang out on Montezuma Street (Whiskey Row) in Prescott, Arizona Territory. The gunfight resulted in the death of Jim Carroll and the wounding of John Evans, both employees of the California and Arizona Stage Line.
On February 15, 1875, the Arizona Weekly Miner reported the verbatim testimony of William Reid to the coroner’s jury on February 13. Reid, a stage driver, witnessed the gunfight between John W. Evans, the Station Agent, and Jim Carroll, a stage driver, in front of the California & Arizona Stage Line office on February 12.
Oral History
Interviewee: Mary Ruddock (b. 07/04/1964 – d. xx-xx-xxxx)
Interviewer: Jim McCarver
Audio Number: 1631
Duration: 00:49:53
Date: September 16, 2021
Acquisition Number: ACC# 2021.077
Topics Discussed: Growing up in Prescott in the 1970s. Veteran's Administration (VA) Hospital (Bob Stump VA Center), 1970-2013; Mother was a Yavapai County Infection Control and TB Nurse; Jobs in Prescott; Prescott Frontier Days Rodeo and Smoki performances; Fort Whipple VA Hospital 1990-2013; Everett Brisendine; Moving of Bashford House; Sir Nino Cochise & Jay Jones.
NOTE: The digital photos that Mary Ruddock donated along with this oral history were placed in the Fort Whipple & VA Center Collection, MS-90.
By Parker Anderson
On October 15, 1962, the cornerstone for the new city hall building was laid. U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater spoke at the ceremony, which was attended by most of Prescott’s city officials, as well as Sam Steiger, then a State Senator. The ceremony was marred by the boycott of State Senator David Palmer, a Democrat, who denounced the gathering as “a political hack type presentation of the Republican party.”
By Parker Anderson
The Prescott city government has put the old city hall building at the corner of Goodwin and Cortez streets up for sale. This has brought about questions concerning the history of the building and of the property itself.
In 1962 prominent Prescott historian Budge Ruffner was Chairman of the Prescott Centennial Commission, which was in charge of preparations for Prescott’s 100th anniversary two years later. With the city administration planning to build a new city hall on a then-vacant lot, Ruffner asked commission member Bert Fireman to document the history of the site.
Oral History
Interviewee: L. H. "Slim" Kite (b. 06/21/1906 - d. 11/24/1995)
Interviewer: Warren Miller - SHM Education Manager
Audio Number: Transcript Only
Duration: 00:00:00
Date: June 18, 1986
Topics Discussed: This folder contains an oral history interview transcript (no audio, only a transcript) of L. H. "Slim" Kite discussing the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine of the Superstitions Mountains east of Phoenix, Arizona.
By Barbara Patton
The first settlers in the Central Highlands of the Arizona Territory in the 1860’s were seeking gold, as was Albert Noyes, an early pioneer from Maine. He had traveled to California during the Gold Rush, but without a lot of success there, Noyes decided to try Arizona. In 1863 he arrived in Arizona where he and fellow miners established a mining district in the mountains south of present-day Prescott. Other miners asked Noyes and his friends George Lount and E.M. Smith to draw up rules for the Quartz Mountain Mining District. By February 1864, Noyes had claimed his quarter section of land where he intended to mine for gold.
Oral History
Interviewee: Flora Black (b. 03/19/1937 – d. xx/xx/xxxx)
Interviewer: Jim McCarver
Audio Number: 1632A & 1632B
Duration: 01:09:07 & 01:07:39
Date: November 10, 2021
Acquisition Number: ACC# 2022.010
Topics Discussed: Flora Black Family History, Black Ranch History, Highland Park & Prescott Heights Subdivision History & How these Subdivisions got their Street Names.
By Bob Harner
“The Tiger is Dying!” was a headline in Prescott’s Weekly Arizona Journal-Miner, April 3, 1907. The tiger in question was the illustration on the backs of faro cards and its demise was caused by the new Arizona anti-gambling law.
Prescott was a stop on the circuit for professional gamblers (called sporting men or sports). Some became well-known (most notably Doc Holliday, who gambled here before Tombstone), but others became historical footnotes, like ill-tempered John Wilcoxon (alias Jim Moon) who enjoyed a three-month hot streak in Prescott in the 1870’s. Prescott newspaper coverage was often ambivalent about sporting men and their presence in Whiskey Row saloons.
By Elizabeth Bourgault
Yavapai Cemetery Association (YCA), a volunteer group formed in 1995 to restore and manage Citizen’s Cemetery on E. Sheldon St. in Prescott, created an “Adopt a Grave” program in 2013. YCA worked with the public to not only “adopt” graves which the adopter would then care for, but to also purchase markers for any of the hundreds of graves without them. This effort resulted in about 125 new markers added to graves. Betty Bourgault adopted the grave of Jesse Baxter and purchased a new marker for it.
