By Al Bates

Arizona’s path to statehood began 150 years ago today when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Organic Act that separated it from New Mexico Territory and established it as a territory of the United States in its own right.  However this was not the first recognized Arizona Territory, for a previous version existed briefly as a part of the Confederate States of America.  And even before that early residents attempted to establish a “provisional” Arizona Territory.

By Nancy Burgess

The Cactus Derby of 1914 combined all of the drama of today’s Indy 500 along with the elements of a modern mud bog race.  The race was a great and significant event for the drivers, mechanics and machines involved.  The first prize, $2,500, hardly covered the costs of the racers, but the real prize was a highly coveted trophy inscribed “Master Driver of the World.”

By Nancy Burgess

As the automobile was beginning to gain popularity in the early years of the twentieth century, auto racing was evolving into a sport of national significance.  In Arizona, the annual Los Angeles-to-Phoenix Road Race, otherwise known as the “Cactus Derby,” was held each year from 1908 through 1914.  The race gave manufacturers the opportunity to promote their automobiles and related products – everything from tires to magnetos.  It also served to demonstrate the need for a good road between Los Angeles and Phoenix.

By John P. Langellier, Ph.D.

Prescott, named after the author of the epic Conquest of Mexico, can trace more than street names of Cortez, Montezuma and Marina to its storied past.  In fact, the Spanish also came north from Mexico.

By Jan MacKell Collins

Of all of the wild women serenaded by the famous Earp brothers and Doc Holliday, Big Nose Kate was the first to woo the men who would later find fame in Tombstone. Born in Hungary in 1850 as Mary Katharine Haroney, Kate immigrated with her family in 1860. They were living in Iowa when Kate’s parents died in 1866. She and her siblings were sent to a farm, where grueling work conditions enticed Kate to run away. She stowed away on a steamship for New Orleans where she entered the Ursuline Convent.

By Dr. Richard S. Beal, Jr.

There are very few pastors who have had two cities named after them. Nevertheless, this is true of one of Prescott’s early pastors at the Lone Star Baptist Church, now First Baptist Church.

In 1900, the church was located on the west side of South Cortez Street, south of the present Yavapai County Courthouse and city post office, the congregation having moved the church in1885 from its location on Fleury Street, where the Catholic Church now stands.  In 1898, the tiny Baptist congregation had fewer than forty-five members.  The previous pastor, the Reverend G. W. Cram served less than four months.  Who could be persuaded to become the next pastor?  How does a congregation in a pioneer town get a pastor?

By Mick Woodcock

In 1863, Christmas was new to the list of celebrations for most people in the United States.  Popularized in part by the drawings of Santa Claus and Christmas done by Thomas Nast for Harpers Weeklymagazine, much of the tradition as we know it today was in place by the time of the founding of Prescott.  That particular Christmas was remembered and recorded by a number of people.  No doubt the fact that this was the formation year of the Territory of Arizona had much to do with it.

By Judy Stoycheff

The Fitzmaurice Ruin, a multi-room prehistoric stone pueblo sits on a hill overlooking Lynx Creek in what is now Fain Park in Prescott Valley.  Over 900 years ago, this pueblo complex was constructed and inhabited by up to as many as 100 people at any given time beginning around A.D.1100 and continuing for 250 years.  Indiscriminate digging or “pot hunting” has caused considerable physical damage to the site and made it difficult for legitimate scientists to gather valid data.  Avocational and professional archaeologists use the artifacts found at such sites to date the habitation era and piece together what activities took place there. Questions as to the religious practices, food types and gathering methods, hunting and/or farming tools as well as trade items and possible trader identification can often be answered using the artifacts found at a site.

By Judy Stoycheff

In 1936, according to a published report, some of the members of the Yavapai County Chamber of Commerce (YCCC) took a tour to one of Prescott Valley’s timeless treasures.  They traveled by automobile eleven miles east of Prescott to Black Canyon Highway and then by mountain road to the Fitzmaurice property on Lynx Creek in Prescott Valley where Fain Park is now located.  On foot, they climbed a hill overlooking the mining operations on Lynx Creek to the prehistoric ruin known as the Fitzmaurice Ruin.

By Dr. Richard S. Beal, Jr.

It was 1879 and Romulus Adolphus Windes, just having completed his education at the Baptist Union Theological Seminary in Chicago, was faced with a problem.  His wife, Magdalene Ann, suffered terribly from asthma.  A physician advised a move to the dry climate of Arizona.  The American Baptist Home Mission Society was happy to appoint him to the town of Prescott, the capital of the Territory where gold had been discovered sixteen years before.  Windes felt it was the call of God, but how could he possibly move his wife and their two small children to such a remote place?