By Parker Anderson

Even before the Territory of Arizona was officially declared in 1863, miners were in the area and had discovered gold in the southern part of what is now Yavapai County. The biggest strikes were located on a mountainside that would come to be known as Rich Hill. After Arizona became a Territory, several mining towns sprouted up in the vicinity of Rich Hill including Octave, Weaver, Congress and Antelope Station (by Antelope Creek). The area is located at the bottom of the hill south of Yarnell and between 10-15 miles east of State Route 89. Except for Congress, these towns do not exist anymore (aside from ruins) although in the past few years much new development has been appearing in the region.

By Ruth Noggle

Ruth continues with her memories of growing up in Prescott. If you lived in Prescott in the 1950s, you will remember the many places she mentions. If you are more recent to town, it will astonish you how Prescott has changed and grown since the 1950s.

By Ruth Noggle

In 1948, my family came to Prescott from Michigan via Tucson. Harriette (Mom) and Joe Noggle (Dad and driver of our black 1949 Ford sedan), Carl and Roy (my older brothers) and I (Ruth, two years old at the time) drove up the Yarnell Hill on the two-lane, curvy Highway 89. When we had stopped in Congress for fuel before going up the hill, the station attendant gave Dad two flares to use in case we couldn’t make it up the hill! The radiator did overheat, but we slowly chugged into and through Yarnell. We drove on past Wilhoit’s lone gas station and on up to White Spar Road toward Prescott. Dad assured us the curves would end, but we had serious doubts.

By Ruth Noggle

Downtown Prescott was very different in the 1950s from what it is today. Rohrer-Bloom Drug Store was on the northwest corner of Gurley and Montezuma streets with its U-shaped soda fountain where my brothers and I would sit at the soda fountain and have a treat.

By Nancy Burgess

On June 5, 1905, an elk statue was mounted on the roof of the new Elks Opera House on Gurley Street. It remained there until 1971 when the Elks Club moved out of Prescott and took the elk with them to their new headquarters in Prescott Valley. In 2006, the elk, then known as "Bill," was in dire need of repair and negotiations were made to have it restored to its original splendor and returned to the roof of the Elk’s Opera House. The job of restoration was not an easy one.

By Nancy Burgess

The Elks Club, B. P. O. E. #330, of Prescott, Arizona Territory, was chartered in January 1896 and is the "mother lodge" of Arizona. Desirous of a building of their own in which to hold their meetings and social events, a committee was appointed in 1899 by the Elks Club to investigate the feasibility of erecting an Elks Building in downtown Prescott. A downtown lot was purchased in 1900 on Gurley Street just east of the Courthouse. In 1901, Articles of Incorporation were approved for the Elks Building Association. After members of the community lobbied the Elks Club to add an opera house to their proposed building and stock was sold to help fund this additional cost, architect, J. R. Minor was hired and ground was broken in January, 1904.

By Pat Atchison

On June 2, 1864, the local newspaper, The Miner, noted that the Hon. Joel Woods, a visiting legislator from Colorado, was accidentally shot and killed in the forest near town while on a hunting expedition. He was buried “in a beautiful ground just east of town which will be reserved for a public cemetery.”

By Kathy Krause

The July 14, 1900 fire in downtown Prescott burned all the books the Monday Club ladies had collected for three years for their little library in the Bashford building. It took over a year for the Library Board to get things rolling again for the planned library building. Book donations came in from the community and the insurance money from the fire loss was all held pending the construction of the Carnegie Library. The $4,000 collected locally and equal grant from the Carnegie Foundation were in the bank.

By Kathy Krause

In mid-1899, the Library Board of Directors of the Monday Club of Prescott requested a grant from the Andrew Carnegie Foundation in the sum of "$10,000 or even $8,000" in order to build a public library. The Foundation agreed to supply "the last half of the eight thousand dollars ($8,000) required to make the library free." In April 1900, the Carnegie Foundation sent the $4,000 they had promised after the town had collected the first $4,000 to fulfill the town’s obligation.

By Kathy Krause

In August of 1895, a group of women in frontier Prescott felt the need for a club where they could "meet for study, mutual counsel and united action pertaining to education and civic betterment." It was called, "The Women’s Club of Prescott," and met twice monthly on the least socially busy day of the week, Monday. They were not and did not wish to be considered a part of the usual women’s groups of the time, i.e. women suffragettes.