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.

By Carol Powell

In May of 1897, three men escaped from the Prescott jail in the true manner of Western folklore. They left in a blaze of gunfire, leaving a young man dead in their haste. The news of the escape and the names of the men were sent by telegraph to neighboring towns and cities. The escapees were Cornelia Sarata, Louis Clair Miller and James Fleming Parker.

By Parker Anderson

One of Prescott’s most enduring legends is the brief history of the Ku Klux Klan in Prescott. The famed white supremacist group had existed in various forms throughout the nation since Southern Reconstruction. By the 1920s, the Klan was the subject of public debate, with state legislatures conducting investigations into allegations of killings, vandalism, and general terror tactics attributed to the Klan. Defenders of the Klan maintained that their group consisted solely of "patriots fighting for White rights", an argument still used by white supremacists.

By Stan Brown

 (This is the third and final installment of "A Day Trip..." We pick up for the final segment of the journey at the Walnut Creek Bridge at milepost 35.8.)

As you cross the bridge, look up and slightly to the left (northwest) and you will see the Juniper Mesa Wilderness area. You are in the Juniper Mountains that span many miles to the north and west from here. Soon after crossing the bridge, County Road 125 (Walnut Creek Road) branches to the west. Turn here to explore the area.
 

By Judy Stoycheff

A favorite summer hike and picnic area is on trail #64 to the Stone Corral north of State Highway 169 east of Dewey. This site, shaded by huge ancient Cottonwood trees, watered by Ash Creek and guarded in the past by long-horn cattle, consists of two large stone wall circular structures, obviously meant to be used as corrals. In the 1870s, General George Crook was stationed at Fort Whipple in Prescott and frequently traveled between there and Fort Verde, possibly using this portion of the trail that may have been an existing freight line. It has become part of what was later named the "General Crook Trail" between Prescott, Fort Verde and Fort Apache.