By Wayne J. Orchard

The year is 1943 and America is at war. For the first time in its history, it was fighting on two fronts. The war was raging in Europe and the Atlantic Ocean, and occasioned by the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, it was fighting in the Pacific. The Navy and ground forces were island hopping throughout the Pacific making their way slowly towards enemy headquarters in Tokyo, Japan. Casualties were heavy on all fronts. America called all able-bodied men into its forces, and the Army, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard were all facing manpower shortages. Aviation was a relatively new tool in a combat mode. World War I had seen limited air combat, some strafing and bombing, but otherwise aircraft in combat was still untested.

By Lorri Carlson

When considering the history of the Chinese in Prescott, I repeatedly ask "why?" Why would so many individuals leave their families, homes and the homeland of their ancestors? Why would they leave so much behind? Why would they take such risks and face such uncertainty? Indeed, the hope of finding gold in the Western United States during the second half of the 19th century lured Easterners and Europeans in addition to the Asian population. It is my intent to understand what circumstances pushed the emigrants to leave China.

By Danny Freeman

The word rodeo in Spanish means to surround or round up. In reality there have been "rodeos" or round ups in America since the Spanish people brought cattle and horses to the New World in the 1500's. Today, however, "rodeo" to Americans means organized events of cowboy contests. In most parts of the United States and Canada rodeo is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable but in Mexico, and sometimes in California, the accent can be found on the second syllable.

By Bill Lynam

Pick a clear day, bring your walking stick and gloves, a Global Positioning System (GPS) instrument, if you've got one, but it's not necessary, and head up the trail at Stricklin Park from the Butte Creek trail head. The start of the trail is on Sherwood Road, just one street west on Gurley Street past The Hassayampa Village turn off. The Cowboy's Prayer awaits you at the top of the trail.

By Mick Woodcock

On the last day of the year 1906, Frank G. Ellis, M. D. of Annapolis, Missouri, was the subject of a letter that would forever change his life. It was a form letter, much as any U. S. government form letter sent from the Office of Indian Affairs. The printing in the body of the letter was in an attractive script. The substance of the message was typed in the blank spaces at the ends of sentences. It would send the good doctor on a rail and wagon trip to one of the more remote areas of the Arizona Territory: the Colorado River Agency.

By Mona Lange McCroskey

Lillie Murphy Cook was born in a house on the corner of McCormick and Gurley Streets, where the Bashford House now stands, on April 24, 1897. At the time of her interview, in 1994, she was living just up the hill at the Arizona Pioneers' Home. Her little brothers, Lee and Lloyd Murphy, then also in their nineties, were there at the same time. In the intervening ninety-seven years, Lillie had grown up and lived in Prescott (she always said "Pres-cott") and remembered life as it was in the early twentieth century.

By Lester "Budge" Ruffner

He died on Christmas Day, 1934, when the country was in the icy grip of both the depression and the Democrats. Governor of Arizona for seven terms during his career, this remarkable achievement earned him the sobriquet "George VII."

George Wylie Paul Hunt would have been a difficult client for the political image-makers of today. In all fairness, he could not be called either physically or intellectually attractive. Pumpkin-shaped and barely literate, his standard dress was a white linen suit, wool cap and high, black, laced shoes, winter and summer.

By Charles P. Stanton and edited by Parker Anderson

(The following is reprinted from the Arizona Miner of June 18, 1879. The author, Charles P. Stanton, recently arrested and later freed from a theft charge, alleges a vast conspiracy among top Yavapai county officials to frame him for murder and/or have him killed.)

"Ed. Miner: - I beg that you will be pleased to give me space in your columns to expose a black and most infamous conspiracy concocted, plotted, and carried out with the most consummate skill and precision, by a powerful combination of unscrupulous parties, who hesitated not at all the perpetration of every enormity to fully. . .

By Charles P. Stanton and edited by Parker Anderson

(Last week, in part one, we found Stanton and Rodrigues having a discussion in the Prescott jail about the murder of Timmerman and the possibility of a conspiracy against Stanton by Law Enforcement officials.)

The following is reprinted from the Arizona Miner of June 18, 1879. The author, Charles P. Stanton, recently arrested and later freed from a theft charge, alleges a vast conspiracy among top Yavapai County officials to frame him for murder and/or have him killed.

By Mick Woodcock

If you had mentioned the name Head in Arizona before 1890, you would have been speaking of a family of two bothers that were influential in the development of the territory. Both were businessmen and politicians from Yavapai County, vitally involved in the growth and prosperity of Arizona. C. P. and William S. Head were men who cast their lot in a new land and found prosperity and a measure of notoriety with it.