By Parker Anderson

In days past, the town of Ash Fork had a reputation as an unsavory place-a place where the worst elements of society congregated to ply their questionable trades, and where seekers of vice went to entertain their wants. Contrary to popular belief, much vice was legal in those days, and law enforcement personnel were unable to do much about it unless provoked by specific incidents. The day came when this happened in Ash Fork, and Yavapai County Attorney Patrick W. O'Sullivan vowed to clean up the town.

By Michael Wurtz

In 1876 Samuel Baker and his crew began to build a modest house on the southeast corner of Gurley and Pleasant Streets. Almost 100 years later that same house, which had blossomed into a beautiful Victorian home, was raised up on to a truck and slowly rolled down Gurley Street to its new home as a museum artifact. On April 19, 1974, 30 years ago, the William Coles Bashford House was moved to the Sharlot Hall Museum.

By Fred Veil

(This is part one of a two part series.  Second part is titled, "Flour and Grain Supplier Influenced Course of Early Arizona".)

Charles Henry Veil was typical of the early pioneers who settled the vast frontier known as the Arizona Territory in the mid to late 1800s. He was a first generation American, born in the East and a Civil War veteran. He came to Arizona not by choice but rather as a U.S.

By Terry Munderloh

The age of electricity began in the United States when the Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York went into operation on September 4, 1882. In Arizona Territory, the little town of Prescott would not become electrified until Frank Lowell Wright came to town.

Frank Wright came to Arizona in the 1870s and worked the steam driven stamp mill at the Tip Top Mine. He later moved to Chaparral Gulch (south of Humboldt) where he managed several developing mines in that area using boiler and steam operated engines.

By Jim Byrkit

In February 1863, at the height of the United States' Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill making Arizona a territory separate from New Mexico. Three months later, renowned frontiersman Joseph R. Walker wrote a letter to Gen. James Carleton, whose U.S. Army command, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, included the new Arizona Territory. Walker told how he with a party of other men had found gold on the Hassayampa River about six miles south of today's Prescott. Carleton immediately decided to send an army detail to the diggings to protect Americans there from Indian attacks. He chose Robert Groom to guide the army expedition to the gold fields.

By Dr. Ted Finkelston

(This is the second part of a two-part article written by Ted Finkelston to honor Sharlot Hall Museum volunteer Art Park.  The first part is titled, "Transportation Building is a Colorful and Utilitarian Place.")

In March 1974 the Historical Society began its renovation of the new Sharlot Hall Museum's Transportation Building. At that time the rather grandiose plans for renovation were set aside because of budget restraints. Instead, the Board decided to have the lower half of the side windows blocked up for security reasons, repair the roof, and paint the outside of the building.

By Dana Sharp

(This is the second part of a two-part article that was first published in its entirety in the courier in 1975) 

A walk through Mint Valley on a quiet autumn day gives you the feeling of going back in time, of almost being with the people who once lived and worked there. People with hopes and dreams, people who built homes, planted orchards and raised children and left remnants of their living for us to find. Shards of purple glass that once were whole, gracing the Sunday table, a few pieces of old silverware, broken crocks, steps barely showing through the grass leading to nowhere, but must have once lead into a warm kitchen filled with the smell of rising bread and the sound of laughter.

By Parker Anderson

Followers of Yavapai County history already have heard how famed historian and poetess Sharlot M. Hall was chosen to deliver Arizona's electoral votes for Calvin Coolidge to Washington following Coolidge's election as President of the United States in 1924. Much has also been said about how Prescott's two newspapers, the Courier and Journal Miner, seemed not to think the event very important, as coverage was sparse at best. True, nothing appeared in the papers on the day Sharlot arrived in Washington, but there were articles before she left, and several after she returned. These articles, as well as Sharlot's own words, form a pretty complete picture of this significant event in the life of the mother of our history.

By Dana Sharp

(This two part article was first run in the Courier supplement called "Westward" on October 31, 1975 - a long time before the recent development of the area) 

To the northwest of Prescott sprawls a giant of earth and granite boulders, holding the roots of pine trees, oak brush, manzanita, prickly pear and pinon. Tall pines march like sentinels across the rocky crest. Almost a last frontier for wildlife in an area becoming more heavily populated every day, Granite Mountain stands a monument to a vanished time.

By Dr. Ted Finkelston

(Recently, one of the most active volunteers at the Sharlot Hall Museum, Art Park, passed away. Art was the foremost expert on the Transportation Building. In tribute to his fine work over the years at the Museum we are publishing this two-part article by Ted Finkelston)

The campus of the Sharlot Hall Museum contains some of the most interesting early architectural styles found in Central Arizona. A visitor to the museum can visit the log-hewed Governor's Mansion, a frontier schoolhouse, an early trading post, and a representative ranch house.