By Ryan Flahive

On The 8th of July 1889, the most infamous boxing bout of the bare-knuckle age took place in Richburg, Mississippi in front of 3,000 eager spectators. Fighting under the London Rules (bare-knuckles) of boxing, John L. Sullivan and John "Jake" Kilrain entered the ring to fight one of the bloodiest and longest fights in boxing history.

By Parker Anderson

It is well known that Northern Arizona, including Prescott, had a very large population of Chinese residents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, since then, that community has all but disappeared from this area. The local Chinese have become the stuff of legend, often talked about but little documented.

By Ann Hibner Koblitz 

On March 18, 2005, the Sharlot Hall Museum will be opening a fascinating exhibit showing the results of the archaeological dig undertaken during the construction of the new parking structure on Granite Street. Entitled "Outcasts," the exhibit focuses on two communities in Prescott in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Chinese immigrants and prostitutes. At the time, both groups were "outcasts," and, under most circumstances, upstanding citizens of Prescott did not consider them "respectable."

By Ryan Flahive

On Sunday, March 24 of the year 1918, a funeral was held at A.M.E. Zion Church. All of Prescott's civic orders were represented either by body or by individual members; the Welfare Committee of the Chamber of Commerce donated a six by three foot floral arrangement in the shape of an American flag; the church was filled to capacity with citizens offering their respects to friends and family. This funeral was for William King, the first Yavapai County soldier to die in service in the Great War, and one of only eleven African-Americans from Yavapai County drafted into service.

By Parker Anderson

The famed and admired Elks Opera House in Prescott marks its 100th anniversary today. Many long-term Prescottonians have fond memories of movies and events in the auditorium, and it has played an important role in local entertainment throughout its history. Those familiar with its history know that it has been rocky at times, but the Elks Theater has proven itself to be a survivor, and it is still with us when many other theater of its age around the country have long closed their doors and/or met with the wrecking ball.

By Claudette Simpson

It is interesting to thumb through old newspapers, noting the time that this town "rose to the occasion."  There were many such times, but one stands out head and shoulders above the rest. It was an occasion that united the people of Prescott and Yavapai County into one voice, one purpose, one ideal.  It was the time that the President of the United States came to town. The date was Wednesday, October 13, 1909. The President was William Howard Taft.

By Ann Hibner Koblitz

If we judge by most of the accounts available in bookstores, women in early territorial Arizona had precisely two occupations-- ranch/farm wife and prostitute. Some further reflection might expand the list of women's jobs to include schoolmarm and possibly maid servant or laundress, but after that most of us would draw a blank. Probably we would excuse our inability to come up with a longer list with some facile remark about how restricted women's lives were in Victorian America, and how 19th-century Arizonan women could not be expected to have had the myriad ambitions and opportunities of their 21st Century descendants.

By Ken Edwards

Rancher, entrepreneur, truck driver, farmer, and builder. All of these terms apply to John Benton 'Jack' Jones, builder of Prescott's historic Hotel Vendome. Often confused with a miner of the same name, the "real" (for our purposes) Jack Jones was never involved in mining activity. Born in a small ranching community in central Texas in 1881, Jack left home at an early age because he couldn't get along with the rest of his family.

By Evelyn B. Baldwin and edited by Parker Anderson

(This article first appeared in the Prescott Evening Courier on October 27, 1936. It was submitted to the paper by the Courier's Jerome correspondent, Madge Whitford. It was written by her father's cousin, Arctic explorer, Mr. Evelyn Baldwin. The article has been long forgotten, and is presented here, re-discovered at last.) 

The following true narrative of the first Masonic burial in Arizona, as related to me by my old friend, Col. W. M. Williams, of Cairo, Illinois, will doubtless interest your readers. I give it, as nearly as possible, in his own words:

By Linda Ludington

In Part 1, we learned that Ed Kellis dreamed of owning a cattle ranch, and that as a toddler, he received his first heifer calf. During the Depression, the Kellis family sold their Blackwell, Texas windmill business and blacksmith shop, and moved to Arizona. Having purchased a herd of goats and cattle in Bagdad, the family met witih financial disaster due to a severe winter, during which most of the livestock perished. Ed Kellis started work at the mine in Bagdad. In 1961, he finally purchased the ranch of which he had dreamed.