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.

By Anne Foster

Modern Prescottonians embrace the image of the town as a Wild West icon, complete with a notorious street of saloons and a tumultuous history. For some residents in the late 19th century, however, the goal was to promote a civilized, well-to-do persona in keeping with the prosperity and optimism of the age. In keeping with this ideal, the town's leading ladies formed the Prescott Chautauqua Reading Circle.

By Goodwin "Goodie" Berquist

In 1863 when gold was first discovered in the Prescott area, all a miner needed was a pick axe, a strong back, determination, and a little bit of luck. Up to October 1, 1876, of 11, 605 mines located and recorded in the Arizona Territory, 7,298 were in the county of Yavapai. Area mines yielded silver, copper, iron, and lead, as well as gold. Rich deposits of gold nuggets were discovered and mined in these early years.

By Bill Peck

From the 1900's until about 1960, livestock shipping corrals stood beside the railroad tracks at most small towns in Arizona. Made of creosoted timbers and plank fences, one could get a good look at all of the local cowboy gentry at shipping time They sat on the top board of the fence which was laid flat for walking purposes.

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.

By Parker Anderson

The mountain town of Jerome, today a quiet, tourist-oriented hamlet, was a wild and wooly mining camp in the late 19th century thru the 1920s. A vast array of respectable and not so respectable characters congregated there. Among them a barber named Richard Cross.

Very little is known of his background, except that he hailed from Illinois. Why he ended up in Jerome is also unknown. What is known is that, while he was there, he became infatuated and/or obsessed with a woman who did not return his love.

By Nancy Kirkpatrick Wright

On Tuesday morning, June 8, 2004, the bright planet Venus will move in front of our sun--a transit of Venus--and millions will watch through strong filters as a small black dot moves across the lower part of the sun. Scientists and astronomers are excited since no one now alive has seen a transit of Venus. There were no transits of Venus in the 20th century - the last pair being 1874 and 1882.

By Michael Wurtz

The title to this article is a nod to the 1989 publications about the Chinese that came to Prescott in the 1860s and eventually drifted away by the mid 20th century. They may have never intended to stay in this country, hence the term "sojourner." The first accounts of Chinese in Prescott were in 1869, supposedly shortly after the Union Pacific railroad was complete across the middle of America. The so-called "Celestials" lived and worked mostly along Granite Street behind Whiskey Row.