By Robert Stragnell, M.D.

For over 40 years Prescott has been home to an award winning organization dedicated to the preservation of the real history of the American West. The goal of the Prescott Corral of Westerners International is to replace the romanticized picture of Western history often presented as "fact' in motion pictures and other fiction with well-researched, historically accurate presentations and publications.

By Pat Atchison

Because Citizens Cemetery is near the center of Prescott, many people walk in to look around. Some visit to view the artistic grave markers. Others are history buffs who are interested in the dates and other information listed on the markers. Some walk in to see the beautiful wildflowers in the springtime. Some come on a mission to discover the burial place of a relative.

By Jody Drake

On May the 6, 2004 The Sharlot Hall Museum's Blue Rose Theater will celebrate its tenth birthday. Ten years of learning to teach history through theater. Ten years of entertaining audiences through live history-based plays. Ten years of creating living history characters, characters like Sharlot M. Hall, Grace Sparks, Viola Jimulla, Kate Cory, Charlie Genung, Paulino Weaver, George Ruffner, Morris Goldwater, and Buckey O'Neill. Ten years since the idea began.

By Jean Cross

Before the roaring and scraping of backhoes, bulldozers and other earth moving equipment leveled the area once known as Jackass Flats for the StoneRidge Development, Crews leveled select areas of the region to unearth the remains of previous dwellings. These were the habitation sites of the prehistoric people who chose this wind-swept plateau as their domain. It was an ideal location as the necessities of life were readily available here: water, game, and wood. So the "living was easy", or as easy as it could be in the prehistoric times.

By Fred B. Nelson

Easter of 2004 will mark the 50th anniversary of my first visit to Prescott. At the age of 15, I was a member of the Methodist Youth Fellowship of Alhambra, California. That group contracted with a church in Prescott (Mission San Lucas Iglesia Metodista) to refurbish certain aspects of the building and surroundings of that church during the week before Easter in 1954.

By Fred Veil

(This is the second part of a two part series.  First part is titled, "A Soldier's Recollections of the Civil War and Arizona".)

Charles Veil's service in the Army ended abruptly in February 1871, when he was involuntarily mustered out of the service pursuant to an Act of Congress mandating a general reduction in the size and strength of the Army. Upon his discharge, Veil traveled to Prescott where by chance he happened upon a business opportunity that enabled him to make an easy $5000 (not an insubstantial amount of money in those days) by brokering the sale of some grain to Ft. Whipple.

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.