By Carol Powell

In the early 1880s, the wagon trains provided the means for a whole family to move in exchange for the labor of the head of the house. The Louis and Clara Miller family were just such a family. Clara had been married before and had children already. In the course of her marriage to Louis, she produced eight more children. Four of the boys grew up to become railroad men. The oldest of the six boys, Louis Clair Miller, who eventually served as a constable in Prescott for a while, is the focus of this story.

By Pat Conner

(Much of this article first appeared in the Courier as part of Lester "Budge" Ruffner's column on December 4, 1988.) 

Back when Budge Ruffner was a boy, county work crews and a huge, freshly cut spruce from the Bradshaw Mountains could only mean one thing. It was time to erect the Christmas tree on the Prescott town square.

By Ann Hibner Koblitz

In the 19th century several kinds of practitioners claimed to be able to address the health needs of Americans. In addition to college- or university-trained physicians, there were midwives, pharmacists, surgeon-barbers (the red and white stripes of the traditional barber's pole originally symbolized surgery), itinerate medicine peddlers (the so-called "snake oil salesmen" who later fell into disrepute), and in some areas Native American shamans and the Anglos who claimed to have studied with them.

By Lester Ward "Budge" Ruffner

Seventy-five years ago tomorrow night the Yankee Doodle hit a steep slope of ponderosa pines in the Bradshaw Mountains near Palace Station. The Yankee Doodle was the first Lockheed Vega-built that had a Pratt & Whitney Wasp engine, 450 horsepower.

The "monoplane" was appropriately painted red, white and blue and carried the federal registration number X4769. When this tragedy occurred some 30 miles southeast of Prescott the night of November 3, 1928, the owner of the aircraft, Harry Tucker, and his pilot Captain C.B.D. Collyer died.

By Alan Roesler and Michael Wurtz

Today is the 108th anniversary of the birth of Ernest Alexander Love. Many know his name since it graces our airfield and the local chapter of the American Legion Post. There is a scholarship in his name at Stanford University and his mother donated a pipe organ to St. Luke's Episcopal Church in his memory. Beyond that he may be known as a Prescott High School football star and a pilot who lost his life in World War I.

By William "Bill" Peck

(Note: Morton Bodfish was a famous Chicago Banker and Congressional Lobbyist during World War II. He moved to the Wickenburg area in the 1950s and worked the Mesa Bonita Ranch late in life. He died in 1966.)

I was down 300 feet and the well had been a bummer from the start. I went to Morton Bodfish and asked him if it was all right to move over and start a new hole. There went ten days of my labor. He asked what it was going to cost him and I told him that we had agreed upon a price for a single well, not an abandoned hole, and that the price was still the same.

By Vicky Kaye

(This is the first part of a two-part article regarding bringing home Pauline Weaver's remains.)

The people of Prescott who know the history of Pauline Weaver may remember him for many things. He was a scout and trapper considered to be the first Anglo-American to make his home in the Prescott area. He was also the guide for the Peeple's expedition that discovered gold in the Rich Hill area near Yarnell. He traveled the West from the 1830's until his death at Camp Verde, then known as Fort Lincoln, on June 21, 1867.

By Vicky Kaye

(Pauline Weaver, "Prescott's First Citizen" was first buried in Camp Verde and then moved to San Francisco. In the 1920s, there was a movement to bring his body to back to Prescott. This is the second part of a two-part article.)

With the persistence of Favour, Wells, and Hall, the War Department was provided with the needed affidavits to show that Pauline Weaver had no surviving relatives from whom additional permission would have to be obtained, and that the future grave would be adequately cared for. An affidavit submitted on February 10th, 1928, was signed by none other than Judge Wells.

By Dick Bowerman

Several of my friends and I regularly ride horseback from the L-Bell Ranch at the end of Ferguson Valley Road up a very scenic trail that climbs to a lonely abandoned cabin in a mountain hollow.

We had heard that a family by the name of Brooks and three other families had homesteaded four separate adjoining sections of land there in the early 1930s. We often asked, "Who were these people and how did they live in this very remote location with no running water, no electricity, and no decent road?" Fred and Edna Patton knew who lived out this way and these are their recollections of the families.

By Parker Anderson

It has long been known that famed Western movie actor Tom Mix had a soft spot for Prescott. He had first come to town in 1912 when he was just starting out, working for the Selig Polyscope Company when they opened a film branch in the Mile-Hi City. The Selig crew, in the days before obsessive worship of celebrities became a national pastime, had reached out to the citizens of Prescott as friends and neighbors. In between filming movies, they helped Prescott residents plan for the era's Frontier Days events, appeared live at the Elks Theater, and even sang at local funerals.