By Mona Lange McCroskey and Curtis Ritter

W. Curtis Miller was born March 30, 1866 in Barrackville, West Virginia. He graduated from the University of Nashville, Tennessee and taught in rural schools in West Virginia for thirteen years. A shy, retiring man, Miller's life can only be traced through the memories of relatives and an occasional newspaper clipping.  He himself wrote, "I have always been as modest about appearing in print as I have been about appearing before an assembly to give a talk."  About 1900, Miller contracted tuberculosis and ventured to Arizona as a health seeker.  Described as a workaholic, he worked at a dairy in Phoenix during the day and also at a night job before suffering a serious relapse.

By Elisabeth Ruffner 

This is the first of two articles regarding these City Recorder's Notes.  Please read "City Recorder Keeps Prescott Posted of Early Times - Part 2," published on November 22, 1997 and in the SHM Days Past Archives.  The notes for these articles are about the Prescott City Council, 1876 to 1885. The unknown writer of these minutes kept his journal on the back of the Bashford-Burmister Company's invoice forms.

It was ever thus.. 

In the spirit of poking a little gentle fun at ourselves, the following has been excerpted from the notes of an unknown diligent recorder who created a list of city council (or precedent body) actions typed on invoice forms of The Bashford-Burmister Company, Wholesale and Retail Dealers in Groceries, Mining Supplies, Dry Goods, Hardware, Boots and Shoes, etc. The following excerpts are copied "as is" from the notes, including spelling errors: 

By Sandra Lynch

What is a Museum?  "Museums are about cannibals and glass boxes," writes University of British Columbia Museum Director Michael Ames.  For many, a place with "glass boxes" and "cannibal tours" might sound like an enticing place to go.  Ames, however, was not writing a side-bar for British Columbia's Office of Tourism.  "Museums," Ames claims, "are cannibalistic in appropriating other peoples' material for their own study and interpretation, and they confine their representations to glass box display cases."  We expect there should be more to a museum, but when the institution first came into the world, glass boxes were the drawing cards.

By William Bork

Prescott prior to WW II, and even into the fifties, was a town set in a landscape which provided a natural playground for growing children.  If we headed in any direction, a distance of three or four blocks or so, we were in the midst of mostly untouched countryside.  The area was especially attractive on the west side of town because of the piney woods and rocks from under which there seeped small amounts of water which often flowed all year round.

By Richard Gorby

Prescott's Bullwhacker (Hill) has come of interest lately, and its name should be, and is, of interest as well.  The hill was named over 120 years ago, when the Bullwhacker mine was on its top. The mine changed hands many times, was discarded many times, and although called Salvador for a while, still retained the Bullwhacker name.

By Michael Wurtz

If it is not yet 9:00 am on Sunday morning then you still have time.  Time for what?  Time to get down to the Plaza and watch the hose cart races.  These races are at least as old, if not older, than our famous World's Oldest Rodeo, which began in 1888.

By Anne Foster

He was a Yavapai County probate judge, sheriff and tax assessor, ex officio school superintendent, reporter, editor and publisher, court recorder, and mayor of Prescott. She, although few remember, was a legislator, suffragette, teacher, businesswoman, writer, community leader, presidential elector, clubwoman, volunteer, musician, artist, wife, and mother.  He was, of course, Prescott's hometown hero-Buckey O'Neill.  She was his wife- Pauline M. O'Neill.  A woman of talents as remarkable as her husband's, her story has too long been eclipsed.

By Richard Gorby

On Saturday night, July 14, 1900, fire swept through downtown Prescott with an uncontrollable fury, almost totally destroying the business district of the small mining town. 
 

Starting in the O.K. Lodging House, next door to the south of the newly built Scopel Hotel on South Montezuma at Goodwin, possibly when a miner left a lighted candle stuck in the wall of his room, the fire quickly spread to the Scopel.  At this point the fire could have been easily stopped with a few buckets of water...but Prescott had no water!

By William Bork

One Hundred Years 
U.S. Post Office 
Dewey, AZ 
1898 July 18 1998 

So reads the special "cachet" being applied upon request to letters mailed at the Dewey post office at the junction of Arizona highways 69 and 169 opposite Young's Farm until August 18, 1998. Here is the story behind the celebration.

By Sue Abbey

After one of the most famous manhunts in Prescott's history, Fleming Park was hanged for murder on the courthouse square in the City of Prescott, Arizona Territory.  The date was June 3, 1898.  Better known in Prescott as Jim Parker, he was executed for the murder of Assistant District Attorney Lee Norris during his escape from the Yavapai County jail.