By Parker Anderson

Local fans of the Elks Opera House are aware that the star of the very first show in that theater was Florence Roberts.  Many have wondered, however, exactly who Florence Roberts was.  Her name is largely forgotten today, but in 1905, when she came to Prescott and the Elks, she was one of the most prominent professional touring actresses in the nation.

By Mick Woodcock

In Part One last week, we learned something about Amasa G. Dunn, an early Prescott pioneer, businessman and lawman.  In 1869 he had a horrible year.  1870 would be worse.

By Al Bates

Love stories are supposed to be happy endings. This one from Arizona's territorial days did not.

This story begins like a romantic novel of the old West - think of Zane Gray at his most florid. First, Apache traders carry away an innocent Hispanic child. Then, after two years of privation as a captive she runs away to a militia camp and finds a home in a small mining town. Soon after this she becomes the wife of one of the most powerful men of the new territory.

By Al Bates

In three previous articles I have shared with you some details about one of this area’s most prominent early settlers, Colonel King S. Woolsey, his political career and sudden death, the “Pinole Treaty’ battle and something about his two wives Lucia and Mary.  However, there may have been an earlier wife, and here’s what I have been able to find.

By Terry Munderloh

(This article was originally posted on February 3, 2001.)

Gold and silver were not the only mineral deposits which Arizona pioneers discovered.

In 1879 George Puntenney and his wife Lucy arrived in Arizona, located an abundance of limestone on the south rim of Hell Canyon (Highway 89 crosses Hell Canyon about 40 miles north of Prescott) and built the territory's first lime kiln. Lime was an important commodity in the developing West.

By Tom Collins

Henry (a.k.a. Harry) Du Souchet, Prescott's territorial telegrapher, justice of the peace, notary public and beloved comedian, played a key role in the popularity of the Prescott Theatre on Alarcon Street in 1878 and 1879. As a tribute to Harry's skill and popularity, the Prescott Dramatic Club offered him a benefit show in 1879, allowing him to choose two plays in which he would star.

By Bob Cornett

The western half of the North American continent contained a million square miles in 1800, all unknown to the U.S. citizens in the eastern half. For expansion westward, maps and handbooks were needed. We know there were more than 40 major surveys and mapping reports from the time of Lewis and Clark (1804-1806) up to the General Land Office surveys of the late 1850s. Americans believed that it was their God-given right to settle the West (Manifest Destiny), and the path had to be cleared.

By Sharlot M. Hall

The following is the second part of an excerpt from an article written by Sharlot M. Hall, founder of Sharlot Hall Museum, which first appeared in the Prescott Courier on Dec. 24, 1930. In Part I last week, Sharlot described the brand-new community of Prescott where there were only a few cabins, a small group of soldiers at the stockade military post of Ft. Whipple, and some scattered camps of gold miners on that snowy Christmas of 1864.

By Tom Collins

Ludwig Thomas, an extraordinary German pianist who immigrated to America in 1879 and made Prescott his new home in late 1885, attracted a goodly number of pupils and reigned as the town's musical maestro for eight years. After enlivening the 1886 Firemen's Ball with his quartet, he entered enthusiastically into the town's cultural and political scene.

By Edna Ballew Patton

In Skull Valley, people used to get together and help each other. Thirty or more people gathered at Bill and Martha Overton's one Sunday and built a room onto their house. We built a tennis court at the school, shoveling sand by hand. It took several Sundays and a lot of beer! We got together and poured the cement for Barney and Annie's house (where Charlie and Diana Taylor live now).