By David Stephen

Yavapai County Road 68 is a 46-mile unpaved back-country route that originates near Bagdad and comes to an end at Williamson Valley Road north of Prescott. Also known as Camp Wood Road, it carries a compelling legacy that interweaves Native American history and prehistory, forestry, homesteading, military campaigns, mining, ranching and tourism.

By Tom Schmidt

Although schools existed in private homes in early Prescott, the hand-hewn log cabin built at the corner of Granite and Carleton Streets in 1868 or 1869 by Samuel Curtis Rogers provided the first schoolhouse for Prescott’s children. Rogers, who helped develop and taught in California’s first rural public school district, used borrowed books and his own library to teach his students. The schoolhouse served not only as Prescott’s but also Northern Arizona’s first schoolhouse.

By Vicky Kaye

Pauline Weaver, "Prescott's First Citizen," died in 1867 while serving as a guide at Camp Verde (then Fort Lincoln), and was buried on the grounds at the fort. When the fort was decommissioned and the camp abandoned in 1891, arrangements were made to move Weaver's remains along with others to the National Cemetery in San Francisco. In the 1920s, there was a movement to bring his body back home to Prescott.

By Dr. Ken Edwards

Morris Goldwater lived in Prescott from 1876 until his death in 1939 at the age of 87. During that period, he rose to be arguably the most prominent and important man in town. In 1964, at the time of the Prescott Centennial, he was voted the City's "Man of the Century." His father, Michael, also served briefly as mayor. Morris' accomplishments are impressive. In addition to operating one of the most important stores in town, he served as mayor for a total of twenty years - over a forty-eight year period, from 1879 to 1927. He was also a bank president of Commercial Trust and Savings Bank for a number of years. He was an active Mason, and the 1907 cornerstone on the Masonic Temple on Cortez Street honors his dedication to the order.

By Dr. Ken Edwards

Brothers Michael and Joseph Goldwater (along with Michael's son, Morris) rented the newly built Howey Hall on the southeast corner of Cortez and Goodwin streets to establish their first J. Goldwater & Bro. mercantile store in Prescott in late 1876. Within three years, they were prosperous enough to build their own store on the southeast corner of Cortez and Union streets less than a block away. In 1880, Michael and Joseph dissolved their nearly three decade partnership and the store was given a new name: Michael Goldwater and Son. The son, of course, was Morris.

By Dr. Ken Edwards

Brothers Michel and Joseph Goldwater escaped from Poland during the Russian persecution of Jews and immigrated to California in 1852. Their first business venture was a saloon in Sonora. When it failed, they moved to Los Angeles where they found their niche in the mercantile business, eventually peddling their goods to the goldfields of southern Arizona Territory.

By Dr. Ken Edwards

His father was a peddler, his brother founded a highly successful department store in Phoenix and his nephew was a famous Arizona senator who ran for president of the United States. But Morris Goldwater established his legacy in Prescott. This is the first of four articles about Morris and his family who played an important part in the early history of Prescott.

By Jan MacKell

"The ancient card faces painted on the layout were doubtless faded and worn, but to my boyish eyes they glowed like a church's stained-glass window.... (Gaye) started drawing the cards one by one from the battered old silver box. As he drew, I could see his lips move and knew he was making bets for imaginary customers." So did Nugget (the main character in Conrad Richter's book "Tacey Cromwell") describe how his brother practiced to become a faro dealer in Bisbee during the late 1800s.

By Vicky Kaye

Ellen "Nellie" Cashman was a mere five years-old when she immigrated to America in 1850 with her mother and sister. Today, she is remembered as a pioneer, miner, entrepreneur, businesswoman, organizer, leader and "angel" throughout the West, Canada and Alaska. She was always searching for opportunities related to her first love - mining. She always paid her own way in the mining boomtowns by establishing businesses, buying and selling mines and actual hands-on mining. With any excess funds, she supported charities (and encouraged fellow miners to do the same), established hospitals, churches and schools, grubstaked other miners and helped the poor or needy from Arizona to Alaska, wherever she happened to call "home" at the time.

By Vicky Kaye

On a lonely stretch of the Richardson Highway near Paxson, Alaska, is a highway historical marker that gives tribute to the "gold rush women." With a backdrop of the Alaska Range, Prescottonian Melissa Ruffner and I (a recent transplant to Alaska) discovered quite by accident that one of our heroines from our home state of Arizona had a much more exciting life than we had imagined.