By Pat Atchison 

Memorial Day, or Decoration Day as it was then called, was first widely observed in the United States on May 30, 1868. The original intent was to honor the Union soldiers killed during the Civil War by decorating their gravesites. 

Decoration Day was not mentioned in the local newspaper until May 27,1881. That brief announcement stated, "Next Monday will be Decoration Day, and it is to be generally observed in the States." Tuesday's edition said simply "Yesterday was Decoration Day."

By Elisabeth Ruffner 

National Historic Preservation Week has traditionally been observed the second week in May. Arizona has chosen to designate the entire month of April to recognize and celebrate the state's cultural heritage and the people and places for which the past holds great meaning and significance. The theme this year is "Moving Forward with the Past".

By Nancy Burgess 

It was 1898 and successful Prescott businessman Henry Brinkmeyer and his wife, Ina Muzik Brinkmeyer, were having a new house built in the 'country', in the Fleury's Addition on West Gurley Street. Mr. and Mrs. Brinkmeyer and their two children, Henry, Jr. and Marcella, had been living at the Brinkmeyer Hotel on North Montezuma Street. This hotel would later burn in the fire of July 14, 1900 and would be rebuilt of brick at the same location. Henry decided that it would be best to build a house with a yard so that the children would have a place to play.

Submitted by Michael Wurtz

Few events in Prescott's history have so stirred the community as the death of Margaret Hunt McCormick, wife of the Governor. On the 130th anniversary of her death, the Sharlot Hall Museum presents her obituary from the Arizona Miner, May 4, 1867:

"DIED At Prescott, Arizona, on Tuesday April 30, 1867, at 7 p.m., Margaret Griffiths Hunt, daughter of Isaac L. Hunt, Esq., of Rahway, New Jersey, and wife of Hon. Richard C. McCormick, Governor of Arizona. Aged 24. 

By William Bork 

Thumb Butte stands like a sentinel in full dress on an early postcard sold by W. H. Timerhoff, a Prescott druggist. Another card depicts in clear detail part of Prescott's other famous landmark, Granite Dells, then called "Point of Rocks," ten miles to the Butte's northeast. These two viewcards are finely printed vignettes of the landscape near our town, as they appeared in the early 1900's. 

By Evan Sage

Henry Waring Fleury was part of the first territorial governor's party (that "outfit" as early journalists would come to call it). Yet, while most of these politicos moved on seeking fortunes in the newly discovered mines of the Prescott region and to further their political notoriety, Fleury stayed on. Originally occupied as private secretary to Governor John Goodwin, he was also elected first chaplain for the two houses of the legislature, largely because of his resources to supply the lawmakers with whiskey and his general indifference to religion

By Carolyn Bradshaw 

In the early 1900s, Prescott and Yavapai County were moving out of the Territorial era and into a new period of prosperity. The urbanization and mechanization throughout the country, Arizona becoming a state in 1912, and the end of World War I fueled this trend.

By Sue Abbey 

History is alive and well! When you spend twenty years of your career in one place, many incidents stand out in your mind. When that career means dealing with people, some of them stand out in pivotal way; a way that can change you.

By Norm Tessman

Tents to log cabins to shopping centers as seen from the 'Sphinx'. 

To the Yavapai People, Thumb Butte was Nymit-gi-yaka, "Mountain Lion Lying Down." Anglo pioneers called it "the Sphinx," and wrote legends about its powers. Thumb Butte has always been symbolic of our community, and generations of Prescottonians have looked down upon the town from atop its 6,522-foot summit.

By Mona Lange McCroskey 

Frank Adolph Kuhne first came to Arizona in 1867. In the Prescott area, he worked as a teamster, driving a hay wagon between Fort Whipple and Big Chino Valley. In 1891, Kuhne returned to Germany for an arranged marriage to Marie Seidler. Kuhne brought his bride to Lynx Creek where they lived in a cabin in Howell, a small community along the creek. Kuhne then became a miner. He was away from home frequently for long periods of time and his whereabouts were unknown to his wife. All she knew was that he was mining and that he made enough to support his growing family.