By Katherine Krieger Pessin

Medora had finally achieved her longtime goal of becoming a field geologist with the USGS and was assigned to Prescott, Ariz., in 1947. She spent the next 35 years mapping in the State of Arizona, a total of 12 quadrangles, including those of Prescott and Paulden. She has to her credit many professional papers for publication with the USGS as well as other scientific organizations.

By Katherine Krieger Pessin

My mother, Medora Hooper Krieger, was one of the most prolific geologic mappers at the USGS during the twentieth century. Although her early training and work was in the eastern United States, particularly in the Adirondack Mountains of New York, she is known mostly for her 35 years of mapping in the State in Arizona, where she did what was considered a man’s job in a world that was considered a man’s world.

By Richard Cunningham McCormick

(Edited by Parker Anderson)

I was at Washington at the first inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, and saw much of him. It was difficult, even in view of the Baltimore plot, to make him think that anyone sought to injure him, or that his life was in danger. The intention of that plot, by the by, suggests a correction of the common impression that Mr. Lincoln passed through Baltimore in disguise.

By Richard Cunningham McCormick

(Edited by Parker Anderson)

(Richard McCormick was the second Territorial Governor of Arizona who lived in the Governor’s Mansion in Prescott with his wife Margaret. Previously, he had been a prominent politician on the East Coast and, in 1866, wrote a series of articles for the New York Evening Post. One detailed his own personal memories of President Abraham Lincoln, who had been assassinated the year before. On March 14, 1866, the Arizona Miner printed a few excerpts from this lengthy article. These are reprinted below; probably the first widely circulated reprinting of Governor McCormick’s comments since 1866. – ed)

By Darla Anderson

Darla Anderson moved to Yarnell in the early 1960s with her parents. As a young lady, the old mining tales fascinated her, and living so close to one of Arizona’s premium mines was just too much to just sit by and look at it from afar. Rich Hill was a short distance from their home and, one sunny afternoon, she and her mother decided to take a closer look.

By Darla Anderson

(Darla Anderson was born on a small stock farm in Postville, Iowa, and lived there until she reached adulthood. In 1958, she vacationed in Arizona with her parents, Alpha and Vera Hangartner, and fell in love with the state. They moved to Yarnell in the early 1960s. There she married Harry M. Anderson of North Dakota and they lived in Congress at the base of the mountain below Yarnell.)

By Parker Anderson

Downtown Prescott needed a parking garage and South Granite Street was the site chosen. When an area is sited for construction, it is required by Federal and State Law that an archaeological investigation be done. In late 2002, Granite Street was bustling with archaeologists and volunteers recovering thousands of artifacts prior to the building of the parking garage. It is evident from the findings, and from historical accounts, that the area was Prescott's "red light district." The prostitutes living and practicing there when it was a legal profession (prior to 1918) were hidden from the patrons of Whiskey Row, yet readily accessible to the cowboys, miners and locals. Annie Hamilton owned and operated the largest such "house of ill repute."

By Ken Edwards

This is a part two article.  Please see the article titled, "Squatting on the Plaza, 1867 Style - Part 1," published on December 20, 2008.

Last week, Part I ended with the strong objection of local merchants to Mr. Ward's action.The entire town was enraged. The Arizona Miner stated that the identities had not been established of the "Party thus trespassing upon public opinion and private rights, with one exception, and that individual has been but a few months in the Territory. He has a good reputation as an engineer and millwright, and has been regarded as a very valuable man among us. We regret the step he has taken, and hardly believe he will persist in the course he has begun; in fact, knowing the gentleman as we do, we think he is joking." It was no joke.

By Ken Edwards

This is one of two articles.  Part two is titled, "Squatting on the Plaza: 1867 Style - Part 2," published December, 27, 2008 and is in the SHM Days Past Archives.

A squatter is an individual who settles on property belonging to someone else or to the government. After a certain period of occupancy he may claim the property as his own. In so doing, he is claiming squatters' rights or the right of adverse possession. This two-part article is the story of H.W. Ward, who attempted in 1867 to claim half of the Prescott Plaza as his own by using squatters' rights.

By Edna (Ballew) Patton and Parker Anderson

Edna Mae (Ballew) Patton lived in Skull Valley for over sixty years. In the late 1990s, she committed many of her memories to paper. Following are her writings. Edna died on July 31, 2008, only five days after meeting with Sharlot Hall Museum volunteer, Parker Anderson, and giving permission for her memoirs to be published.

My husband Warren and I arrived in Prescott with a very sick son on March 31, 1940. That summer, Warren asked me to fix a picnic lunch. He said he had something he wanted to show me. We picnicked in the woods and then drove out on the narrow ledge road above Copper Basin.