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| The Miner Office 1866 |
The Arizona Miner newspaper could hardly suppress its pride, and published a full-length article to prove it. The day was October 1, 1866, and the paper started life in a brand new downtown Prescott building—the very first brick structure in the Arizona Territory. The same article also incorrectly claimed that the Miner had erected the first building in Prescott in June, 1864. Instead, it was Manuel Yrissari, who built the first building on Goose Flats in 1863. In that early day, the Miner was much closer to Ft. Whipple than the Plaza, and by making this claim, one can speculate that the newspaper probably had a solid building covering their heads before the officers of the camp!
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“Nothing is better calculated to illustrate the advance of [this Territory] than a comparison of these two buildings,” the paper juxtaposed. The first building was “built of rough boards cut by hand, and without finish of any kind; [while the new office] is first class brick, the woodwork of mill-sawed lumber, and finished throughout in a style that would not discredit New York, or San Francisco.”
The structure was erected on Gurley St. and can been picked-out on several 19th century photos of the road.
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| The building was located in-between L. Bashford and the Arizona Brewery |
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| Close-up showing the brick siding |
“We think we have a right to feel proud of the identity…we have had with the Territory since its organization,” the paper continued. “From a small sheet the Miner has been enlarged to a goodly size.” Indeed the paper now had two presses and “an ample supply of type,” which allowed it to print a daily edition during the third Territorial Legislature—“a step in advance of the times, which even our best friends had not supposed we would attempt,” the paper noted. As for the future: “we think we shall be able to do it in good style, [and] that the members and the public will rightly appreciate” the effort.
The paper was unabashedly optimistic about the Territory’s future as well, even in these early tumultuous years. “[Arizona’s] growth may not be as rapid as many would wish,” the paper confessed, “but it is steady and sure.”
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The historic occasion of the opening of the first brick building in Arizona was marked with a dance two days prior to the day the new office went into full operation. “The hearty congratulations extended to us by our many friends of all parties, and especially by the fair sex, on the occasion of the [celebration] with which the completion pf our new office was celebrated on Saturday evening, September 29th, have given us fresh cause to spare no effort to make the Miner not only a fixed, but an increasingly popular institution in the land.”
By 1871, the Miner office moved to Montezuma Street, south of Goodwyn, next door to the Pacific Brewery. Had this proud brick building survived the Great Fire of July 14, 1900, it would undoubtably have become a beloved historic landmark today.
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SOURCE:
Weekly Arizona Miner, 10/13/1866; Pg. 2, Col. 1.
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