The Terribly Scandalous Pioneers Home Superintendent

A Journal-Miner editorial described the second Pioneers Home supervisor, Percy V Coldwell, as “a malodorous individual, infecting this city, [whose] loyalty long ago ceased to be a virtue and degenerated into a vice, the stench of which has caused people here to hold their hands on their noses.” 

The Chinese Den of Iniquity

 

No one knows what the business was actually named. A Sanborn-Perris mapmaker identified it only as “Chinese” in 1895. 

This writer might have considered it “The Chinese Entertainment House,” but authors of the archeological report, "Celestials and Soiled Doves..." used biblical verbiage to describe it as a “den of iniquity.” Specifically, it was found to be a “gambling parlor/saloon/opium den/drugstore, [that] filled many needs.”

When Nature Was the Only Drug Store (Updated)

During the 19th century, every region of the country had its own home-spun remedies that depended on that area's herbage. Today, these so-called "cures" seem to span between the humorous and the ridiculous.

This article, based on oral histories, focuses on the treatments that were unique to Arizona.

Back When Prescott Was "Opium Central"

There is no doubt that, like many other Wild West towns, opium made its first appearance in Prescott with the influx of the Chinese population.

"It is no coincidence that 1869, the year the Union-Pacific Railroad was completed, was the year that Chinese began to appear in (Prescott) in significant numbers." (*1)

So began a most uneasy relationship with a drug habit that would grow and endure for seven decades.

Publicly, Prescott hated opium. Practically, little was done to stop it. Ultimately, Prescott would become the manufacturing hub of opium for the entire state of Arizona.