The Great Fire Changed the Plaza Forever

Before the Great Fire of July 14, 1900, the Courthouse Plaza was described as a “desolate and neglected waste.” The white rail fence surrounding it was beyond repair, and the Weekly Journal-Miner called for its removal five years earlier. 

It was the Great Fire that brought an end to the fence. Not by burning, but by being knocked down and tossed aside as businesses set up shanties and other temporary structures upon the Plaza while the destruction was cleared away, and the downtown buildings familiar and historic to us today were constructed.

The First President to Visit Yavapai County

The Weekly Journal-Miner and the residents of Yavapai County were absolutely enchanted. The President of the United States, William McKinley, would be visiting the Arizona Territory, and his first step upon the young territory’s soil would be in Yavapai County!

Two Ghost Towns You Never Heard Of

Some Yavapai County townsites were as speculative as the mineral worth of the ground they stood on. Two towns had particularly short existences: the oil town of Heslet in Chino Valley, and what could be described as a suburb of Jerome named Oxford.

Prescott Was a Renowned Gambling Town

Several western towns were known for gambling: Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City, for example. But if one were able to go back in time and ask the “sporting men” of the West, Prescott would be among the very best places to play. Gambling was immensely popular in the early days of Prescott. An 1884 account in the Weekly Arizona Miner proclaimed, “Faro dealers say that Prescott is the best gambling town in the West.” 

TW Otis: Civic Minded Pioneer

Theodore Weld (TW) Otis was a prominent and well-respected Prescott pioneer who served the community as a judge, a coroner, and a postmaster. He speculated in mining, real estate, and was a retail proprietor. He was a pious, charitable Christian and a teetotaling advocate for prohibition.

Memories of Gurley Street in 1970 Prescott

In 1970, Prescott, Arizona, was still a small town. According to the Census Bureau, the population that year was 13,631--an increase of 770 from 1960, or roughly, just one new family every four weeks. Similar to other towns this size, one of the great weekend pastimes for teenagers was cruising, and in Prescott, that meant driving up and down Gurley Street. 

The businesses on Gurley then were largely different from those today.