Founder of Lowell Observatory Got High in Prescott

Percival Lowell

Percival Lowell’s life changed after reading Camille Flammarion’s “La Planete Mars.” It was then that he dedicated his life to the study of astronomy. His greatest legacy was building the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. A renowned scientist in his own time, he came to Prescott, AZ over the Thanksgiving holiday of 1909 to spend time with his friend, Judge EM Doe.

He would also take the opportunity to give a spell-binding lecture to a delighted crowd at Elks’ Theater about the potential of intelligent life on Mars. “It was Prof. Lowell who first offered proof to show that Mars is inhabited,” the newspaper proclaimed, “and because of his achievements has been honored with membership by the highest scientific societies of Europe.”

Before Prescott Valley, There Was Massicks, AZ

The Barlow Massicks "Castle on the Creek"

Thomas Gibson Barlow Massicks had just visited his Catoctin Mine and was riding back to Prescott in his buckboard, May 17, 1898. Although the road was especially rugged, Massicks made haste, bouncing about abruptly as the buckboard wheels dropped into a rut or launched off a bump. As he endured the ride, his six-shooter slowly made its way out of its scabbard and fell to the wagon floor. With the sheerest of bad luck, the gun landed on its hammer and fired, barely missing Massicks’ right kidney and coming to rest on his right lung.

Despite excruciating pain, Massicks drove his team even harder in hopes of reaching Bates’ Station, 4 miles away. When he arrived the house, he “was so far gone from the loss of blood and from the shock, that he was almost in a state of collapse, and had to be at assisted into the house,” the paper reported.

Mr. Bates immediately took Massicks’ buckboard and completed the trip to Prescott to summon a doctor who undoubtedly saved his life. However, the wound would slowly prove mortal both for Massicks the man, and for the town of the same name, which was located in the Prescott Valley area on lower Lynx Creek.