Anecdotes of Prescott History Brought to Life From the Pages of Old Newspapers and Other Sources.
In July, 1910, William Oliver, manager of the Shumate confectionary, billiards, and cigar store in Humboldt was vacationing in Prescott. He spoke to the newspaper “in glowing terms” of his new hometown, describing it “as a coming commercial and mining center.” Little did he know that within a month Humboldt would suffer two “great fires”; the latter of which would start in the basement of the building in which Oliver’s business was housed!
T.F. Averill had “long been known as a resolute and desperate man,” the newspaper wrote, and he was now infuriated with a Mayer saloon owner named Charles Wells. He told nearly everyone he came across that he intended to kill Wells at noon on September 29, 1910.
Yavapai County has sent hundreds of thousands of items to the Smithsonian Institute; most of these being insects and indigenous artifacts, but several other intriguing and occasionally mysterious items have been sent there as well. The most interesting of these are the items that the Institute had never seen before.
