A Horrifying Tragedy on Pleasant Ave. (1898)

It was around 2:15 AM, September 7, 1898, and FS Davis was sound asleep in his residence on Pleasant Avenue when his faithful little dog suddenly jumped onto the bed and then onto his chest, barking alarmingly. “Davis found the room black with smoke,” the Prescott Weekly Courier described. The first thing he saved was his clothing, throwing them out a side door (which led to the loss of his watch). He then grabbed a pistol and ran out the door, only partially clad, firing his gun into the air to sound the alarm.

The First Granite Dells Resort 1888-1902

When whites first came to the Prescott area, the place known to us as the Granite Dells was first called Point of Rocks. The first newspaper mention of the Granite Dells was in 1887. It was the name given to James and Thomas Wing’s ranch. They knew they held some of the most beautiful land in the area, and they set out to turn it into the first Granite Dells Resort.

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.