Miller Valley Founders Arrested & Bankrupt

 

To most people in Yavapai County and even the entire Arizona territory, the news produced a shock as great as an earthquake. 

On March 1, 1878, Samuel C (“SC”) Miller, along with his brother Jacob (“Jake,”) was arrested, causing “great excitement here in financial circles,” the Phoenix Weekly Herald reported. “They are charged with endeavoring to put property out of their hands with intent to defraud creditors. Much of their business seems to have been transacted in a loose way.” Those who were owed money by the brothers rushed to court, and the pair were declared insolvent and bankrupt.

1866: Indians Scare Off Pioneer Merchant

William Harrison Hardy had a good gig going. He owned businesses in a town named for him: Hardyville (present-day Bullhead City). He also owned an important and well-used ferry service at that point and a toll road that led to Prescott. Soon, he started opening businesses there that were successful, but in late 1866, he abruptly started to sell off all his interests in the Mile High City.

In 1901, at age 77, he revealed why to the Journal-Miner newspaper.

Early Independence Day Celebrations

Surrounding the Civil War, not everybody was inclined to celebrate Independence Day. Many who lived in Yavapai County were sympathetic to Southern causes. “There was an apprehension that such diversity might exist here,” the Prescott paper observed, “and interfere with a genuine and hearty observance of the day.”

The Indian Uprising of 1872

The ruins of Camp Date Creek

From February through June 1872, Native Americans launched raiding attacks around and surprisingly close to Prescott. The newspapers were filled with accounts of Indian depredations during this time, and the citizenry was both frightened and filled with consternation.

Orders came from Washington to change the practice of largely shooting Indians on sight to one of feeding and educating them instead. Initially, however,  the Indians, many of whom were starving, became emboldened and started to attack.

The Plaza's Early History

Before the Courthouse was built,
the Plaza fielded baseball games.

As Robert Groom plotted out Prescott and created the Plaza in the middle of downtown, it wasn't necessarily meant for the county courthouse. The first courthouse was located on the street facing the plaza.

Instead, it was left as an open public space, and its uses were many and varied.

1865: The Shocking Twist at Battle Point (Skull Valley)

It was a usual day in the freight business for Sam and Jake Miller. Yet in 1865, freighting through the Arizona wilderness was unusually dangerous. Indian raids on the toll road from Ft. Mohave to Prescott were happening regularly, and this time the Miller brothers would be taking mostly passengers as well as some supplies and stock.

"People wishing to come to Arizona traveled with freighters for protection." Every precaution would have to be made to protect both riders and supplies. (*1)

The Legend of Burnt Ranch

The Burnt Ranch house that replaced the burned cabin.

It was 1961 when plastics manufacturer Arthur Edison bought the 160 acres for future development. He paid $150,000--less than $1000 per acre for the land located west of Williamson Valley Drive between Iron Springs Road and Pioneer Parkway. (*1)

By then, the property had been known as "Burnt Ranch" for nearly a century.

This is the tale of the Apache-Mojave (aka "Date Creek") Indian raid that gave the ranch its name.

The Miller Bros. Saved Prescott From Starvation

Sam and Jake Miller were two of the very first whites to lay eyes on the Prescott area when they arrived with the Walker Party in 1863.  But unlike the other members of that party, the Miller brothers stayed.  Had they not, the history of Prescott would have been much different and much shorter.

Imagine if "Prescott" was remembered only as an attempt to settle the area, an experiment that failed after only one year due to starvation and an Apache blockade of the town.

This could have very well been the case had it not been for the Miller brothers' nerves and the business they started in Prescott's earliest days.