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.

The Forgotten Mining Town of White Horse City

The genesis of White Horse City was the locating of three mines in the Walker district in the Spring of 1899. The original owners, GM Wright, CW VonWolfe, and R Horsecroft, founded the Lone Pine, Hammer, and White Horse mines. “The property is located only seven miles from [Prescott] in the mountains just east of Lynx creek and to the right of the McCabe road,” the Weekly Journal Miner described. These mines were located between the highly successful McCabe and Mudhole mines in the Walker district. 

The Senator Highway

There was a time when Senator Highway was being considered as a part of the north-south territorial highway, connecting Prescott to Phoenix, but it would never make it.

A Union Spy in the Joseph Walker Camp

Joseph Rutherford Walker, circa 1860

It is well understood that Fort Whipple was established to protect Anglos around the Prescott area. However, there is evidence that initially the federal government was not so much interested in protecting the miners as it was in protecting the minerals.

1864: Prescott's First Christmas

Winter began early in 1864, "and by the middle of December the trails were mostly snowed under and lost--all but those often traveled which led to the placer gold mines on Lynx Creek, or to Walnut Grove and the camps on the Hassayampa."

In what would be a rare "white" Christmas, "the snow lay white over the hills; the tops of the high peaks were crystal white and cold; and the pine and cedar and juniper trees were sparkling like trees on a Christmas card."

There were roughly 200-300 anglos around the Prescott area and the few houses that did exist in the tiny burg happily opened their doors to all that arrived.