“Saturday, April 25, 1885, 3:40 PM: The town of Ash Fork is now on fire,” the Albuquerque Evening Democrat proclaimed. “So far nine building...

Before the arrival of the railroad on January 1, 1887, prices for groceries, travel, and nearly everything else were astonishingly high, and...

The Petrified Forest was never a secret, but initially, it was not widely known outside of Arizona (except among geologists, among whom news...

In 1870, Chino Valley had a handful of ranches, plenty of open space, and occasional visits from fearsome Native Americans.

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...

Before the Great Fire of July 14, 1900, the Courthouse Plaza was described as a “desolate and neglected waste.” The white rail fence surroun...

Some Yavapai County townsites were as speculative as the mineral worth of the ground they stood on. Two towns had particularly short existen...

Several western towns were known for gambling: Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City, for example. But if one were able to go back in time and...

Theodore Weld (TW) Otis was a prominent and well-respected Prescott pioneer who served the community as a judge, a coroner, and a postmaster...

In 1970, Prescott, Arizona, was still a small town. According to the Census Bureau, the population that year was 13,631--an increase of 770 ...

Its name could be confusing to modern readers. It was a large hall in the city, so the owner, George W Curtis, named it “City Hall”. However...

November 25, 1925, was a disastrous day in Yavapai County. Four banks suddenly and permanently closed their doors, and people’s deposits wer...

“The object of the organizers [of the Yavapai Club] was to induce a healthful mingling of recreation, pleasure, and business, and the object...

Diana Saloon on the left, Gurley St. on the right, (Thumb Butte in the Middle). When the capital moved to Tucson in 1867, many scoffers beli...

Before 1914, the December Prescott newspapers would be heavily sprinkled with short blurbs describing various Christmas activities around to...

Before the Plaza fountain we know today was constructed in 1910, the Plaza had a “Mineral Fountain” (pictured above).   Along its outside bo...

The town of Clarkdale was a pet project for Senator William A Clark, owner of the United Verde mine in Jerome. It was the first planned comm...

The Miner Office 1866 The Arizona Miner newspaper could hardly suppress its pride and published a full-length article to prove it. The day w...

Officer's Quarters Ft. Whipple (1871) As 1873 dawned, the Weekly Arizona Miner lamented that Arizona was “about the only great geographi...

One year before the fire; almost all of this would be destroyed. The Journal-Miner described it as “one of the greatest calamities in the lo...