Anecdotes of Prescott History Brought to Life From the Pages of Old Newspapers and Other Sources.
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| Gail Gardner around the time of the incident. |
The Petrified Forest was never a secret, but initially, it was not widely known outside of Arizona (except among geologists, among whom news of the remarkable site spread quickly). North of the first known deposits, adjacent to the Santa Fe Atlantic-Pacific railroad, was Adam Hanna’s cattle ranch. It was at this point that he would found the town of Adamana—the old gateway to the Petrified Forest.
In 1870, Chino Valley had a handful of ranches, plenty of open space, and occasional visits from fearsome Native Americans.
November 25, 1925, was a disastrous day in Yavapai County. Four banks suddenly and permanently closed their doors, and people’s deposits were frozen and unavailable—a mere month before Christmas!
Today, Skull Valley is a sleepy little burg, but there was a time when the town had several area mines, a quartz mill, a dairy, a number of saloons, and a 36-room hotel.
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| Dan Fain around the time of the incident. |
It was seven years before the Rafter 11 would brand its first bovine; when Norman Fain was just a lil’ cowpoke, at the mere age of 3. “Dan Fain was assaulted at Humboldt [May 31, 1910,] and escaped death solely through good fortune,” the Weekly Journal-Miner exclaimed.
The Weekly Arizona Miner was shocked. “The Indians…commenced the most daring, vigorous, persistent, and may we add, successful raids against the whites of this section that we have ever known or heard of them to make.” The newspaper was referring to a series of four raids in as many days. “And in every instance,” the paper continued, “ [they] have come out winners in the game of life and death.”
It started in late October 1868. “Our people have been in a high state of excitement ever since our wily foes started upon this, their most brilliant campaign,” the paper declared.
When it was announced that the narrow single-lane trail through the Granite Dells would be widened into a highway, Grace Sparkes was not alone in harboring apprehension. She feared “that the rude, rough and uncouth men with the TNT would ruin a lot of marvelous rocks and leave the road running through a scene of devastation,” the Weekly Journal-Miner revealed. The road would be built through what was then known as the Granite Dells Narrows, and now it would become the second approach to Prescott from the north and the beginning of a “short-line” road to Jerome: US Highway 79.
Consensus knows that Prescott gets snow, but it seldom lasts long—often melting away before evening. This was the reasoning behind the city selling off its “excess” snow removal equipment. But then in mid-December 1967, a below-freezing cold-snap accompanied by four waves of heavy snow eventually produced 72 inches with drifts measuring up to 10 feet.
Ironically, it was the city of Phoenix that sent ten snowplows, at its own expense, to help with the crisis.
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| Prescott Journal-Miner, 2/9/1917 Pg. 6 Col. 5 |
They would usually appear in February after the harshest days of winter, and stayed until May. Reports of thousands upon thousands of ducks and other waterfowl were annually noted until the climate took a turn toward our more arid conditions today.
A report in the Prescott Journal-Miner in 1917 stated that “the sun was obscured for over five minutes” as a gigantic wave of migrating ducks was settling in for the Spring in Williamson Valley. One man who wanted to boost tourism via duck hunting proclaimed to the Weekly Journal-Miner: “It is safe to say that 80 percent of all waterfowl flying from the north to the south use Williamson Valley as their course.”
Yet despite these incredible numbers, is it really possible to bring down thirteen ducks with only two shots, as one pioneer rancher claimed?
1870 dawned with the usual optimism of a new year in Prescott, but underneath lay a sense of anxiety. The first edition of the 1870 Weekly Arizona Miner wrote: “Our inveterate foes—the Indians— have been on their good behavior for a number of weeks past, and have not recommenced hostilities, hereabouts. But judging from the fact that they have commenced swarming around many settlements, we fear that, ere long, they will commence their business of killing and plundering, and we advise our people to be on the lookout for them.”
The newspaper would have done well to tell its readers not to travel alone and double their herders. For it was the Indians' strategy to begin a campaign of ambushing lone travelers and lightly guarded stock.
Before becoming a subdivision, Deep Well was a working ranch. It was also the site for Yavapai County’s cowboy camp meeting starting in 1945 and stretching into three decades.
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| The only surviving image from "The Cringer" |
There are no known surviving copies of the first movie filmed in Yavapai County. However, a nationwide search of movie reviews and newspaper accounts for “The Cringer” offers a reasonable, albeit general, recapitulation of the film and some of its background.
