April 27, 2025

Cowboys Deliver Instant Justice to Bandits

Paul and Jack Fodge were two brothers with dubious reputations. Aged 26 and 23 respectively, both had already spent time in prison. They didn’t exactly exhibit criminal mastermind-ship either when they decided to hold up a large group of cowboys and their companions at an early, holiday-season dance on November 14-15th, 1931.

March 16, 2025

Dan (Granville) Fain Nearly Murdered!

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.

March 2, 2025

Two Train Wrecks in Two Weeks

It was the height of summer, late July 1912, when two railroad accidents occurred on the Santa Fe, Prescott, and Phoenix railway.

February 16, 2025

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. 

February 2, 2025

1913 Frontier Days Gasoline Events

 

It was only 10 years after the first automobile, a 1903 “Curved-Dash” Oldsmobile from Jerome, which actually only drove from Jerome Junction after taking the train there.

Still, “much interest [was] created” when the Frontier Days Committee announced that it was increasing the cash prize money for the automobile race to $250 for first, and $150 for second place (approximately $8000 and $4800 in today’s money). The Weekly Journal-Miner explained that the extra prize money would ‘guarantee the entry of at least two cars from Tucson, two cars from Phoenix, and one car from Jerome,  to race against a lone entry from Prescott.