In the beginning...

In the Beginning... 1864 1900

The drouth that was becoming general is fast disappearing in the presence of the excellent prospects for an abundance of rain.... The new grass is beginning to robe the earth in emerald.... - Hoof and Horn, April 7, 1887; W. O. O'Neill, editor and publisher From the outset, Prescott was different. Unlike most frontier towns it was neither crossroads settlement nor overnight boom town nor a cluster of huts gradually growing up around a mission or trading post. Near a wilderness mining camp along Granite Creek was marked out, in the spring of 1864, a carefully surveyed townsite. It was the result of the federal government's wartime decision to separate Arizona from New Mexico and to establish the new territory's capital at a discreet distance from the existing settlements to the south. Today professors of urban design cite the town as one of the first planned communities in America. From President Abraham Lincoln's point of view, Tucson and Tubac-the old Spanish-Mexican presidios of southern Arizona-were disqualified from consideration as the capital by the presence of too many Texans and other Confederate sympathizers. To establish the new government Lincoln assigned loyal Unionists from New England and the Midwest. Their backgrounds determined not only their politics but also the character of the new town. Northern tastes, along with the mountain climate and availability of timber, made this a community first of log cabins and later of peaked-roof frame houses, instead of the Mexican adobes typical of the desert pueblos. But the newcomers acknowledged Arizona's Spanish-Mexican heritage in another way. They christened their new town Prescott, in recognition of William Hickling Prescott, author of The History of the Conquest of Mexico. Pursuing that theme, they named the two principal northsouth streets for the Aztec monarch Montezuma and the Spanish invader Cortez. The open space reserved between the two streets was officially dubbed the Plaza, the Spanish term for a public square. Making their way overland from Santa Fe in late 1863, the small party of officials had paused in a snowstorm to take the oath of office, once they were confident they were within the boundaries of the new territory. Then they continued to the temporary site of Fort Whipple near Del Rio Springs in Chino Valley. As spring warmed the mountain valleys, Governor John Goodwin scouted for the best location for his permanent townsite and new capital. About eighteen miles southwest of Del Rio, at the edge of a pine forest, he found his spot. The Army then moved the Whipple garrison to the rolling, conifer-dotted hills nearby. Organizing the town went ahead rapidly. At the first offering of lots in early June, seventy-three were sold. The first building housed the Arizona Miner, a biweekly newspaper. By July 4, the community was ready for a rousing celebration. Several hundred people gathered from the surrounding digs for speeches, contests, music by the Fort Whipple band, and abundant food and drink. "We will not say how much whiskey was disposed of it might surprise our temperate friends in Tucson and La Paz," commented the Miner. "Nobody was hurt, although the boys waxed very merry...and there was no little promiscuous firing of revolvers." Despite the threat of Apaches in the surrounding hills and canyons, the newcomers worked industriously to establish a proper American town on Granite Creek. The natural beauty of the site was appreciated from the start. "At the request of the town commissioners, and from our own feeling in the matter, we urge our citizens to spare the trees on the townsite," editorialized the Miner. "Not one should be cut down or disturbed unless actually in the way of a building. They yield a pleasant shade, and add greatly to the beauty of the locality, as all must allow." A two-story Governor's Mansion of pine logs served as the temporary capitol building. It still stands on its original site, a key part of the Sharlot Hall Museum. Before the summer was out, Prescott had a Sunday school; by midwinter, a privately owned grammar school opened, subsidized by the first territorial legislature.

Taming the wilderness in this remote place was not easy. For some time, wagon roads were primitive or nonexistent. Many materials and supplies had to be hauled laboriously over desert and mountains from river ports on the Colorado. As a boy I was once shown a huge, oddly shaped, squarish grand piano-I forget in whose home. It had been shipped from England (encased in lead for the journey) in the hold of a vessel, carried around Cape Horn to the Gulf of California, transferredto a river steamer, taken upstream to EhrenBerg, and hauled by ox team to Prescott. The massive back bar that still dominates the Palace saloon on Whiskey Row came from the Atlantic Coast by the same route, though it may have been pulled by a mule team instead of oxen. In 1867 Prescott received a shock. The legislature moved the territorial capital to Tucson, where it remained for ten years. To that blow were added other troubles: mining operations failed because of the high cost of transportation and supplies; and the Apaches stepped up their assaults on vulnerable travelers and settlers. By 1874 the Miner had compiled a list of 400 civilians killed by Indians. But the hardy pioneers grimly hung on. Their spirit shines through a terse note dispatched to her husband by a certain Mrs. Stevens after a four-hour defense of her cabin: "Dear Lewis: The Apaches come. I am might nigh out of buckshot. Please send me some more."

The mid-1870s brought new methods and machinery and better times for the miners. A growing livestock industry contributed to the region's prosperity. In 1877 Prescott again became the capital, and by the end of the decade the town had grown to nearly 2000 people served by two dozen stores and nearly as many saloons, three breweries, two newspapers, saw-mills and brickyards, hotels and boarding houses and restaurants, and two public halls. Church, fraternal, musical, and liter-ary organizations were thriving.

Prescott's reputation beyond its borders is reflected in these lines published in the Arizona Gazette of Phoenix in 1882: "Ever has she been remarked as the toniest of the Territorial towns. Situated amid the pines...nestled among the hills at an ele-vation so high as to never permit...that

temperature that makes us lose the starch in our garments as well as the polishing points in our manners and habits, she seems to gather refinement from her sur-roundings. The true indication of culture... seems to pervade her streets and perme-ate her homes. You can see more digni-fied and courtly gentlemen, stylish and polished young men, fascinating and ele-gant ladies in Prescott in a day, than in any other town of the same size your corre-spondent has ever visited."

As the frontier atmosphere faded with the pacification of the Indians, life in Prescott became more and more that of an established American small town. In 1889 the proud citizens again lost the capital - this time permanently, to the young farm community of Phoenix on the Salt River. But Prescott's stability was no longer dependent on political whim. In 1893 the railroad was completed between Ashfork and Prescott-superseding a rickety and unpredictable narrow-gage line from Seligman-and in another two years had been extended to Phoenix. The little mountain town was now linked to two transcontinental rail lines.

At least three famous names are associated with Prescott in the last decades of the nineteenth century: John C. Frémont, William O. O'Neill, and Fiorello H. La Guardia.

Frémont, the explorer who had mapped so much of the American West in the 1840s and was the Republican presidential candidate in 1856, was appointed fifth governor of Arizona Territory. Unfortunately his contribution to the town and territory was not great. Although he needed the salary and had sought the appointment, he took little interest in his post once he reached Prescott in 1878. Partly because his wife soon returned to the East in poor health, he absented himself from Arizona for long periods. He resigned in 1881.

The house he occupied was later moved next to St. Luke's Episcopal Church, where I often passed it without knowing anything of its significance. Recently moved once more, it now stands in the complex of historic buildings at the Shar-lot Hall Museum on West Gurley Street.

In contrast to the aging and distracted Frémont, young Buckey O'Neill seemed to grow with the town. It is difficult, in fact, to see how he crammed so much activity and achievement into the sixteen years he lived in Prescott.

After a boyhood spent in Washington, D.C., O'Neill arrived in Arizona in 1879 at the age of nineteen. When he moved to Prescott three years later, he had already worked as a newspaperman in Phoenix and Tombstone and had gained a reputation as a rather reckless gambler. His fearless betting in faro“bucking the tiger” in gambling hall lingo-led to his nickname.

Buckey began in Prescott as a reporter for the Arizona Miner. In due course he became the official recorder of the district court; editor of the Miner; founder of a stockmen's publication, Hoof and Horn; volunteer fireman; captain of the militia company, the Prescott Grays; probate judge and ex officio county superintendent of schools; territorial adjutant general; sheriff of Yavapai County; and mayor of Prescott.

Prescott's Wild and Wooly Set The Earps and Doc Holliday Hit Town

Virgil Earp and his wife Allie arrived in Prescott in the late 1870s. Virgil filed a timber claim and went to work felling timber and selling it to the mill. They built a log cabin and settled in to the good life. Allie remembered their dog, Frank, was only afraid of the wildcats "screamin' at night. There were lots of them around the cabin. Virgil also helped Sheriff Jimmy Dodson bring in a few outlaws, including two badmen who were taking turns shooting through "a woman's legs at the dog runnin' beside her."

Within a year of their arrival, a letter came from Wyatt and the other brothers saying that Dodge City had "lost its zip," and they were heading for that new strike down south. Tombstone. Wyatt extended an invitation to Virgil and Allie to join them. About a month later, the Earp brothers and a friend, John H. "Doc" Holliday, pulled into Prescott. With the "deadly" dentist was his girlfriend "Big-Nosed Kate. Ever restless, Virgil and Allie threw in with Wyatt and left their timber claimone historian alleges that Virgil took the Goldwater Mercantile store for $314 and headed for Tombstone in November, 1879.

Holliday may have remained in Prescott. (The Census of 1880 has him living on Montezuma Street with two male boarders). He reportedly was on a $10,000 faro winning streak and decided to stay and run out his luck. Of course, he was in Tombstone by October, 1881. He joined Virgil, Wyatt, and Morgan Earp as they took on the Clantons and McLowrys in the so-called gunfight at the OK Corral.

Twenty years later, crippled for life from the Tombstone vendetta, Virgil and his wife returned to the Prescott area and raised hogs on Kirkland Creek. Within several years they moved on. Virgil died in 1906 in Goldfield, Nevada.

Mary Cummings, in the 1930s, living in the Pioneers Home in Prescott, claimed to be Kate. She wrote a short manuscript dealing with her life, although at least one Holliday expert questions her recollection of certain dates and places.

WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED BY BOB BOZE BELL TOM MIX Sheriff Ruffner Gets the Drop on a Bad One

Old-timer Gail Gardner tells the story about how turn-of-the-century Yavapai County Sheriff George Ruffner had to use his wits to get a certain badman he had been tracking for weeks. When overtaken, the desperado was camped on a wide mesa where he commanded long views. Ruffner knew if he “rode down on him” the badman would simply head out with a comfortable lead and probably escape. So the sheriff took off his hat and tied his tapaderos (long Mexican stirrup guards) over the saddle horn. He then took his bedroll and wrapped up his hat and saddle to resemble a pack. Ruffner wrapped his bandana around his head, then trudged afoot leading his horse across the open flats toward the camped outlaw. Sure enough, the badman assumed Ruffner was an Indian with a packhorse. Ruffner limped right into camp, and, when he was right on top of the outlaw, pulled his Colt and made the arrest.

The Cuboy from Yavapai Hills AGEBRUSH TOM The Tom Mix Hat Trick

Known as the “King of the Cowboys,” he was a familiar face around Prescott in the teens. Fearless Tom Mix took firstplace in the steer riding and bulldogging competition at the 1913 Frontier Days Rodeo in Prescott. Several years later, as a highly paid movie star (at one time he was making $20,000 a week, and this was in the days before income tax!), Mix shot many of his movies at the old Bar-CircleA-Ranch, located in the Yavapai Hills east of town. His presence around the Mile High City certainly had its effect on kids. Budge Ruffner (nephew of Sheriff George Ruffner) remembers as a boy going with friends to the American Horse Ranch to watch the making of a legendary Mix film. During a chase scene, Tom lost his trademark ten-gallon hat. Casually he rode back, swooped down, and picked it up at a dead run. The bug-eyed kids were mighty impressed. So much so they all took to trying the stunt at home. Several broken arms and many scuffed heads later, the mothers and fathers of Prescott put a stop to the “Tom Mix Hat Trick.”

Frank CondonHe Rode the Buffalo

Every fiber, humor, and instinct of the American bull bison despises being ridden by man. Inasmuch as there's about one ton of muscle, gristle, and guts to the average male buffalo, he generally has his way.

Once, though, a man rode a buffalo. The story is not a Western whopper; a few reliable witnesses are alive to describe the deed.

In the early 1900s, Frank Condon was reputed to be the best bronc buster in the Bradshaw Mountains, south of Prescott. He had won more than his share of rodeo contests, including the Frontier Days tournament at Prescott.

"He walked with a limp," an oldtime admirer remembered, "but he did not ride with a limp."

Into Prescott, on a summer's day in 1904, rolled a small circus whose greatest astonishment was a captive buffalo a rare survivor of the fifty million American bison that roamed the Great Plains and Rockies as late as the 1870s and 1880s. And what a specimen this was! Nine feet long-six feet tall at the withers the massive black horned head as ominous as a mountain thunderstorm. As townspeople crowded around the buffalo cage as closely as they dared, the circus owner stood in his wagon seat and proclaimed:

"I will pay $1000 in gold to any

man who can ride the buffalo for one minute!"

He gave fair warning. Many a cowboy from Texas to Montana had tried. None had succeeded.

The sheriff dispatched a courier to fetch Frank Condon from where he was working, fifty miles away. And of course, Frank hurried into town, because a thousand dollars was more money than a range hand might see in a whole year.

"What I hear true?" he asked the circus man.

"Yes, sir, and I'm not responsible if you're killed or injured."

"Let's get a gittin'," said Frank.

This was the heyday of Prescott's Whiskey Row. The town's first saloon had been on the bank of Granite Creek, "but the sight of water made the customers sick." So the saloon was moved to Montezuma Street; soon two dozen other saloons followed.

In preparation for the contest, a canvas corral twelve feet high was hung around a section of Whiskey Row. Most of Prescott and seemingly half of Yavapai County turned out to watch, marvel, and wager. Those betting on Frank Condon suffered painful second thoughts after seeing the wiry cowboy standing alongside the bison.

With the beast blindfolded and clamped in a stout chute, Frank cinched his own work saddle onto the vast hump. Then Frank eased into the saddle and nodded for the boys to swing open the gate.

cinched his own work saddle onto the vast hump. Then Frank eased into the saddle and nodded for the boys to swing open the gate.

For about five seconds the buffalo didn't so much as quiver; then all at once he came unglued. According to historian Nel Cooper, that prime bull had learned every bucking trick known from Amarillo to Helena. He sunfished. He bogged his head. He stood on his front feet and kicked at the clouds. He crowhopped across the dusty street. He swapped ends. He spun around until spectators were dizzy. He stumbled and faltered. And long past the required minute the exhausted buffalo minced to a trembling halt...with Frank still on top.

The feat was very nearly followed by a lynching. The braggart circus owner had to confess that the prize money did not exist, so certain was he that no man would finish the ride.

Frank's friends were of a mind to take out a thousand dollars in human hide. But Frank Condon calmed the crowd and settled for $100-all the cash the circus owner had.

Frank returned to the hills to spend his life ranching. For the rest of his days he was famous throughout his little corner of the world as "the man who rode the buffalo."

text continued from page 7 O'Neill was a complex and fascinating character. The gambler and frequenter of Montezuma Street saloons was equally at home at meetings of the Prescott Chautauqua Circle, where he often quoted Byron. Ever colorful, in every public position he held he managed both to stir up controversy and to earn praise for conspicuous achievement. He was capable of fainting at a public hanging and of relentlessly tracking train robbers 600 miles and capturing them in a gunfight that killed his horse. He was famous for writing scathing "open letters" to politicians with whom he disagreed and for writing his wedding announcement in the form of a long paean to the joys of marriage, which he printed on the front page of his paper.

When, in 1898, the United States declared war on Spain in the interest of Cuban independence, Leonard Wood and Theodore Roosevelt turned to the West to raise a volunteer cavalry regiment of cowboys and frontiersmen. It was perhaps inevitable that Buckey O'Neill would be the first man to sign up; that he would be commissioned as captain and commander of Troop A, First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry; and that he would be the first to enlist his quota of troopers and to arrive at San Antonio, the regiment's assembly point.

The entire adventure of the SpanishAmerican War was compressed into such a short period that it is remarkable what an impact it had. The 109-day war made of Roosevelt a national hero and formidable political candidate; four months after the battle of San Juan Hill, he was elected governor of New York. The Cuban campaign made the First Volunteer Cavalry, nicknamed the Rough Riders, one of the most famous units in American military history-even though only two-thirds of the regiment made it to Cuba. But the brief war brought a sudden and tragic end to Buckey O'Neill. With their horses stranded in Tampa, the Rough Riders fought dismounted. Cool, courageous, and foolhardy as ever, Captain O'Neill refused to take cover from small arms fire while reassuring his men, and was killed by a Spanish bullet on July 1, 1898, near San Juan Hill. He was thirtyeight years old.

Of all Prescott's early-day citizens, he is the least likely to be forgotten. Since 1907 his likeness in heroic bronze, astride a splendid mount, has looked out across the Plaza. A memorial to all the Rough Riders, the Solon Borglum masterpiece is known in this town simply as the statue of Buckey O'Neill.

I have no idea how many times I have stood and stared up at the dynamic sculpture. Both the artist's work and the subject's life have always fascinated me; and the inanimate bronze remains my closest contact with the man himself. But with another distinguished product of late nineteenth century Prescott I can claim a personal connection. Meeting Fiorello La Guardia when he returned to his boyhood home was one of the highlights of my own school days.

The United States Army was responsible for young La Guardia's six-year childhood stay in Prescott. His father Achille, an Italian immigrant, became an Army musician and in 1892 was posted to Fort Whipple as bandmaster of the 11th Infantry. Fiorello graduated from grammar school and entered high school, but left Prescott in the spring of 1898, when the 11th Infantry was transferred because of the war with Spain.

La Guardia's impressions of Prescott, recalled later in his autobiography, were highly favorable: "My memories of Prescott are that it was the greatest, the most comfortable, and the most wonderful city in the whole world, whatever anybody might say about New York or Paris. People were so nice. Father was popular in the town, and as children of the Army bandmaster, my sister and I, though little kids, performed for all sorts of benefits. I played the cornet and Gemma the violin, while Father accompanied us on the piano."

The "short and skinny" schoolboy grew into a stocky and personable man of seemingly boundless energy. As a World War I aviator he rose to major. Later he became an eloquent congressman. When he was elected mayor of New York City, his effective administration and his amusing antics-from riding the hook-and-ladder to fires to reading the Sunday comics over the radio and early-day television - endeared him to New Yorkers and made him a national celebrity.

I was a drummer in the Prescott High School band when La Guardia returned to Prescott in 1938. We played for the distinguished visitor, of course, and he took the baton to conduct us in "The Stars and Stripes Forever."

I have never been much of an autograph seeker, but as Mayor La Guardia passed among the band members and inscribed his name on the bass drum, I held up on impulse the calfskin head of my snare drum, and he signed it, too. Years later, when some other drummer finally put a stick through the aging drumhead, band director George F. Backe sent it to me, its treasured signature still legible.

As the nineteenth century came to an end, Prescott suffered one of its greatest disasters. Several earlier major fires had done much damage but had been contained. Now the great fire of July, 1900, destroyed the entire business district. Hampered by failing water pressure, volunteer fire fighters dynamited several buildings to halt the spread of the flames into residential areas.

The county board of supervisors promptly allocated space on the Plaza to the burned-out merchants, and tents and shacks quickly went up. Predictably, the saloons of Whiskey Row were the first enterprises to reopen in their temporary quarters.

In Phoenix a sympathetic and admiring writer for the Arizona Republican reported: "Our Sister of the Pines has been tried by fire.... No such stroke as this has ever been laid on an Arizona town. In comparison with it, considering wealth and population, the great Chicago fire was an insignificant blaze, for little is left of Prescott but its homes...."

Then, a few days later: "The people of Prescott are doing just what was expected of them. They are rebuilding their town with feverish haste. Instead of lamentation there is rather rejoicing that this fiery opportunity has been given them to build a better, more beautiful, and more substantial Prescott.... That fire of last Saturday night would have been the death of many another town, or rather, of a town with another kind of people."