The new century...

The New Century... 1900 1927

For youngsters of my generation there were numerous living links with the Prescott of the turn of the century. Many of our elders had spent the greater parts of their lives in our town. One of these was Sharlot Hall. Born in Kansas in 1870, she had come to Arizona on horseback in a wagon train at the age of eleven, and had grown to womanhood in and near Prescott. During my school days she was Arizona's acknowledged poetess laureate and the kindly curator of the museum named in her honor, which was then just beginning to expand beyond the Old Governor's Mansion. But in the early 1900s, despite limited schooling, she was already a successful writer of both prose and poetry and a regular contributor to the California magazine Land of Sunshine (later renamed Out West), edited by Charles F. Lummis. Inspired by the physical beauty of Arizona, intrigued by its history and its promise, she passionately advocated her adopted land and its aspirations for statehood.

In his bicentennial history Arizona, Lawrence Clark Powell cites two examples of the political influence of Sharlot Hall's eloquent pen. Angered when Washington politicians proposed in 1905 to admit Arizona and New Mexico to the Union as one state, she sat down at night while suffering symptoms of oncoming pneumonia and wrote a long poem that included these lines: We will wait outside your sullen door till the stars that ye wear grow dim As the pale dawn-stars that swim and fade o'er our mighty Cañon's rim. We will lift no hand for the bays ye wear, nor covet your robes of state, But ab! By the skies above us we will shame ye while we wait.

When she had finished, she later wrote, "the anger had entirely cured the cold." The poem was distributed by the governor to every senator and congressman and read aloud by the Arizona delegate. Congress decreed a referendum on the issue, and Arizona voters soundly defeated the proposal.

Later, while serving as territorial historian, Miss Hall traveled to almost every part of Arizona collecting information. Her exploration of the all-but-unknown Arizona Strip north of the Grand Canyon and her resulting articles helped Arizona block an attempt by Utah to annex that remote region.

Much appreciated by her fellow townspeople, Miss Hall during my childhood regularly guided school groups through the museum and often hosted special events there, including an occasional play.

In one of these my sister and I appeared. I remember playing the melody of "Tenting Tonight" on my violin in flickering firelight while the rest of the cast sang the poignant lyrics of that Civil War song.

The surge of construction that followed Prescott's great fire of 1900 continued after the initial period of recovery. A fine public library-the building still stands at Gurley and Marina-was completed in 1903. Several major school buildings went upWashington School in 1903 on East Gurley Street; Lincoln on Park Avenue, on the west side, in 1909; Miller Valley School, on the far northwest, in 1916. All three still fulfill their original original purpose.

Washington School later played a major role in the lives of my family. We never actually owned the school, but we must have come close to establishing squatters' rights. My father was the principal for five years; my brother, sister, and I spent a total of twenty years as students there; and my mother, a former teacher, later returned to the classroom for sixteen years at Washington School.

The program of school construction included remodeling the former territorial capitol into a high school, catty-corner across Gurley from Washington, in 1904. Five years later the class of 1909 consisted of seven members: six boys and one girl. Two of the seven, now in their nineties, still live in Prescott: Gail Gardner, rancher, long-time postmaster, and cowboy poet; and Richard Merritt, who for forty years was Yavapai County engineer.

In 1916 the Yavapai board of supervisors engaged architect W. N. Bowman of Denver, Colorado, to design a new county courthouse. He responded with the classical Greek temple that is still Prescott's most impressive building. Constructed of native granite from a quarry only a few miles northwest of town, it was completed the next year. Later, as county superintendent of schools, my father had an office there. The Rough Riders Memorial retained its place of honor on the Plaza's north side.

Under the direction of restoration architect William Otwell, Prescott's eighty-room, half-century-old Hassayampa Inn undergoes a major face-lift.

World War I engulfed the United States that year of 1917. One of the hometown heroes who did not return was Ernest A. Love, a pilot killed in action in France. When Prescott veterans organized a post of the American Legion after the war, they named it for Lieutenant Love. Later the municipal airport was named Love Field in memory of the young aviator.

Among Prescott's small fry in those years were two close friends, Dixon Fagerberg, Jr., and Taylor T. Hicks. Recently Fagerberg's grandchildren prevailed upon him to write down tales of his boyhood in Prescott. The result, published in 1983 by the Sharlot Hall Historical Society, is a book called Meeting the Four O'Clock Train and Other Stories. In its pages the author reconstructs the period from the time of his earliest memories-he was born in 1909, the year Gardner and Merritt graduated from Prescott High Schooluntil 1927, when he went away to Stanford University.

"The town's geography seemed made to order for growing boys," Fagerberg wrote, "being neither too large nor too small, too flat nor too hilly, nor too anything else. Without special effort, we became acquainted with practically every square foot of the entire town, even down to where the anthills were. Years later, for a Scout merit badge, I spent weeks preparing a map of the town which showed, among other things, every single fire hydrant."

In 1927 Dixon's map would have needed revision to show a new landmark. Prescott civic leaders yearned for years for a large, modern hotel. Since there was no single investor or small group of partners willing and able to provide the necessary financing, it was agreed to try to raise the money by local public subscription. In a remarkable demonstration of community spirit, sparked by the Kiwanis Club, more than $150,000 was pledged. Architect Henry Trost of El Paso, Texas, then designed a handsome hotel of spacious public rooms, eighty bedrooms, and a porte cochere motor entrance flanked by a patio garden and fountain.

Named the Hassayampa-the river's headwaters rise just south of Prescottthe hotel opened triumphantly that fall. For many years it was the town's social center as well as its most elegant hostelry, the scene of banquets and dances, luncheon meetings and business conferences. After a period of eclipse, the stately old hotel has undergone just this spring and summer of 1985 a major restoration. In a city known for its achievements in historic preservation, it appears the Hassayampa will triumph again.

A Rare Cultural Asset

The Governor's Mansion that for a short time sheltered Arizona's first territorial legislature is today the centerpiece of a fascinating complex comprising the Sharlot Hall Museum.

Located at 415 West Gurley Street, the museum's old and new buildings exhibits, gardens, and research library constitute a rare cultural asset. Its calendar of special events includes an annual folk arts fair and a folk music festival.

The Sharlot Hall Historical Society and Director Kenneth Kimsey, who came to the museum in 1973, have built on a solid foundation: the irreplaceable artifacts and memorabilia of the legendary Sharlot Hall's own collection. But the museum has grown in size, sophistication, and aesthetic appeal beyond what could have reasonably been imagined even ten years ago.

Across town another Prescott museum is dedicated to the culture, history, and prehistory of the American Indian. The Smoki Museum's exhibits include materials from several sources, including those contributed by archeological and anthropological teams of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Of Prescott's art galleries, the most distinctive is the new Phippen Museum of Western Art, five miles north of town on U.S. Route 89. The museum was established by the George Phippen Memorial Foundation in honor of one of the outstanding painters and sculptors of the Ameri-can West.

Other galleries offering periodic exhibits are those of the Prescott Fine Arts Association, 201 North Marina Street; Mountain Artists Guild, in the Bashford house at Sharlot Hall Museum; and Yavapai College, 1100 East Sheldon Street.