Growing up in Prescott...

Growing up in Prescott... 1927 1942

That summer of 1927, as Dixon Fagerberg and Taylor Hicks prepared to go off to college, the Windsors arrived in Prescott from Casa Grande, Arizona. My father had been named principal of Washington School, on the east side; but the house we chose was in a rural neighborhood two miles west of town. The few houses were scattered among trees and outcroppings of granite, and Miller Creek tumbled musically across our property. The family moving into the new house consisted of my parents, my brother, David, and myself. Within a few months we were joined by a new member, a brand-new sister, Margaret.

Although Dixon Fagerberg's boyhood in Prescott was ending as mine began, the two periods formed a continuum, and his recent book tells me how many similarities our experiences contained. We had, for example, the same first-grade teacher, Mata Dexter. Miss Dexter was a small, gracious woman, who later succeeded my father as principal of Washington School and whose memory is honored today in the name of Dexter School in north Prescott. My brother started to school in Miss Dexter's class that fall of 1927, but I had to wait two years before I was old enough to enter kindergarten. In the meantime, my first contacts with other youngsters came at the Sunday school of the First Congregational Church. Several valued friendships still active today began in Sunday school or kindergarten, nearly six decades ago.

I remember all my teachers well, and I liked them all; but I seemed to get in trouble with each one at least once or twice. (One major transgression came in second grade when Sherman Payne and I, while chasing several shrieking girls to their sanctuary, the girls' bathroom, ignored the forbidden threshold and followed them inside-before the outraged eyes of our teacher, Mrs. Florence K. Smith.) Unfortunately, I faced double jeo-pardy in connection with any such misadventure. It was inevitable that my father, the principal, would learn of the problem. He would deal with me as school administrator, and then again at home as parent. Later, reading the Constitution, I discovered the prohibition against trying anyone twice for the same offense. I pointed out to my dad that I had suffered a number of unconstitutional punishments. But he did not seem concerned.

pardy in connection with any such misadventure. It was inevitable that my father, the principal, would learn of the problem. He would deal with me as school administrator, and then again at home as parent. Later, reading the Constitution, I discovered the prohibition against trying anyone twice for the same offense. I pointed out to my dad that I had suffered a number of unconstitutional punishments. But he did not seem concerned.

In general, those early school days were a happy and even exciting time. Still, like most children, I looked forward to the summer vacations. Summer is Prescott's most delightful season. When the cities to the south are baking in the desert sun, Prescott temperatures usually hold in the seventies or eighties, with a cooling breeze in the offing. When the summer rains came, our creek would rise in its rocky bed, forming channels and pools deep enough for us to wade, splash, and pretend to swim. As I grew older and more independent, I wandered over the mountain behind our house, finding small caves and other private retreats. From any of several lookout points I could gaze out toward town or peer down on the comings and goings of our street, tracing the halting advance of the ice truck or the faster progress of the mailman's old car. I was always impressed with how far voices carried in the clear, high air.

In the pine grove near our house we hung a hammock in summer. When you are young it is all right to be lazy, and some days I never ventured beyond the grove, stretching out in the hammock to read or to stare upward at the blue sky and green boughs and watch for scolding jays and drumming woodpeckers.

Those pre-television days never seemed to lack entertainment. All of us had favorite radio programs to which we listened regularly-my brother's devotion to opera, I'm sure, stems from the early national broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoons. The first motion pictures I remember were silent films shown on Sunday evenings at our church, after hymn sings led by the long swooping arms of Moses B. Hazeltine, Sunday school superintendent and the town's leading banker. The pictures were such classics of their time as Evangeline and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

When talking pictures took over, the Elks Theatre installed a first-rate sound system. The elegant Elks was a former opera house with boxes and first and second balconies as well as orchestra seats. Periodically its stage accommodated famous performers on tour. At the Elks I heard Sir Harry Lauder, the popular Scottish entertainer, sing his patented "Roamin' in the Gloamin'" and other British music-hall favorites. There, too, we children were held spellbound by the amazingly lifelike Tony Sarg marionettes in an action-filled sell-out production of the classic Sinbad the Sailor.

The antidemolition movement in Prescott has for years been gaining adherents. Results are neighborhoods of proud old Victorians like these along Mount Vernon Street (ABOVE) and Nob Hill (FAR LEFT). Caroline Brinkmeyer (LEFT) still lives in the 1890s classic on Gurley Street built by her father.

Autumn in Prescott Country puts new zest in the mountain air, in the bench warmers taking the sun (BELOW), and in long-distance runners like Taylor Hicks (RIGHT). Hicks, a lifelong resident and former mayor, is still an annual contender in the gruelling Whiskey Row Marathon. (BOTTOM) The old Bashford/Norris house drowses in the October sun on Mount Vernon Street. (FAR RIGHT) Fall colors, reminiscent of more northeasterly climes, decorate Granite Dells, northeast of downtown Prescott. (FOLLOWING PANEL, PAGES 24 AND 25) Yavapai panorama. Bar U Bar ranchlands in Skull Valley.

When winter comes.... Granite Mountain northwest of Prescott sleeps beneath a layer of frosty clouds, while Prescottonians start dressing up their homes for the holidays (TOP). And like their fathers before them, Prescott's kids, like Brett Murphy and Laura Coger, put the new fallen snow to proper use. Maximum and minimum temperatures during the winter season in the High Country average in the high fifties and low twenties.

Growing up in Prescott...

About 1934 we became a two-movie town with the opening of the Studio Theatre. It occupied the historic Goldwater's building. That company moved its store just across Union Street. The theatre closed several years ago, to be demolished as one of the few defeats for Prescott preservationists. For boys and girls, the best thing about the new Studio Theatre was its Mickey Mouse Club. Each Saturday morning we filled the hall to overflowing to watch a cartoon or an "Our Gang" comedy, a cliffhanging episode of a serial, and finally the feature picture usually a Western starring Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson, or one of their contemporaries. My favorite serial was a fifteen-chapter Kit Carson saga. This full morning of entertainment and historical instruction cost ten cents.

Spring hasn't yet touched Spruce Mountain (LEFT), one of the higher points in Prescott's backyard, standing 7693 feet tall in the Prescott National Forest. (ABOVE) But already the warm sun has brought home restorers and new home builders out of their winter doldrums. Restoration work on the C. A. Peterson house, on Nob Hill, by John and Sue Coleman, takes as much patience, skill, and love as sculptor Joe McShane pours into the work on his new house.

Prescott also drew a regular ration of tent shows. Lowest on the scale were the medicine shows, for which we spectators sat in our cars before a makeshift stage and watched jugglers or contortionists while hawkers came around offering mysterious remedies in dark bottles. Next, a considerable step up, were the carnivals, which often had such attractions as fire-eaters and sword-swallowers in addition to the carousels, Ferris wheels, and "thrill rides." But the really exciting event was the annual arrival of the Al G. Barnes Circus. Watching the circus set up was almost as much fun as seeing the show. In the time-honored tradition, the circus train would pull into town at night. If we woke early enough, we could watch the company unload, move to the City Park, and raise its tents-with the elephants providing much of the necessary power. One large tent contained the animals on exhibit; next door were the rows of exotic sideshows. Dominating the whole field, of course, was the big top with its oval track, three rings, high wires, swinging trapezes, brass band, and irrepressible clowns. Prescott offered other satisfying if less

Where the Frontier Lives

In July, 1888, Prescott enlivened its Independence Day celebration by staging several riding and roping contests. The competing cowboys thus launched a tradition that is now nearing its centenary observance. Last month's Prescott Frontier Days marked the ninety-eighth consecutive presentation of what the citizens declare is the oldest annual rodeo in America. (Payson also lays claim to having the oldest rodeo.) The event is the town's greatest single tourist attraction. For five days in early July the streets overflow with visitors and townspeople, most of them decked in Western garb. The 1985 celebration offered eight rodeo performances-July 3 to 7, with three evening shows and the annual Frontier Days parade on July 6 was watched by a huge crowd.

Over the years, the festivities have featured many cowboy stars of both rodeo and movie fame. In their time, Tom Mix, Buck Jones, and Will Rogers all participated in public appearances here. Rodeo champions Everett Bowman, Lawton Champie, Chuck Shep pard, and J. C. Trujillo competed year after year. Skilled rodeo clowns such as the famed Pinky Gist of the 1930s and today's young Arleigh Bonnaha, a Yavapai Indian from the Prescott reservation, have not only entertained the crowds but also fulfilled the vital and dangerous mission of distracting angry bulls from unseated riders.

Today the Frontier Days show is a major stop on the circuit of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys of America. Yet it still retains a small-town flavor that continues to draw, as well, everyday cowhands from working cattle ranches all over the West.

spectacular pleasures. On Wednesday and Sunday evenings in summer the Prescott Municipal Band played in the Plaza bandstand. The lawn was crowded for these concerts, and cars double-parked on the three streets nearest the music, their drivers joining in the applause by honking their horns. The band's director was Gabri el Payne, a fine musician who later was my violin teacher.

One night a week came the Community Sing. As its popularity grew it moved from the courthouse steps to the City Park and finally to the County Fairgrounds. The perennial accompanist was Mrs. Mary Ruffner, a graduate of the Chicago Conservatory of Music and a superlative pianist. Her son, Prescott writer and historian Budge Ruffner (also Arizona Highways' book reviewer), has told me that his mother in 1906 became the first person ever hired to teach music in an Arizona public school. "She loved the piano," he said. "She used to wake me up at 3:00 in the morning playing Clair de Lune."

The stability of Prescott's population over several decades was remarkable. Between 1910 and 1930 the census increased only from 5092 to 5517; in 1940 the count was 6018. Along with the stability went a tendency toward long tenure in certain positions. Homer Wood, a mining engineer whose white vandyke beard was reminiscent of Buffalo Bill's, was the official timer at the Frontier Days rodeo for fifty-six years! M. B. Hazeltine (who also had a vandyke), our Congregational Sunday school superintendent, served in that role for more than fifty years. There were numerous other examples. Dr. Kenneth Walker, the just-retired superintendent of Prescott schools, told me that he was only the eighth superintendent since the posi tion was created in the mid-1890s. It startled me to realize that I have known five of the eight.

Two of the superintendents' terms of office were appreciably shorter than the average. One man, inexplicably, remained only two years. I can explain the other's departure. My father was principal of Washington School until the end of my second-grade year. At that point he and the superintendent had a disagreement serious enough that my father resigned. That didn't end the matter, however. My dad went into business and, a couple of years later, ran for the school board. His election changed the majority on the board, and the superintendent's contract was not renewed. That ended the matter.

About then my father decided his chil dren were missing out on valuable experi ence because we did not live on a farm, as he had. He thought we should have at least one animal to take care of. His solu tion was to bring home Judy, a small burro he bought for one dollar when she was

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Growing up in Prescott...

declared surplus after a political rally of the Yavapai Democratic Party.

Judy proved completely useless. Our many attempts to ride her were all failures. Once she pitched my little sister off into the rocks, but her usual tactic was simply to head for the sharp branches of the nearest scrub oak and scrape me or my brother off or try to put our eyes out.

For several years we conscientiously took care of Judy in all sorts of weather, trudged far afield looking for grassy mountainsides where she could graze, tracked her down when she ran away. Never did she return the favor with a single pleasant ride. At long last, our dad agreed to let us give her away.

The pace of the passing years seemed to increase. Along with school there were sports, music, chores, a Saturday job at the grocery store. There was no time to be bored. Looking back at life in Prescott in the 1930s, I can confirm now what I firmly believed then: it was a good place to grow up.

Times were hard, and few people had much money. But we had no Dust Bowl to blow away, and no factories to close down. And from a youngster's point of view, Prescott took good care of its own. It was a community that valued its chil-dren. We were challenged and encour-aged with constructive activities, from athletic teams to hobby clubs to our red-sashed, silver-helmeted drum and bugle corps.

My high school years were particularly satisfying. We had a diverse and interesting group of students, and I am convinced that our faculty was one of the best a relatively small school ever assembled.

In 1938, despite the lingering Depres-sion, the taxpayers of Prescott voted to build a new high school on the banks of Granite Creek. Not just a school, but a gleaming white four-building campus. My class was the first to spend all three senior-high years in the new school. We were extremely proud of it, and we were deter-mined to enjoy it as long as the gather-ing war clouds would permit.

The attack on Pearl Harbor came in December of our senior year. The report reached Prescott by radio. I remember precisely where I was standing in our back yard when my mother came to the door and repeated the news. I stared hard at the ground. I can still see the shapes of the rocks.

Next morning nothing felt right at school. Everyone was subdued. A few boys who were old enough enlisted at once, others right after graduation. Almost all of us were in service within a year.

The happy, innocent time of growing up in Prescott had come to an end.

Whiskey Row. Recently restored, the upstairs Palace Hotel Restaurant (LEFT) rates as a first-class eatery. (BELOW) Nickel beer has disappeared, but frontier conviviality lives on at Matt's Saloon.