WEEKEND GETAWAY: PRESCOTT

getaway weekend PRESCOTT Flaunts Its TERRITORIAL HISTORY in Hotels, Saloons and Tales of Abe Lincoln and Wyatt Earp

OF ALL THE THINGS MOST PEOPLE DON'T know about historic downtown Prescott, one of the coolest remains this: You can mull over the Earp brothers while eating fudge.

That's right. Wyatt, his dentist friend Doc Holliday and their women stopped for a spell in this central Arizona town in 1879 to convince big brother Virgil, a local lumberman, to join them in their journey to Tombstone. He agreed and the party continued on to the fabled dust-up at the O.K. Corral.

In Prescott you can also cozy up to a delicious dinner of roast duck while unraveling tales of gargoyles and a baby found abandoned in a saloon more than a hundred years ago. And you can explore an assortment of shops selling everything from stained-glass lamps to a Zuni ceremonial belt made of oyster shells.

You can do all this without venturing much beyond the shadows of the Yavapai County Courthouse. The grand old building, completed in 1918, serves as an anchor to the past in a downtown district filled with modern-day enjoyments.

Let's talk food first. I discovered another fine place to eat in a town I thought I knew. The Rose Restaurant on South Cortez Street, just a block off the downtown square, resides in a turn-ofthe-last-century house, with diners seated in various separate rooms or on the patio. Longtime Prescott chef Linda Rose serves a full Continental menu on Wednesdays through Sundays, dinner only, and has earned raves particularly for her lamb chops and manicotti. I still dream about my choice: her melt-in-yourmouth duck cooked in brandy and cherries Other dining options include Genovese's Ristorante Italiano on Gurley Street, which serves fine Italian food, and Murphy's, near the old railroad depot on North Cortez Street, a favorite, if frequently crowded, choice for prime rib. Refurbished by San Diego restaurateur Dave Michelson, The Palace, which has anchored Montezuma Street's Whiskey Row since its opening in 1877, lives on as a reliably good eatery. Even if only for a drink, everyone must see The Palace.

Just stepping through the door triggers the imagined sounds of a player piano and gamblers' chips plopping onto velvet. The ornate bar and back-bar, and historical photos on the walls flavor the Old West atmosphere. They do much to spark the imagination. So do old stories.

The Cabinet Saloon operated just south of The Palace in 1898. On a snowy January night that year, a mysterious woman dropped a baby on the bar and departed out the bat-wing doors. That callous act touched off a sensational story that has since become a favorite of downtown tour guides.

The saloonmen, full of whiskey and sentiment, made loud claims to the waif, each declaring he could care for her better than the next. They settled the matter by tossing dice. After a raucous competition, Judge Charles Hicks won. He took the baby home, and with his wife, Laura, named her Violet, adopted her as their own and raised her to adulthood. Her natural father, William Bell, was arrested and convicted on abandonment charges.

Violet's unlikely life, begun in rejection and furthered amid love and hope, ended as it began. Many years later, Violet tracked Bell down in Alaska and traveled there to meet him.

But just as he'd done in 1898, Bell turned his daughter away, refusing to see her.

Prescott's legendary baby on the bar, Violet Hicks Binner, died of a broken heart in California, in 1970, at age 72.

I have plenty of time to ponder these events when I'm in town, sometimes while standing outside The Cat's Meow at Gurley and Montezuma streets.

Look for me on the sidewalk, snarfing a square of fudge while waiting for my wife. She could spend a week in The Cat's Meow, browsing the 3,500 square feet of country, Victorian and Southwestern gift items, including an assortment of Victorian dolls and lamps. But her favorite part remains the "Christmas room" in back, packed with ornaments, figurines and theme-decorated trees. Fudge samples near the door keep me coming back. Sneaky, but it works. I recommend the pecan praline.

Next door, Bashford Courts, a beautifully inviting three-story atrium mall

boasts many shops, and around the corner on North Cortez Street, check out Ogg's Hogan. Prescott native Jeff Ogg, for 25 years a buyer for Fred Harvey at the Grand Canyon, has returned home to sell an unusual mix of Western collectibles from turn-of-the-century saddles, spurs and horsehair bridles to Indian baskets and jewelry.

"A lot of my best stuff walks in the door from old cowboys selling what they can't use anymore," says Ogg. One stunning item, a Zuni belt made of heavy and colorfully decorated oyster shells, retails for $9,000.

Ogg shares space with Margaret Gould and her store called Maggie Manygoats. An Anglo, Gould grew up in southern Colorado and was given that nickname by Indian friends. She specializes in Navajo folk art, and Western-style furnishings and clothes, such as Double D Ranch attire for women and Barn Fly shirts for men.

"Our clothes are for people who love the feel of the West, but aren't hardcore cowboys," says Gould.

With shopping done, I'm again pondering some oddities of Prescott history, always close at hand. Just by standing at the courthouse square and looking around, visitors can practically see the past.

The red-brick building on the hill above town, the Arizona Pioneer's Home, served as the last stop for Doc Holliday's girlfriend, Big Nose Kate. A part of the Earp retinue of 1879, she returned to Prescott to spend her last years as Mary K. Cummings. Eighty-nine years old when she died here in 1940, Kate refused to give interviews after 1935, when she and writer A.W. Bork hoped to sell her story to big magazines. Much of what is known about her life came from his notes from that meeting. Her later silence earned her a curious spot in town lore.

"As a single topic, we get more questions about Kate than any other person," says Mike Wurtz, archivist at the Sharlot Hall Museum, just west of downtown. "We finally put a crude map in her file giving people directions to the cemetery where she's buried."

Sharlot Hall, one of the best small museums and archives in the state, proves worth a visit. Even those uninterested in history will appreciate the beautifully kept grounds, gift shop and the first governor's mansion.

The Hassayampa Inn, completed in 1927, was the first in Arizona built with the automobile in mind. It offered a covered porch guests could drive under to unload luggage, something entirely different from stopping in the street in a horsedrawn wagon.

The hotel also has a tower, inaccessible from the inside, that serves no modern purpose. The architect added it as a landmark for drivers who, in the 1920s, traveled without the aid of maps or road signs.

The Rough Rider Monument north of the courthouse was sculpted by Solon Borglum, brother of Mount Rushmore's creator, and then there's the Hotel St. Michael, a charming, three-story brick building. We spent the weekend there and enjoyed desk clerk Lenna Doll's hospitality and good conversation, as we have so many times in the past that it's almost become a second home.

Look high up at the hotel's exterior walls and you'll see odd carvings of gargoyles. One story has it they were meant as a mocking representation of the local politicians, who, following a 1900 fire that destroyed the hotel, fought its rebuilding.

But Wurtz says that legend hasn't been proved. He's just as intrigued by the face carved in the north and south fronts of the courthouse. No one is sure who it represents, but Wurtz believes it might be Abraham Lincoln.

His link to Prescott? When gold was discovered here in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, the president sent soldiers to establish Fort Whipple, a military post, and secure it for the Union. Now, admit it. What could be cooler than thinking about Lincoln, Big Nose Kate and the Earps while shopping and eating fudge? All