Images of America: Prescott
by Frederic B. Wildfang and Sharlot Hall Museum Archives
2006, 128 pages, $19.99, Paperback Arcadia Publishing
A recent addition to the never-high-enough stack of books about Prescott, Images of America: Prescott is filled with black-and-white historical photographs. The cover highlights a roulette table and several patrons in the newly rebuilt Palace Saloon of 1901. One of my favorite photos shows downtown Prescott sometime after 1880: one-half block west of Montezuma Street, a tree stands in the middle of Gurley Street, which then dwindles to a mere cart-track meandering over Granite Creek toward Thumb Butte. And, as is often the case, portraits of the long dead characters of history raise more questions than they answer. What led these people to Prescott? Why did some of them leave? What were their dreams? Their joys and sorrows?
Although few of these questions are answered in this book, Wildfang writes captions lengthy enough to give the reader a sketch of Prescott history. Each chapter also contains one page of introductory text. The book offers chapters on the Yavapai, early exploration and settlement, ranching, mining, the Great Fire, and more.
The scarcity of women in this book lessened my interest in it. That scarcity, of course, may not be the fault of the writer because so much of recorded history favors the endeavors of men rather than the accomplishments of women. (Heavy sigh…)
Arcadia Publishing, which publishes local and regional history all over the United States, has hundreds of titles in its Images of America series. Beside Prescott, other Arizona subjects in the series include the Grand Canyon, Tombstone, Apache Junction and the Superstition Mountains, plus several other communities around Phoenix and southeastern Arizona. They’re a fun addition to the collection of anyone interested in Arizona history.
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