Hard to believe that in 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln signed official documents to create the Arizona Territory, just a few months later, the primitive campground on the east side of Granite Creek in Yavapai County would be the site for Fort Whipple and ultimately, the territorial capital.
And the official naming of the community happened on May 30, when Territorial Governor John Nobel Goodwin designated Prescott as the territorial capital.
Ironically, no evidence exists that historian William Hickling Prescott, after whom the community was named, had ever been near his namesake.
Most evidence indicates that in 1864, only 14 cabins and about 50 people lived in Prescott. However, within a few months after being declared as the territorial capital, pioneers bought land and built homes and businesses that soon made Prescott the largest community in Central and Northern Arizona.
Almost from the beginning, the space around Cortez and Montezuma Streets was known as “the Plaza.” A natural consequence was the construction of the white granite Yavapai County Courthouse in 1877. It was replaced in 1918 with a Neo-classical multistory granite building on a plaza that has become the centerpiece for most community activities.
At the time of its founding, Prescott was in Yavapai County, which then was the largest of only four counties in the Arizona Territory. Once claiming almost half the land mass of Arizona, Yavapai County was known as the “Mother County” and gave birth to what are now Apache, Coconino, Maricopa and Navajo counties.
And May 30, the combined efforts of Prescott leaders and Yavapai County officials are hosting the “Mother of Arizona Birthday Parties.”
We’re all invited. QCBN
By Ray Newton
Quad Cities Business News
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