4 minute read
History: Just Around the Corner in Prescott
Just Around the History: Corner in Prescott
by Blake Herzog
Greater Prescott is suffused with its history and boasts three major museums documenting different slices of our culture.
MUSEUM OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
PHIPPEN MUSEUM
4701 Highway 89 North, Prescott | www.phippenartmuseum.org
SHARLOT HALL MUSEUM
There are many more lesser-known sites you can visit, as well, to learn about the past and maybe gain some insight toward the future. Please verify operating hours before visiting any facilities. Q
WESTERN HERITAGE CENTER
156-C S. Montezuma Ave. Prescott www.visitwhc.org
The Western Heritage Center is a unique space operated by the Prescott Western Heritage foundation to capture and promote the area’s western heritage by sharing permanent and rotating exhibits, some from the area’s largest museums — the Sharlot Hall Museum, Phippen Museum and Museum of Indigenous People. Located on “Whiskey Row,” its 22 permanent exhibits cover the area’s history in ranching, mining, rail, law enforcement, film and many other arenas.
KALUSA MINIATURE AIRPLANE COLLECTION
Inside Hazy Library, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University 3700 Willow Creek Road Prescott www.hazylibrary.erau.edu/displays/kalusa-collection
The world’s largest to-scale collection of miniature airplanes can be viewed in the university’s library, all 5,825 of them! It includes pre-flight, private, commercial, military and rocket aircraft models. All are built at 1/18th of an inch to foot scale and feature the detailed markings of each plane. All were crafted by John W. Kalusa, who painstakingly hand-painted each one beginning in 1936 when he was 14. He retired to Mesa, and after his death in 2003 the collection was inducted the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest collection of hand-painted airplanes in the world.
FAIN PARK
2200 W. 5th St. Prescott Valley www.pvaz.net/DocumentCenter/View/4817/ Welcome-to-Fain-Park-PDF?bidId=
This Town park tucked behind an industrial area is set on Lynx Creek with a manmade lake for fishing and trails for hiking on the site of the first gold mining activities in the area, which began in 1864. A rebuilt stamp mill and other historical equipment can be seen on the property, and future phases of development will open a regional museum, the Barlow-Massicks Victorian House and the Fitzmaurice Native American archaeological site.
FUTURE SITE OF DEWEY-HUMBOLDT
Historical Society Museum 2581 State Route 69 (east side of road between Billy Jack’s Saloon and the shops at Humboldt Station), Dewey-Humboldt www.dhhsmuseum.org
The society was forced to close its previous location in 2017 but it’s beginning to build a new home on this donated piece of land, where members already have moved many of the larger pieces of equipment after they were temporarily housed at Mortimer Farms. Though fencing around the construction site will make it less accessible for viewing, it’s still a chance to glimpse the machinery that helped build Greater Prescott’s economy while the society makes its own history.
147 N. Arizona Ave. Prescott, AZ Monday through Saturday 10AM to 4PM Sunday 1PM to 4PM (928) 445-1230 www.museumofindigenouspeople.org
We Are All They
by Tod Christensen
There’s an interesting phenomenon out in the world today no matter who I talk to they always talk about they. Whether it’s religion or politics or the changing of the world they is most often quoted to justify the insults that were hurled.
They seems to always be the one consistent source, this seemingly all-knowing infallible unbreakable force, it’s the source most people use to drive their point home sometimes arguing angrily and causing pain as they roam.
My own children often cite this very invisible being so I often correct them to make them think about what they think they are seeing. You see it’s easy to get caught up in this wave of emotion you think you are in a pond but it’s actually the middle of the ocean.
Words have power and what we say really matters children pay attention to all of it even when we just chatter we owe it to them and to all to be careful of what we speak. What may be a fine message to someone healthy might be crushing to one who is weak.
The example we set in this contentious day and age will go a long way in either inflaming or dampening all of this online rage. We owe it to our children and our friends and our own self image to stop this endless angry battle and scrimmage.
We need to set the example for all who will listen that words aren’t to be used as fertilizer but they should gleam and glisten. For the world we live in will be the one that we create our words of power can be kind and sweet or full of rage and hate.
We need to look at all the information not just with the ones we agree. I don’t want my children to grow like weeds, I want them to grow strong like a tree. In this world of hyper information we should watch what we say because you never know who might be listening and we are all they.
