June 2019 20 Prescott continued from page 19 Every engine in the yard built up steam. All of the baggage and freight in the depot was loaded onto cars, which were pulled onto the main track north of town. Passenger cars were pulled to a safe location across the bridge. All the freight cars in the yard were coupled onto trains and steaming engines attached ready to pull them out if necessary. The fire was brought under control before it jumped to the east side of Cortez and before it reached Sheldon and Cortez where the depot stood. In the small Prescott of the day, only a handful of businesses escaped the inferno. Among them were M. Goldwater and Bros., A Blumberg’s and Mrs. R.R. Blaine’s dry goods store, three groceries owned by Jos. Dougherty, T.W. Otis and James Gardiner respectively, the drug stores of W.W Ross and W.P. Couvillaud, and the saloon of John G. Campbell. Some three dozen of Prescott’s major businessmen or property owners suffered major losses, the top loss being Bashford and Burmeister, where building and stock destroyed amounted to $250,000. Major businesses destroyed by the fire were considered those whose losses were more than $5,000. Insurance fell far short of the mark, in most cases, to cover the losses. In general, losses from the fire far outweighed the insurance coverage, if the businesses and buildings were covered at all. More than two dozen other small businesses were destroyed or heavily damaged, with losses ranging from $1,000 to $5,000. Offers of Assistance The wire sent Prescott Mayor J. W. Dougherty from the acting Mayor of Jerome, George Beagley, was typical of those arriving in Prescott in the wake of the disaster. Beagley wired “We, the mayor and common council of Jerome, sympathize with you in the loss your people have sustained and shall be glad to render any assistance possible.” Despite the extent of proud Prescott’s losses, the offers of sympathy were accepted, the offers of assistance were not. Morris Goldwater of the Prescott Common Council answered Beagley and others by thanking them for their “sympathy and kind offer of assistance,” then added, “the latter, fortunately, is not needed at this time.” The ashes of downtown Prescott drew an extraordinary number of people into town on the 15th to see the aftermath of the fire. News of the fire was telephoned to Jerome at about midnight on the 14th. It was said there was not a rig or horse to be found in the booming copper mining camp after the word spread around town. Jerome citizens had headed for smoldering Prescott en masse, the advance guard arriving a little after sunrise. When the afternoon train arrived from Phoenix, more sightseers arrived to see what was the biggest fire in the Territory since the big Jerome fire two years earlier. Photos of the fire’s aftermath leave no doubt that many men of Whiskey Row turned to that night to rescue what they could from businesses surrounding the Plaza before the flames claimed much valuable property. Just what was saved is lost to the dust of history, but it is apparent that many business owners were able to set up a temporary shop on the Plaza and continue to do business out of tents and even in the open. Rebuilding Started Immediately Attesting to the pioneer spirit of the day and the favorable business climate of Prescott at the time it was the vow of numerous businessmen to rebuild immediately and to continue operating in temporary shelters until their lost buildings could be replaced. The President of Bashford-Burmeister, R.N. Fredericks, vowed to begin work at once on rebuilding. Within five days of the fire, John Lawler reported the foundation for his new building on Cortez Street was finished and he had signed a contract for 750,000 bricks. W.H. Smith said he had purchased a lot sometime before the fire on the east side of the Plaza with plans to move his butcher shop to that location. He said he would now build a new brick building on his lot, complete with refrigeration. J.J. Hawkins announced he was ready to start construction of a 50 x 80 foot brick building on Montezuma were the fire claimed the famed Cob Webb Hall and a 50 x 75 foot building where Tilton’s had been on Gurley. The only delay was getting the necessary materials, which were at a premium due to the fire. Nathan Levy, speaking for D. Levy and Company said the firm was already making arrangements to build a brick block store and to stock it fully with new goods. “Prescott has been our home and we are here to stay. It is simply absurd for us to think of not resuming” he stated. And so it went, from businessman to businessman interviewed by the Miner came vows to rebuild as soon as possible. The paper ran their comments under a headline reading: “Not A Quitter In The Town.” A Lot Lost, A Lot Saved The dynamiting and rapid evacuation in the face of the fire all paid off, despite the lack of water, and by 3 am the great fire was halted and under control. It could have been a lot worse. When flames moved east on Gurley from Montezuma there was fear that the fire would close in on the Santa Fe Depot at the north end of Cortez St. As the Johnson House and Congress Hotel on Gurley were evacuated as well as private residents between the flames and the northern edge of what was then Prescott, a flurry of activity began at the depot. The huge back bar reportedly carried to safekeeping on the Plaza is said to be the one that still graces the Palace on Whiskey Row. The train from Mayer also was packed with sightseers. What they saw were smoldering ashes, a few brick shells of buildings, and a scurry of carpenters building temporary shelters on the Plaza to house businesses displace by the fire. The Yavapai County Board of Supervisors issued instant permits for the temporary businesses on the Plaza and many were ready to open by Monday. For Want of a Little Water Prescott in 1900 had four fire companies. They drilled, competed against each other in their special skills, marched in parades and were more ready for a fire of this nature. All of this was to no avail, of course, without adequate water. Early planners of Prescott knew that. They had sunk four wells, one on each corner of the Plaza, as the frame buildings grew up along Whiskey Row, Gurley, Cortez, and Goodwin. Then, the politicians had a “better idea.” They built a water storage reservoir on South Mount Vernon, supplied with water pumped from Granite Creek. The four wells on the Plaza were capped. Someone figured the old wells to be superfluous now that the new water system was in place. After the fire, all of the hoopla about the “new and improved” water system Prescott had built shortly before the fire went up in smoke and the press and public were holding the feet of the politicians to the coals. One writer dubbed the reservoir and Granite Creek well as a “wet weather water system,” one of several schemes the politicians came up with that had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Within a year, the politicos had found $150,000 more, to build a pipeline from Del Rio Springs, at present-day Chino Valley, to give Prescott a solid, steady supply of water. The great fire of 1900 was a severe test of the rough and tumble frontier town’s spirit. It passed with flying colors. By New Year’s Day, 1901, foundations were poured, brick was being laid and roofs were being placed on numerous downtown buildings that had risen from the ashes of five months earlier. Some building took a little longer. The building that housed the Grand Hotel for years was not completed until 1903. By then, Whiskey Row was almost totally rebuilt, the St. Michael’s Hotel had replaced the Hotel Burke on the corner of Gurley and Montezuma, the Red Light district, across the alley from Whiskey Row, on Granite was again flourishing and Prescott was whole again, ready to face new challenges. A decade later, prohibition would come, gambling would be outlawed and some of the older mines would begin playing out. But between 1900 and 1910 Prescott rose from the ashes of July 14, 1900, and boomed, coming back bigger and better than ever. Attesting to the pioneer spirit of the day and the favorable business climate of Prescott at the time it was the vow of numerous businessmen to rebuild immediately. Top Photo: Palace interior rebuilt.