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Old West, New West
BY CARRIE MINOR * PHOTOGRAPHY BY KERRICK JAMES
At first glance Prescott, Arizona, doesn't give the appearance of having grown up in the Old West. Stately Victorian homes line the streets of the town's 100-year-old neighborhoods. Historic downtown's plaza square is dominated by the 1916 Yavapai County Courthouse, built in Neoclassical Revival style. Even Whiskey Row, now graced with restaurants and boutiques, gives the appearance of a place of law and order.
Designed from the beginning to be the capital city of then new Arizona Territory, Prescott was intended to be a model of decorum and refinement. But, like most frontier settlements of the day, this mile-high mountain town saw its share of swaggering gunslingers, sleazy politicians, and drunken cowboys.
Today, Prescott provides a great weekend escape. Here you can eat in a restaurant that once catered to Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, stay in a haunted hotel, shop for Western collectibles and folk art, and walk through the mansion of Arizona Territory's first governor. It also seemed the perfect place to teach my twin 5-year-old sons a good history lesson about the Old West. ...
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The March/April 2003 Issue is out. Find it at Las Vegas bookstores today.
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