South of the tracks
The Red-Light District
The Coconino Sun printed the words in 1916. The town spent a century not repeating them.
Read the storyFlagstaff, Arizona Territory
The stories
Five dispatches from the decades before Flagstaff learned to behave, drawn from the record and finished in the book.
Railroad Avenue, 1882 to 1917
Saloon Row
By 1886 the saloons outnumbered every other kind of business in town, combined.
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Under the downtown blocks
The Tunnels
Every old mountain town swears it has tunnels. Flagstaff actually does. The argument is about what they were for.
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Mayor Pollock’s compromise
The Blue Laws
The saloons and the bawdy houses rebelled. The mayor found a price everyone could live with.
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The town’s lost burial ground
Greenwood Cemetery
In 1914 Flagstaff moved its dead to the new cemetery. It only found forty of them.
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Arizona goes dry, Flagstaff goes downstairs
Prohibition
The saloons closed on schedule. The drinking retired to the basements and kept better hours.
Read the storyThe People
The Rogues’ Gallery
Dutch May Prescott, Commodore Perry Owens, Ben Doney, and the mayor who priced the town’s sins. The cast, with their receipts.
Meet the castThese pages give you the documented outlines and their sources. The book gives you the town: 128 pages of the early days, sourced and told straight.