Those Pesky Rights-of-Way

All right, already. Call me picky, picky. However, today marked the second time that our daily newspaper has printed the same incorrect map. On page 1. Story about Lincoln School's property problem. How do I know? Well, I happen to walk the area frequently, as you may have noted. Examine the map above. Picture yourself in your car, heading straight up Beach street from the back side of the Sharlot Hall Museum to get to Lincoln school.

Oh oh! What have we here? Look what's ahead of you. Even in your SUV, you aren't going to get up this little cliff! Pretty, though. Quite walkable -- there's a well worn neighborhood path. Yes, this is on some maps as part of Beach Street.

Now here's the map with my corrections. See the little stub of Beach? See the "new" street going past the other side of the United Methodist Church over to Gurley? MapQuest online has corrected its map to this configuration. On the other hand, my 2003 edition of the Yavapai/Coconino Counties Street & Road Atlas still shows the map just as the Courier printed it.

By the way, that isn't the only Prescott street found on some maps that in the real world goes over a cliff. Likely, the problem is that city rights-of-way do exist and the map makers mistake them for actual thoroughfares. No way. They should get out on the land more often!

As for the Lincoln School property problem -- I'd say that the city should quietly deed its "strip of land" over to the school and be done with it. After all, it did pass the whited-out portion of Beach Street to the adjacent land-owner, I'm told. And, after all, city had apparently lost the piece of land which the school has used for all these years. Isn't there a term for land ownership that passes as a result of long-term use? Oh, yes -- squatters' rights.

This Is the News That Was

We were picking up laundry at Moore's which sits on the alley behind Foolsewoode's SnapSnap shop over on South Montezuma. "What's that," the dotter said. I looked and immediately turned on the camera.

The what turned out to be the rear exterior wall of a nearby building literally wallpapered with old Prescott Courier aluminum litho plates. Circa 1963-4. I'm sure they've been there forever and a day, but this was the first time I realized what an historic treasure was sitting in front of me. The Barry above was, of course, Barry Goldwater, the 1964 GOP nominee for president.

His family was a Prescott family and, as I recall it, he announced his candidacy here in Prescott.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to really read any of the plates; however, I couldn't miss the prices in the supermarket ads! How do you like that prime rib roast at 59 cents the pound? Or the washer/dryer combo at just $259? Ah, the good old days!

Prescott Media Watch

There's a new(s) blogger in town; his mission is Courier-watching. And critiquing. A fine entertainment for Steve as well as his readers. A blog sure beats letters to the editor as a way to get heard on a regular basis, though it probably doesn't reach nearly as many folks out there. Criticism may improve the writing style of our paper; I question whether it will have any impact on treatment of local sacred cows that the editor dare not touch.

Picking on the local newspaper is a time-honored tradition and by no means confined to the shortcomings of small town journalism. When I was young and a copy girl on the long-lamented Chicago Sun, everybody carried on about Col. McCosmic and his Chicago Tribune: his politics, of course, but also his hang-up on spelling reform (fotograph, anyone?) Nonetheless, any time one of Marshall Field's hand-picked crew got an offer from the Trib, he/she jumped at it. The colonel paid twice as much as the guild papers in town. Oh, yes -- politics aside, the Trib's local coverage was also a lot classier. We had a Hearst paper to pick on, but its problem was merely that it was tacky and on the way out.

Curiously enough, I would guess that right now the Courier is in better shape financially than 2007's Chicago Tribune, which was just sold, or possibly the Arizona Republic, which appears to be cutting back. Is the Internet doing what TV failed to accomplish? Consider those classified ads, whose role is being undercut by the on-line likes of Craig's List. The classifieds kept pumping $$$ into newspaper tills over the years even as national display advertising migrated to the tube. No more.

It has to do with that old truism: the classified, like all news, is local. And good, bad or mediocre, local is why I read the Courier. And ReadItHere. And the Yellow Sheet. And Monsoon. And those slick-paper magazines that pop up periodically. (Right now Yavapai Woman and Yavapai.) Yep, I'm a print junkie...

But I also link over to Coyote Radio, The Truth PV (even more critical of our local press than the new kid on the block), and now Courier Watch. To find out what's happening in my world, a world I can enjoy here and now and possibly influence -- as opposed to Everywhere Else, where I'm just one more atom. If I want to get the feel of the real world out there, I read local blogs from Elsewhere. They are written by people who are firmly anchored in their own piece of the earth -- and it shows.

(Note: I may have spoken too soon about the health of the Courier. When I consulted the Google for the Craig's List URL, I discovered CL had recently opened new Prescott and Flagstaff editions. The link above is to the local version!)

Links of the Day: Variety

No pictures tonight. Instead, some of the varied links I've been collecting over the past several weeks. For instance, considering our elevation, how about high altitude baking. Admittedly, I don't bake these days so I can't vouch for the advice. I'm more likely to follow advice from this slug & snail fancier, partly because the subjects are more interesting photographically! Besides, one of the bloggers I read has a visiting slug named Barry. But perhaps you're not into Nature, red of claw etc.; in which case, you might like to know that Geoffrey Chaucer hath a blog. Closer to home, enjoy a different take on the southwest via the daily photo from Albuquerque. For that matter, locally we have blogs from the Smoki Museum, the Prescott Courier, and the YMCA. Now... if you still have time on your hands, you can play the game of identify that photo over at Google. It's a real time killer, as I've found; on the other hand, donating a little time to The Google's ID-the-image project is a small price to pay for all that free info.

A Sad Finish to an Historic Building

The Coronado Apartment building at Montezuma and Willis was built shortly after the turn of the century as a boarding house for railroad workers, according to the Courier. (The old depot and railroad yard were just around the corner, back when trains actually came into Prescott.) The historic building is no more, following a fire that gutted it last Wednesday.

Fortunately, only one tenant of the structure was injured. But it's sad to see history disappear right in front of our eyes. If I engaged in magical thinking, I'd say that this block of Montezuma is jinxed. Remember the former restaurant/bar up the street? On the other hand, there is another old apartment building (this one without an historic sign in front) which did survive a fire nearly a year ago.

What's the future of this corner? It's well underway across the street from the burned out hulk; the Compass Bank will occupy much of this new edifice; don't worry -- the yellow is slowly disappearing beneath a brick skin. I would guess that the apartment fire has created a choice piece of downtown real estate.

Note: Despite today's pictures, I'm not attempting to do on-line news -- for that, you might consider an on-line subscription to the Courier. Not only is the newspaper now posting its entire content, but it even features blogs written by staff members and its new web editor. Also the paper links to locally oriented blogs (including Walking Prescott--thanks, guys!) Free to present subscribers, but cheaper on-line only.

How Many More Trees?

A forbidden thought occurred to me this morning over coffee. I looked at the pile made by a week's worth of newspapers; it was over 10" high. Maybe I should cut back from two to one paper a day. Maybe none. Think of the time I'd have for the Internet. Or taking pictures. Really learning PhotoShop. Reading science fiction and even mysteries. Walking and exploring. Gardening.

The thought made me cringe with guilt. For you see, I began my journalism career as a copyboy on the old Chicago Sun. In my world, news is a duty that has always equaled ink on newsprint. Back when most folk shifted their allegiance to the ubiquitous tube, I stayed with print. Despite my emphasis on graphics on this blog, I remain convinced that the importance of real news and events can't be determined by how exciting the pictures are. Nor by how much talking heads shout at each other. On the other hand, the older I get, the more today's news resembles yesterday's.

But there's that admonition from my 103 year old mother: always do the puzzles -- they'll keep your mind working. Just like this year's crop of researchers have discovered (there's nothing like proving the obvious!) It's actually the puzzles that are taking all the time I spend with the paper. And, of course, those devious feature editors added Sudoku just to further entice me.

So I can't figure out which paper to cut off. The big state daily from Phoenix has the best puzzles; the local Courier offers the local coverage I need as I work on my various blog posts. Maybe I might compromise and settle on weekends only for the Republic. I'm most likely to wimp out and do nothing, as I have done with the cable TV.

Local Link of the Day

This is one really neat resource. If you read the Prescott Courier, you know that it publishes a weekly column called "Days Past". I've come across fascinating historic tidbits reading these articles about the G.O.D. (Good Old Days.) Checking for info for today's feature post on Prescott mass transit, I came across the Sharlot Hall Museum Days Past archive. Go take a look. FYI: there's a good search function.

If I Ran the Courier

So just what have that headline and this picture to do with each other. Simple. I've lived in Prescott nearly 25 years -- and I've never seen a feature story about all those summer camps that ring the city (15 of 'em, according to the Yellow Pages)! I'm curious about them. As history. As employers of how many people? As businesses bringing how many $ into the local economy. As a group and individually.

But then I've never seen a really good story introducing the "Tri-Cities" readers to the surrounding countryside. Skull Valley? Yarnell? Ash Fork? Hillside? Yava? Seligman?

We have business pages -- but where's the analytical story about ranching in Yavapai County as a business -- and where it is headed (aside from the developers' portfolios).

I raise these questions -- and many more -- because of the many newcomers, who should really know more about the area they have chosen as home.

Do they know that there are four important (Arizona- style) rivers in the county? Just FYI, the Verde, the Agua Fria, the Hassayampa and the Santa Maria.

Just the other day, the Courier discovered gold mining. Hey -- it's been going on out in the local boonies ever since I arrived up here in the mountains (and before, of course.) If not the paper, then who should warn folks who wander the woods that they might well run into real, genuine, gritty, bearded prospectors -- who are quite as tetchy about their claims as any character in an old Western movie. And they often pack heat.

It's funny -- there's one flavor to the town if you stay cooped up inside the city limits except for the occasional trip down to the Big City in the Valley. There's another flavor if you drive out and around on occasion, but stick to the black top. And there's yet an entirely different world out there if you'll let the car get a little bit dusty on one (or many) of those back roads.

It seems to me that one of the missions of the local paper should be to introduce people to the wonderful area where they are now living. Maybe the staff of the paper need to be introduced themselves!