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Whiskey Row

Drinking, gambling and prostitution district in Prescott, Arizona Territory, in the 1870s. In its heyday, forty saloons were packed into a one-block stretch of South Montezuma Street.

The Long Hunt: On November 1, 1877, Bret Maverick arrived in Prescott and found the tables friendly in several saloons in Whiskey Row. He found the Palace Saloon's games to be the most lucrative,[2] and played there for a solid week until he realized he was playing with two outlaws that had aided Lefty Dolan in a bank robbery in Dry Springs in 1872. When he confronted them, one of the men, Rex Clark, was accidentally shot and killed by his partner, Whitey Brandon, who fled towards the Mexican border, and Bret gave chase.[3]

A fire destroyed most of Whiskey Row in 1883. Much of it was rebuilt, but another fire destroyed it again in 1900. Today, there are no longer any gambling halls or brothels, but still a number of bars that theme themselves around Prescott's wilder days.[1]

Whiskey Row in the 1870s.