A bunch of strands run together in Prescott, Arizona. William Prescott (1726-1795) farmed in Massachusetts and served in the militia in a bunch of small-scale wars. Then he commanded the American troops at Bunker Hill. His grandson, another William Prescott (1796-1859), made himself into America’s first great historian. Possessed of rare intelligence and determination, he struggled against gravely defective eyesight. He chose as his subject the Spanish rampage through the America’s in the early 1500s. In his books, handfuls of bold men fired by religious conviction and greed launch themselves into the South American wilderness. Vastly out-numbered and far from home, they conquered the Aztec and Inca Empires. The first fruits of victory—gold–fell to these “conquistadors,” but over the long run their conquests enriched their homeland. Prescott had a brilliant writing style. More importantly, 19th Century Americans thought that he spoke directly to them.
By the 1830s, the mountain men had trapped out the Rockies, then fell to other work. Mostly this meant scouting for the Army and guiding Westward-bound “pilgrims.” Joe Walker (1798-1876) fit this mold. His expertise lay in the mountains of the Southwest. In 1863 he led a party of gold-hunters into the mountains of West Central Arizona. They found gold, so more prospectors arrived. The Apache Wars brought an Army fort. A mining camp more than a town, but in 1864 it became the chosen site of the territorial capital. What to call it? Prescott, after William Prescott the historian.[1] The rough-and-ready town prospered. Then the gold and silver played out; the Apache were defeated; and the state capital moved away.
The old town is the location for two good movies about the “New West.” Prescott has revived, in part thanks to tourism. It hosts “Frontier Days,” which includes a rodeo that has run continuously since 1888 and which pulls in 30,000 visitors. In “Junior Bonner” (dir. Sam Peckinpah, 1972), Steve McQueen plays a rodeo cowboy on the downslope of his career. He returns home to Prescott in stubborn pursuit of one more chance to ride a bull that has thrown him before. His father is an old-fashioned boom-and-bust prospector; his brother is a money-hungry property developer selling nostalgia. His sister-in-law tells him derisively “He’s working on his first million and you’re still trying for eight seconds.”[2] Bonner refuses a chance to move into management, punches his brother, rides the bull, and spends his prize money on a one-way ticket to Australia for his father.[3]
Prescott also shows the dangers of development pushing towns out into Nature. In “Only the Brave” (dir. Joseph Kosinski, 2017), wildland fire is a constant from the Rockies westward. On the news you see reporters in spotless yellow Nomex shirts and guys in dirty yellow Nomex shirts. Never pictured are the “Hotshots” who do the real work cutting containment lines close to the fire. Twenty-person crews with chain saws and shovels working 12-hour days. It builds pride and comradeship among tough people far from the limelight. The movie portrays the redemptive powers of comradeship among people sharing hard experiences. Brendan McDonough is leading a disastrous life: drugs, indolence, lies, theft, and a pregnant ex-girlfriend all come together. Hitting bottom, he applies for a job with the Prescott-based “Granite Mountain Hotshots.” The job and the people start him on a new life. McDonough gets bitten by a rattlesnake. At the hospital, he opts to take the pain, rather than blunt it with drugs. Soon afterward, the crew is sent to fight a fire named for Yarnell Hill near Prescott. Still lame from the snakebite, McDonough is detached to fire-spotting. While he is away, the fire suddenly overruns his crew. Nineteen men are killed. They died together, doing work that gave their lives meaning. But the heartbreak among their families and friends and community is terrible. “And I alone am left.”[4]
Both movies center on the survival of “Old West” values in a modern world that seems to lack—and miss—them.
[1] The name was suggested by Richard McCormick, the secretary to the territorial governor. A sickly child, McCormick had read a great deal in bed and well-plumped chairs. Subsequently, he became a war correspondent, frontier newspaperman, and politician. “We see how he comes over us with our wilder days,…”
[2] The time he has to stay on the bull to win the big buckle.
[3] See: Monte Walsh – The Cowboy Life
[4] 1 Kings, 19: 10.
waroftheworldblog 