An open-air museum and heritage site, Sharlot Hall Museum is a terrific outing for history lovers, especially that of the American Southwest. Sharlot Hall, a daughter of the frontier, founded the museum in 1928 to preserve the history and culture of Northcentral Arizona. Located in downtown Prescott, Arizona, at 415 West Gurley Street, the Sharlot Hall Museum covers almost 4 acres and includes 11 exhibit buildings (six of which are considered historic), making for a wonderful day outing. The times vary based on time of year – from May to September, it’s open Tues – Sat from 10am to 5pm and 12pm to 4pm on Sunday (closed on Mondays), and between October and April it closes at 4pm daily (still closed on Mondays).
It’s simply best to check the website at https://www.sharlothallmuseum.org before you visit to confirm times. We visited on a Saturday at the end of May, arriving around 12:45pm, and it was pleasantly not crowded.
So, who was Sharlot Hall? Born in 1870, she was a “child of the frontier”. According to the museum’s official website, “Her earliest memories were of Comanche raids, grasshopper plagues, prairie fires, and of pet buffalo killed by wolves”. When she was 12, her family crossed the Santa Fe Trail and settled in Lynx Creek, which is near present-day Prescott Valley. After growing up in the final decades of the great Wild West Frontier days, she saw a need to preserve early Arizona’s history. She noticed that as early settlers died, so did their history and stories, and their possessions would be lost or stolen. Looters were already raiding the ancient Native American sites to supply the market with “genuine Indian relics”. Therefore, she took to saving both Native American and pioneer history. Per her website, “as early as 1907, Sharlot Hall planned to develop a museum for her collections”.
Some of the historic buildings on the grounds are the pine-log Fort Misery, built in 1863 and the oldest log building associated with the Arizona territory (moved to the property in 1936); the Governor’s Mansion, built in 1864 and the oldest log cabin in Arizona still standing in its original location; the Frémont House, the 1875 home of the 5th Territorial Governor John C. Frémont (moved to the property in 1971); the Bashford House, the 1877 Victorian home of businessman William Bashford (saved from bulldozing and moved to the property in 1880 – it also houses the museums souvenir store); the Sharlot Hall Building, built on the museum grounds in 1936 during the Great Depression; the Ranch House, also built in 1936 on the museum grounds “to represent early ranch homes of the area”; and the Schoolhouse, a replica of Prescott’s first, 1867 one-room school, built on the museum grounds in 1962.
While tours are available, they require a minimum of 7 people (for both school and private tours). To get a tour started, please visit – https://www.sharlothallmuseum.org/tours-information/. It was just my brother and me, so a tour wasn’t an option. While a tour would’ve been nice, there was a volunteer stationed around or near almost all the buildings and exhibits, dressed the part, and ready to explain the history of the building at the drop of the hat. I was rather impressed with these volunteers, as they knew their Prescott and Wild West history quite well. Truthfully, they made a tour unnecessary.
Sharlot Hall is also home to three permanent exhibits, located within the Lawler Exhibit Center: Prehistory of the Central Highlands, a look into the migration to the area and the days of the first inhabitants; Skyviews: Aerial Townscapes of Prescott, 1868 to the Present, which showcases the relationship between Prescott’s geography and that of civic growth; and The Baskets Keep Talking, a look into the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe’s culture of basketweaving. We visited only the first exhibit, the Prehistory of the Central Highlands, as we were running short on time. It was a fascinating look into the very early days of Central Arizona and how the first inhabitants of the land lived and survived.
All-in-all, we stayed for about 2.5 hours, leaving around 2:20pm, and we still did not get to see everything. I would give the Sharlot Hall Museum, at minimum, 3 hours to complete.
Overall, if you’re into learning about the state of Arizona’s past, then the Sharlot Hall Museum is the place for you! Or perhaps you’re a Wild West history junkie and love learning about that time period. Either way, if you have a free afternoon and are ever in the Prescott area (Prescott, Arizona: “Everybody’s Hometown”.), I highly suggest giving this museum and heritage site a visit.
Bonus: You can also visit Sharlot Halls gravesite, located within Prescott at the Pioneers’ Home Cemetery. I touch on it here – The Grave of Big Nose Kate: A Wild West Icon.
