Sharlot Hall (1870–1943)

Sharlot Mabridth Hall was born in a prairie dugout house in Lincoln County, Kansas. As a child, she made a covered-wagon journey with her family on the Sante Fe Trail to the Arizona Territory. The family started a ranch;:after it failed, they worked in mining camps. She attended schools near the present location of Dewey, Arizona, and later in Prescott, and she wrote poetry. At age twenty, she sold her first article to a children's magazine, and a few years later she was working as a journalist, poet, and essayist. She eventually became the associate editor of Out West magazine. In 1909 she was appointed Arizona territorial historian, and the following year she published Cactus and Pine: Songs of the Southwest, her first collection. In 1928, her personal collection of photographs and artifacts relating to Arizona pioneers and prehistoric Yavapai County served ias the starting collection for a history museum that now bears her name. She was a popular public speaker, giving talks about local history and folklore to schools and clubs throughout Arizona.