Greater Prescott is suffused with its history and boasts three major museums documenting different slices of our culture.
Museum of Indigenous People
- 147 N. Arizona Ave., Prescott | www.museumofindigenouspeople.org
Phippen Museum
- 4701 Highway 89 North, Prescott | www.phippenartmuseum.org
Sharlot Hall Museum
- 415 W. Gurley St., Prescott | www.sharlothallmuseum.org
There are many more lesser-known sites you can visit, as well, to learn about the past and maybe gain some insight toward the future.
Please verify operating hours before visiting any facilities.
Western Heritage Center
156-C S. Montezuma Ave.
Prescott
www.visitwhc.org
The Western Heritage Center is a unique space operated by the Prescott Western Heritage foundation to capture and promote the area’s western heritage by sharing permanent and rotating exhibits, some from the area’s largest museums — the Sharlot Hall Museum, Phippen Museum and Museum of Indigenous People. Located on “Whiskey Row,” its 22 permanent exhibits cover the area’s history in ranching, mining, rail, law enforcement, film and many other arenas.
Kalusa Miniature Airplane Collection
Inside Hazy Library, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
3700 Willow Creek Road
Prescott
www.hazylibrary.erau.edu/displays/kalusa-collection
The world’s largest to-scale collection of miniature airplanes can be viewed in the university’s library, all 5,825 of them! It includes pre-flight, private, commercial, military and rocket aircraft models. All are built at 1/18th of an inch to foot scale and feature the detailed markings of each plane. All were crafted by John W. Kalusa, who painstakingly hand-painted each one beginning in 1936 when he was 14. He retired to Mesa, and after his death in 2003 the collection was inducted the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest collection of hand-painted airplanes in the world.
Fain Park
2200 W. 5th St.
Prescott Valley
www.pvaz.net/DocumentCenter/View/4817/
Welcome-to-Fain-Park-PDF?bidId=
This Town park tucked behind an industrial area is set on Lynx Creek with a manmade lake for fishing and trails for hiking on the site of the first gold mining activities in the area, which began in 1864. A rebuilt stamp mill and other historical equipment can be seen on the property, and future phases of development will open a regional museum, the Barlow-Massicks Victorian House and the Fitzmaurice Native American archaeological site.
Future Site of Dewey-Humboldt
Historical Society Museum
2581 State Route 69
(east side of road between Billy Jack’s Saloon and the shops at Humboldt Station), Dewey-Humboldt
www.dhhsmuseum.org
The society was forced to close its previous location in 2017 but it’s beginning to build a new home on this donated piece of land, where members already have moved many of the larger pieces of equipment after they were temporarily housed at Mortimer Farms. Though fencing around the construction site will make it less accessible for viewing, it’s still a chance to glimpse the machinery that helped build Greater Prescott’s economy while the society makes its own history.
