by Thomas Reiner, Quartz Mountain Commentary, ©2026
(Feb. 17, 2026) — For you Cormac McCarthy fans, the Road to Prescott, Arizona is not nearly as annihilistic as Cormac’s tome, “The Road.” However, it does serve as a warning for the slow destruction of what many have considered a Paradise since the very inception of the Arizona Territory. Prescott, Arizona has been such a city-town which attracts all kinds of people seeking the next best thing. Most of us wear dusty boots who have either been born here or have been adopted as newcomers sharing a love for the likes of Wyatt Earp, Sharlott Hall and Morris Goldwater. Prescottonians are imbued with an independent spirit that celebrates rugged individualism, acceptance and equality, while teaching these qualities to the next and successive generations.
However, not all is happy in Mudville. The Mighty Casey has not yet struck out, but a few curveballs have been thrown which threaten the Californication of this quintessential Arizona city. Prescott is sitting at a crossroads of whether it wishes to become a large Californianized city or remain as Arizona’s Christmas City with free parking complete with a semi-raucous historic Whiskey Row. The refugees from California are mostly not to blame. They have moved here with a warning because they have personally lived through the destruction of California by a Democratic Party that has legislated Ranked-Choice Voting and Jungle Primaries which freeze all other parties from representing their millions of constituents. This can happen here with the infection of Progressive groupthink.
Ever since the government’s Covid 1984-like experimental pacification of the American People, there has been the construction of a DEIified altar to Socialism (read Communism). It has taken hold in New York City, Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle and the infection is spreading to smaller population centers, even Prescott, Arizona. The seeds that spawned the Communist Revolution in Russia are slowly infiltrating our youth that America is bad, with false promises of free this and free that, if only that dumb Capitalism would just go away. In the past year, busloads of “protesters” are paid $150/hour to demand silly things such as “No Kings” and “No ICE.” When the hour hand hits 12, they disappear and clock out.
People with opinions not held by the Mob have actually been attacked in Prescott. Freedom of expression is okay, but the real crime is that Prescott businesses suffer as protestors don’t buy anything while “The Righteous” scare the people of Prescott away from coming downtown. This is precisely the shenanigans practiced in California.
There are well-meaning people here who don’t understand that their very actions will only serve to out California, California. It will turn our beautiful city into Prescott, Disneyland. Property rights are a fair argument, but having three hotels on the single historic block called Whiskey Row is ludicrous. Henceforth, Whiskey Row will be renamed as Hotel Row with no parking for the tax-paying residents. There is already a fourth hotel nearby under construction and two other nearby hotels. The people of Prescott will be frozen out from parking downtown, and Whiskey Row will become Whiskey-A-Go-Go to the Phoenicians.
These same real estate interests wish to decimate a portion of the Dells, a geological Prescott wonder, to widen the highway enabling the construction of a California mouse-packed maze of housing. If allowed to happen, then people will soon wonder where all the water went and why are there even more cars that will be unable to find parking at Courthouse Square. The Leftist response would be to convert Prescott into a Fifteen-Minute City where automobiles are virtually banned and seniors can ride their wobbly bicycles over the hills to the city center. Good luck with that because of bad knees.
Although Prescott is and has been mostly Republican, the local governance has been intimidated by the Bernie Sanders’s Squad and a vile Democrat group called the Prescott Indivisibles, mostly composed of elderly Leftist AWFULs and impressionable high schoolers by their Leftist teachers employed by the Prescott Unified School District. The quest for California Conquest has even been culminated by a Democrat questionably seated onto the Prescott City Council by squishy RINOS. Prescott is slowly becoming unrecognizable. You should already know what AWFUL and RINO stand for.
Just as McCarthy’s “The Road” is a tale of destruction as well as eventual salvation, Prescott is also teetering. As for now, Prescott remains a beautiful city with hundreds of miles of hiking trails. This is a city to love. This is a call for the wide swath of Conservatives and Republicans here to become Precinct Committeemen to serve our community. You can make a difference and keep Prescott a beautiful Conservative oasis compared to the cancer metastasizing throughout Maricopa County. Let’s keep this the Road to Prescott, Arizona.
It would also be appreciated if someone would kindly teach my wife and me how to do the Texas Two-Step down at Matts Saloon. We sure would cherish it and tip our cowboy hats to you.
Another “Grand Exodus” from California happened in 1985 while I was living in Seattle, WA.
The Californians destroyed the housing market in Seattle so much that Washingtonians couldn’t afford to live in the neighborhoods that they grew-up in.
Wasington Sate was pretty looney then but after the migration from the south it went double-looney and they haven’t recovered and looks like they never will.
It used to be a nice place but stay far, far away. I’ll never go back.
Good luck in AR. I used to visit there quite often. An old prospector, Mr. Welty, often took me into the Superstition Mts. and showed me the location of the Lost Dutchman’s gold mine but it was still guarded by Apaches, with rifles. They had a TV show about it but they read the sign wrong, so wrong, in fact, that they were looking for the mine on the wrong side of the valley. I couldn’t find it now; I can’t even find my car keys.