Prescott, Arizona is a great place to live. It was also a fantastic place to grow up. Moving here just after my 2nd birthday, my parents decided on Prescott after looking at 4 other locations to raise their family. Prescott was love at first sight. We moved into large house right on Gurley St, across from Ken Lindley Field. Those early, glorious days of Prescott (you remember, when it used to snow in October on Halloween every year?) were the best. Back during a time when the only source of summertime entertainment was softball tournaments at Ken Lindley Field, before the installation of cable TV or the invention of the Atari. It was not unusual to see American Indians in full dress walking on the Courthouse Plaza, and Billy Jack was a local hero. Those were also the days when Prescott had one Junior High, one High School, and 4 elementary schools with 1 on the way.

Back then, leaving Prescott was the ambition of every single graduate. Prescott was small, and boring. With the exception of Halloween and the 4th of July, there was nothing to do. We had a drive-in theater that was falling apart, and the Marina Theater with 2 screens. Eventually another theater opened on the west end of Gurley St in the Fry’s shopping center. (now DES) Weekends on the square were torture for a kid. The Salvation Army would play religious movies by the Buckey O’Neill statue, there would be square dancing, and that was about it. What we did for fun was hike around and discover stuff. We quickly found out that Prescott was quite the mysterious little city once one left the downtown area. I could easily write a book about our adventures. The house at the hidden lake behind the graveyard with the horse on the porch, or the Indian chanting at night in the hills behind the graveyard at the end of Virginia Street that would literally disappear and reappear somewhere else, the Hell’s Angels camping at the “Tanks”, the strange symbols guiding people up the “creek” south of Prescott, building a raft to navigate the Granite Creek floods that happened each year during monsoons, rafting down the gutters with “floats” like it was the Colorado River, building giant ramps and ice walls on Washington St during winter and sledding down the hill with my brother, building forts and tree houses, jumping off a roof downtown into a trash bin full of plastic bags, flipping the power breaker switches up and down whiskey row at night, and on and on. This became our fun, but for most people, partying at the gravel pits or the old abandoned house was about it. Or 4-wheeling on DQ hill. When Skate Town USA opened, we all went there every weekend. It was THE place to be. The truth is, Prescott was a time-bomb of lots of kids + nothing to do = trouble.

With the invention of the “Walkman”, kids started having the ability to take their music with them. It was the days of trading mix-tapes. Mix-tapes were like gold. We didn’t need to “buy” music any more, we would simply record the radio on our Walkman…something we could never do prior to that time! KISS FM was Kid Kelly and Carol Springer. These guys were gods to us. Getting on the radio was like crack, and we called in often. It was all part of the 80’s craze. In the movie “Almost Famous”, Cameron Crow’s character drew pictures of his favorite band logos on his school folder, and the radio was your therapist. This was me in the 80’s. Same age, same exact thing. I graduated high school in 1990. I spent my entire life during the 80’s in school with my friends. Only people who graduated in 1990 have this privilege afforded to them by chance. In school, they still swatted the bad kids. Fighting was just something you did off school grounds, and many times on. School is a completely different entity now. It’s safer, and for that I’m glad. But most young people have moved their adventure and battles online. World of Warcraft has taken over actual “wars” we fought with water weenies and slingshots. Taking photos of life has supplanted living life. I’m so glad I’m not a kid today. Technology is very cool, but life is way cooler.

During Prescott’s Frontier Days, thousands of tourists would flock to Whiskey Row to celebrate Prescott’s colorful 4th of July. The courthouse plaza was lined with rag-tag food booths of every variety and makeshift mini versions of the old-town buildings; one of which was a little jail that you had to pay 1 dollar to get released from if you were unlucky enough to be caught NOT wearing a piece of western clothing by the staged constable. The dollars went into the city coffers to pay for event planning. I personally remember my mother getting put in the jail because my she was not wearing any western clothing. I screamed until the constable let her out. That was last year. 🙂 During this unique period in history, grade school children used to have parades in downtown Prescott, one of which was the Halloween Parade. Parents would watch as their little darlings dressed up in their scariest costumes and walked in long lines around the Courthouse Plaza. Most schools participated, and it was great fun to get outside with our friends and show off our best kookyspooks. During this time I was a student at Washington School. In fact, I attended from K-6th. Back then, 6th grade was still elementary level, and Gene Loving was our principle.

The water battles started in the early 80’s by grade-school children on the last day of school before summer break. Having been a participant, I can attest to the veracity. Other sources have hinted the water wars may have started in the early 70’s when the 4th of July carnival was still held at Prescott Junior High and the fireworks were at the High School. There was also stories of water balloons being thrown at the old 5-points junction (now Miller Valley and Iron Springs.) Of course the tossing of water balloons by individuals for no reason does not necessarily constitute a starting place for the water wars. Like most kids we threw water balloons regularly during the summer. From personal experience, Washington School regarded the last day of school as “water war day” and the kids all went at it on the playgrounds as the school schedule was cut in half, letting all the kids out at noon.

We would inevitably carry on the battle after school was over as a way of not saying goodbye and continuing the fun. The days were beginning to get hotter and water fights helped keep us cool. Mostly it was about the stories we could tell the next school year. The battles started on school grounds at first but then graduated to grudge matches between Washington School and Lincoln Elementary.

The year was 1982 and me and my buddies were in 5th grade; and although not at the top of the food-chain, we were still considered upper classmen. We realized the next water battle would not be against rival students, but future classmates. It was this summer on the last day we decided to take the battle to “stinkin Lincoln”. The equidistant, neutral ground between our two schools was the innocent Courthouse Plaza. By the time 1983 rolled around, we all knew our last water fight as elementary school kids was going to be epic. This was the year the junior high and high schoolers, including my brother, attacked the whole mess of us on the Courthouse Plaza. They put cologne and shaving cream in balloons and annihilated everyone…that was until we unleashed our greatest tactical weapon, the “water weenie“. A long stretch of surgical tubing tied off on one end in a knot, with a ball-point pen top in the other. The pen tip had the ability to be forced into typical school drinking fountain heads, which the Courthouse had on the northeast corner.

The dude in this image is crazy. If that thing exploded, it would probably kill him. Photo courtesy of https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2012/waterweenie/

The water pressure would fill up the tubing like a balloon. The diameter of the surgical tubing contributed to the intense water pressure. It was not unusual to see water shoot  30′-40′ distances. Before the invention of the super-soakers or the water canon (which would come later), the Water Weenie dominated.

Who invented it? I have no idea. All I remember is being at Ken Lindley field one day when a guy filled up this thing and we marveled at the genius as he and his little brother shot at each other. It was the distance! The water shot further than anything we’d every seen. It was a piece of superior fire power we had to have in our arsenal. He explained to us what the product was made of, and I remember running home and asking my dad if he knew anything about surgical tubing and if he could get me a couple of feet for a project? The rest is history.

The water weenie had won the day but the older kids had started a war we couldn’t win toe-to-toe…which is why we went after them while they cruised the strip, and the height of cruising season was the 4th, when all the out-of-towners showed up. It would be the summer of 1983 when we launched into a private battle which turned public.

Because we lived downtown, we were always right in the middle of all the activity. My siblings were older thus expanding my perspective. They experienced life in different circles of influence, which of course had an influence on what I thought was possible. Inevitably, they brought home stories and experiences I was too young to participate with. Of course during the 80’s, I was creating my own experiences with my own friends as an adolescent and teenager. One exploit was throwing water balloons from the Ken Lindley Field wall into Gurley St. Yeah, we had lots of friends who also did stupid things. One of the cooler things my brother did was to create a huge rubber band, which at the time, had no mental association regarding what was to come years later. My brother worked at the Courier and could get rubber bands by the bag. The owner gave him as many as he wanted, and at night we would tie them all together, adding to our huge chain of rubber. One day we stretched the band from Gurley Street up Virginia St all the way to the graveyard. We only had one objective…to let it go and see what happened! Nothing happened except some leaves flying up in the air! As a result we needed to feel like all those years of work meant something; leading me and my buddy to our next idea…making a giant slingshot.

One day, using two trees in our yard, while borrowing my brother’s giant rubber band, my friend & I launched a double water balloon hitting Ken Lindley football field at approx. 500 feet away. When we went to look for the object, we noticed the goalposts and thought, “Hey, that looks like a giant slingshot…what if we tied our huge rubber band to each side and stretched it back a 100 yards?” So we did. At first we aimed inside the field hitting the main stadium seats at 400″ with no problem. The next easy target area was the vacant cemetery plot to the east of the field behind the Armory. This led us to our next invention…a slingshot using surgical tubing we had used previously as water weenies. We had some fun but the idea had no practical application because the lines kept breaking and we had no clear shots because of the trees, so it just sort of died out.

The next school year saw a huge shift in many of our young lives as some kids attended PJ, others Granite, and some private schools. By the summer of 1984, the elementary school battles were joined by all of us revisiting our old school and getting the best of our old friends. The local water wars were not yet even a thought in our minds. We were still content with our end-of-the-school-year antics. Unfortunately, as we grew older, so did the other kids. Unfortunate because some of them grew into troublemakers. We were pretty good kids for the most part. We didn’t want to hurt anyone or anything, but we were fearless and adventurous at the same time. Some of our friends grew up in bad environments and as a result fell into the wrong crowds. This inevitably led to open conflicts and territorial battles over the years, some ending violently. Yes, in Prescott. Many don’t realize this, but Prescott was a dangerous place during the 80’s. We had gangs, and we had Hell’s Angels rolling through town by the hundreds on a regular basis. We always got along with them. During the 1976 Bicentennial, approximately 300,000 people came to Prescott. I remember bikers sleeping all over our yard for two days. My mother would go out and ask if they needed anything. As a result, they all liked our whole family. Back on point, Prescott was a great place, but it was still the wild west. People would walk around downtown openly drunk by the hundreds. Lots of bar fights in the streets, and a small police presence. It was scary as a kid, but looking back I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It was like watching a piece of old America disappear before my eyes.

As some old friendships drifted, new ones were formed in the neighborhood and at school. It was the summer of 1985, just before the 4th of July, when my buddy Ricardo & I walked up on a guy in a truck that had built a giant slingshot out of steel and mounted it in the bed. As kids, it was coolest thing we had ever seen. We questioned him about “what heck is that?” and “what are you going to do with it?” His answer was simple, “blast cruisers during the 4th“. Of course we wanted in.

He was testing his device using larger balloons. The launch was so smooth, the balloons seldom broke and he was hitting huge distances! His theory was genius. Use 3 bands of surgical tubing at various lengths. He had one pull mechanism which appeared to be some sort of rubber handle. By using this technique, he was able to quickly pull back for short, quick distance warfare, and also jump off the tailgate and take the slingshot back to full length, thus engaging the other tubing, creating even more power. We put him to the test running back & forth around the parking lot of the First Southern Baptist Church (which is now the AZ Credit Union) as he tried to hit us for about 30 minutes. He never did connect, and I’m glad because it probably would have done some damage. It was during this period the water wars started, but it didn’t reach its apex until 1992. What happened in between is a piece of Monster-Truck history.

For some reason, jacking up your rig was THE thing during 1985. My wife’s uncle was at the center of all attention in Prescott in this field. He owned “The Critter”. The Critter was a 1967 Plymouth Fastback jacked up 3 feet on 4 foot tires with a green and black paint job that would make the Bigfoot team jealous. A giant lightning bolt ran down the length of the car with the name written on the side. He had several other cars as well, but it was by far Prescott’s most well known vehicle. Along with The Critter came dozens of giant monster trucks from Phoenix and other outlying areas. They all came to cruise the best strip this side of Vegas…Gurley Street. The cruise strip started at the Sharlot Hall Museum, and ended at What-a-burger Restaurant (or vice verse), right across the street from Ken Lindley field. Most locals thought the strip ended at the Copper Kettle Restaurant parking lot, a large slab of concrete 40 yards deep and 20 wide; the historic site of the old A&W back in the day, but they turned it into one of Prescott’s best breakfast joints. It also was directly behind our house, and it closed at 4pm. It eventually closed its doors all together until Century 21 purchased the building. So, you may be able to envision what is happening here. Our home was positioned perfectly at the most popular junction for turning around a monster truck in town. So you can imagine what happened.

The weeks leading up to the 4th are filled with Prescott’s Frontier Days. This includes the rodeo, demolition derbies, dances downtown, parades, etc. All of the events apex at the 4th of July fireworks at Prescott High School…except this year it felt like there was an agenda for an after-party. One large truck in particular was at the center of all the attention. It was HUGE, white, and had an American Flag painted in flowing fashion, like racing stripes, down the sides and I believe was the crew of USA-1. The truck also sported two huge flags off the back corners and the horn sounded like the bugle call of the General Lee car in Dukes of Hazard. The best part…they had filled the back of the truck up with a swimming pool liner and water. They’re main objective was to procure some willing girls to jump in with their swimsuits. It was the ultimate party on wheels…and the ultimate target.

Thousands of teens and young adults took to the strip (Gurley Street) during and after the fireworks. Local businesses had shut down, and all the activity was typically centered around the bars on Whiskey Row, leaving the cruising strip empty for all of us. During the summer and most weekends throughout the year, we always congregated at the Courthouse to socialize. Friends old and new would drive by, we’d shout, they’d pull over and we’d hang out for a few minutes, sometimes hours. Sometimes the crowds got large and within the growing group, there were always pranksters. We decided to target the large trucks. Some people got mad, but the huge, white truck retaliated with buckets, dousing the entire crowd. In those days, there was no parking along the north side of the Courthouse, the curb ended right at the street with “drop-off” zones. Following the truck around was not difficult because of the amount of traffic. We chased them all the way back to Whataburger as watched as they threw water on people, and then ended up in the lot behind our house.

The parking lot was also a center-point of the cruise-strip. It was dark, there was nothing around except residences and a few closed businesses. As previously mentioned, the monster trucks were using the lot to turn around, but also to take a breather from the action. The lot was sort of a self-proclaimed safe-zone…until we decided it wasn’t.

It was late, the stereos were loud, the girls were always screaming and laughing loudly, and these guys had it coming. So we stocked up at the house and launched on them from the creek and alleyway. They were good sports…but produced something we’d never seen, and apparently something they were saving for the right moment…A giant, metal fire extinguisher which shot like a fire-hose. These guys had figured out how to pressurize and fill a fire extinguisher with water. They were able to leave the truck and chase us down. Of course they couldn’t catch us because we knew exactly where the escape routes were located. We had fun with these guys until midnight at various intervals both helping them and attacking them. No one was safe on the strip, but everyone was reveling in the moment. It was like something magical had happened. Keep cruising, and keep your hand on the window handle if you didn’t want to get wet.

Still, the water wars had not “officially” started. There wasn’t anything official about any of it. No one started it… no one founded it. We could easily lay claim as could some others. The grade school water wars had evolved over the years as we all grew older and our friends began driving. As more young people in our sphere procured vehicles, the result was us targeting them directly. By the summer of 1986, there was a buzz around town about all us locals being ready to pound the out-of-towners. The cruising strip was our turf and had been so for years…we weren’t about to take anything off these guys from Phoenix. It was all in good fun, it was all a guess. Would people show up again ready for a battle? The year was epic on every level and I’ll never forget it.

During July of 1986, the monster-truck craze hit its apex. The trucks were ridiculous, some jacked up 15 feet, requiring ladders to get in. The stereos got louder, the crowd was bigger, and everyone was prepared for a water-war. Leather seats were lined with trash bags, window seals were double-checked, buckets of balloons were filled, and one guy even had a fire-hose mounted in the back of his monster truck. The Prescott Courier recorded the aftermath like this:

What the Courier failed to mention was most of those people were here for the water battles. The rodeo was a big draw, but had already been rolling for a week or two. Every year it got a little crazier and in 1992 it came off the rails.

1992 was THE year when the largest water battle ever witnessed took place in Prescott. I remember being positioned with 20 people at Sharlot Hall. This was before they had put up a fence. The house on the corner was both blessed and cursed to have us stationed there. We loved Prescott, and would never tolerate anyone hurting a building or another person. It was all good fun. Go downtown and get soaked. It was that simple. My own parents loved it and used to say, “If you don’t want to get wet, stay off the street!” Anyway, that year we had buckets, thousands of water balloons, water canons, and all the latest equipment including balloon slingshots. The girls wore bathing suits under their clothing, and the guys didn’t care. The streets were lined up with cars, bumper to bumper all the way from Penn St to Grove. The turn around zones widened to the little gas station on the corner of Gurley and Grove and What-a-burger on the other end. It was so bad at What-a-burger, they had to hire security to ensure the safety of its customers. (Meaning getting hit with balloons) Go one block north or south and it simply died out. Sheldon was outside, and so was Goodwin St, with the exception of the “Square”. The four corners of the courthouse were open territory, including whiskey row. Most people stayed away from Whiskey Row, because that is where the Hell’s Angels hung out, and you didn’t hit one of their motorcycles and get away with it.

One of my best memories from the night was watching a van pull up to the stop light on McCormick and Gurley (Sharlot Hall) and slide open the door – 6 guys with water canons laid into us. We got annihilated. They came around a second time an hour later. As they slid the door open, we were ready. We had 5 gallon buckets full of water. About 15 of them to be exact. A few friends took the initial assault and ran to hold open the van doors. As they did we used canons, hoses hooked up to the building, and the buckets to fill up their car with water. It all happened in about 6 seconds. Five of us threw full buckets of ice-cold water into the van as our accomplices slid the door shut, we then commenced to pour another 5 into the open windows of the passenger and driver side.  As they drove off, they opened the door to a waterfall coming off the floor of the van. They were laughing, we were cheering. No one got hurt, no one took it personally. It was just water. And the guys in the big trucks with tarps full of water would come by, they all knew us; but they weren’t about to chance having their nice leather seats ruined, so they rolled on by with windows up. We would throw courtesy balloons at the girls dressed in bikinis in the back. They would splash us. Occasionally we would get a nube throwing buckets of water at us. We had several hoses hooked up with sprayers on the end. It was never a competition because we had unlimited water for one night.

It was that year I remember seeing Prescott like I’d never seen it before. It literally glowed. There were so many cars in both lanes, headlights on, tail lights radiating red; along with all the water it produced an orange-like glow that lit up downtown and all the way up Elks Hill. The streets were running with water, all the buildings, cars, sidewalks, and people were wet, and the incandescent lights of the stores and vehicles turned the whole town into something never witnessed before or since. High overhead, objects were falling out of the sky like downed satellites entering back into Earth’s orbit. We were too far away to get hit, but we knew our old friend was back. Later that night, I saw the stranger with the huge slingshot parked at Washington School. A few years had passed, so I went up to say hi! We hung out for a while and I watched him launch a few balloons at screaming teenagers in trucks. It was getting late, and another fourth of July was coming to a close. It was a good year. So was the next, but it was different. Police started issuing tickets to anyone carrying a water gun downtown. They even ticketed people for rolling down their windows. (3 sources I knew personally) The crackdown was on.

I was out of high school by a few years, and things started to change. It was then we heard about Phoenix people coming up and putting rocks in balloons. Don’t know if it was true, but we were told who they were, and what to watch for. It wasn’t long after that complaints from stores were being filed about broken windows, and bystanders getting blasted. We always participated in the basic water fight, but I think in the end it was the bored trouble makers that continued to show up each year. The younger crowd had grown up, and the kids weren’t allowed to participate because it was somewhat out of control. By the time the water wars were put to a halt, 12 years had passed. Only about 6 of them were full blown, official water wars. It wasn’t innocent anymore. It became about upping the ante each year. Bigger guns, bigger buckets, more water, and more dangerous people getting involved, looking for trouble. Naturally, parents did not want their kids involved.

I don’t really blame the city for shutting it down. It was disappointing because it was so much fun. A few people even tried to move it to Prescott Valley the next year. Didn’t work because it wasn’t organic. The organic nature of the initial wars was founded by the school kids. Newspapers like to talk to the people who were at the hype of it all. But they were late-comers. Had they stayed away, it would probably still be going on today. I don’t blame anyone, it was all good fun. It was a unique time in Prescott for all of us. I’m honored to have been part of the the legend of the Prescott water wars. I see the faces of my friends who bravely ran up to car windows and tossed huge balloons inside while laughing hysterically. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. They’re the heroes and legends of the Prescott water wars. My brother who instigated a war on the middle-schoolers that summer, he’s a piece of the legend. My sister who filled up her VW beetle with crazy people, or her friend Sandy in her huge SUV, or The Critter, or Monica, or Andy, Todd, John, Chris, Don, Mindy, Ricardo, Keith, Vince, Geron, Rene, Eric, Derek, Mimi, Dave, Glenn, Christie, etc… etc… etc… I could go on and on. They were all part of the legend. They were all part of Prescott history.