10/12/2006 4:00:00 AM 'Priceless' history Elks Lodge donates decades of records to local museum
By CINDY BARKS The Daily Courier
For years, the worn books rested in a storage room at the local Elks Lodge in Prescott Valley.
From time to time, someone took a peek inside one of the ledgers to glean information about a long-ago Elks member usually as a favor for a surviving relative looking for information.
For the most part, however, the more than a century's worth of history of the Prescott Elks Lodge #330 was languishing in the dark.
All of that changed recently, when the local Elks membership agreed to donate the bulk of its historic records to Sharlot Hall Museum on West Gurley Street in Prescott.
The rich leathers and corduroys of the book-covers hint at the contents, and a quick look inside confirms it: The books tell a tale of more than a century of community leaders their charities, their civic projects, sometimes even their scandals.
Through the museum, the public will have access to the records, which experts say could be invaluable both for genealogy studies and for insight into early Prescott history.
"These were the really major players in the old days," Nancy Burgess, the city's historic preservation specialist, said of the early-day Elks members. "This is like a 'who's who' of Prescott."
Ryan Flahive, archivist for Sharlot Hall Museum, noted that the Elks records would lend another angle to the resources that already exist at the museum. As the museum processes the records, he said, it will make the information available on the Internet.
"Hopefully, we will get a volunteer to index all of the names," he said. Meanwhile, the records will be "accessible to anyone who walks into the museum."
Elks Exalted Ruler Sari McQuality, who along with former Ruler John Wright was instrumental in the donation of the records, also stressed their importance to the community.
"We were fortunate to have 100 years of history," McQuality said. "The historical value is priceless," she said, noting that the records offer a snapshot into the "happenings in Prescott at the time."
One book, for instance, shows exhaustive hand-printed lists of early members' professions, dates of birth, and birthplaces, along with their regular payments of dues to the organization.
Another bound volume includes a collection of fragile letters, some of which detail the referrals that club members made when an Elks member moved from community to community.
In the decorative yet precise handwriting of the turn of the century, another letter censures an Elks member for alleged fraud over the use of a train ticket.
For more than a year, Wright had talked with Burgess about the preservation of the records. "I've been wanting to get these records (for the museum) since I first saw them," Burgess said.
Then, after McQuality learned that last year's Hurricane Katrina had destroyed many similar records at lodges throughout the Southeast, she became more concerned about the long-term preservation of the local records.
Along with the insight into club members, the records also include information about the organization's major civic project of the early 1900s the construction of the Elks Opera House in downtown Prescott.
Parker Anderson, official historian of the opera house, is especially enthusiastic about that aspect of the records. "This is of immense value to the community, and to anyone who loves the Elks Opera House," Anderson said of the transfer of records.
