The Legend of Kissing Jenny

Marshall Trimble told me this story, so it just might be true: In 1889 a Yavapai County legislator had a habit of heading over to Prescott’s Whiskey Row each day after the legislature convened. After a few drinks, he would walk to the “District” on Walnut Creek, where he spent the evening with Kissing Jenny. After he blew out the candle, he always placed his glass eye in a glass of water beside the bed.  Knowing their colleague from Yavapai County was extremely vain and would never be seen in public without the glass eye, some Maricopa County legislators convinced Jenny to take a drink that night, quaffing down both water and glass eye. The next morning, a vote was going to be taken regarding the location of the state capital. The Yavapai County delegates,  desperately needing every vote, went in search of their missing peer. Finding him at Jenny’s, they could not convince the vain legislator to accompany them without his eye. And that is how Phoenix became the capital of Arizona.