Prescott's Christmas Parade Goes to the Movies, Down the Same Streets Hollywood Once Filmed

In the summer of 1971, a film crew put five cameras on the rooftops of downtown Prescott and filmed the Frontier Days parade live as it went by. The cameras sat on buildings along Montezuma, Gurley, Cortez and Goodwin streets. According to True West Magazine, the crew ran generators because many of the upper floors around the Plaza were empty at the time. Bands marched, Shriners went by, and the Bill Williams Mountain Men rode past on horseback, all of it captured as footage for Steve McQueen's movie Junior Bonner.

On Saturday, Dec. 5, the Prescott Chamber of Commerce runs its 44th Annual Christmas Parade through downtown starting at 1 p.m. This year's theme is "Arizona's Christmas City Presents: Lights, Camera, Action," and it honors movies filmed in and around Prescott, KYCA reported when applications opened in October. Since Prescott's best-known film shoot was a parade on these same blocks, the floats will roll past real filming locations.

Five cameras, four streets, one real parade

Junior Bonner was shot in Prescott in summer 1971 and released in 1972. Sam Peckinpah directed, Joe Wizan produced, and Jeb Rosebrook wrote the script. Steve McQueen, Robert Preston and Ida Lupino starred, as Signals AZ recounted in its history of the production. Rosebrook told the Daily Courier in 2008, "I wrote this movie for Prescott," a line True West Magazine quotes in its feature on the film's locations.

Much of that local knowledge came from one person. Bill Pierce was the film's location manager. He was also the Prescott Jaycees rodeo chairman and the local Arizona Film Commission representative, so he could coordinate the production with the town's real events. According to True West, the parade footage in the film is the actual Fourth of July procession. Prescott's rodeo and parade both date back to July 4, 1888.

The route is still built around those streets. Last year's City of Prescott closure notice listed Gurley, Cortez, Goodwin and Montezuma for the parade route. Those are the same four streets where Peckinpah's crew mounted cameras.

The Palace was the soundstage, and it's still serving

The parade passes Whiskey Row, and the Palace sits on it. True West calls the Palace the oldest operating saloon in Arizona. It opened as the Cabinet Saloon in 1874 on Montezuma Street, across from the Courthouse Plaza. Junior Bonner filmed its rodeo dance, its barroom brawl, and the love scenes for McQueen and Barbara Leigh and for Preston and Lupino inside. Peckinpah used one of the upstairs rooms as his office and bedroom during the shoot.

The music in those scenes was real too. The Palace house band, led by Bob Cox with Rod Hart, played live, and Peckinpah, the cast, the crew and local extras were all in the dance and fight. The production was grateful enough that it restored McQueen's Cadillac and gave it to Palace owner Shell Dunbar, according to Pierce's account in True West.

The Palace Restaurant and Saloon is at 120 South Montezuma Street and takes both walk-ins and reservations. On parade day, its front windows look out on the route the 1971 cameras covered.

Before McQueen, there was Tom Mix

Junior Bonner is the famous one, but Prescott's film history goes back almost 60 years earlier. According to the Sharlot Hall Museum's list of movies made here, Romaine Fielding's Lubin company set up in Prescott in 1912. It had offices at 712 Western Ave. and an outdoor stage behind Mercy Hospital, on land that is now Prescott College. The Selig Polyscope unit arrived in 1913, and Tom Mix came back in 1915 to run a Selig unit of his own.

Mix's films used ground that many Prescott residents drive past every week. His crews also stayed at hotels that are still open for guests.

A Sharlot Hall Museum history says Mix productions used the ranch, Granite Dells and Williamson Valley between 1913 and 1928. The original ranch house worked as a movie studio and was later remodeled into a clubhouse for the subdivision. When Mix and his crews were in town, they usually stayed at the Hotel Vendome and the Hotel St. Michael. Hotel St. Michael is still booking rooms at 205 W. Gurley St., right on the parade route. Hotel Vendome runs as an independent 20-room hotel at 230 S. Cortez St.

Float builders have more choices than westerns. Sharlot Hall's filmography also lists television work shot in the area, including the miniseries Dream West in 1986, a Starman pilot the same year, The Gambler, Part 2 in 1983, and a Harts of the West pilot in 1993.

The Chamber's own invitation is broader still. It asks entrants to build around movies filmed in or around Prescott, or to create an entry around a different movie they'd like to feature. Entering costs $40, according to KYCA.

How Dec. 5 runs, hour by hour

The Chamber expects more than 100 entries. Here is the posted schedule from parking to fireworks:

1. Noon to 8 p.m. A free shuttle runs from the Prescott High School parking lot and drops riders in front of the parking garage on Granite Street.
2. 1 p.m. The 44th Annual Christmas Parade begins downtown. Findlay Auto Group is the presenting sponsor.
3. After the parade until 5 p.m. Santa is at the Yavapai County Timeline on the north side of the Courthouse, and high school bands play holiday music on Gurley Street.
4. 5 p.m. The Prescott High School Chamber Singers perform on the north steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse.
5. 6 p.m. The 72nd Annual Courthouse Lighting and fireworks begin.

That leaves about five hours between the last float and the lights. Santa and the bands on Gurley fill part of it. The Palace and the Plaza-side blocks fill the rest, with no need to move the car.

The street closures, going by last year

The City of Prescott issued its 2025 closure notice on Dec. 1, five days before that year's parade. The 2025 plan is a reasonable guide to how the day works, though this year's details will come from the City's 2026 notice.

Last year, Gurley from Montezuma to Cortez closed at 8 a.m. At 9 a.m., closures began on Cortez from Willis to Goodwin, Union from Cortez to Marina, Goodwin from Granite to Marina, and Montezuma from Goodwin to Sheldon. Parade staging closed Willis between Mt. Vernon and Montezuma, along with Cortez, Marina, Alarcon and Pleasant between Sheldon and Gurley. The route and staging streets were expected to reopen around 4 p.m. The closures for the Courthouse event ran until about 9 p.m.

Staging on Cortez and Marina north of Gurley puts the floats near the Santa Fe Depot before the parade starts. According to the City's preservation plan, the depot was completed in September 1907 and still stands at the far north end of Cortez Street, with the Depot Marketplace just north of it. Rosebrook wrote one of Junior Bonner's best-known scenes at Prescott's train depot, a father-and-son exchange between Preston and McQueen right after the rodeo parade.

The rest of the season

The holiday calendar starts before the parade. PrescottAZ365's 2026 holiday schedule lists the Gingerbread Village at the Prescott Resort & Conference Center from Nov. 28 through Jan. 1. Nov. 28 is the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Acker Night falls on the first Friday after the Courthouse Lighting, which this year is Dec. 11. The opening ceremony is at 5 p.m., performances run from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., and admission is free. The J.S. Acker Music Park Association, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, presents the showcase, and it takes volunteers, including students. The event is named for James S. Acker, who lived from 1865 to 1955.

Taken together, Dec. 5 has the parade, the Plaza and Whiskey Row from the 1971 footage, and the lighting at 6 p.m. Six days later, downtown fills with music again for Acker Night.

Our team at Arizona Adobe Group Realty works out of Old Town Cottonwood, and we follow the holiday calendar across the Verde Valley and the Prescott area as closely as we follow home sales. If you'd like to see what homes are doing along and around these same downtown streets this season, ask us for your free market report.