Prescott, pronounced locally as "press-kit" instead of "press-caught," is a city in Yavapai County, Arizona, USA. According to 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 40,360.^[1] The city is the county seat of Yavapai County, and in 1863 this then remote and lightly populated town was designated as the original capital of the Arizona Territory in order to keep the seat of government far from Confederate sympathizers prevalent in the southern part of the state. The Territorial Capital was moved to Tucson in 1867. Prescott again became the Territorial Capital in 1877, until the capital was changed to Phoenix in 1889.