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Outlaw Tales of Arizona: True Stories of Arizona's Most Famous Robbers, Rustlers, and Bandits by Jan Cleere July 2006 Publisher: The Globe Pequot Press ISBN 0-7627-2814-0 $10.95 2007 WINNER! NATIONAL FEDERATION OF PRESS WOMEN COMMUNICATIONS CONTEST FOR HISTORICAL NONFICTION! ORDER NOW |
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On November 5, 1871, the stagecoach out of Wickenburg bound for the Colorado River
town of Ehrenberg contained eight passengers: seven men and one woman. About nine
miles out of town a band of marauders attacked the stage killing six of the men. The two
wounded survivors, William Kruger and Mollie Sheppard, ran for the hills. Molly had just
sold her business in Prescott and was carrying a great deal of cash and jewelry. William
recounted a tale of saving a damsel in distress but Molly related a different view claiming
she held off the attackers with a broken wine bottle as she and William made their
escape. The Wickenburg Massacre was initially blamed on murdering Apaches, but as
years passed, new evidence disproved this theory. Indians did not typically leave
survivors. Neither Molly nor William could positively identify whether the outlaws were
Indian, Mexican, or white desperadoes. The case was never solved.
The consummate ladies’ man, Buckskin Frank Leslie became so enamored with a
married woman that he murdered her husband. After marrying his ladylove, he practiced
his sharp-shooting skills by standing her up against a wall and shooting around her
shapely silhouette. Leslie was “a likable damn fellow when he was sober, but when he
was tanked up he turned as sour as a barrel of Dago red.” His dexterity with a six-gun
showed in the dozen or so notches lining his gun belt, most of which he garnered
bartending at the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone. His proclivity for finding love in all the
wrong places led him to marry again after his first wife divorced him. One drunken night,
he killed his second wife, sealing his fate for the next seven years at the Yuma Territorial
Prison.
Three of the most inept outlaws in Arizona history were nineteen-year-old dance
instructor Lafayette Grime, his photographer brother Cicero, and contractor Curtis
Hawley. On August 20, 1882, Lafayette and Curtis robbed a Wells, Fargo mule train
traveling through the Pinal Mountains near the town of Globe, Arizona. They got over
$5,000 worth of gold and hightailed it into the Pinals to hide their fortune, killing two men
they encountered. Confident they would not be linked to the robbery or the murders,
they returned to Globe where Hawley spent his ill-gotten gain on a new suit to attend the
funeral of one of the murdered men. Lafayette dutifully returned the gun he had
borrowed for the heist, but forgot to clean it. He was quickly linked to the dastardly deeds
and taken into custody where he just as quickly confessed and named his accomplices.
A lynch mob escorted Lafayette and Hawley to the big sycamore hanging tree that stood
in the center of town. Lafayette fainted before the hanging rope tightened around his
neck. Hawley dangled until the following afternoon. Cicero Grime, who did not take part
in robbery but helped plan it, was tried and convicted of his complicity in the crime.
A deserter from both the Confederate and Union armies, James Reavis honed his skills
as a forger creating fake passes and requisitions for his military buddies. Heading west
just ahead of the law, he arrived in Arizona Territory around 1882 and announced he
held title to an old Spanish land grant. Under the terms of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
and the Gadsden Purchase, the U.S. was legally bound to recognize the validity of
grants made by the Spanish and Mexican governments. Reavis altered and replaced
records in official depositories in Spain and Mexico authenticating his claim to the Peralta
Land Grant that encompassed over 18,750 square miles, running from central Arizona
into New Mexico. He demanded settlers, mine owners, even railroads pay him thousands
of dollars to purchase quitclaims to their own property. He took an orphaned Mexican
girl, forged her birth records to show she was the last surviving descendant of the
Peralta family, then married her. For thirteen years, the Baron and Baroness of Arizona
lived royally until the intricate scheme unraveled. He served two years in prison and paid
a $5,000 fine for his dastardly deeds.
Charles Stanton was never convicted or tried for any crime, but everyone around the
mining communities of Wickenburg, Weaver, and Antelope Station knew he was behind
most of the criminal activity that took place in the area. He was suspected of hiring
Mexican gunmen to do his dirty work for him. College-educated Stanton haughtily
claimed his innocence when he was accused of creating a feud between two competing
stage-stop owners that culminated in the death of one of the men. As fire snuffed out a
rancher’s entire cattle herd, Stanton stood nearby. While a storeowner watched his
mercantile go up in flames, one of the first men on the scene was Stanton. Stagecoach
robberies between Wickenburg and Phoenix seemed to occur when he was on the same
road, and he was the prime suspect in the brutal murder and robbery of an entire family
as they headed into Phoenix. The ever-innocent Charles P. Stanton met his demise at
the hands of three brothers who were out to avenge their sister’s virtue.
Has-kay-bay-nay-ntayl means “brave and tall and will come to a mysterious end.” The
name certainly foretold the Apache Kid’s future long before he became one of the most
feared outlaws in Arizona Territory. As a trusted Indian scout, the Apache Kid was held in
high esteem by General George Crook and San Carlos Indian Reservation chief of
scouts Al Sieber. The day he left his army post to avenge his father’s death (by Apache
law a necessary duty of the eldest son), he became a hunted man. Wrongly convicted of
shooting Sieber and crippling him for life, the Kid seemed destined to spend his life in
Yuma’s Territorial Prison. But a turn of events on the road to Yuma set him loose to
elude an unending stream of posses throughout the late 1880s and early 1890s.
Accused of more crimes than he actually committed, his named is linked to brutal
robberies, cattle rustling, and multiple slayings. He was hunted from the northern
boundaries of Arizona Territory to below the Mexican border. Some say he spent his last
days in Mexico while others claim he returned to his homeland in central Arizona and
quietly passed away, still a feared Indian renegade.
Major Joseph W. Wham, escorted by a group of twelve buffalo soldiers from the 25th
infantry, headed out from Fort Grant to Fort Thomas with a payroll of over $28,000 in
gold and silver. As the party entered a narrow gorge, a boulder blocked their way. The
men dismounted, abandoning their rifles to move the rock. Shots rang out from the ridge
above and eight soldiers fell wounded. Seven Gila Valley farmers and stockmen were
indicted by a grand jury in the May 11, 1889 robbery of the army payroll. After a lengthy
trial that included racial and political factions as well as neighbor accusing neighbor, all
the defendants walked out of the courthouse free men. The army held Major Wham
accountable for the loss of the money until a Supreme Court verdict relieved him of his
financial burden. No one else was ever tried for the robbery.
Augustine Chacón stood on the gallows, cigarette barely touching his lips as he sipped
one last cup of coffee. Asked if he had any last words, he launched into a speech
claiming his innocence even though he often boasted of killing over fifty men. Chacón’s
crimes ranged from murder to robbery to horse thievery, but he was tried and convicted
for killing a man who was once his friend. Originally scheduled to hang on July 24, 1896,
Chacón escaped his fate and remained a free man for over a year before being
recaptured and again sentenced to die. Once again, he eluded the law and
disappeared. Five years later, Captain Burt Mossman of the newly-formed Arizona
Rangers brought Chacón to the end of a rope on November 21, 1902 after he swigged
that last drop of coffee and snubbed out his final cigarette.
In February 1897, just outside Peach Springs in northern Arizona Territory, Prescott
cowboy and ex-convict Fleming Parker, along with an accomplice, hailed an oncoming
train as it steamed through a rocky, desolate canyon. In the ensuing battle, the other
bandit died but Parker fled into the night, minus the loot he was after, descending into
the depths of the Grand Canyon. For eight long, cold days and nights, a posse stayed
close on Parker’s heels, finally capturing him. But it took only a momentary lapse of
diligence for the outlaw to escape. He was finally hunted down and brought to Prescott
where he lingered in jail four months before escaping into the night once more. This
time, he took off on the sheriff’s favorite horse. Not about to tolerate this abuse of justice,
the sheriff went after man and horse. Caught, tried and convicted, Parker bowed to the
hangman’s noose on June 3, 1898, asking that someone “[t]ell the boys I died game and
like a man.”
Burt Alvord knew southeastern Arizona Territory as well as how much whiskey was
behind the bar. Unfortunately, once he got the taste of gold in his gut, his days as a
Cochise County Deputy Sheriff and Constable of Willcox were over. Alvord devised
schemes to waylay trains and abscond with the loot but he never participated in the
actual heists, ordering his band of hoodlums to bring him the spoils of their clandestine
operations. While others risked their lives, lawman Alvord maintained a visible image in
town by playing poker at his favorite saloon. He would then organize a posse to go after
the dastardly robbers but, of course, he never found them. Eventually fingered and
arrested as ringleader of the train heists, he managed to escape from the Tombstone jail
on more than one occasion. But by 1904, the broken and injured ex-lawman turned
himself in and spent eighteen months in the Yuma Territorial Prison, then disappeared
from Arizona Territory.
On May 30, 1899, Pearl Hart and her accomplice Joe Boot held up a stagecoach on the
road between Globe and Florence, one of the last recorded stage robberies in Arizona
Territory. They acquired the driver’s gun, less than $500 from the three passengers, and
hightailed it into the mountains where they were found and arrested three days later.
Pearl was sequestered in the Tucson jailhouse but escaped within a few days. When
recaptured, Pearl turned into a media darling as the petite lady bandit freely granted
interviews in which she embellished the details of her escapades. Hart’s first trial for the
stage holdup ended in her acquittal. The judge was so angry with the verdict that he
immediately had her rearrested for stealing the stage driver’s pistol. Found guilty and
sentenced to five years at Yuma Territorial Prison, she served eighteen months. Her
early release carried the condition that she leave Arizona Territory for the remainder of
her prison term.
town of Ehrenberg contained eight passengers: seven men and one woman. About nine
miles out of town a band of marauders attacked the stage killing six of the men. The two
wounded survivors, William Kruger and Mollie Sheppard, ran for the hills. Molly had just
sold her business in Prescott and was carrying a great deal of cash and jewelry. William
recounted a tale of saving a damsel in distress but Molly related a different view claiming
she held off the attackers with a broken wine bottle as she and William made their
escape. The Wickenburg Massacre was initially blamed on murdering Apaches, but as
years passed, new evidence disproved this theory. Indians did not typically leave
survivors. Neither Molly nor William could positively identify whether the outlaws were
Indian, Mexican, or white desperadoes. The case was never solved.
The consummate ladies’ man, Buckskin Frank Leslie became so enamored with a
married woman that he murdered her husband. After marrying his ladylove, he practiced
his sharp-shooting skills by standing her up against a wall and shooting around her
shapely silhouette. Leslie was “a likable damn fellow when he was sober, but when he
was tanked up he turned as sour as a barrel of Dago red.” His dexterity with a six-gun
showed in the dozen or so notches lining his gun belt, most of which he garnered
bartending at the Oriental Saloon in Tombstone. His proclivity for finding love in all the
wrong places led him to marry again after his first wife divorced him. One drunken night,
he killed his second wife, sealing his fate for the next seven years at the Yuma Territorial
Prison.
Three of the most inept outlaws in Arizona history were nineteen-year-old dance
instructor Lafayette Grime, his photographer brother Cicero, and contractor Curtis
Hawley. On August 20, 1882, Lafayette and Curtis robbed a Wells, Fargo mule train
traveling through the Pinal Mountains near the town of Globe, Arizona. They got over
$5,000 worth of gold and hightailed it into the Pinals to hide their fortune, killing two men
they encountered. Confident they would not be linked to the robbery or the murders,
they returned to Globe where Hawley spent his ill-gotten gain on a new suit to attend the
funeral of one of the murdered men. Lafayette dutifully returned the gun he had
borrowed for the heist, but forgot to clean it. He was quickly linked to the dastardly deeds
and taken into custody where he just as quickly confessed and named his accomplices.
A lynch mob escorted Lafayette and Hawley to the big sycamore hanging tree that stood
in the center of town. Lafayette fainted before the hanging rope tightened around his
neck. Hawley dangled until the following afternoon. Cicero Grime, who did not take part
in robbery but helped plan it, was tried and convicted of his complicity in the crime.
A deserter from both the Confederate and Union armies, James Reavis honed his skills
as a forger creating fake passes and requisitions for his military buddies. Heading west
just ahead of the law, he arrived in Arizona Territory around 1882 and announced he
held title to an old Spanish land grant. Under the terms of Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
and the Gadsden Purchase, the U.S. was legally bound to recognize the validity of
grants made by the Spanish and Mexican governments. Reavis altered and replaced
records in official depositories in Spain and Mexico authenticating his claim to the Peralta
Land Grant that encompassed over 18,750 square miles, running from central Arizona
into New Mexico. He demanded settlers, mine owners, even railroads pay him thousands
of dollars to purchase quitclaims to their own property. He took an orphaned Mexican
girl, forged her birth records to show she was the last surviving descendant of the
Peralta family, then married her. For thirteen years, the Baron and Baroness of Arizona
lived royally until the intricate scheme unraveled. He served two years in prison and paid
a $5,000 fine for his dastardly deeds.
Charles Stanton was never convicted or tried for any crime, but everyone around the
mining communities of Wickenburg, Weaver, and Antelope Station knew he was behind
most of the criminal activity that took place in the area. He was suspected of hiring
Mexican gunmen to do his dirty work for him. College-educated Stanton haughtily
claimed his innocence when he was accused of creating a feud between two competing
stage-stop owners that culminated in the death of one of the men. As fire snuffed out a
rancher’s entire cattle herd, Stanton stood nearby. While a storeowner watched his
mercantile go up in flames, one of the first men on the scene was Stanton. Stagecoach
robberies between Wickenburg and Phoenix seemed to occur when he was on the same
road, and he was the prime suspect in the brutal murder and robbery of an entire family
as they headed into Phoenix. The ever-innocent Charles P. Stanton met his demise at
the hands of three brothers who were out to avenge their sister’s virtue.
Has-kay-bay-nay-ntayl means “brave and tall and will come to a mysterious end.” The
name certainly foretold the Apache Kid’s future long before he became one of the most
feared outlaws in Arizona Territory. As a trusted Indian scout, the Apache Kid was held in
high esteem by General George Crook and San Carlos Indian Reservation chief of
scouts Al Sieber. The day he left his army post to avenge his father’s death (by Apache
law a necessary duty of the eldest son), he became a hunted man. Wrongly convicted of
shooting Sieber and crippling him for life, the Kid seemed destined to spend his life in
Yuma’s Territorial Prison. But a turn of events on the road to Yuma set him loose to
elude an unending stream of posses throughout the late 1880s and early 1890s.
Accused of more crimes than he actually committed, his named is linked to brutal
robberies, cattle rustling, and multiple slayings. He was hunted from the northern
boundaries of Arizona Territory to below the Mexican border. Some say he spent his last
days in Mexico while others claim he returned to his homeland in central Arizona and
quietly passed away, still a feared Indian renegade.
Major Joseph W. Wham, escorted by a group of twelve buffalo soldiers from the 25th
infantry, headed out from Fort Grant to Fort Thomas with a payroll of over $28,000 in
gold and silver. As the party entered a narrow gorge, a boulder blocked their way. The
men dismounted, abandoning their rifles to move the rock. Shots rang out from the ridge
above and eight soldiers fell wounded. Seven Gila Valley farmers and stockmen were
indicted by a grand jury in the May 11, 1889 robbery of the army payroll. After a lengthy
trial that included racial and political factions as well as neighbor accusing neighbor, all
the defendants walked out of the courthouse free men. The army held Major Wham
accountable for the loss of the money until a Supreme Court verdict relieved him of his
financial burden. No one else was ever tried for the robbery.
Augustine Chacón stood on the gallows, cigarette barely touching his lips as he sipped
one last cup of coffee. Asked if he had any last words, he launched into a speech
claiming his innocence even though he often boasted of killing over fifty men. Chacón’s
crimes ranged from murder to robbery to horse thievery, but he was tried and convicted
for killing a man who was once his friend. Originally scheduled to hang on July 24, 1896,
Chacón escaped his fate and remained a free man for over a year before being
recaptured and again sentenced to die. Once again, he eluded the law and
disappeared. Five years later, Captain Burt Mossman of the newly-formed Arizona
Rangers brought Chacón to the end of a rope on November 21, 1902 after he swigged
that last drop of coffee and snubbed out his final cigarette.
In February 1897, just outside Peach Springs in northern Arizona Territory, Prescott
cowboy and ex-convict Fleming Parker, along with an accomplice, hailed an oncoming
train as it steamed through a rocky, desolate canyon. In the ensuing battle, the other
bandit died but Parker fled into the night, minus the loot he was after, descending into
the depths of the Grand Canyon. For eight long, cold days and nights, a posse stayed
close on Parker’s heels, finally capturing him. But it took only a momentary lapse of
diligence for the outlaw to escape. He was finally hunted down and brought to Prescott
where he lingered in jail four months before escaping into the night once more. This
time, he took off on the sheriff’s favorite horse. Not about to tolerate this abuse of justice,
the sheriff went after man and horse. Caught, tried and convicted, Parker bowed to the
hangman’s noose on June 3, 1898, asking that someone “[t]ell the boys I died game and
like a man.”
Burt Alvord knew southeastern Arizona Territory as well as how much whiskey was
behind the bar. Unfortunately, once he got the taste of gold in his gut, his days as a
Cochise County Deputy Sheriff and Constable of Willcox were over. Alvord devised
schemes to waylay trains and abscond with the loot but he never participated in the
actual heists, ordering his band of hoodlums to bring him the spoils of their clandestine
operations. While others risked their lives, lawman Alvord maintained a visible image in
town by playing poker at his favorite saloon. He would then organize a posse to go after
the dastardly robbers but, of course, he never found them. Eventually fingered and
arrested as ringleader of the train heists, he managed to escape from the Tombstone jail
on more than one occasion. But by 1904, the broken and injured ex-lawman turned
himself in and spent eighteen months in the Yuma Territorial Prison, then disappeared
from Arizona Territory.
On May 30, 1899, Pearl Hart and her accomplice Joe Boot held up a stagecoach on the
road between Globe and Florence, one of the last recorded stage robberies in Arizona
Territory. They acquired the driver’s gun, less than $500 from the three passengers, and
hightailed it into the mountains where they were found and arrested three days later.
Pearl was sequestered in the Tucson jailhouse but escaped within a few days. When
recaptured, Pearl turned into a media darling as the petite lady bandit freely granted
interviews in which she embellished the details of her escapades. Hart’s first trial for the
stage holdup ended in her acquittal. The judge was so angry with the verdict that he
immediately had her rearrested for stealing the stage driver’s pistol. Found guilty and
sentenced to five years at Yuma Territorial Prison, she served eighteen months. Her
early release carried the condition that she leave Arizona Territory for the remainder of
her prison term.
| The Wickenburg Massacre Last Ride Out of Town |
| Frank Nashville “Buckskin Frank” Leslie The Lady Killer |
| The Grime/Hawley Heist A Tale from the Hanging Tree |
| James Addison Reavis The Noble Forger |
| Charles P. Stanton The Puppetmaster |
| Apache Kid (Has-kay-bay-nay-ntayl) Army Scout, Apache Rebel |
| Wham Paymaster Robbery The Cattlemen’s Caper |
| Augustine Chacón Hombre Muy Malo |
| James Fleming Parker “I Died Game and like a Man” |
| Albert Wright “Burt” Alvord Bandit with a Badge |
| Pearl Hart Pearl of the West |
| A refreshing new perspective on some of Arizona's more infamous outlaws. |