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KS 66285
913-708-5119
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ARIZONA
LEGENDS
Holbrook - Too Tough For Women
or Churches
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Greetings from
Holbrook
vintage
postcard.
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In 1881, the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad laid its tracks
through an area that was known as Horsehead Crossing. The following
year a railroad station was built and the small settlement’s name was
changed to
Holbrook in honor of H.R.
Holbrook, the first chief engineer of the
railroad. A year later, when the first post office opened, James H.
Wilson became its first postmaster.
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The Salvation Army is going
to visit Holbrook.
A good field for operation.
- St. Johns Herald in the late 1800s |
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Primarily called home
to
cowboys, cattle ranchers and railroaders, the settlement soon took
on all the vices of a typical
Wild
West town, complete with a
saloon
called the Bucket of Blood. Law and order were non-existent,
gambling was popular, and
painted
ladies far outnumbered “proper women.”
In 1883, four
men by the names of Baca, Pedro Montano, F. W. Smith and H.H. Scorse
owned the land around the depot and filed a plat map laying out the
streets of
Holbrook, which remain
essentially unchanged today.
Before long,
Holbrook became a trade
center for northern
Arizona, where cattle,
sheep and wool were shipped out on the railroad. On May 17,
1884, the first issue of the Holbrook Times was published,
which contained advertisements for clothing, hotels,
saloons, grocery stores and
several other businesses.
In 1884, the
Aztec Land
and Cattle Company, better known as the
Hashknife
Outfit, began operations in
Holbrook. The second
largest cattle ranch in the U.S., the cattle company had some 60,000
head of cattle, and employed hundreds of
cowboys.
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Members of the posse who caught up
with four
outlaw members of the
Hashknife Outfit
involved in robberies at
Canyon Diablo, photo courtesy
Sharlot Hall Museum, Prescott,
Arizona.
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Holbrook
initially welcomed the money of the cattle company and its
associated
cowboys,
until they saw what they were in for.
The
buckaroos
of the outfit quickly
gained the unsavory reputation of being the “thievinist, fightinest bunch of
cowboys” in the United States. Many of the
cowboys working for the
Hashknife Outfit were wanted men and on two occasions, they
were linked to train robberies at
Canyon Diablo.
The sudden presence of so many
cowboys also gave rise to rustling, robbery and gunfights. Much of the rustling was done against the
Hashknife Outfit itself.
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One
such story has it, that a cowboy took off with a bunch of the outfit’s
cattle and headed to
Colorado. There, he set up a
saloon with
his profits. However, he was soon without money again and rejoined
the outfit once more.
Stagecoach and train robberies became an almost recreational pastime for
cowboys
and drifters in the area. And, when the cowboys came off the range,
with money in their pockets and whiskey on their minds, it was time for
Holbrook to "look-out!" In
1886 alone, there were twenty-six shooting deaths on the streets of
Holbrook, which was called home to only about
250 people at the time.
It was somewhere along this time that the St. Johns
Herald reported: "The Salvation Army is going to visit
Holbrook. A good field for operation."
Continued Next
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Aztec cowboys in 1877.
This image available for photographic prints
HERE.
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Holbrook,
Arizona in
1931, courtesy
California Online Archive
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From the Rocky Mountain General Store
Vintage
Photographs of the Old West - From our personal
Photo Print Shop, you can now order prints that provide
dramatic glimpses into the rich heritage of the
American
West. From notorious
outlaws,
to
Indian Chiefs,
buffalo
roaming the range, and pioneers on the trail, this varied collection grows
daily.
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