Holbrook, Arizona - Too Tough For Women or Churches

ARIZONA LEGENDS

Holbrook - Too Tough For Women

or Churches

<<Previous 1 2 Next >>

Greetings from Holbrook

Greetings from Holbrook vintage postcard.

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.

The Salvation Army is going to visit Holbrook.

A good field for operation.

- St. Johns Herald in the late 1800s

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.

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.

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.

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 Page

Aztec cowboys in 1877.

This image available for photographic prints HERE.

Holbrook, Arizona in 1931, courtesy

California Online Archive

To Joseph City

Return to Route 66

To the Petrified Forest

<<Previous 1 2 Next >>

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.