John Ringo, King of the Cowboys: His Life and Times from the Hoo Doo War to Tombstone, Second Edition

Chapter 13. “disrupting a young economy”

119 13 C H A P T E R “disrupting a young economy” IN CALIFORNIA, HIS SISTERS, unaware of John’s shooting of Louis Hancock, were involved in a different sort of activity. On December 11 Coleman Younger gave a dinner party for a number of his friends. “The Misses Ringo, nieces of the Colonel, and children of pioneers were there; also Miss Fox and Miss Mary White” among others. Mary Enna had reason to be merry, having graduated from the State Normal School of San Jose the previous May.1 Ringo arrived in Arizona in 1879 as Tombstone was being established . Destined to eclipse other mining camps, Tombstone was more like Virginia City than the cattle towns of Wichita or Dodge City. James C. Hancock recalled Tombstone as a “rich mining camp” with “first class restaurants.” The Can-Can restaurant was named after a very popular dance performed at the Bird Cage by two or more couples in which the ladies were somewhat scantily clad. The Oriental saloon was not considered a very safe place if a man was known to have money on him. The Crystal Palace was the finest saloon in the camp, and the bar and fixtures were equal to any in San Francisco. . . . Nearly all 120 JOHN RINGO, KING OF THE COWBOYS traveling theatrical troops stopped over and put on their shows at the Bird Cage unless it was some high brow outfit and these generally showed at Scheifflein’s Hall. Tombstone had the air and personality of the old time mining camps of Nevada in the Comstock days where everybody had money and demanded the best.2 The town has become inextricably linked to the colorful characters popularized by Burns’ Tombstone, especially one of the most controversial figures in frontier history, Wyatt Earp, together with the so-called “Cowboy Curse.” The term came to be applied to the lawlessness along the border, most of which has been charged to John Ringo and others. It has been embraced by apologists and myth makers intent on maintaining the town’s folklore, at the expense of truth. Like all boom towns, Tombstone attracted individuals from all walks of life. As news of the Tombstone strike spread, “speculative minds concocted strategies for economic success. The enterprising ‘boomer’ could extract new wealth from the ground, or from the pockets of those who did.”3 These included honest men, bunco artists , conmen, sneak thieves and prostitutes. These parasites of society “migrated west down the railroad, raping or attempting to assault every rail stop and town along the line, as far west as Tucson!”4 Nor were they the only undesirables in the region. Cattle thieves, both Anglo and Hispanic, ranged throughout Arizona and New Mexico, many of them under the control of John Kinney.5 “If ever banditti were accused of disrupting a young economy, the highwaymen of Arizona Territory from 1877 to 1882 earned that distinction.”6 These thieves and killers provided the basis of the “Cowboy Curse.” One writer suggested that a statement in the Tombstone Epitaph contains the first evidence of the Cowboy Curse.7 The article states that during the term of Democrat Hugh Farley as district attorney “there have been more than thirty homicides committed and crimes of all classes have been of frequent occurrence in Pima County.” Quite a number of cattle thieves have been bound over to appear before the Grand Jury, and they have not appeared, and the Grand “disrupting a young economy” 121 Jury left in ignorance of the evidence against them. There are cases where indictments have been made against cattle thieves and receivers of stolen cattle and the indicted persons have not even been assigned and the indictments left to slumber in the pigeon holes of the clerk’s office until time and dust have hidden them from view.8 The Republican Epitaph added: We understand that the Grand Jury brought in indictments the other day against two Mexicans, and when the cases were called in court the witnesses who had appeared before the jury were nowhere to be found, having probably packed up and started for the Magdalena feast. It appears to us that about enough of this kind of business has been going on in Pima County. Men are shot in the streets and the killers are turned loose because no evidence is brought before the Grand Jury to indict them; men...