Crime Buff's Guide to Outlaw Southwest by Ron Franscell

Author:Ron Franscell [Franscell, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: True Crime, Historical, History, United States, State & Local, Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX)
ISBN: 9781942266914
Google: kZDrDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: WildBlue Press
Published: 2017-04-18T22:14:47+00:00

Truly intrepid crime buffs can find Mattie Earp’s memorial marker in the Old Pinal Pioneer Cemetery.

Celia Anne “Mattie” Blaylock Earp (1850-1888) was Wyatt’s long-suffering common-law wife. A former dance-hall girl, she and Wyatt met in Dodge City and lived a rambunctious life together until they landed in Tombstone. Abandoned when Wyatt fell in love with Josie Marcus, Mattie reportedly became a prostitute in Old Pinal, Arizona. A coroner’s inquest revealed she had committed suicide by quaffing a bottle of laudanum with whiskey. She was only thirty-eight. An acquaintance was questioned about why she wanted to die, and he responded: “[Wyatt] Earp, she said, had wrecked her life by deserting her and she didn’t want to live.” Her actual gravesite is unknown but a modest memorial marker has been erected at the Old Pinal Cemetery GPS 33.288673, -111.134158).

John Henry “Doc” Holliday (1851-1887) was everything a mythic figure should be: smart, flawed, intelligent, ruthless, dashing, loyal … and short-lived. Trained as a dentist, he came west around 1873 when he discovered he had tuberculosis. In 1887, a graying and feeble Doc Holliday took a second-floor room at the Hotel Glenwood (which burned down in 1945 at 732 Grand Avenue, or GPS 39.546829, -107.324624) in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He hoped the town’s curative hot springs would help him, but they didn’t. On November 8, 1887, 36-year-old Doc asked for a sip of whiskey and spoke his last words: “Now this is funny.” Some have speculated that he found it funny he was dying in bed without his boots. He was buried in Linwood Cemetery, but nobody is certain where. A memorial exists in the cemetery at GPS 39.53962, -107.32057. A marker on the spot says, “This memorial is dedicated to Doc Holliday who is buried some place in this cemetery.”

Mary “Big Nose Kate” Horony (1850-1940) was the longtime love of Doc Holliday. The Hungarian-born hooker and dance-hall girl met Holliday in 1875 and traveled with him constantly for four years. They were living apart during the violence in Tombstone but hooked up frequently. She later claimed she was staying in the nearby Fly Boarding House and watched the gunfight in the OK Corral, but historians are dubious. She married George Cummings in 1890, but they split. She died just before her 90th birthday in the Arizona Pioneers Home in Prescott in 1940 and is buried as Mary K. Cummings in the cemetery there (GPS 34.563282, -112.486595)

“Buckskin” Frank Leslie (1842-1930) was a volcanic gunman who had several notches in his gun. Among them was his wife, whom he killed in a drunken rage—and her ex-boyfriend, whom he killed while courting his future wife. He’s one suspect in the mysterious death of Johnny Ringo. He also killed Billy Claiborne in an old-fashioned gunfight outside the Oriental Saloon (GPS 31.712416, -110.065915). The colorful Leslie eventually disappeared from history, and his death is the stuff of rumors. Did he die rich in central California, commit suicide, or expire as a homeless, elderly drunk in the backroom of a San Francisco tavern? Nobody knows.

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