BUGGY BILL

Most people didn’t know his last name. They fondly called him Buggy Bill.  He died unexpectedly at age 63. Murphys has lost an icon.

When I first met him, about 30 years ago, his horse and buggy was just a dream.  He had just arrived in town with an acquaintance from Nevada where he worked driving a chemical truck. They set up housekeeping on her property way out on Ponderosa road where there was no electricity or running water. He loved horses, the leather, the times. He would say, “I was born too late.”  He went to work mending fences for  John Davies Ranch, at first.

He was visible in town with the same battered hat and an old battered pick-up. Over the years, he built his dream. He bought horses,  broken down buggies that he lovingly fixed. He didn’t  deck himself out like a cowboy. Bill looked the same in this picture from 2009 as when I first met him all those years ago.

He liked it when little kids rode in his buggy and petted the horses. For a long time, he had a white  horse  named  Pepper,  half blind, with only one eye.  It amazed him that  some  kids had never seen a horse up close enough to touch one. He didn’t make much money, but it was what he loved doing. Some years, during fair time, he was hired to taxi dignitaries around the steep grounds in a larger buggy with a team of horses. If he was hired to do a wedding, he decked out the buggy with white ribbons to carry the  bride to the hotel, or Kautz winery to meet the groom.  I can’t imagine how many rides he has given over the years. And, he had his problems. For many years he parked in front of the Murphys Hotel. A new owner wanted him gone and considered him a nuisance. He appealed to the Board of Supervisors and they designated his business as a cab,  and provided a parking place away from the hotel’s main entrance, for cabs only. After three years, the owner put dining tables in the garden adjacent to the hotel, then claimed the horse drew flies.  Bill was again relocated in front of the water company building.

Like everyone else, I’ll miss Bill. It  won’t seem right  without  him on the streets of Murphys on weekends, giving rides to tourists.  His son Zac lived with his dad and went to Bret Harte High School for one year in the 1980′s. He and my daughter became good friends. We will get together on Sunday at the Nugget,  Bill’s favorite watering hole,  and hoist a warm beer, (his favorite drink) and salute his long tenure as the last remaining remnant of a past life. If he were still with us I would tell him,  YOU WERE NOT BORN TOO LATE.

Tombstone, Arizona

The town to tough to die! That’s what they call Tombstone, Arizona. You probably know it as where the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral occurred.

When you are in southeastern Arizona…you cannot be here…and not go to Tombstone. So yesterday Mary and I made the 50 mile round-trip. I believe I’ve been here at least two, perhaps three times, before. Mary told me she has been here once…about 50 years ago.

if you are not familiar with Tombstone, the below Wikipedia link will inform you…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tombstone,_Arizona

The way the crow flies…presumably in a straight line…Tombstone lies about 65 miles distant.

Here’s a Google Earth image…

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Mary and I spent an enjoyable five hours wandering around Tombstone. While there we visited Boot Hill, Allen Street (the main drag) and the old courthouse…which has a great museum and is also an Arizona State Historic Park.

Here are some photos that I took while there…

To see the other 77 photos that I took, click this link…
https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/TombstoneArizona

Tombstone is perhaps the most authentic (though somewhat touristy) Western town left in the West. If you want to experience a taste of the Old West, you need to visit Tombstone.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

SUPERSTITION MOUNTAIN CONTINUED

From our visit to Superstition Mountain Museum continued from yesterday,  what is an old western movie set without a gallows?  There is a real gallows still intact at the Tuolumne County Museum, in Sonora, California.  Much wider than this one; had to have room for the dignitaries. Hangings were as much about politics as a press conference is today.

Wherever there were fortune seekers, there were those who sidestepped the hard work.  I love museums that have “character stories” and this one has a number of them. The “hacksaw” bandit  robbed stage coaches on the Apache Trail.  He always robbed them at the a steep place where the horses found it hard going. Never caught, his cache of hold-up equipment, with his white hood with eye holes in it, was found over 50 years after his deeds.

Fortune seekers of all types arrived in Apache Junction.   An Opera Singer by the name of  Maria,  insisted that Weaver’s Needle, (a spire we passed on our hike) was hollow and filled with gold. She filed a claim on Weaver’s Needle and had a rope ladder built to the top of it. No one knows what happened to her and she apparently abandoned her claim, but two families, Piper and Jones,  believed it was hollow and a feud of several years, that resulted in the death of one person, quarreled over the  Dutchman’s claim and the gold in the “hollow” needle. Years later, in 1956, a very fit wrestling coach climbed Maria’s rope ladder but could not get to the top. “No fat opera singer ever climbed that ladder,” he claimed. There are many stories of the fate of gold seekers in the Superstition Mountains at the site below:

.http://www.prairieghosts.com/dutchman.html
I chuckled at the  modern million dollar advertising campaign put up by Canadian Club. They hid a case of Canadian Club in the area and expected to have many seekers looking for it, while being publicized, of course. The problem was, a local found it in six hours the second day of the campaign and ruined their long term publicity stunt.  He claimed he was mighty thirsty.

The place is worth a visit.  I loved the painting of a stage rumbling over the Apache Trail. The rest of my pictures are outside.

Part of a once working stamp mill.

The well.

The assay office.

A saloon.

A barber shop.

The barn.

 

 

And, our good Christian pioneers always had a church.  (In this case, with the gallows nearby.)