THE HASH KNIFE OUTFIT

There were bigger cattle companies in North America. There was the XIT ranch in the Texas panhandle, and the gigantic Terrazas spread in Chihuahua, Mexico. But big or small, none will be remembered longer than the old Hash Knife outfit of the 1880s and 1890s, whose infamy has been spread in campfire legends throughout the West. It wasn't just the size of the property, nor its value, nor its gun-toting cowboys that earned the outfit its reputation. What distinguished it from all other cattle companies in history was just where and when it flourished. It was a product of the times, and the Hash Knife brand is a symbol of that stormy period in northern Arizona.

It all started in the late 1870s when three men from Weatherford, Texas, established the brand. It got its name because it resembled one of the old hash knives used by cowboy cooks. About 1880 the herd was moved from the Brazos River to country west of the Pecos River. By 1885, the outfit began to have serious trouble. An extensive drouth killed off much of the stock. At this time, a man named George Brookshire was running the Hash Knife for the Continental Cattle Company.

Meanwhile, as the old Western dime novel goes, evil was afoot in northeastern Arizona! Apache County was heavily in debt, due to corruption in public offices,

THE HASH

embezzlement of county funds, and lack of authorities to collect licenses and taxes. It was virtually without law enforcement, which was needed more desperately every day. Ever since the coming of the railroad in 1881, the whole county was expanding fast. Holbrook had been a tiny trading settlement before the railroad turned it into the greatest shipping point in northern Arizona. Homesteaders from the East and South were filing claims daily. In 1884, the Holbrook Times noted: "Since the construction of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, the whole northern portion of the territory seems to be undergoing a great change our plains are stocked with thousands of cattle, horses and sheep and still there is room for more. [There wasn't.] We were astonished at the immense number of ranches that have been located during the last 18 months in this county alone."

This pastoral scene was far from idyllic. A veritable race war between Texans and Mexicans was going on in St. Johns, the county seat. There were bloody fights over stolen horses, cattle and women. Holbrook was a town of about 250, with one greasy spoon cafe run by Louey Ghuey, an "enterprising Chinaman," two hotels, a couple of stores, and five saloons which provided most of the

KNIFE OUTFIT

local entertainment. The St. Johns newspaper reported: "The Salvation Army is going to visit Holbrook. A good field for operation." Winslow had about 300 people, mostly railroad employees, two barber shops, two dry goods stores and five saloons. Springerville was disrupted by the snakey Clanton gang. This item appeared in "Newsy Notes from St. Johns": "Springerville, June 17, 1886: "Ike Clanton shot a Mexican, and a unknown person burned Johnsons Hotel and Saloon, also that Pete Slaughter discharged all his bad men at once as soon as he arrived home from Texas, and that there has been in that town such an unusual reign of peace for so long that the people are growing fidgety and unsettled. The Indians were friendly so friendly that they thought nothing of sneaking around at night "borrowing" horses. They were also curious. An old Navajo laughingly told about the time he and some friends killed three Easterners riding into Navajo Springs just to have a closer look at the strange clothing they wore.

But the fine, upstanding, respectable lawyers, businessmen and bankers from Boston and New York didn't know about all this. They were just too far away.

Let us go back to the beginning. July 27, 1866, Congress passed an act granting land to aid in the construction of railroads, thereby hoping to hasten the development of the West. Among the recipients was the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, which was to be built from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Mojave, California. This land grant included all odd-numbered sections, and extended for twenty miles on each side of the tracks. If the land had been previously sold or preempted, the company was to select alternate sections, but not more than ten miles beyond the original grant. The land was surveyed by Sydney Blount, and the claim was made legal.

President Chester A. Arthur appointed Edward Kinsley, a Boston financier, and two associates to inspect the Atlantic and Pacific route, which had just been completed. Passing through Arizona, they were impressed by the magnificent grass lands, and caught the fever of the cattle industry which had been running strong since the long-drive days of the '70s.

So it happened that some of the original shareholders of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad got together and said (puffing on their dollar cigars): "This railroad business is just dandy, but what we really need is a cattle company." Under the laws of New York in 1884, the Aztec Land and Cattle Company, Ltd., was formed. Among the incorporators were Edward Kinsley, Henry Kinsley, Frank Ames, James McCreery, and the New York banking firm of Seligman and Seligman.

In 1885, the Atlantic and Pacific Company was advertising twenty million acres of land for sale in the territories of Arizona and New Mexico. Their land grant was spread out over an area 650 miles in length and 80 miles in width. The railroad was prepared to sell grazing lands of 50,000 acres or more, at prices ranging from 50¢ to $1.50 an acre, with one-fourth of the payment down, and the rest to be agreed upon.

Now these Aztec Company shareholders were used to doing things in a big way. A contract of sale was drawn up February 3, 1886 for one million acres of land in Apache and Yavapai Counties in northern Arizona. For this land, the Aztec Company paid the railroad $500,000, or 50¢ an acre. Although the Aztec's claims to the land were entirely legal, certain difficulties arose from the fact that some of the patents were not issued until a much later time.

The Atlantic and Pacific was later bought out by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe. (In which Kinsley was, of course, a stockholder.) Until 1928, the A., T. and S.F. Railroad owned approximately 23% of Aztec stock, but in 1928 the railroad sold its stock to a group of individuals. Since then, the Santa Fe has had no interest in nor connection with the Aztec Corporation.

So in the Beginning, the government created the railroad. Edward Kinsley saw the railroad, that it was good. Then he looked upon the face of the dry land, which was called Arizona, and Kinsley saw that it was good. And Kinsley said, let the earth bring forth cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth; and it was so. And Kinsley saw that it was good. At least it looked good from Boston.

To start a cow outfit, one must necessarily have cows. The Aztec Company found both cattle and creeping thing in Texas. They purchased 33,000 head from the Continental Cattle Company in West Texas, which we left some paragraphs back suffering from severe drouth. This drouth brought cattle prices down, but also made it impossible to drive all the cattle over into Arizona. So 400 carloads of cattle were shipped by rail into Holbrook.

There was great excitement in Holbrook when the word got around that the Hash Knife outfit from Texas was moving in. Just before the first carloads were due, Frank Ames wired Mr. Burbage to "Express all cowpunchers in Holbrook to Albuquerque on the next train." He began a frantic and hopeless search to round up all the cowboys in the area, drunk or sober. After a few unsuccessful attempts, it occurred to him that what Mr. Ames meant by "cowpunchers" was not men at all, but the long "prod poles" used at that time to load and unload cattle from railway cars. The "cowpunchers" were obediently expressed.

Before long, there were 33,000 Hash Knife longhorns and a large remuda of horses grazing contentedly on the Aztec land. The range stretched from Mormon Lake to east of Holbrook, and from the Little Colorado River south to the Mogollon Rim. Ranch houses and camps were erected. Headquarters was an adobe building just south of Joseph City, but the offices were in Holbrook. E. J. Simpson was the local manager and John T. Jones the first foreman. The total investment had cost the Aztec Company $1,331,372.26, but it was going to cost them much more in worry and headaches.

Much of the country was rough and hard to work. Cattle got lost in deep canyons or roamed back up in the Mogollon Mountains, where they would stay four or five years and come out wild as deer. They often bogged down in Mormon irrigation ditches and canals. It took a lot of men to work that kind of terrain.

There were two chuck wagons, one covering the east part of the range and one the west. Thousands of cattle had to be trailed in to the railroad in Holbrook and Winslow. Since there were no holding pastures along the way, the cowboys had to form a "horseback corral" for holding the cattle. Many dry, windy days and black, lonesome nights would pass on trail, before the herd arrived safely in the stock pens.

The cowboys were hired from all over the Southwest. Some were local boys, the sons of Mormon settlers from Joe City and Heber. Some accompanied the old Hash Knife from Texas, like Barney Stiles and Frank Wallace, both of whom were experienced cowboys and trail drivers. Many were fugitives from the law in Texas and New Mexico-good cowboys, but too reckless and hot-headed. Tom Pickett had fought with Billy the Kid's gang in Lincoln County, New Mexico, and was a dead shot. Some of them were professional gunmen, who saw that the company's interests were protected, whether the company liked it or not. They were a rough bunch, and they descended upon Apache County like the great Golden Horde of Mongol Tatars rejuvenated.

The cowboys and their families were boarded by the company, and what might seem like a poor living in this day and age was lavish compared with the poverty of other settlers in the area. Tom Shelly from Heber remembers that, when he was a little boy, the Mormon children envied the Hash Knife offspring because they always had prunes and sugar, which were shipped in for them. Except for the family men, most of the cowboys followed the wagons, working where they were needed. The cowboy's home was literally where he hung his hat.

Cowboy wages were and are and ever will be low. Regular cowboys got about $25 to $30 a month, and usually lost it all playing casino, or getting drunk on the "tarantula juice" sold at Lathrop's Bucket of Blood Saloon. If a man had skill and guts enough, he could earn $40 a month breaking broncs, provided he could turn in twenty head of broken horses every month. The men who rode "rough string" had the kind of guts that showed without wearing a six-shooter, and they were cocky. Dick Grigsby was riding across Dry Lake one fine day, when a young cowboy loped up to him in a cloud of dust and came to an abrupt stop. "My name's John C. McLaws, and I'm a bronco twister!" he said.

"Who are you?" Johnny McLaws, like many others, thought he could "ride anything that wore hair." But one day he got on the wrong hair, and was crippled for life by a big black outlaw horse.

Almost all the men had nicknames. Some served as aliases, some were merely to distinguish all the Bobs, Bills and Johns. Jeff White, a quick-witted fellow, usually christened the men. In 1890 a young cowboy named Johnny Paulsell came into camp, the last of many Johnnies to arrive. From that day on until he died he was "Johnny-Come-Lately." Names could almost tell the story of Arizona-they were wonderful names, like simple strong poetry of the West-Cap Warren, Pete Slaughter, Burr Williams, Mose Tate, "Billy St. Joe," "Windy Bob" Stansel, "Loco Tom" Lucky, "Ace of Diamonds," "Poker Bill," etc.

Hash Knife men worked hard enough, but they were always getting in scrapes. Hook Larson was a big Swede who frequently tipped the bottle. He was friendly as a pup, but had a pat on the back like a mule kick. One day somebody told excitable Joe Woods that there was a dead man down by the Leroux wash. He hitched up a buckboard and took out to retrieve the body. When he got there, he found Hook Larson dead drunk under a cottonwood. He hauled the "body" back to town and revived it. Newt Pasco wasn't so fortunate. He got drunk one night, fell off his horse on the way home, and just froze to death.

Pete Pemberton was a likable Texan and a first rate gunman. But he usually knew when the fight was over, and made a good wagon boss. Unfortunately, when he was "likkered up" he killed a man. The next day he couldn't remember anything about it. Everyone felt sorry for Pete, and he got off with a light prison sentence.

There was a trigger-happy bartender in a Winslow saloon who was hard on the life expectancy of Hash Knife men. He shot one cowboy just for getting roaring drunk and riding his horse into the saloon.

Mike Roach was a barkeeper at a saloon on First

and Kinsley in Winslow. A drunk cowboy named Slaughter ambled in one night and held a gun on him. Slaughter made the mistake of turning his head for an instant, presumably to cuss at someone or spit tobacco. Mike picked up a gun he kept handy and calmly blew the side of Slaughter's face off. The next day Mike went over to the Downs House, a rooming establishment, to see how Slaughter was getting along. “Why didn't you kill me instead of shooting half my face off, Mike?” groaned the man. Mike answered simply, “I would have, if you'd looked me straight in the eye.” Things got as rough in the camps as in saloons sometimes. On December 23, 1886, Kid Thomas, a notorious gun fighter and gambler, got into a gambling dispute with a young Texan named Frank Ward, at Clayton's camp. He shot Ward, promptly saddled Ward's horse, and rode south to Pleasant Valley until things cooled. The Hash Knife men were problem children.

The summer of 1886 was miserably hot. The grass was drying up. According to the Holbrook paper, the milk tasted like “a mixture of Kennedy's Wonderful Discovery, Warner's Safe Liver Cure, bilge water and limburger cheese juice.” The drouth in New Mexico and Texas drove sheepherders into Arizona, much to the displeasure of the cattlemen. In July, Santiago Baca brought a herd of sheep from Albuquerque across Arizona to Twin Lakes, south of Flagstaff. He watered and salted the sheep on Aztec land, clearing off all the grass for four or five miles around the lakes. Local sympathy was with the Aztec Company at that time, and Baca was prosecuted.

The Holbrook paper reprinted a letter from Seligman and Seligman in New York, to their attorney at St. Johns, C. L. Gutterson, which stated the Aztec's legal title to the land trespassed by sheepherders. The problem was this: the Aztec land, which was part of the old land grant, consisted of alternate sections. There were no fences at that time, which meant that the company's cattle grazed on two million acres rather than the million they had purchased. While the Aztec Company had the right to graze on the public lands, the public did not have the right to graze on Aztec land. Seligman and Seligman stated their position lucidly: "The company objects most strenuously to entry upon its lands of any herds or droves which must necessarily occur when they cross from section to section." Their argument was sound and legal: "the Territory should give the Company all possible protection, since it is a heavy taxpayer, and contemplates spending money on improvements, such as wells, tanks and dams." (In 1887 the Aztec Company paid the county $407.94 in delinquent taxes.) By 1887, the sheep wars had turned into a blood feud between the Grahams, who were cattlemen, and the Tewksburys, sheepherders. Most of the action took place in the Tonto Basin and Pleasant Valley. The Aztec Company never owned or operated any land in that area, but the fighting proved too much for some of the gun-happy Texas cowboys, who entered happily into the feud as an extra-curricular activity. The first shooting involving Hash Knife men took place at the Middleton Ranch, south of the Rim. According to Earle Forrest, some of the Hash Knife gun fighters who furthered the Graham cause were Tom Pickett, Buck Lancaster, George Smith, Tom Tucker, John Paine, Bob Gillespie, McNeal, Roxy and Peck. Added to the problems of the Pleasant Valley Wars, intrusion by sheepherders, and trouble caused by individuals, was that of rustling. There were disadvantages in being spread out over two million acres of land with no fences. Small homesteads were scattered all over the range in the alternate sections. It was difficult to catch rustlers in the enormous and rugged spread, and next to impossible to incriminate them, with the primitive (Please turn to page thirty-eight)