The old West was fading from reality into the realm of myth by the mid-1920s. Most of the bonafide gunfighters were gone and Hollywood took up the chore of telling how it really was. Tom Mix was earning over $17,000 a week performing super-human feats from atop his famous horse, Tony, and the public loved it. Nobody seemed to care much for the way it really was out in lotus land, so Americans were fed a heavy dose of tight-trousered, fast-drawing, hard-riding heroes.

As late as 1928, a few of the real straight-shooting lawmen of old still walked the beat in Arizona and one of them was Jim Roberts. Uncle Jim, as folks called him, was almost 70 and walked with a stoop. The older folks around Clarkdale remembered him as the deputy sheriff in the rough and tumble town of Jerome nearly 40 years earlier. Singlehandedly, he’d tamed the town taking on all trouble makers with fearless abandon.

Seven new residents have moved (or been moved) into Wickenburg and they’re permanent in the strictest sense of the word. They stand along the main thoroughfares as reminders of the city’s heritage as one of the last vestiges of the Old West. They never move, never blink, never mind posing for tourist cameras. They can’t because they’re bronze sculptures, strategically installed in front of business places and tourist attractions.

In its prime, Fairbank was the site of a hotel, school, mercantile, several houses, stage depots and four railroads. Not bad for a town which, even at the height of its popularity, had only about 500 residents. But those days are gone and Fairbank is now a mere remnant of its glory days as a center of mining activity. Now, however, there’s a valiant effort underway to make sure those days aren’t forgotten, as well.

Long ago, Arizona settlers felt inspired to attach names to the special places they found. Sometimes they achieved palpable immortality by naming it after themselves; and sometimes it backfired.

Like the time Henry Mortimer Coane was running a small store in the Verde Valley. Folks wanted to use the place as a post office, so Coane filled out the paperwork and applied to Washington and requested it be named Coaneville after himself. Much to Mr. Coane’s disappointment some bureau­crat got the letters mixed up and the place was officially named Cornville.

Contrary to logical assumption