Nefarious ne’er-do-wells, bent on leading a life of crime in the Arizona territory, knew their stock in trade had a few risks. It was hard to look innocent and inconspicuous while driving a herd of stolen horses or cattle. The encumbered perpetrators were also quite vulnerable to being pursued by an angry rancher and his hired hands. Whiskey running and small-time hold ups brought little return for the risk involved. Banks had lots of money, but they were located in towns where people didn’t take kindly to having their savings robbed, and posses could be formed quickly. That left stagecoaches and trains as likely victims. Both were especially vulnerable when pulling long grades or stopped at some remote station.
Most fans of the old Western B movies watched Rex Allen fight the outlaws and rescue the heroines without ever realizing that he was once a cross-eyed country singer who performed at barn dances.
Fortunately for everyone involved (Allen and fans alike), he had corrective surgery shortly after his singing career took off in Chicago. But his eye problem is prominently mentioned on a bronze plaque placed next to his statue in Railroad Avenue Park in Willcox. The larger-than-life bronze sits across the street from the Rex Allen Arizona Cowboy Museum and the Willcox Cowboy Hall of Fame.
Ever since man first set foot in this land called Arizona, he has felt compelled to name every river, waterhole, mountain pass and trail. Inspiration was usually drawn from great natural spectacles and awesome beauty, but not always. Among Arizona’s fabulous mineral laden mountains lie the skeletal remains of storied ghost camps of yesteryear, born in boom and died in dust, the fragile wooden walls, concrete ruins, monuments to hopes and aspirations that didn’t always pan out.
These ghostly reminders of the past were generally populated by a variety of boisterous, rough and tumble miners generally characterized as unmarried, unchurched, and unwashed. They named their temporary abodes after former hometowns or countries, girlfriends, local geography, dappled with a liberal touch of tongue-in-cheek humor.
There are very few distractions along U.S. 70 as it winds its way through the cotton fields and flatlands at Fort Thomas in southeastern Arizona. Mount Graham is a blue-gray mass on the horizon and a few other peaks rise gently from an otherwise level landscape. But suddenly, on the western edge of the community, a spire rises more than 50 feet above the semi-desert. What makes it unusual is that it’s standing there all by itself, with no church attached. A quick stop for an inspection reveals that it’s a memorial to Melvin Jones. Since a 50-foot obelisk doesn’t just pop out of the ground all by itself, this raises the question…
