(WEST) Breakenridge William M One of Tombstones most famous

Sale 2287 - Lot 489

Price Realized: $ 1,320

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 300 - $ 400

(WEST.) Breakenridge, William M. One of Tombstone's most famous lawmen recounts highlights of his work as a railroad detective. Typed Letter Signed on Old Pueblo Club stationery to Dan O'Connell. One page, 11 x 8 1/2 inches; minor wear, pin holes in upper margin. Tucson, AZ, 7 November 1928

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William M. Breakenridge (1846-1931) was a deputy marshal in Tombstone in the 1880s, and later served as a detective on the Southern Pacific Railroad. Here, he writes to one of his successors at the Southern Pacific, who was apparently writing an article on the railroad. He recalls four specific gangs, some of them in detail: "The Black Jack Christian gang of outlaws . . . turned their attention toward robbing isolated post offices, and stage coaches, but they did attempt to hold up an A. & P. Express train in October 1896. . . . Deputy U.S. Marshal Loomis got off the train as it stopped and fired into them with a shot gun and killed Cole Young, the rest fled." He also discusses the Rogers & Armer, Wheeler-George, and Ketchum gangs.