The Coconino weekly sun., 1895-07-11
THE OLD AND THE NEW TOWN
Remarkable Strides That Have Been Made by the Frontier
 Town of Flagstaff.
A Few Years Ago the Stamping Ground ofIsorder rDesperadoes, Now Flourishing Little City of Modern Ideas and Progressive Tendencies.

from wild frontier settlement of crude civilization to fourishing little
 town of pretentious porula.ion and solid worth commercially and socially
 can only be realized by brief glimpse
 of the past. One needs only to turn
 back few leaves in the Book of Time
 to read of the stirring days when the
 b-a-a.d man and his gun were on top and law and order was the under dog.
 Dr. D. J. Brannen is quite a young
 man but he is really an old-timer in
 these parts, and he is a regular record
 book of "reminiscences. THE SUN re-
 porter is indebted to him for q quiet
 talk on the old and the new Flagstaff.
 The old town was started near Ante
 Iope spring, because of it's advan-
 tageous location near the ever living
 water. The people lived in tents prin-
 cipally, and their occupation was the
 making of ties. This was no longer
 back than 1882. Flagstaff was then in Yavapai county, which was the largest county in all America, being considerably larger than the state of New York. The town grew rapidly; that is, the saloons increased with marvellous rapidity, and religion did not spread it's saving grace with any encouraging degree of celerity. In very short time there were twenty-one saloons and two stores. To-day it may be stated that the stores outnum- Der the saloons. Eatables and drink ables were as high as the altitude. Cigars and drinks were two bits apiece aud beer sold at $l per bottle. In those days the founding of new town invariably attracted horde of desper- ate characters, and they were here Deadwood Dick and Wild Bill, the latter of whom (bless his Sou) sleeps 3 seetly on the summit of one of the Black Hills overlooking the town of excurted from the Dakotas. and they soon impressed their striking (and shootiug) personality upon the
 little community. Beefsteak Mike, Loitering Luke and others of that type were prominent characters and shoot ng irons were carried where they could be seen without eyeglasses. There were no peace officers and the sheriff had no representative, while the county seat was at Prescott, 100 miles away. A lynching bee occa- ,ionally varied the monotony of life in the remote civilization of the San Franciscos. They were always quietly orderly affairs. At that time there were not over four women within radius of twenty-five miles. With the coming of the railroad and ,he women, the town steadily advanced until to-day there is not more peace able, law-abiding town in the whole universe.
 The first justice of the peace was John Beebe, who held the scales of justice in one hand and the black smiths sledge in the other. During lis term of office court was held in the | pack room of Talbot's saloon. and at he suggestion of judge or jury, or even an auditor who might suddenly become thirsty, an adjournment was taken to the bar where iquid damnation was sold. Everyone carried weapons in open view. Some ,imes three or four long-nosed six shooters stuck out of the belts of the | owners and occasionally murdelous ooking bowie knife flashed defiance tt anyone that might be looking for trouble.
 At one trial witness fired at the prisoner, whose life was saved by the bullet striking the buckle on his belt md glancing off. Many amusing in ,idents could be related of Justice 3eebe's manner of dispensing justice. t is of authentic record that upon one occasion. when the testimony was tame, his honor, with his lob-nailed shoes perched awkwardN lpon the bar of justice and his chair ifted back against the wall, gently Iozed dtf into the land of dreams. He lad been sleeping peacefully for half n hour when presuimDtuous habitu' i the court nudget him, marking he while: !
 "Jedge, yer missin' all ther tes,;. nuny."
 The judge clapped his hand on his evOlvpr and n,,;,,;, ..