Arizona republican., 1899-05-01
IN THE DAYS OF '79
Treasure Boxes for Which
 Bold Robbers Lay in Wait.
"A Coach Just Sold Was Held Up Twenty-Five Times. in Three Years = Highway Robbery Re- duced to a Science.

Tucson, Ariz., Aprf, 1O.-The recent
 sale of the last of the four stage
 coaches which ran between Fl Paso,
 Texas, and the famous mining camp
 of Tombstone, Ariz., twenty years ago
 and transported hundreds of passen-
 gers and tens of thousands of dollars
 in bullion is reviving the memories Of
 all the old-time miners in the territory
 concerning tbe glorious days of stage
 coaching in Arizona and the hair-rais-
 ing experiences the coach drivers and
 occupants had with desperate. bandits
 and accomplished highwaymen. The
 surviving coach has been bought by a
 circus, and will be used for exhibition
 purposes in a wild west act. For elev-
 en years the battered, weather beaten
 and bullet-marked vehicle stood in a
 barn at Benson. The other three coaches were broken up and destroyed
 years ago. A Benscn man, realizing
 that some day there would be a new
 interest in the fourth coach, bought it
 in 1884 for $90 He sold it last month
 for S70O
 When the TombstonIs, gold and silver
 mines were opened in March, 1879, and town of 10000 people grew up in
 fourteen months, there were nc rail-
 roads in Arizona. The nearest was the Texas and Pacific, with it's western
 terminus at Fl Paso, some 220 miles east from Tombstone. The Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe railroads did not build into the territory until 1882 When the news went abroad that Rich ard Gird and Ed Scha effelin had found ore that went 600 ounces to the ton in silver and $45 a ton in gold, every mining camp in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and California was thrilled. When reports came in May, 1879, that other and later miners on the scene at Tombstone wers' making from $4,O00 to 1000 a month each in the sulphur cts, thousands of half-crazy men went hurrying over mountains and across deserts to Tombstone. Throughout the summer and fall of 1879 and during the whole of 1880 and 1881 there was no camp in the west except Leadville that compared in wealth production and gayety with Tombstone First and last S8,000,0 was taken out of the Tombstone mines.
 The International Express company was organized in Galveston, Texas, in June, 1879, to run stage coach line between Tombstone and Fl PaSo. The concern was a part of the Wells-Fargo Express company Four stage coache5 were put on, and each was to make a round trip from the railroad to Tombstone every five days. There was room, within and without, for fourteen passengers on each coach. The company knew that it was goir to do stage coaching in the widest and most lawless part of the Union at that time, and took precautions to protect it's passengers and it's bullion. The treasure boxes were doubly strength ened, the drivers were armed with the l best weapons, and a guard, who was an expert shot and sat always with a | short rifle on his lap, rode on each | coach. In some localities among tho | San Rita mountains two armed guards | rode on every coach.
 But with all these precautions the | Tombstone stage coaches were prob | ably held up oftener during the first | two years they were run than any other coaches in the Union. The | coach sold the other day was held up | by masked robbers fully twenty-five | ' month of September, 1879 It's front | and sides show where half a dozen bullets passed into or through it. The route from TombstonIe to Fl Paso led through 200 miles of country where no white men lived in those days, except the garrison at Fort Bowie There were vast stretches of aikali plains, | where a white man was not seen for weeks at a time. A better region for highway robbery could scarcely be inn agined There were on the route passes miles long through the San Felipe and Dragoon mountains. There were cuts where outlaws might be in concealment for days until the stage coach was upon the scene, and then the robbers, in absolute security; might call on the driver to stop and all low the coach to be robbed. The mountain fastnesses abcunded in safe hiding spots, where, among tflsl granite | bouiders and finty trails even an Apache Indian would have difficulty in tracking fugitive marauders. In those days the police system of Arizona was farce, and the few United States marshals and other peace officers were too deeply absorbed in mining possi- bilities in Tombstone to give time to chasing bandits. So the wagon roads from Tombstone to Fl PasC, and also from Tombstone to Tucson and thence to Yuma and Los Angeles abounded with highwaymen
 The money and bullion carried by the Tombstone stage coaches was an indu cement for desperate outIawry. In the hold-up at Masca,lero Pass in October, 1880, the robbers got twenty four pounds of gold bullion, besides S, 300 in cash taken from the passen- gers. and lot Of diamond studs, rings and gold watches. It was not uncom- mon for a coach out of Tombstone to carry $16,000 or S200 900 in bullion. and for each passenger to have from S200 to S5,000 in his leather belt grips. It