List of historic properties in Willcox, Arizona
This is a list, which includes a photographic gallery, of some of the remaining historic buildings, houses, structures and monuments in Willcox, Arizona, a town located in Cochise County. Some of the structures are located in the Railroad Avenue Historic District. Some of the structures are individually listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). There are others which are considered historical by the Sulphur Springs Valley Historical Society. Also included is the Chiricahua National Monument Historic Designed Landscape and images of the historic City Cemetery where Warren Earp. the younger brother  of Wyatt Earp is buried. History. The Native-Americans inhabited the area where the town of Willcox and its surrounding areas are located before the arrival of the people of European ancestry from the East Coast of the United States. The principal Native-American tribe which inhabited southeastern Arizona were the Chiricahua Apaches. They called themselves the Chiricahua Apache (Apache: great mountain) after their former mountain home in southeast Arizona. Their own name true name is actually the Aiaha. Apache Wars. Compared to the other tribes in Arizona, the Chiricahua tribe were the most warlike. Among their leaders were Cochise , Victorio, Loco, Chato, Naiche, and Geronimo. The Chiricahua were involved in the so-called “Indian Wars” now referred to as the Apache Wars of the 1860s and 1870s. Some historians believe a misunderstanding during the “Bascom Affair” launched clashes with the Chiricahua. Cochise was the Apache chief during the Apache Wars, he led an uprising against the U.S. government which began in 1861, and persisted until a peace treaty in 1872. In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant sent General Oliver Howard, as a special commissioner, to Arizona. Howard together with Tom Jeffords, a trusted friend of Cochise, met with the  Chiricahua Chief. Their meeting concluded in an agreement to cease hostilities with the understanding that Cochise would use his influence with the other Chiricahua Apaches to this end. By the autumn of this year more than 1,000 of the tribe were settled on the newly established Chiricahua Reservation, southeast Arizona. Cochise died in 1874. Cochise County was named after the Chiricahua Apache Chief and the land where he is buried is now the Chiricahua National Monument. In 1878, General Orlando Bolivar Willcox assumed command of the Department of Arizona during the last years of the Apache Wars. Willcox is established . In 1880, the small town of "Maley" was founded as a whistlestop for the Southern Pacific Railroad. A whislestop is a train station where a train will stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. The station was an important supply point for the Army during the Apache Wars from 1880 to 1886. It was also important to the cattle ranching and mining industries of southeastern Arizona as a major shipping point. General Willcox remained in his post until 1882. The citizens of the town of Maley renamed  the town in his honor, however, his surname was misspelled and instead of being spelled with two "L"s it was spelled with one, hence "Wilcox". In 1889, the correction of the town's name was made and therefore "Wilcox" finally became "Willcox". In the early years, Willcox was a town with many saloons and hotels. There were shootings practically every week in Willcox and its surrounding area. Two of the more notable shootings involved Warren Earp in 1900 and Bill Downing in 1908. Warren Baxter Earp, the youngest of the Earp brothers, was ill-tempered. He wasn't in town  during the OK Corral gunfight, but he did participate in Wyatt Earp's revenge where many cowboys were murdered. Earp lived in Willcox. He disliked a fellow ranch cowboy named Johnny Boyett. He habitually bullied Boyett for months past. Earp and Boyett ran into each other in the "Headquarters Saloon" and Earp challenged Boyett to fight to the death. Boyett got a gun from the Willcox Hotel, and charged after Earp. After missing a few times, Earp was mortally wounded. Bill Downing was a member of the Burt Alvord gang. The gang was caught and arrested in Pearce after robbing  the Cochise Train Depot. They were held in the prison of Tombstone. Members of the gang that were not arrested went to Tombstone and rescued the gang members in jail, but left Downing in jail because they disliked him. After spending seven years in the Yuma prison, Downing went to Willcox and opened the Free and Easy Saloon. He hired prostitutes who picked pocketed the customers. The town Sheriff and his Deputy went to the bar to serve Downing a warrant for his arrest. Downing dashed out a back door, but found himself face to face with the Deputy who  had a shotgun. Downing reached for his gun and the Deputy shot him dead. What Downing didn't know is that he didn't have his gun because one the prostitutes stole it before he went out. The town celebrated when they learned of his death. Both Earp and Downing were buried in the historic "Old City Cemetery" of Willcox. The Pioneers' Cemetery Association (PCA) defines an "historic cemetery" as one which has been in existence for more than fifty years. Sulphur Springs Valley Historical Society. The mission of the Sulphur Springs Valley Historical Society is to collect, preserve and  display historical artifacts and archives related to the cultural history of Willcox and its surrounding area in northern Cochise County, and the history of the Chiricahua Apache. The historic building known as "The Toggery", is an extension of the Chiricahua Regional Museum and contains the research library and museum archives. The citizens of Willcox have preserved many of the historic buildings. A property may be listed in the National Register of Historic Places or it may be eligible to be listed as such, however, that does not mean that the property is safe from being demolished by its owner. According  to Jim McPherson, Arizona Preservation Foundation Board President: Chiricahua National Monument. In 2008, the Chiricahua National Monument Historic Designed Landscape, covering roughly 80% of the national monument, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The national monument is part and belongs to the National Park System. It located in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona within Willcox. The monument was established on April 18, 1924, to protect its extensive hoodoos and balancing rocks. The Stafford Cabin in the Faraway Ranch is one of the first homestead dwellings in the Chiricahua Mountains vicinity. The cabin, built in 1880, is  also among the oldest surviving log cabins in the region. Ja Hu Stafford was a pioneer settler who was born in Davidson County, North Carolina, to John Wesley and Clementine Reid Stafford. Stafford found the Chiricahua Mountain area to his liking and built a log cabin which was a small 14 square foot structure made with unpeeled logs, suggesting that it was built in a hurry. A second log room about the same size as the first was added sometime before 1885, followed by a small wooden-frame addition on the backside of the house around 1898. He dug an  irrigation system which provided water for his fruit orchard. Ja Hu received his homestead certificate on April 6, 1886. He lived there with his wife Pauline and their six children for twenty years. In 1919 the cabin was remodeled and served as a guest cabin for the Faraway Ranch. The Stafford Cabin was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on March 31, 1975; reference #75000171. Historic buildings. The following is a brief description of some of the historic buildings in Railroad Avenue. The avenue became the Commercial center for the growth of Willcox and the Sulpher Springs Valley  from the time of the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad through the area in 1880. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places on May 27, 1987; #87000751. The Sulpher Springs Valley Historical Society and Arizona Historical Society have placed markers on various of these properties. Historic houses. Several of the houses listed here are "town homes" built before the turn of the century by wealthy cattle ranchers in the Sulphur Spring Valley, example: the Mee House, the Hooker Town House, the Johnson/Tillotson House and the Saxon House. The following are the historic houses in Willcox which are  listed in the National Register of Historic Places: Old City Cemetery. Warren Baxter Earp, the youngest of the Earp brothers and the outlaw Bill Downing are buried in the historic "Old City Cemetery". Downing's grave-site is impossible to find since the towns people vandalized and destroyed the tombstone marker.