The Sheriff and the Pants Tree: An Old West Story

Sheriff Carl Hayden of Phoenix had a problem. The conservative ladies of his city were up in arms over a public disgrace. They were shocked, shocked!, to see men like this walking their streets.

These men were Pima Indians, who came into town every Saturday during the first years of the 20th century in order to trade. They dressed in the traditional fashion, wearing only a breechclout. This left the rest of their bodies exposed, something the ladies didn't want to see. Whites, Mexicans, and Chinese didn't dress like that, and so they didn't want the Pima dressing like that either.

Hayden came up with a simple solution. He collected a bunch of old pants, hung them up on the branches of a tree just outside town, and told the Pima to put on a pair of pants before coming into town. Once they were done, they'd hang the pants back on the tree and go home dressed in their traditional (lack of) attire. The "pants tree" remained a Phoenix landmark for many years.

Hayden may not have been the first person to think of this. I've heard there was a pants tree outside Tucson as well for visiting Tohono O'odham.

Still the society ladies of Phoenix weren't satisfied. They complained that an old Pima chief was a polygamist, having no fewer than three wives. Sheriff Hayden rode out to visit the chief and told him that he could only have one wife. He had to pick one and tell the other two to go. The old chief thought for a long time. Then he looked at the sheriff and said, "You tell them."

Sheriff Hayden rode off. The chief got to keep his wives.

(Interestingly, a similar story is told about Comanche chief Quanah Parker, so this may just be a tall tale from the fronteir)

Carl Hayden is an Arizona icon. He was born in an adobe home on the Salt River near what is now Phoenix in 1877. His father ran a ferry boat business. Hayden became Maricopa County Sheriff in 1906, dealt with complaints from shocked ladies of society, and got a bit of fame in 1910 for foiling one of the last train robberies in the Old West.

He went on to serve in both houses of Congress for many years before retiring in 1969, the year I was born. It's not much of a stretch to go from the modern day back to a time when bandits robbed trains and half-naked Native Americans shocked the self-appointed guardians of virtue.

The No-So-Great Train Robbery

By 1910, the Wild West wasn't so wild anymore. There were no more Indian raids, cities were growing, and outlaws were becoming a thing of the past.

Not everyone realized this, though. That year two teenage brothers in the Arizona Territory, Oscar and Ernie Woodson, perhaps inspired by the silent Western films that were all the rage at the time, decided to rob a train.

There hadn't been a train robbery in the territory for years. The land was filling up and law had taken hold, but that didn't deter the two youths. One fine May evening they boarded the commuter shuttle between Maricopa and Phoenix. They had left their getaway horses tethered along the route. Once they approached the spot, they whipped out thier pistols and ordered the conductor to signal a halt.

They then took about $300 from the passengers. What they didn't know was that among their victims were several members of the territorial legislature and the Gila County sheriff. It's never a good idea to rob the rich and powerful, especially if they represent the local law.

The robbers then leapt onto their horses and galloped away, headed for the border.

Pursuit wasn't far behind. The sheriff of Maricopa County, Carl Hayden, rounded up a posse to go after them. Hayden himself grabbed a friend who owned an automobile the two set out in that. It wasn't long before the pair had left the rest of the posse in the dust. They stopped to picks up some of the lawmen as backup and continued through the desert.

Hayden and his friends soon caught up with the Woodson brothers as they rested their horses in the desert. It was a brutally hot day and they'd run out of water. When the Woodsons saw the plume of dust from the car, they thought they were miners and ran out, waving their arms in the hope of getting some water. Instead they got several rifled pointed at them. The two young outlaws had no choice but to surrender.

It was one of the last train robberies of the Wild West and the first to be foiled by use of an automobile. The press labeled the Woodson brothers the "beardless boy bandits." They did some time in prison and then disappeared from history. Sheriff Hayden went on to become a senator. I'll talk more about him in my next post.


This is the famous last shot of The Great Train Robbery, a groundbreaking silent Western from 1903. It ran a whole 12 minutes, far longer than most films of the time, and told a complete story rather than showing a simple vignette. When the bandit fired straight at the camera it's said the audience, for whom movies were still new, ducked and screamed. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Writing a new travel series on Estonia

As I mentioned earlier, I spent all of last week on assignment in Estonia. I've started a travel series on Estonia on Gadling, the travel blog that sent me there. As you can imagine, the northernmost Baltic state was pretty snowy this time of year, although unusually mild--only 0C or 32F.

Anyway, hit the link and follow my adventures as I explore one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe, visit old Soviet military installations, and explore secret tunnels underneath the capital!

Wild West Photo Friday: A Sioux Tobacco Pouch

This is a Sioux tobacco bag from the 19th or early 20th century.

As you can see, there's intricate quillwork showing plants and what the photographer describes as a stylized cocoon and moth in the center.

The cocoon is a symbol of spiritual and physical transformation, and also of the Sioux spirit Yumni, the whirlwind, responsible for the four directions of the world.

Like Yumni, the moth is a free spirit that breaks out of its cocoon and cannot be contained.

Native American tobacco is pure and thus very strong. Smoking it certainly gives you a buzz that makes you feel like you're flying, which is perhaps what the designer of this bag was getting at. It also made me feel sick to my stomach. Nonsmokers like me shouldn't get curious and try pure tobacco!


Photo courtesy Pierre Fabre.

Military history of Tangier, Morocco

So much has been going on this past week I forgot to mention that I did a guest post over at the Black Gate blog about Exploring the Defenses of Tangier. You'll see lots of pictures and info that didn't make it into my Tangier travel series I did for Gadling. Head on over and check it out!

Tangier was an inspiring place with a lot going on. I'm thinking of taking a solo trip there later this year to work on a writing project. See you back here tomorrow with Wild West Photo Friday!

Hacked!

My Gmail and Yahoo accounts were both hacked today and started spewing out spam. If you received an email from me with a link in it, don't click on it! My apologies. I've changed the passwords now and that should fix the problem. In 20 years of being on the Internet this is the first time this has happened to me.

Reader news for February 19

My readers have been pretty busy lately. First up is Shelly Akron, who has just come out with the print version of her ghostly novel Secondhand Shoes. To celebrate, she's made the ebook version free! She's also hosting the Run Away Bride Give Away and Blog Party on Feb. 19th, 20th, and 21st. You could win a 15 dollar Amazon card or an autographed copy of Secondhand Shoes.

Tyrean Martinson recently came out with Champion in the Darkness, book one of her YA Christian fantasy series The Champion Trilogy.

At the beginning of the month, Jack Badelaire announced that he was finishing up the draft for Commando: Operation Bedlam. This will be the followup to his awesome Commando: Operation Arrowhead, which I reviewed here. It will come out this spring and it's on the top of my to-read list.

David Meyer, author of Chaos, has finally restarted his Guerrilla Explorer website, one of my favorites. It features "mysteries of history, lost treasure, strange science, cryptids, conspiracies, forgotten lands, and explorers." Welcome back to the blogosphere, Dave!

Are you a reader of this blog and have some news to share? It doesn't have to be writing related. Drop me a line at the email address to the left and I'll add it to the next Reader News!