A Suburb of Tombstone,
Arizona
by Daryl F. Mallett
A major metropolitan area in the middle of nowhere. Nearly $85
million in silver bullion produced. Approximately 14,000 residents. The town is
Tombstone, Arizona. The year is 1884. By this time, a group of famous lawmen
named the Earp brothers had already had their gun fight at the O.K. Corral and Boot
Hill Cemetery was already home to Billy Clanton, the McLaury brothers and
marshal Fred White, among others.
“A suburb of Tombstone, Arizona” is not a phrase one hears often,
if at all. But Tombstone was one of the largest cities in the Southwestern U.S.
in its day and, like any good metropolitan area, the town boasted its own
“suburbs,” or outlying towns with names such as Contention, Brookline,
Huachuca, Charleston and Fairbank.
Approximately 10 miles west of
Tombstone, on Arizona Highway 82, just east of the San Pedro River, on the
north side of the road, is what remains of the Town of Fairbank.
The town is on or very near a Native
American settlement named Santa Cruz. It is unclear when the town was first
inhabited, but the name “Santa Cruz” first appears on a map around 1775-80. It was
part of the San Juan de la Boquillas y Nogales Land Grant, along the San Pedro
River, originally granted to Captain Ygnacio Elias Gonzales (1775-1845) and
Juan Nepomucino Felix in 1833.
In the 1870s, a stagecoach stopped at Fairbank, and the town,
originally called Junction City, began to attract non-Native American settlers.
In 1881, area ranchers William Hall and Harry McKinney filed a
claim to land some eight miles west of Tombstone, adjacent to the Southern
Pacific Railroad (SPR) line running from El Paso to Tucson to Los Angeles, that
had just been completed in 1880. In July of that same year, the New Mexico
& Arizona Railroad Company (NM&AR) began building a line from Nogales
to Benson, going through Fairbank (now called Kendall).
The train depot and wye built at
Kendall in 1882 connected the town with the SPR line and the rest of the world.
The Earp
family boarded a train in Fairbank following Morgan’s murder that year,
transporting his body to California. Soon, trains were coming
and going, carrying silver ore from Tombstone and copper ore from the Copper
Queen Mine to the mills in nearby towns such as Contention City and Charleston,
and cattle to eastern markets, as well as food, liquor and supplies bound for
Tombstone. The ever-expanding rail lines led to other towns springing up along
the lines, including Elgin, Patagonia and Sonoita.
On May 16, 1883, a U.S. Post Office was opened and the Town of
Fairbank, Arizona, was officially founded.
The town was named in honor of Nathaniel Kellogg Fairbank
(1829-1903), a descendant of Jonathan Fairbank (1594-1668), who arrived in
Massachusetts in 1633. The Chicago-based industrialist whose company, N. K.
Fairbank Co., manufactured soap, animal and baking products, such as Cottolene,
Gold Dust and Fairy Soap which is still sold around the world today by Procter
& Gamble), was the founder of the Grand Central Mining Company, with
ownership in several Tombstone mines, and a major financier of the NM&AR.
In 1885, the Butterfield Overland Mail line made Fairbank a
stopping point, bringing in new business and soon 100 people were living in the
town. Five years later, a steam-powered quartz mill was in operation a few
miles north of the town, which featured Fairbank Mercantile, a butcher shop and
two other stores, five saloons, three restaurants, a Wells Fargo office, a
jail, a school, the Montezuma Hotel, and eventually three train depots serving
at least five different rail lines, including the NM&A, SPR, El Paso &
Southwestern Railroad, San Pedro & Southwestern Railroad and the Santa Fe
Railroad. Lots were selling for between $50-150. The 1890 U.S. Census reported
478 residents in Fairbank, quadruple the number of people in 1885, making that
year the highest point.
But it did not last. Flooding of the Tombstone mines killed
business, along with subsequent droughts driving away ranchers and farmers, and
the San Pedro River flood of 1890, which destroyed part of the town.
On February 15, 1900, the Burt Alvord Gang
attempted a train robbery. Alvord (1866-after 1911), who was formerly the
Deputy Sheriff of Fairbank, along with Billy Stiles (1871-1908), another former
lawmen turned criminal, Jack “Three Fingers” Dunlop (1872-1900), brothers George and Louis Owens, Bravo Juan
Yoas and Bob Brown, were driven off by Wells Fargo Express Messenger and former
lawman Jeff Milton, who was wounded in the process. Dunlop later died in
Tombstone of his wounds. By the time of the 1900 U.S. Census, the town’s
population had dropped to 171 people. The Mexican land grant on which the town was situated was reacquired in
1901 by the Boquillas Land and Cattle Company, which included descendants of
Gonzales and Felix. They evicted all the homesteaders, but extended the leases
on only the Adobe Commercial Building and several residences into the 1970s.
After the original wooden school burned down, a new Fairbank School
was built in 1920 and held classes through 1944. By 1950, the official
population had dwindled to 50 people. The last business to hold on was Fairbank
Mercantile, operating as a country store and gas station. By 1970, the town was
completely abandoned and the post office was shut down.
Fairbank was acquired in 1986 and is administered by the U.S.
Bureau of Land Management, becoming the headquarters of the San Pedro Riparian
National Conservation Area (SPRNCA). Though not the SPRNCA’s primary purpose,
the schoolhouse has been restored and contains a gift shop. The Adobe
Commercial Building and Montezuma Hotel are chained off from the public, and a
few other buildings, including an outhouse, several homes and the cattle pens
just south of the site, are all that remain of the town.
The site is open to the public, public from 9:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
and the gift shop is manned during the weekends. A number of educational
plaques are scattered throughout the area and help visitors get a feel for what
the town was like, and there are scenic, overgrown trails, reminiscent of
Sleepy Hollow, from the schoolhouse north along the San Pedro to the Fairbank Cemetery
and the old Grand Central Mining Company mill.
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