ArizonaRealCountry.com 45 December 2018 FOLLOW US @DILLONSKCBBQ WWW.DILLONSRESTAURANT.COM FREE$20 WHEN YOU PURCHASE A $100 GIFT CARD GIFT CARD FREE$50 WHEN YOU PURCHASE A $200 GIFT CARD GIFT CARD YOUR GIFT TO THEM. OUR GIFT TO YOU. DILLON’S @ THE ZOO 16335 W NORTHERN AVE LITCHFIELD PARK, AZ 623.535.4249 DILLON’S ARROWHEAD 20585 N 59TH AVE GLENDALE, AZ 623.566.8100 DILLON’S THUNDERBIRD 8706 W THUNDERBIRD RD PEORIA, AZ 623.979.5353 DILLON’S BAYOU PLEASANT HARBOR MARINA 40202 N 87TH AVE 928.501.2227 off rc NOT VALID WITH ANY OTHER OFFERS. DINE-IN ONLY. ONE COUPON PER TABLE. NOT VALID ON CATERING ORDERS. EXPIRES 12/31/18 R&G BBQ CONCEPTS *minimum purchase of $35 fine lawman by the very unsuspecting town elders of Willcox. The Willcox town elders were still unsuspecting when on the night of September 9, 1899, after a long evening of poker and booze in the back room of Schweitzer's saloon, Alvord and his three companions, the fourth man being a Texas outlaw by the name of Matt Burks, silently crawled out of a backroom window, donned masks, then took to their horses, rode 2 1/2 miles west to Cochise Junction, and waited for the Southern Pacific to arrive, all the while the bamboozled barkeeps kept bringing drinks to that back room at Schweitzer's, thinking their constable was still engaging in a heavy duty game of poker when in reality they were boarding the Southern Pacific, forcing the engineer to stop at gunpoint, then going back to the express car. They demanded entrance by the express messenger, shoved him back, and using dynamite blew off the safe's door, collecting over $30,000 in gold coins. Cutting the telegraph wires, they quickly rode back to Willcox, with Stiles and Burks calmly resuming their poker game in the backroom of Schweitzer's when the express messenger who had found a horse rode into town, yelling that the Southern Pacific had been robbed. Feigning outrage, Alvord summoned a posse that included ironically enough Marshal George Scarborough, the Texas lawman who finally gunned down John Selman two years after Selman murdered John Wesley Hardin, and rode out to the scene of the crime, but obviously there were no outlaws to apprehend nearby, and since Alvord and his cohorts had worn masks and were in different cars at different times, the posse manhunt got nowhere. Feeling quite successful and perhaps a bit overconfident, Alvord planned his next train robbery. Feeling some heat, Alvord decided that he and his cohorts would not be directly involved in the train robbery this time but would leave it to their handpicked gang to do the assault on the southbound Wells-Fargo train as it rolled into the Fairbank station near Tombstone. Alvord through his law enforcement network had heard that former Texas Ranger Jeff Milton would be the express messenger on this particular train. Alvord knew that Milton, who had also worked for fellow Texas Ranger Slaughter in Tombstone (he may have known Milton first hand) was someone you didn't want to mess around with, so he checked on the schedule of the Wells-Fargo, found a date that he thought Milton would not be on board, and sent his gang out to rob the Fairbank train on February 15, 1900. From the outset everything that could go wrong did. Not only was Milton on board (he had changed his schedule at the last minute) he was able to thwart the robbers. Seriously wounded in the first exchange of gunfire, Milton nevertheless managed to put a load of buckshot into Alvord's ringleader, an outlaw by the name of "Three-Fingered Jack" Dunlap. The gang unable to find the key to the safe (Milton had secured it though almost unconscious) rode off with the grand total of 17 Mexican pesos. The riddled Dunlap captured and dying in a Tombstone hospital, would finally implicate Alvord and Bill Downing. The rest would soon be apprehended, and although Alvord and Stiles would briefly escape, they would soon be brought back to justice. Still well liked by his lawmen friends, Alvord (whom the current Alvord Road in Tombstone would be named after) would be approached in 1902 by Arizona Ranger Captain Burt Mossman, offered a light sentence and a share of the reward money if he would assist in the capture of the notorious Mexican bandit Augustine Chacon. With Mossman and Billie Stiles in tow, Alvord journeyed south of the border, found Chacon, and betrayed him to Mossman. Learning that Chacon would be hanged, Alvord and Stiles once again escaped from prison. Stiles would change his name to William Larkin, become a lawman in Nevada, and die with his boots on, shot by the brother of a rustler he had arrested. Downing would be released from prison, return to his lawless ways, and also die with his boots on, shot down by a lawman just months after his release. Burks lived a quiet life in California for two and a half decades, when he exchanged shots with a neighbor over water rights, both men dying on the spot. As for Burt Alvord, he would journey to South America after his second release from prison, supposedly going to work on the Panama Canal and almost as promptly disappearing. Wilson's account claims he died from the effects of Yellow Fever while working on a Brazilian railroad. Another account claims he actually died in Arizona in a gun battle after his second release, and a third account simply states that he disappeared for good after 1910. Whatever the truth is, Burt Alvord was never heard from again by the beginning of the first decade of the 20th Century. (Al)Bert Alvord