February 2018 32 Used Tractors: Kubota, John Deere, New Holland, etc. New Tractors: Kioti 25, 35, 40, 45 & 50 Horsepower, we also carry the Backhoe Attachments for them. ...from UTV’S to Car Hauler’s, Landscape and Dump Trailers, Special Orders also available on New Trailers. Box Scrapers, Straight Blades, Rock Rakes, Chain Harrows, Arena Groomers, Brush Hogs, Post Hole Diggers, Post Drivers and More. TRACTOR We Service & Repair Tractors, Trailers & UTV’s. BLOODY SPOT ON THE Wickenburg Trail The first incident was the brutal killing of the Barney Martin family. Martin, his wife, and two children were murdered by a gang of Mexicans. The second incident, at the same spot where Martin and his family were waylaid, was the murders of Cyrus Gribble, John Johnson and Charles Doolittle. Cyrus Gribble had replaced a man named Elmore as superintendent of the Vulture Mine at Wickenburg. Elmore had a system for getting gold shipments from the Vulture to Phoenix and payroll cash from Phoenix to the Vulture that had served him well during his tenure as the head man at the mine. It was a system of confusion. Elmore and the men he picked for guards would make regular runs to Phoenix. Everyone knew that no Vulture gold or cash was on the wagons during these runs. What was aboard was plenty of whiskey for Elmore and his boys. They made a party out of the regular trips, leaving many an empty bottle along the trail. This was a period in which Francisco Vega and his gang of cutthroats terrorized the trail across the desert between Wickenburg and Phoenix. Vega’s gang did the dirty work for the notorious “Lord” Stanton, who had built a mining camp at the base of Rich Hill and ran the stage station there. Elmore was keenly aware of Vega and his murderous gang. He shipped both gold and payroll cash by other means than the regularly scheduled mine runs to and from Phoenix. A slow-moving freight wagon, a stagecoach, or a lone man on horseback, all unscheduled and of low profile, might carry the gold or payroll cash. Nobody knew. Only Elmore and whoever was carrying the load. What everybody did know was that the gold and payroll was rarely, if ever, on the scheduled runs Elmore and his friends made to Phoenix. Secret Runs Abandoned Gribble was a hard-headed, boastful man very impressed by his position, according to those who knew him. When he took over as superintendent, the regular runs to Phoenix were made in a light wagon behind a team of two little black mares known for their speed. Gribble made no secret that he was leaving for Phoenix with the bullion. In fact, he boasted that he was going despite Vega and his gang, the devil or any other highwayman. On March 19, 1888, John Johnson took the reins of the little black mares. Gribble himself rode shotgun next to Johnson on the seat. There was an outrider, Charles Doolittle, who rode ahead of the rig. Gold bullion was the cargo. It was the kind of cargo that Francisco Vega and his gang, and their boss Stanton, found of keen interest. All went well for the Gribble party until they approached the dip in the trail where the Martin family had been waylaid and murdered reportedly by Vegas and his gang. This dip in the trail was a few miles west of what became the Nada station on the Prescott to Phoenix railroad a few years later. The depression in the desert was some eight miles from Desert Well and ten miles from Smith’s Mill. It is about seven feet below the general level of the surrounding desert and about 100 feet wide. A foot-wide gully runs along There is a blood-soaked dip on the old stage and wagon trail between Wickenburg and Phoenix. Two incidents occurred at this dip in the trail, one in 1886 and the other in 1888. In all, seven people were murdered here. Charles P Stanton