"Brazen Bill" Shot to Blazes

“BRAZEN BILL” BRAZELTON VS A TUCSON POSSE

According to the Prescott Enterprise, Bill Brazelton is “the most successful ‘single-handed’ highway robber of modern times.” Illustrations by Bob Boze Bell

Alone highwayman, masked in muslin, robs a stage en route from Tucson to Florence, Arizona, carrying three passengers, including Arizona Citizen editor John Clum. He robs the stage of about $60 when it reaches Point of Mountain (near present-day Marana). The victims report the robber gripped his weapons in a peculiar manner; he held his pistol against the barrel of his rifle, almost as if he were hedging his bets should anyone creep up on him. The next week, on August 8, the Tucson to Florence stage approaches the spot where the robbery took place.

A curious passenger asks the driver, Arthur Hill, to point it out. As he does, out steps the same masked man. “There he is again,” Hill shouts. This time the brazen highwayman escapes with about $500.

Arriving on the scene, a sheriff ’s posse trails the robber but fails to find him. Seasoned tracker Juan Elias is brought in on the investigation, and he discovers a clever ruse. Two sets of horse tracks are

Two sets of horse tracks are found leaving Tucson and heading to the scene of the crime, but none of them returned. Trailing the northbound tracks south, Elias notices the tracks give an odd impression. The horse had a twist in its step which Elias later saw at the Festival de San Augustin in Tucson and tracked the horse to David Nemitz’s house, four miles south of Tucson.

The police arrest Nemitz, and the court sets bail at $2,000.

Aftermath: Odds & Ends

The newspapers (John Clum’s in particular) reported that Brazelton had robbed nine coaches in Arizona and New Mexico—all of them single-handedly. Clum also wrote that Brazen Bill was “dextrous with firearms and had not [a] streak of yellow in him.”

Little is known of Brazelton’s early years. He told a friend in Tucson that he had robbed two stagecoaches in northern Arizona, three near Silver City, New Mexico, and four near Tucson. One of the newspapers described Brazelton as a “great, big, good natured fellow; and except when on business, as harmless as any man could be.”

For many years after Brazen Bill’s death, the native population around Tucson avoided the spot where he had met his end, especially when traveling at night, even if they had to make a journey of a mile to go around it. The old-timers often told tales of seeing a phantom highwayman, El Tejano, standing in the road (see below).