George Ruffner was Yavapai County’s perennial sheriff. He was a top notch peace officer and an expert tracker; it was said he could track “bees in a blizzard,” and he nearly always “got his man.”
He liked being sheriff but he hated having to make campaign speeches. Politics to him was extremely distasteful. At heart he was an old cowboy and was most uncomfortable having to stand on

True West May/June 2025
In This Issue:
Features
- Historic Hotels of the American West
- A Journey Through Wyoming’s Outlaw History
- A Journey Through Washington’s Wild Frontier
- Blazing The Oregon Trail
- Journey Through Time
- Did Brigham Young Order a Massacre?
- Mountain Meadows Scapegoat John D. Lee VS. A Firing Squad
- Mormons in the Movies
- An Indigenous Consultant Ensures Accuracy
- The Battle Axe And A Raw Deal
- Showdown: Bridger VS. Brigham
- The Mountain Man and the Mormon Moses
- The Ghosts of Mountain Meadows
- The War Before the War
- Mountain Meadows