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 March/April 2025
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Truth Be Known
- What Has Taught Me: Deb Goodrich
- Earp, Cowboy Songs & Prairie Hygiene
- Trails of the Old West
- The Frontier Characters of South Dakota
- The Bowie Knife
- The Kindled Flame 1835
- King of the Scatterguns
- Selling the Mythic West and the Real West
- A Gut Punch Turns into a Miracle Reprieve
- The Beginnings of the Bird Cage
- Frontier Colossus