The Legendary Hashknife

The huge ranch also resulted in frontier violence.

With the arrival of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in 1881, Holbrook, Arizona become one of the wildest cow towns in the West. The town had the unique distinction of being the only county seat in the United States that didn’t have church until 1913. In part, that was due to the presence of the Aztec Land and Cattle Company, better-known as the Hashknife. It was running some 60,000 cows and 2,000 horses on two million acres of private and government land. But that attracted thieves and rustlers and led to an ongoing battle between the two sides.