William M. Breakenridge (1846–1931)

If you are a student of western history, more specifically, of early Colorado (the Chivington Massacre, etc.) and of the Tombstone era in southern Arizona, this is the book for you. Breakenridge was familiar with all of the characters we have come to know from Hollywood and from historians like Odie B. Faulk, Angie Debo, Dan L. Thrapp, Eve Ball and Edwin R. Sweeney. His is a balanced and nuanced description of what it was like in Tombstone and, more interestingly, what people such as Ike show more Clanton and Curly Bill Brocius and Wyatt Earp and Johnny Ringo were really like on a day-to-day basis. (He preferred Ringo over Wyatt.) As an aside - there are some really cool names that come up in his telling: Zwing Hunt, Harry Head, Billy Grounds,Billy Land, Luke Short, Bat Masterson, Si Bryant, Lance Perkins, Ben Sippy, "Buckskin Frank" Leslie, and best of all: Endicott Peabody. You realize that those people in 1881 were on the cusp of modernity. The railroad is there as is photography and newspapers and the telegraph was making access to information and travel much, much easier than it had been for the first four thousand years of human history. Breakenridge stayed in Tombstone long after the Earps and the Clantons were gone and, ultimately, he worked in Phoenix and provides interesting information about the early commerce and development of that city. show less

While Mr. Breakenridge's book apparently has little to do with the actual history of Tombstone, I really enjoyed this book.

Hard copy of the orginial all black cover with gold letters on end

Helldorado offers cinematic images of wagon trains crossing the Great Plains, of Phoenix and Denver emerging from the dust and mud, of Tombstone blazing through a silver bonanza, and of the railroad joining East and West to change history. In his memoirs, originally published in 1928, William M. Breakenridge is shown doing about everything an enterprising and vigorous young man could do on the frontier. After leaving Wisconsin at the age of sixteen, he became a teamster, railroader; and show more lawman in Colorado, Arizona, and elsewhere. He took part in the Sand Creek Massacre, here described from his own point of view. Helldorado heats up in its evocation of early-day Tombstone, where, as deputy sheriff, Breakenridge encountered the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Luke Short, John Ringo, and Buckskin Frank Leslie. show less