Adapted from the historical account by Robert Bigando
His moniker never truly suited his lifestyle, but veteran-turned-farmer-turned-miner, politician and lawman William A. Holmes set lyrics to a song when he was young identifying himself as “Hunky Dory,” and, like so many colorful nicknames, it stuck. His life — all 44 years of it — was an intense and ambitious journey of a young man determined to experience everything the Arizona Territory had to offer.
Holmes first appeared in Arizona around 1869 as a farmer. Born in Texas in 1844, he enlisted at age 17 in Company I of the 5th Texas Infantry Regiment in Washington County, Texas, serving until the end of the Civil War in 1865.
After the war, he joined the small settlement along the Salt River that would become Phoenix. At the time of the Salt River Town Association agreement in 1870, the community consisted of only a few hundred residents cultivating roughly 1,500 acres. Holmes was one of the original 23 signers charged with surveying and platting the future townsite.
Even before signing the agreement, however, Holmes had caught gold and silver fever.
In 1869 he joined a prospecting party led by Corydon Cooley — a soldier, scout, guide, rancher and future founder of Show Low. The group was one of two searching for mineral wealth in the rugged country east of Phoenix, the other led by Prescott saloonkeeper Calvin Jackson.
During Cooley's first expedition into the Pinal Mountains, the prospectors were warned by a band of Pinal Apaches that they would be killed if they continued. Undeterred, Holmes joined Cooley's second expedition, which left Camp McDowell on Sept. 8, 1869.
By the end of the month, both prospecting parties had run into trouble. Cooley's group lost horses, while Jackson's men were attacked by Apache fighters, leaving one man wounded. Soon afterward, three Apaches were killed near Tonto Creek, further escalating tensions.
Concerned for their safety, Camp McDowell Commander Col. George B. Sanford brought the two parties together. The two parties searched for gold for about 20 miles along the Salt River but found nothing, and Cooley’s party returned to Phoenix. Holmes decided to stay with Jackson, who turned southwest to explore the Pinal Mountains.
By late October, Jackson's group was prospecting along Pinal Creek despite repeated warnings from the Apaches. The men discovered promising black minerals and hurriedly gathered samples while constructing location monuments. With the threat of attack increasing daily, Jackson’s men broke camp and reached Prescott by Nov. 19. The Nov. 20, 1869, edition of The Weekly Arizona Miner reported: “The Jackson prospecting party brought home with them from their recent trip, some of the richest-looking silver ores we have ever seen.”
In June 1871, Holmes and 16 others organized the Pinal Mining Company and returned to the discovery site. For protection, they fortified a shallow cave with a stone retaining wall and recorded seven mining claims that would become part of Arizona mining history.
Holmes also helped pioneer agriculture in the Safford Valley, then commonly called Pueblo Viejo because of its ancient canal systems and prehistoric pueblos.
He became one of 76 shareholders in the Montezuma Canal Company and quickly proved himself an accomplished farmer. Holmes reportedly harvested 800 pounds of beans from one-quarter acre and raised a pumpkin measuring 6 feet in circumference. He also grew cotton so fine that the Arizona Weekly Citizen praised its quality, noting the fibers were longer and finer than cotton produced around Tucson.
Unknowingly, Holmes had connected Arizona's ancient past with its future. The cotton he cultivated was descended from varieties grown by the Hohokam people centuries earlier. Today, the Gila Valley remains one of Arizona's important agricultural regions, with thousands of irrigated acres devoted largely to cotton production.
In March 1875, four men discovered the Silver King claim, one of the richest silver strikes in Arizona history. Like hundreds of other prospectors, Holmes was drawn back to the Pinal Mountains.
He and several companions organized another expedition, and by the end of 1875, more than 40 silver claims had been established in the district. In 1876, Holmes and his partners located another promising silver ledge about 12 miles north of Silver King, producing ore valued at an estimated $105 per ton.
At just 32 years old, Holmes was described as the "oldest" prospector in one newspaper account, but the Globe Mining District was less than a year old at the time. A regular correspondent to Tucson's Arizona Weekly Citizen, he was praised in the Aug. 14, 1880, edition as a "better … and truthful gentleman."
Just weeks later, however, Holmes found himself at the center of a deadly dispute with Marco Bojenick. According to the newspaper's account, "The evidence revealed that Holmes had to either kill Bojenck or be killed."
In November 1889, Holmes, a special deputy, and Gila County Sheriff Glenn Reynolds began the ill-fated transport of nine prisoners by stagecoach to the railhead of Casa Grande, where they planned to catch a train to the Territorial Prison in Yuma.
The prisoners would never take that train, though, and Holmes would never make another silver claim.
According to stage driver Eugene Middleton, most of the prisoners were removed from the coach and marched in chains as the party crossed a long sandy grade beyond Riverside. The Apache Kid and Hos-Cal-Te remained inside the coach, shackled together, while another prisoner, Jesus Avott, walked nearby. Reynolds, armed with a shotgun and revolver, and Holmes, carrying a .40-82 Winchester rifle, guarded the group. The three Apache prisoners in the lead closed the gap between themselves and Reynolds and somehow wrestled the shotgun from the sheriff. The lawman’s overcoat prevented him from reaching his pistol. The three Apaches in the rear jumped Holmes and grabbed his rifle.
Middleton drew his pistol on the two prisoners inside the coach, but when he leaned out to see the commotion, he was struck in the face by a rifle shot. He fell to the ground and pretended to be dead.
The Apache Kid escaped from the coach and joined the attack. Reynolds was shot with his own shotgun, and Holmes was fatally wounded by his own rifle. Both lawmen were then beaten to death with rocks.
Middleton managed to make his way back to Riverside and report the attack. A posse was quickly organized from Globe, but rain, snow and rocky terrain erased the fugitives' trail.
On Nov. 5, 1889, the Gila County Board of Supervisors asked the governor of the Arizona Territory to offer a reward for the capture of the killers, and $500 was posted. Over the following year, most of the escapees were either killed or captured.
The Apache Kid was never found.
Now, 137 years after his violent death, William "Hunky Dory" Holmes has finally received the simple dignity that eluded him for more than a century — a headstone marking the resting place of one of the Arizona Territory's most colorful pioneers.
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