Travel

Located at the junction of the Rio Puerco and Little Colorado rivers, Holbrook is a high desert town steeped in Wild West history. It is also a good jumping off point for the Petrified National Forest and the Hopi, Navajo and Apache reservations to the north. In 1882, a railroad station was built at Horsehead Crossing and the town's named was changed to Holbrook in honor of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad chief engineer, H. R. Holbrook. In time, the town became well-known as a cattle shipping depot for the famous Aztec Ranch which, at its peak, ran 60,000 steers. Texan cowboys were recruited to manage the herds. As author Marshall Trimble noted in his Roadside History of Arizona, "...many of these punches left Texas to seek greener pastures because they were not wanted in Texas and that a good many others left because they were wanted in Texas." The presence of this much beef proved irresistible to many unsavory characters, and set the scene for one of Arizona's most epic gunfights.


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