Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

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ALLYN WHEELER



Harry Wheeler took a California girl named Mamie Olivia Stafford as his bride on Valentine’s Day, 1898 at Fort Sill, OK. They were married the same day that the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor. Harry was private in Company H of the First U S Cavalry. It was the war hysteria, no doubt, that caused the happy couple to work quickly at starting a family. Their first child arrived only 7 months later on August 11, 1898. He has strapping lad that they named William Allyn Wheeler, but they always called him Allyn to avoid confusion with a grandpa and uncle also named William Wheeler. Harry was discharged from the army for medical reasons and became a private in the Arizona Rangers. He quickly rose to sergeant, then lieutenant and finally captain. They were such intrepid crime fighters that the Rangers were disbanded in 1909 and then Harry got elected as Sheriff of Cochise County. Allyn had become a popular scholar and athlete in Tombstone and was fond of gathering with his many friends. On March 22, 1915 Allyn and four of his pals piled into a Model T Ford owned by Joe Norcross, manager of the Crystal Theater in Tombstone and roared off for a night of drunken revelry at Brewery Gulch in Bisbee. The car was borrowed by Cole Noll, who was an employee at the theater. The other kids were Allen Larison, Albert Fitzgerald, and Leo Hill. The party lasted all night and the next morning they started back home with Larison at the wheel. The brakes overheated going down the steep hill north of Bisbee. Near the bottom of the hill Larison lost control and crashed. All of the kids were thrown out in the rollover, the windshield was shattered, three wheels were broken, and the steering gear bent. Larison landed on some rocks and was knocked unconscious, Allyn Wheeler suffered abrasions and cuts to his face, Noll had a bad cut on his leg, Fitzgerald was bruised and shaken, and Leo Hill was uninjured. If Leo wasn’t so drunk he would have been hurt too most likely. An ambulance was summoned and took the kids to the C&A Hospital in Warren. Hill, Fitzgerald, and Noll were released from the hospital on March 24 and returned to face the music with their folks in Tombstone. Allyn was not released from the hospital until April 10. He returned home but was still bed ridden. Probably he had suffered brain trauma. Allyn turned 17 years old on August 11 but had not yet regained his health. Later in the month he was taken to a hospital in Los Angeles. His health continued to decline and he died on October 22, 1915. Allyn Wheeler may well have been Arizona’s first drunk driving fatality. He is buried in the City Cemetery half a mile west of Tombstone on Allen Street. The photo shows the crash site near the bottom of the steep hill north of Bisbee.

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Photos

CRASH SITE
The crash site is near the bottom of the canyon on the south side of Hwy 80, about a third of a mile up West Mule Pass Road. It is the old highway in to Bisbee from the north.