Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

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APACHE KID



Haskay-bay-nay-ntayl was a Western Apache born maybe in about 1860, and taken captive by Yumas as a child. In his middle teens he was freed from that captivity by the Army and became a street scamp around the military posts in Central Arizona. Soldiers started calling him “that durn Apache Kid”. The Chief of Scouts, Al Sieber, took notice of the kid, befriended him, and before long the kid had become a protégé. In 1881 the kid enlisted in the Apache Scouts. Geronimo was on the loose and raising hell and the Army was kept busy mostly eating his dust. They couldn’t even have done that if wasn’t for the Apache Scouts. Geronimo was hounded by the scouts to peace negotiations in 1882 and LT Britton Davis escorted him safely up to San Carlos. The Apache Kid reenlisted and was promoted to sergeant for his useful service in that campaign. Geronimo was not well suited as a reservation farmer and other Apaches hated his guts and liver and threatened to kill him. He broke loose and went on another rampage with the scouts in pursuit. In 1885 the kid and some other scouts got themselves involved in a riot down in Mexico in pursuit of Geronimo. Al Sieber had to send them back to Arizona in order to keep the Mexicans from hanging them. The kid had learned plenty by then about leaving a surreptitious trail from following a ghost like Geronimo. In May of 1887 Sieber left San Carlos to attend to affairs elsewhere and he left the Kid in charge of the scouts. They all decided to brew up some tizwin and go off and get drunk for a few days in Sieber’s absence. The party got out of hand, old grudges resurfaced, tempers flared, and the Kid murdered another Apache who had once wronged his family. Nobody cared much about the AWOL or even about the death, but consumption of alcohol was a sensitive issue on the reservation. The Apaches enjoyed their tizwin, had always been drinkers, and detested the sanctions imposed prohibiting them from continuing to do so. The Kid and his pals were about to turn themselves in on the AWOL and murder charges, but other Apaches would not allow them to be taken in to custody for drunkenness. Before the arrests could be made gunplay broke out and the Kid escaped into the brush. Al Sieber was shot in the ankle and would be crippled to the end of his days. The Kid and four others hid out with sympathetic Apaches for about three weeks but feared that pursuit by the Army would lead to further bloodshed. They turned themselves in once again and were convicted of mutiny and desertion and sentenced to death. That sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and then adjusted to ten years at Alcatraz. In 1888 the conviction was overturned and the prisoners were released and returned to San Carlos. Friends of the murdered Apache were outraged and demanded that the five miscreants be tried for murder. They were convicted in Globe and sentenced to seven years in Yuma. While being transported by stagecoach to Yuma they overpowered Sheriff Glenn Reynolds on Kelvin Grade, and killed him with his own gun. His deputy, Hunky-dory Holmes saw the sheriff get killed and died of fright. The stage driver, Eugene Middleton, was shot off the driver’s box and would have been killed except the Kid intervened and saved his life. The five Apaches once again scampered off into the brush and a huge manhunt was launched. Eventually four of them were killed resisting arrest, but the Kid moved like a ghost and evaded capture. Some say he was killed in New Mexico in 1894 and maybe he was. Some say he died of tuberculosis in Mexico. Some say he lived until 1930. His story is complicated by the existence of another renegade Apache named Masai, who also moved like a ghost. The photo shows the site on Kelvin Grade where the escape took place.

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Photos

APACHE KID
From the juction of Hwys 60/77 in Globe proceed about 7 miles southeast (towards San Carlos) to the junction of Hwys 70/77. Turn southward on Hwy 77 and proceed about 30 miles to the junction of Hwys 77/177 in Winkleman. Proceed northwest on Hwy 177 about 15 miles to the the Florence Kelvin road.
Turn south about a mile and cross the Gila River. Go up to the top of the hill about another half mile past the river and find the old stage coach road on your left. Park and walk about 160 yards eastward to the site.
The stage coach road has since been graded to make it less steep, but a remnant of the original road is still visible as a nub on a rocky outcrop.