Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

---

NIEVES DERON

Jack Taylor was the leader of a merry band of cutthroats ravaging Northern Mexico in the spring of 1888. Taylor was captured during the course of a bloody train robbery in Sonora and two of the surviving gang members, Manuel Robles and Nieves Deron fled to Cochise County. Robles had a brother named Guadalupe who was living in Contention City and supplied firewood to the town from a wood camp in the Whetstone Mountains. The two bandits sought refuge with Guadalupe at the wood camp. Cochise County Sheriff John H. Slaughter became suspicious when he got word that Guadalupe, usually a loner, was using supplies enough for several men. The sheriff, along with deputies Burt Alvord and Cesario Lucero, located the camp before daylight and surprised the bandits in their beds. When ordered to surrender the bandits came up with guns blazing. Guadalupe tried to surrender but was killed in the fusillade, Manuel escaped barefoot into the brush and went back into Mexico, and Nieves Deron was wounded and taken into custody. He later died of his wounds and is peacefully slumbering in eternal rest at Boot Hill Cemetery. Slaughter got nicked in the ear. The photo shows, in the foreground, the site of the wood lot up French Joe Canyon. The gunfight occurred at the campsite along a creek bed at the edge of the trees.

---

Photos

11 NIEVES DERON
Boot Hill Cemetery is on the east side of Hwy 80 about 0.3 miles north of Fremont Street.

NIEVES DERON
Take Hwy 90 about 1.4 miles south of Karchner Caverns to French Joe Canyon Road. Turn right and proceed westward about 3 miles up a bumpy damned road to the site.