Hysterical Journey To Historic Places

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MIKE KILLEEN







Sometime in the spring of 1880 Buckskin Frank Leslie arrived in Tombstone from San Francisco where he was a bartender. Probably he was using an assumed name. He claimed to have been an army scout and he did indeed have skills along those lines, but no record of service has ever been found of an army scout using that name. A man named Frank Leslie published a popular magazine in those days and Buckskin Frank may have chosen to assume that name. Presumably he left California two jumps ahead of the law and folks back there were glad enough to see him go. In any event, Buckskin Frank took a room in the Cosmopolitan Hotel where a woman named Mary Killeen was a housekeeper. Mary was the wife of Mike Killeen but the couple had separated and it was not long before Buckskin Frank and Mary were sporting one another around town. It was not a situation much to the liking of Mike Killeen. He was a jealous man and warned both Mary and Buckskin Frank to stop seeing each other. One the night of June 22, 1880 Buckskin Frank and Mary were sitting together on the porch of the Cosmopolitan after attending a dance together. When Mike Killeen approached them a fight broke out that ended in gunplay. Buckskin Frank was grazed in the head by a shot fired by Mike, and then nearly knocked out cold as a stone when Mike pistol whipped him, but came to his senses in time to get off a few shots of his own. Mike Killeen died of his wounds six days later. It was Tombstones first serious gun violence. Buckskin Frank was arrested but won acquittal on grounds of self-defense. On August 5, 1880 Buckskin Frank and Mary Killeen were united in matrimony. The ceremony was performed at the Cosmopolitan as Tombstone had not yet built any churches. It might have been the first wedding in Tombstone. Buckskin Frank was a well-spoken, interesting, and affable man when he was sober, but he was very treacherous when drunk and he was quite fond of the bottle. Mary divorced him in 1887, charging him with adultery with a prostitute, physical violence, drunkenness, and failure to provide for her. Those stories about him standing her against the bedroom wall and outlining her silhouette in lead from his six-gun are probably not true though.

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Photos

MIKE KILLEEN
Boot Hill Cemetery is on the east side of Hwy 80 about a third of a mile north of Fremont Street.