Vollie Campbell Musgrave

Tucson Daily Citizen - Thursday, September 14, 1961, Tucson, Arizona Rancher, 80, Found Dead On Desert

YUMA—CW—The body of V. C. Musgrave of Phoenix, 80-year-old rancher, prospector and burro hunter who had been missing nearly two months, has been found on the desert northeast of Salome. Musgrave, a native of Texas who came to Phoenix on a cattle drive in 1900, was last seen July 17 when he talked with Ed Edwards of Bouse. His body was found Monday in Butler Valley, about 25 miles from Salome. 'Beside it was the body of his small tan and white shepherd dog. "It looked as if he just lay down and went to sleep on the desert," said sheriffs deputy Bill Davis of Salome. "His little tan and white dog never left his side." A coroner's jury, Davis said, found the elderly man died of natural causes. Musgrave was known as a rugged outdoorsman. Only five years ago he spurned a Phoenix hospital bed when a gas stove lid blew up in his face with the wry comment, "People die in bed."

Sources

1. Karen Holliday Tanner; John D. Tanner, Jr. Last of the Old-Time Outlaws: The George West Musgrave Story. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman. 2002. Page 197.