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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Cochise County, Arizona.
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Cochise County was created on February 1, 1881, out of the eastern portion of Pima County. It took its name from the legendary Chiricahua Apache war chief Cochise. The county seat was Tombstone until 1929 when it moved to Bisbee. Notable men who once held the position of County Sheriff were Johnny Behan, who served as the first sheriff of the new county, and who was one of the main characters during the events leading to and following the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Later, in 1886, Texas John Slaughter became sheriff. Lawman Jeff Milton and lawman/outlaw Burt Alvord both served as deputies under Slaughter.
Cochise County was the scene of a number of violent conflicts in the 19th-century and early 20th-century American Old West, including between white settlers and Apache Indians, between opposing political and economic factions, and between outlaw gangs and local law enforcement. Cochise County was carved off in 1881 from the easternmost portion of Pima County during a formative period in the American Southwest. The era was characterized by rapidly growing boomtowns, the emergence of large-scale farming and ranching interests, lucrative mining operations, and the development of new technologies in railroading and telecommunications. Complicating the situation was staunch resistance to white settlement from local Native American groups, most notably during the Apache Wars, as well as Cochise County's location on the border with Mexico, which not only threatened international conflict but also presented opportunities for criminal smugglers and cattle rustlers.
Factional hostilities emerged as soon as American settlers began arriving in southern Arizona in large numbers in the 1860s and 1870s. The Gadsden Purchase of 1853 had opened the territory to Americans, and the sudden growth of settlement and investment proved a source of great enmity between local Apaches and the American newcomers. Pima County and later Cochise County were the primary battleground for most of the resulting quarter-century of warfare, which was almost constant in the region until the late 1880s.
In addition to the Native American conflicts, there was also considerable tension between rural residents of Cochise County, who were for the most part Democrats from the agrarian Confederate States, and more urban residents living within the region's few developed towns, who were largely Republican business owners from the industrial Union States. The division created polarizing sectional alliances and culminated in countless local feuds, the most well-known of which has been called the Cochise County feud or the Earp–Clanton feud, which included the historic Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in the town of Tombstone and Wyatt Earp's Vendetta Ride in the early 1880s. Dr. George E. Goodfellow famously described Tombstone, the capital of Cochise County, as the "condensation of wickedness."
A syndicated television series which aired from 1956 to 1958, Sheriff of Cochise starring John Bromfield, was filmed in Bisbee. The Jimmy Stewart movie Broken Arrow and subsequent television show of the same name starring John Lupton, which also aired from 1956 to 1958, took place (but was not filmed) in Cochise County.
J.A. Jance's Joanna Brady mystery series takes place in Cochise County, with Brady being the sheriff.
Beginning in the late 1950s, the small community of Miracle Valley was the site of a series of bible colleges and similar religious organizations, founded by television evangelist A. A. Allen. In 1982, Miracle Valley and neighboring Palominas were the site of a series of escalating conflicts between a newly arrived religious community and the county sheriff and deputies that culminated in the Miracle Valley shootout.
The Miracle Valley shootout was a confrontation between members of the Christ Miracle Healing Center and Church (CMHCC) and Cochise County law enforcement that occurred in Miracle Valley, Arizona, on October 23, 1982. A variety of incidents with law enforcement in 1982 culminated when local sheriff's deputies and state law enforcement officers attempted to serve bench warrants for the arrest of three members of the church and a large group of church members confronted them. In the ensuing melee, two church members were killed and seven law enforcement officers were injured. One church member and one law enforcement officer died later, both deaths possibly due to injuries sustained that day.
Adjacent Counties
- Santa Cruz County
- Pima County
- Graham County
- Greenlee County
- Hidalgo County, New Mexico
- Sonora, Mexico
Cities & Towns
- Benson
- Bisbee (County Seat)
- Douglas
- Huachuca City
- Sierra Vista
- Tombstone
- Willcox
Ghost Towns
- Black Diamond
- Cascabel
- Charleston
- Cochise
- Contention City
- Courtland
- Fairbank
- Galeyville
- Gleeson
- Hilltop
- Johnson
- Millville
- Paradise
- Pearce
- Tres Alamos
- Webb
Other Communities: Amber, Ash Creek, Babocomari, Bowie, Cross Rail Ranch, Dos Cabezas, Double Adobe, Dragoon, El Dorado, Elfrida, Hereford, Hookers Hot Springs, Kansas Settlement, Leslie Canyon, McNeal, Mescal, Miracle Valley, Naco, Nicksville, Palominas, Paul Spur, Pirtleville, Pomerene, Portal, Rucker, Sierra Vista Southeast, St. David, San Simon, Stewart District, Sunizona, Sunnyside, Sunsites, Tintown and Whetstone
Cemeteries
Links
National Register of Historic Places
Coronado National Forest (part)
Leslie Canyon National Wildlife Refuge
San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area
Cochise County Historical Society
