Thanks to several tips from here and from John Langellier at the Arizona Historical Society in Tempe and from Dan Nowicki at the Arizona Republic, I was able to track down the Quartzite Gunfight photo at the Polly Rosenbaum History and Archives Division in downtown Phoenix. It is housed in a huge warehouse style building down on Madison and 19th Avenue. Ken A. and I drove down into The Beast and went up to the second floor, signed a bunch of papers to gain admittance and, with white gloves on, were able to see the original photo, which is not very large:
Quartzite Gunfight Original from the Roscoe Willson Collection
It's not very large and doesn't show much that we can't see in the scan we have of the photo:
The Quartzite Gunfight: An alleged gunfight in progress. The shooter, at left, is chasing down an assailant, at the corner of the fence, who allegedly is holding a rifle and according to the writing on the back, had fired at the gent at left and was in the process of fleeing. The writing confirms it was taken in 1904 at Quartzite, Arizona.
We have ordered a high res scan so you can hopefully see it in better detail. I also got to check out some photos of Roscoe G. Willson himself at various times during his long and varied career when he was a prospector, a forest service ranger and a resident of Cave Creek (photos to follow). Roscoe collected photos from his time in Mexico and all over the West, and he also had the mug shots of the Tong Murderers who drove to Kingman and shot a former Tong gang member and were subsequently rounded up and after a sensational trial in Prescott, all four were executed. They are ID in pencil as Gee King, Shew Chin, Jew Har and BWL Sam.
When we were done, the young lady helping us, Laura Palma-Blandford, asked me if I wanted to see something in the archives that pertained to me. Taken aback I wondered what that could possibly be. She then excused herself, came back in a couple minutes with a letter to the governor of Arizona written on December 8, 1999. Let's just say, it involves a certain Wyatt Earp fiction writer accusing me of being part of an assassination attempt on his life.
"It is requested that you have the proper authorities investigate this matter, principally. . .to discover for me who I should know may possibly intend to kill me. . ."
—Glenn G. Boyer
