Two More Breakthroughs In Doc & Kate's Journeys

 May 31, 2024

   If you read my mea culpa yesterday about the solid evidence that Doc Holliday most likely traveled from Prescott to Las Vegas, New Mexico in an open two-seater buckboard, well, you may be interested in how history turns on the slightest bit of reporting. Look what Stuart Rosebrook found this morning:

Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb. 27, 1880

   Doc Holliday went from Prescott to Las Vegas in the March of 1880 and returning by April. Add to that, the newspaper reports that the railroad had been completed from Las Vegas, New Mexico to Albuquerque by March of 1880 and that opens up the very real possibility that on his return trip Doc rode the train all the way to Albuquerque and then rode in a Concord stagecoach back to Prescott.     

   Based on this latest revelation, I think it's safe to say Doc might have gone over in a glorified cart but he probably came back in a gilded coach.

   Plus, you can imagine the return passengers on both coaches gushing about how modern the West was becoming!  

Daily Whip Out:

"So, are you saying that everything you told us yesterday was only half true?"

   Yes. That is totally true. See quote, below.

A Bonus Photo of Gillette

 For me, the Holy Grail of research and history writing is finding a photograph of the place in question so we can see with our own eyes what it might have been like. For starters, let me say I have been looking at old Arizona photos for over a half century and I have never seen a photograph of the mining camp, Gillette, in Arizona Territory. 

   To recap: late in life Kate told three different interviewers about traveling from Prescott to the new mining camp of Gillette, where she claimed the mining superintendent allowed Doc and her to stay in his residence for the night. What might that have that looked like? Well, thanks to Brad Courtney, we now have a photograph of the place in question.

Gillette, in the late 1870s

Photo taken by D. F. Mitchell 

   In an added bit of irony, the man who took this photo of Gillette is the same photographer who took the photo of J.H. Holliday in Prescott!

Only one of two verified photos of Doc Holliday as an adult.

"Just when you think you've figured everything out, it moves."

—Old Vaquero Saying