#clanton ranch

[fatchance]

Where I walked.

This is a spur of the Sky Island Traverse, leading to the ruins of Clanton Ranch, with the Tombstone Hills in the distance.

[fatchance]

This adobe wall is all that remains of the house where Ike Clanton and his brothers and ranch hands ran a dodgy cattle operation in Territorial Arizona. His Cochise Cowboys gang was notorious for rustling cattle across the border in Sonora, and for murder and other acts of violence and lawlessness. Ike was present at the so-called gunfight at the OK Corral in nearby Tombstone, and his brother Billy was one of three men killed in the altercation with Marshalls Wyatt and Virgil Earp and Doc Holliday. Ike later filed murder charges against the lawmen, who were all exonerated. In subsequent years he relocated his ranching and rustling activities to land near the Mormon community of Springerville, Arizona. In 1887 he was indicted for murder and cattle-rustling, and shot and killed while fleeing a local constable.

The ranch site is on the banks of the San Pedro River, midway between Tombstone and Sierra Vista, and an easy hike from the trailhead on Escapule Road. The path doesn't extend to the river, but foolhardy brave hikers can bushwhack their way through the whitethorn acacia thickets for a river view.

Brothers Ike and Billy Clanton. These photos are adapted from digital files in the public domain.