In the raw and unsettled territories of the American West, few names inspired as much fear as Frank Stilwell. Born in Iowa in 1856 to William Henry Stilwell and Charlotte Winfrey, Frank moved with his family to Kansas as a child, settling near Palmyra along the Santa Fe Trail. There, he watched the frontier expand and the violent conflicts with Native Americans intensify. His parents divorced in 1863 when he was seven, a difficult rupture that marked his early years.
His father, William, served in the Union Army during the Civil War, marching with General William Tecumseh Sherman’s forces to the sea. Frank’s brother, Simpson Comanche Jack Stilwell, was a renowned Indian fighter, scout, deputy U. S. marshal, and judge, known for his strict stance on crime.
Frank would take a very different path. In 1877, Frank and his brother traveled from Indian Territory to Prescott, Arizona Territory, where Frank took work at the nearby Miller ranch. Here he committed his first act of violence. On October 18, 1877, he got into an argument with the recently hired cook, Jesus Bega.
The dispute escalated, and in a burst of rage, Frank drew his revolver and shot Bega in the lungs, killing him. He was later acquitted on a claim of self-defense, but the episode set him on a criminal course. After leaving the ranch, Frank worked as a stage driver for C. H.
Hamlight, and later claimed ownership of a mine in Mohave County. His mining ventures also turned deadly. On November 9, 1879, a dispute over the mine with Colonel John Van Houten turned violent, and Van Houten was brutally beaten with a rock. He died from his injuries.
Frank and a man named James Cassidy were charged with murder, but a grand jury failed to indict them due to lack of evidence. In the 1880 census, Frank listed himself as a twenty-four-year-old fireman living in Charleston, claimed he was born in Texas, and disguised his identity, a pattern he repeated often. On September 8, 1881, a passenger stage from Tombstone bound for Bisbee, Arizona, was robbed by masked bandits. The thieves stripped the passengers of their valuables and stole a safe containing roughly $2,500.
During the heist, the driver heard one of the robbers refer to money as “sugar,” a phrase known to come from Frank. Wyatt and Virgil Earp joined the sheriff’s posse in pursuit. Along the way, Fred Dodge, a Wells Fargo undercover agent, discovered an unusual boot print left by someone wearing modified heels. The Earp brothers traced the boot to a cobbler’s shop in Bisbee known for making wide-legged boots, linking the print to Frank Stilwell.
When Stilwell arrived in Bisbee with his partner Pete Spence, the Earps and Billy Breakenridge arrested them. Judge Wells Spicer set bail at $7,000, paid by C. H. Hamlight.
At the preliminary hearing, Stilwell and Spence produced numerous witnesses supporting their alibis. The word “sugar” and the distinctive boot print proved insufficient to convict, and Judge Spicer dropped the charges for lack of evidence, a pattern that would repeat itself. Just two weeks later, on October 13, Virgil Earp, acting as deputy U. S.
marshal, filed new federal charges against Stilwell and Spence for interfering with mail carriers. The two were immediately taken to the territorial prison in Tucson to await trial. While Virgil was in Tucson, he sent his brother Wyatt to serve as assistant city marshal in Tombstone in his place. But the Cowboys saw an opportunity for revenge.
On October 18, Frank McLaury, a friend of Stilwell and Spence and a member of the outlaw gang, warned Morgan Earp that if they ever tried to arrest their friend again, they would be killed. The local press worsened the tension by publishing inaccurate reports, claiming that Stilwell and Spence had been arrested for another stage robbery near Contention City two weeks earlier, when in fact they were in custody in Tucson at that exact time. These false stories fueled the belief that the Earps were hounding innocent men. The federal case against Stilwell and Spence was finally dismissed for insufficient evidence, much to the frustration of the Earps and Tombstone’s citizens.
But the Cowboys would soon learn that the law was not something to be broken with impunity. The stage was set for the showdown at the O. K. Corral.
The day after Morgan Earp’s brutal assassination, investigator Dr. H. M. Mathews launched an intensive inquiry.
Marietta Duarte, the wife of outlaw Pete Spence, made a shocking confession. She revealed that her husband had returned home just an hour after the shooting, accompanied by Frank Stilwell, Indian Charlie, Frederick Bode, and an unnamed partner. She also stated that her husband had threatened her if she revealed anything to authorities. Witnesses testified that they had seen Frank Stilwell fleeing the murder scene.
Stilwell, Bode, Fries, and Florentino “Indian Charlie” were all believed to have been involved in Morgan’s death. Pete Spence eventually turned himself in and was held in custody. With a broken legal system failing to deliver justice, Wyatt Earp concluded that he had to deal with the problem himself. He believed the only way to avenge his brothers was to track down and kill their attackers.
His brothers had been targeted by a band of outlaws, and he knew he could not rely on the courts. With a heavy heart, Wyatt was prepared to risk everything to make Morgan’s killers pay the highest price. Tension between the Earps and the Cowboys had reached its peak. On March 20, Wyatt received word that his brother Virgil was targeted by Frank Stilwell, Ike Clanton, Hank Swelling, and another Cowboy.
They planned to kill Virgil in retaliation for the deaths of their friends at the O. K. Corral. Wyatt moved quickly, assembling a party of deputies, including Warren Earp, Doc Holliday, Turkey Creek Jack Johnson, and Sherman McMaster.
They boarded a train to Tucson with Virgil and his wife Allie, all heavily armed and determined to protect Virgil at all costs. When they arrived in Tucson, Wyatt and his men saw Stilwell and his gang of Cowboys on the platform. Virgil later told the San Francisco Examiner, “Most of the men we met on the sidewalk were Stilwell and his armed friends. They joined the crowd as soon as seeing me under guard and took me to the hotel for dinner.
” During dinner, Wyatt and his men kept a careful watch over Virgil and Allie, poised to act at any moment. As the train left the station, gunfire rang out. Witnesses saw armed men fleeing but could not identify them. Wyatt later claimed he saw Stilwell and Ike Clanton, and that as he and his men approached, the two ran off.
Stilwell stumbled, allowing Wyatt to catch up to him. In a story printed in the Denver Republican, Wyatt testified that he shot Stilwell while the man was trying to push the barrel of Wyatt’s rifle away. Ike Clanton escaped and went to the press with his own account, claiming that he and Stilwell had gone to Tucson to clear their names of federal charges related to the Bisbee robberies. But the real purpose of their trip, researchers later concluded, was to avenge Virgil Earp, whom they blamed for Stilwell’s arrest.
Clanton testified that Stilwell vanished from the hotel before his body was found next to the railroad tracks, riddled with bullets. Stilwell’s body was discovered the next day along the rails. Witnesses reported seeing Clanton and Stilwell together before the shooting. Some suggested that Stilwell’s poor shooting skills contributed to his early death.
Whatever the precise details, one thing was certain: the Earp brothers had become targets of ruthless Cowboys who would stop at nothing for revenge, and they knew they had to stay vigilant and protect themselves. Frank Stilwell’s funeral was a grim affair. On March 28, 1882, the Tucson Weekly Citizen reported that his coffin was carried to the grave on a fast wagon with no one accompanying it. It was a sad, lonely end for a man who had lived a life steeped in violence and crime.
He was originally buried in Tucson’s old city cemetery, but when the graveyard was relocated, his remains were reinterred in a common grave at Tucson’s Evergreen Cemetery.