Charles O. Brown
History of Arizona, Vol II, Thomas E. Farish, 1915, pg 185

Charles O. Brown was born in New York and when a young 
man came west.  He is said to have been a member of the 
Glanton band which was engaged in gathering scalps of the 
Indians in Chihuahua for which they received $150 each.  
Brown had gone to California when Glanton and his associates 
were murdered by the Indians at Yuma.  It is not certain 
when he returned to Arizona, probably about the year 1858.  
He was a saloon man and a gambler, a dead shot and it is 
said that he had several notches in his gun.  He was at 
Tucson at the time of the Confederate invasion and remained 
there after the Confederates left.  When the California 
Column arrived he was given a monopoly for the selling of 
liquor and gambling in Tucson by Colonel West.  From there 
Brown went to the Mesilla Valley where he married a Mexican 
woman of good family and settled permanently in Tucson 
about the year 1864 or 1865.  He was very prosperous in 
his saloon business, his saloon becoming the popular resort 
of all classes when the prospectors, miners and adventurers 
began to flow into the southern part of Arizona.  He brought 
into the Territory the first sewing machine, which was a 
great curiosity to the Mexican inhabitants of Arizona and 
Sonora.  Upon the birth of his first son he sent to St. 
Louis and brought in a baby carriage, an unheard of thing 
at that time in Arizona.  In 1867 or 68 he built Congress 
Hall in Tucson in which the first legislature held at 
Tucson was convened.  The saloon had floors of wood, the 
lumber for which was hauled from Santa Fe and cost $500 a 
thousand.  The locks on the doors cost $12 each and all 
other material in like proportion.  For a long time it 
stood as the best building in southern Arizona.

In his gambling hall and liquor saloon, Brown had a mint, 
but it went almost as fast as made. He was very generous 
to his friends and he managed in this way to squander a 
fortune.  He was also, always staking men for prospecting 
which seldom proves a lucrative venture.  He died a few 
years ago, leaving no property whatsoever.


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