Jim Parker
Arizona, the Youngest State
McClintock, 1913, page 476

One of the sensational crimes in the first few days of 1897 
was an attempted robbery of the Santa Fe express train at 
Rock Cut in Mohave County by outlaws headed by Jim Parker, 
a Northern Arizona cowboy.  The gang is believed to have had 
six members, but only Parker and one other participated in 
the holdup.  While Parker covered the engineer and fireman, 
his partner cut off one car of the train, mistakenly thinking 
it the express car, but it was only mail that was found when 
Parker ordered a stop a few miles up the line.  There he also 
found that he was acting alone, for his associate in crime had 
been shot by the overlooked express messenger.  Parker took 
some of the registered mail and started into the wilderness 
with it.  The fourth morning thereafter Sheriff Ralph Cameron 
tracked him down in the snows of the Grand Canyon region where 
Cameron knew about all the rocks and all the trails there.  
After conviction at Prescott, Parker in May headed a jail 
break.  The jailer was felled and Lee Norris, assistant 
district attorney, was killed as he was encountered in the 
corridor of the courthouse.  One of the three who escaped was 
soon captured.  Parker got away on Sheriff Ruffner's best 
horse "Sure Shot" and evaded a hundred men for nearly a 
month.  He was finally caught still with "Sure Shot" by 
an Indian trader and a dozen Navajo Indians on the northern 
edge of the territory as he was making his escape into Utah.  
Returned to Prescott, he was convicted of the murder of 
Norris and was hanged.




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