JOSEPH WILEY EVANS was, arguably, one of the most efficient and capable lawmen in the western United States between 1877 and 1887. Most remarkable, he did it with one arm. He arrested more armed, dangerous desperadoes than any man in Arizona, and at one time had over a dozen postal department rewards pending payment.

  Part I - the first Arizona stagecoach robbery
 On the evening of January 5, 1877 road agents placed a rope across the road in the canyon at Woolsey Hill on the route between Skull Valley and Tonto Springs, 28 miles from Prescott. At 6:30 P. M., as the leaders stumbled across the rope, one robber called out from behind a rock, “Stop! How many passengers have you?” Jesus, the driver, replied, “one” and was ordered to disembark and take control of the leaders while the passenger, Joseph Wiley Evans, was ordered out of the coach. The robbers had their faces masked and the man behind the rock aimed a Spencer rifle at the driver and Evans while the other went about the business, taking the express and mails. They picked up Evans’ pistol from the coach seat, but returned it. Evans favored a pistol as he could not handle another firearm. Evans lost his left arm in 1875. In mid-February of that year Evans had a disagreement with James Carroll, a driver for the California and Arizona Stage Company, which led to a shooting affray. Carroll was killed and Evans wounded, and within a month Evans’ arm, shoulder and breast became inflamed. As soon as this was resolved the arm, at a very definite line of demarcation below the elbow, began to decay. It was amputated in mid-March by Dr. Lippencott at the point where live flesh met dead.  
 Once the road agents had all the valuables they told Evans to board and ordered Jesus to continue. After going a short distance Evans crawled back over the top of the coach and descended by the back boot, without stopping the stage, and returned to the scene of the robbery with the intention of surprising the road agents. However, upon examining his pistol he found that, while pretending to inspect it, one road agent had removed all the cartridges. Jesus stopped the stage after driving a short distance further and returned to the scene after the robbers had departed. He and Evans examined the ground as well as they could in the dark, found the mail bags cut open with many of the letters torn open, and Evans picked up a check drawn by the Peck Mining Company on the First National Gold Bank, San Francisco for $50. Evans proceeded to a house in Skull Valley, procured a horse and made the best time he could over the new Miller Road to Prescott where he routed out Deputy Sheriff W. W. Standifer, and the two started back on the main stage road to the scene of the robbery.
 When a short distance beyond Blair’s ranch they met two men, on horseback, who had a pack mule carrying a camper’s outfit. This was between two and three o’clock this morning and thinking this a suspicious circumstance they arrested the two men and took from them several packages of bullion, checks and letters, and lodged in the Prescott jail. The men gave their names as M. V. Alexander, later determined to be Milton A. Vance, and Thomas Berry. They said they had been to Hull’s ranch at Mint Valley to see about ranching some horses – some of which they had brought from Nevada, and said they spent most of the previous day in the mountains back of the American Ranch trying to find a spring. While attempting to make camp a stranger, who had sandy whiskers, rode up and asked them to take several packages to town and leave them at the express office.
 Judge H. H. Cartter did not believe their story and held them to answer before the U. S. Commissioner on a charge of mail robbery. Both men were taken to the Yuma Penitentiary to be temporarily held until the Grand Jury met. They made several attempts to escape, failed several times and succeeded several times only to be recaptured, and were tried, convicted, and sentenced to serve life terms. They were delivered to the Detroit House of Corrections in early 1878.

Part 2