In the early hours of April 8, 1905, two men, John Shaw and his partner William Evans (who also went by the alias “Bill Smythe”), robbed a saloon in Winslow, Arizona, making off with at least $200 in silver coins. Both men were young, in their twenties, and well dressed in suits when they walked into the Wigwam Saloon. Their drinks were still sitting untouched on the bar when they wandered over to a dice table where the glitter of silver dollars caught their eye. They pulled their guns on the players and fled into the night with the takings.
Navajo County Sheriff Chet Houck and Deputy Pete Pemberton, the owner of the saloon, pursued the bandits. The lawmen had a train stopped a couple of miles past the ghost town of Canyon Diablo, about twenty-five miles west of Winslow, and walked back on foot, arriving near sunset. They made contact with Fred Volz, a local trading post owner, who told them two well-dressed men had been loitering suspiciously outside. Moments later, Shaw and Evans rounded the corner and were spotted heading toward the train depot.
When Sheriff Houck confronted the pair and demanded a search, they refused. All four men drew their weapons at nearly point-blank range, no more than four to six feet apart. Shaw ran out of bullets mid-fight, and when he turned his head to reload, Houck shot him in the head. In total, twenty-one shots were fired in a matter of seconds. Shaw was killed outright, Evans was badly wounded and later captured. A bullet grazed Sheriff Houck across the stomach but he survived.
Shaw was buried in a shallow grave in a pine coffin provided by Volz. Evans was taken to a hospital in Winslow, recovered, and was sentenced to nine years in Yuma Territorial Prison. $271 in silver coins was found in their possession.
This is where the story takes a truly strange turn.
Word of the shootout traveled fast, and by the following night it was the talk of the Wigwam Saloon. What truly shocked the cowboys gathered there was that Shaw had died without ever getting to enjoy the drink he had ordered at the bar.
A discussion followed, and the men agreed that every man deserved to finish his drink. When a train whistle blew, a mob of about fifteen drunken cowboys rushed outside to hop the westbound freight. They arrived at Canyon Diablo at dawn, pounded on Fred Volz’s door, and despite his irritation, borrowed shovels and even his Kodak box camera to document the event.
Two men jumped into the grave, lifted Shaw’s body out, and propped him up against a nearby fence. His eyes were open, and his face was frozen in what appeared to be a smile. The men put bottles to his teeth, pouring whiskey down his throat, John Shaw finally got his last drink.
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| Shaw in his casket. |
Throughout the entire ceremony six photographs were taken by an unknown cowboy in attendance. When the camera was returned to Volz, he unloaded the film and handed it to cowboy Lucien Creswell, instructing him to give it to Sheriff Houck upon his return to Winslow. However, cowboy Sam Case had other ideas. Case had a grudge against Sheriff Houck’s brother and along the way back to Winslow, Case confronted Creswell and took the film from him stating “Houck ain’t gonna get no pictures.” From here the roll of film passed from hand to hand, carrying the story of John Shaw along with it.
Finally, a month after the impromptu funeral at Canyon Diablo, Case handed the roll of film to Winslow attorney “Judge” Burbidge, who then passed it along to his son Ted. The photographs would not see the light of day until years later when the film came into the possession of a man named Gladwell Richardson who wrote an article about them in a 1965 issue of Arizona Highways magazine.
Today four of the photographs taken at the last drink of John Shaw belong to the Arizona Historical Society as part of their John Shaw collection. One photograph was allegedly kept by Ted Burbidge but several years after his death in 1955, the photograph went missing. Along with the Burbidge photograph, the location of the sixth image taken that bizarre morning is also unknown.
Canyon Diablo is a place filled with myths and legends of the Wild West, many of which are horrific. Although mostly debunked we have photographic proof that one of the gory stories did happen, the tale of the corpse that was dug up to have one last drink.
