Ironically, the bloodiest of America’s blood feuds was fought in some of the most beautiful country God ever created. Pleasant Valley, located in Northern Gila County, in the heart of Arizona, was once a haven for outlaws and a hellhole for honest settlers. From 1882 to 1887, and even beyond, Pleasant Valley was a battleground for two feuding families and at least two organized outlaw rings.
Pleasant Valley![]()
.
Overshadowing this battleground stood the majestic Mogollon Rim, beginning in north central Arizona and running for 200 miles before merging into the White Mountains of Eastern Arizona. Atop the Mogollon, which rises to nearly 8,000 feet at Baker’s Butte and Promontory Peak, was a land of pine bunch grass and buffalo clover interspersed with white and Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, and live and white oak. In the level glades were alpine lakes.
Pleasant Valley Killings Sites![]()
.
The Mogollon was also a land of ridges, canyons, and wide draws, often fringed with aspen. Rushing water that made its way northward in canyon bottoms lined with willows was slowed by intermittent beaver dams holding pools of native trout. This alpine-like country ran northward to the Grand Canyon, but gave way to high desert in the northeastern part of the Arizona Territory.Throughout the 1890s, turkey, deer, and bear – black, brown, and silvertip – roamed the mountains, as did the mountain lion. Shining brown trout graced the rushing creeks from the Mogollon south through Pleasant Valley and the Sierra Anchas. n Hart Canyon, not far from present-day Woods Canyon Lake and Al Fulton Point, a fallen pine rests in a grove of aspen. Near the pine is a rock marker with the name W. Ellexson, July 10, 1885. Ellexson’s killer remains unknown. The reason for his death remains unknown. Was he a sheepherder who moved his animals too close to the edge of the Mogollon Rim, the “deadline” between sheep and cattle country? DiscoverGilaCounty.com. 
boekanier 0 points 8 months ago
I bet every american man, I mean man, is nostalgic for the days when you were a cowboy and you walked around with a hat on your head and a colt or two around your hips. Ah, the good old days! (or is it all just cinema?)