About two miles northeast of Parker Dam in Arizona
and about seventy-five feet beneath the waters of Lake
Havasu lies the few remains of the
little settlement called Aubrey Landing, sometimes called Aubrey City Bill Williams River
in southern Mohave County , Arizona
The first real construction for the town of Aubrey
Landing began sometime before 1865 during the Civil War in Arizona
Aubrey was already important to trade along the Colorado
River only a year after Arizona
The town was ideally located but in 1865, a break in copper
left the town almost deserted but enough people stayed, prompting a post office
establishment in 1866. Little had changed though by 1878, the town never grew
to the size anticipated by the owners. The town consisted of the usual mining
camp structures, as well as a hotel, saloon and a general store. The town
supported a small population for almost ten years more. In 1886 the post office
closed and the town soon after. Freight and supplies landed at Aubrey from the
steam ships along the Colorado River and then
made their way to nearby mines such as the McCracken.
By 1878 the sights of Aubrey Landing were few but varied. In
addition to the assorted piles of copper ore and slag left from the smelting
furnaces, there was a combination post office, hotel, store, and saloon under
one roof, and an old ship's cabin where W. J. Hardy, an agent for Colorado
Steam Navigation Company, resided. Aubrey Landing supported a small number of
people for nearly a decade longer. As the mining towns dwindled, so did Aubrey
until there was no one left.
The story about the mysterious shooting begins in early
October. It was still plenty hot and most people in and around at that time
were ready for the heat to break. It seems that the double shooting that took
place actually wasn’t in Aubrey Landing itself but just a little outside the
city. A number of men had been playing cards in the hotel/saloon/store one
evening. By one in the morning, everyone at the table had consumed copious
amounts of whisky and all rational thinking had long since been lost.
Up until midnight, winning hands had been pretty evenly
divided between the various players at the table but by one AM, two of the players
were consistently winning all the hands. These two winners just happened to be
from one of the steam ships that had unloaded earlier in the day. With all
common sense severely wiped out by the previous hours of drinking, the loosing
players began making comments about “cheating”, referring to the two winning
players.
Because of the comments, the two winning steam boat hands
and indicated they were going to leave the game and that they weren’t looking
for trouble. Not something losers like to hear. As tempers heated up and
accusations escalated, it looked like real trouble was about to erupt. Had it
not been for the intervention of the establishment proprietor and a few of his
employees, the situation certainly would have escalated into a gun fight on the
spot. Kicking everyone out for the night, the proprietor closed up for the
night thinking everything would blow over by morning.
Unfortunately for the two steam boat hand the situation
didn’t blow over. According to the story, some time in the night while the two
men were returning to their boat they were shot, killed and robbed of their
winnings. Now ambushes and shooting were not uncommon by any sense of the word
but these killing were unusually brutal. Both victims had been shot multiple
times and each had had their heads literally smashed in so bad that they were
almost unrecognizable. Of course, initially suspicion fell on the other members
of the previous evenings game but each of the other game players had a solid
alibi for the time frame concerned.
What had everyone puzzled was the fact that when the bullet
wounds were counted on the two victims, they totaled up to over fifteen shots
and not a soul in the little settlement could recall hearing any gun shots that
night. The two victims were found just a little over a quarter of a mile out of
town. Had anyone been shooting that close to town, someone certainly would have
heard it. The whole incident wasn’t adding up to those looking into the
shooting. Something strange was going on but no one could figure out the
“What”, “Where” or “How” of the whole situation.
A dead body in hot weather isn’t a good thing so within
twenty-four hours both victims had been laid to their rest with the mystery of
their deaths still unsolved. Suspicions and rumors about the identity of the
culprits ran through the town for the next week or so but by the end of
October, the incident had become just another of the many mysterious deaths
that took place in that time of Arizona
More interesting stories can be found in The Tales From The Files Of The Arizona Prospector.
More interesting stories can be found in The Tales From The Files Of The Arizona Prospector.
