08/05/2026
GHOSTS OF THE SKELETON CANYON MASSACRE
On July 27, 1881, a band of outlaws known in Southern Arizona as the Cowboys (who play an important role in the story of Tombstone, Arizona, and Wyatt Earp) set up an ambush in a remote area called Skeleton Canyon, about 30 miles from the American-Mexican border. Their plan was to kill a group of Mexican smugglers and steal their gold. The murders would leave a lingering mark on the canyon as a haunting that continues to this day.
Skeleton Canyon, also known as Sarampion Canyon, is located about 40 miles from Tombstone and winds through the wildest parts of the Peconcillo Mountains, from the Animas Valley in New Mexico to the San Simon Valley in Arizona. This was an area widely known for its outlaws. Curly Bill Brocius frequented this canyon, as did Old Man Clanton, Ike and Billy Clanton, Johnny Ringo, and Florentino Cruz. It was a place the Apaches called home. In the canyon is the place where Geronimo surrendered and where, even in the hottest summer months, the Indians could find cold, clear water. The area is so rugged that, in 1886, General Nelson Miles stated: "If Geronimo had chosen to remain in his stronghold, 5,000 soldiers would never have been able to rout him."
Smugglers often came up from Mexico carrying contraband, herding stolen cattle, or transporting gold and silver. They traveled by way of the San Luis Pass, came across the Animas Valley, and threaded the gorges of Skeleton Canyon. It has been said that occasionally their treasures would be buried here in the rocks.
Locals began calling this place Skeleton Canyon after the massacre in 1881. The men who died here were left unburied, with coyotes and buzzards picking at their bones. For years, grisly collections of bones could be found scattered among the rocks and sand. Some of them were washed away by the storm waters of the creek, some were taken away as curiosities by travelers, and some of the Skeletons were picked up by cowboys and turned into soap basins in San Simon Valley ranch houses. But fragments and pieces of bones can still be found, adding to the eerie atmosphere of the canyon. This place, --- that once echoed with the sound of gunfire and death -- is now marked by an uncanny stillness and a deep silence that makes even the most hardened man uncomfortable.
There are ghosts in Skeleton Canyon, many of the old-timers will tell you, and they refuse to rest because of the way that their lives came to an end -- cut short by outlaw guns.
The story of the Skeleton Canyon Massacre and its ghosts began in a small Mexican village in July 1881. Jim Hughes, an American bandit, a member of the Cowboys and a close compatriot of Curly Bill Brocius, discovered that a Mexican pack train – carrying food, mescal, cattle, silver bullion, and 2,500 silver pesos -- was getting ready for a trip through the mountain passes to Tucson. Hughes knew that the canyons offered plenty of opportunity for an ambush, so he rode back to Tombstone to see Curly Bill and the Clantons. A raid was organized, and several other members of the gang came along, including John Ringo, Florentine Cruz, Jimmy Hughes, and two of Jim Hughes’ closest friends, Billy Grounds (whose real name was William Boucher) and Zwing Hunt.
At a narrow spot in the canyon, the Cowboys opened up with their guns. The Mexicans fired back, but they had little chance. They managed to wound Zwing Hunt in the shoulder, and in the excitement, Jimmy Hughes managed to shoot himself in the leg. Four of the smugglers were killed, and the rest fled, leaving their mules and cargo behind.
The next day, Bob Clark, a miner from Tombstone, was riding through the canyon and found 30 abandoned pack mules. Empty packs were strewn about among the bodies of the dead. He carried the news of the massacre back to Tombstone.
The Cowboys had no trouble disposing of the stolen loot and made no effort to hide where they had gotten it. Joseph Bowyer, a mining superintendent in Galeyville, reported the raid to Arizona’s acting governor, claiming that the Cowboys “succeeded in capturing the whole outfit, consisting of about $4,000 in Mexican coin, silver bullion, mescal, horses, and cattle. One of the Cowboys, in relating to me the circumstances, said it was the damndest lot of truck he ever saw. He showed me a piece of the bullion; I should judge it to be half-gold. Upon my telling him that trouble would likely arise from this, he replied that it was a smuggling train, and they would not dare say much.”
They turned out to be at least partially wrong about that prediction. The Mexicans didn’t say much, but they did retaliate. In August, a band of Cowboys – including Old Man Clanton, Jim Crane, Charley Snow, Billy Lang, Dixie Lee Gray, and a few others – were attacked by about 30 Mexican troopers who crossed the border looking for revenge. Five of the Cowboys, including Clanton, were killed. The Mexican looted the camp and then returned home.
The raids that went back and forth across the border convinced the U.S. Attorney for Arizona to warn the Attorney General in Washington that Cowboy violence could spark “an international controversy, if not war.” General William T. Sherman wanted to send U.S. troops to the region to combat the Cowboys, but this would have meant repealing the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents using the military as a law enforcement presence.
In the end, it would be Wyatt Earp – not the U.S. Army – who defeated the Cowboys.
Before that, however, the legend of Skeleton Canyon took on a life of its own. Around 1891, a government official and his guide were riding through the canyon and came upon an old rawhide pouch. The guide picked it up, and the leather disintegrated, pouring silver coins onto the ground. The discovery of the pouch convinced many adventurers that a fortune in treasure had been hidden somewhere in the canyon. Even today, treasure hunters return to the canyon, hoping to find something the Cowboys left behind.
But what about the tales of ghosts?
There are scores of people who believe that thanks to the bloody and violent death that came to the Mexican smugglers, their spirits still linger in Skeleton Canyon. In 1929, a ranch that belonged to a man named Ross Sloan was located at the mouth of the canyon. Sloan often told stories of weird sounds and mysterious lights that sometimes heard and saw there.
Sloan recalled: “They say Skeleton’s haunted. A lot of people think there’s no doubt about it. But I don’t pay much attention to the q***r noises heard around here at night. Sometimes the wind in the trees sounds like voices babbling, and sometimes, if you didn’t know it was the windmill, you might think a human being was whimpering right outside the door. Now and then, you’ll see a light up the canyon moving slowly. Once at dusk, up at the forks of the canyon, I saw a dim figure step out of some bushes and disappear -- but I wasn’t sure; it was pretty dark.”
He added another story, “One night, two ranch hands came riding down the canyon and swore that they had seen a band of skeletons dancing in a ring and they could hear their bones rattle and see the moonlight shining through their ribs. Those two fellows were scared half out of their wits, and their hair was standing on end.
“I’m not saying Skeleton Canyon is haunted, and I’m not saying it’s not; I’m just a plain cow man and know more about branding irons than ghosts. But I’ll bet a two-year-old steer you can’t find a man in this country with nerve enough to ride through that canyon after dark.”
