Deputy Constable James Haines, a white male lawman serving the small frontier community of Safford in territorial Arizona, met his end on August 26, 1879, when a routine piece of court business turned deadly. As one of the few formal representatives of the law in a sparsely settled region, Haines’ duties ranged from keeping the peace in town to carrying arrest warrants out into the rough country beyond the Gila River. On that late–summer day, he set out from Safford toward the nearby post of
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