Cochise County in southeastern Arizona was the scene of a number of violent conflicts in the 19th-century and early 20th-century American Old West, including between white settlers and Apache Indians, between opposing political and economic factions, and between outlaw gangs and local law enforcement.

The era was characterized by rapidly growing boomtowns, the emergence of large-scale farming and ranching interests, lucrative mining operations, and the development of new technologies in railroading and telecommunications.

Complicating the situation was staunch resistance to white settlement from local Native American groups, most notably during the Apache Wars, as well as Cochise County's location on the border with Mexico, which not only threatened international conflict but also presented opportunities for criminal smugglers and cattle rustlers.

The land that is now Cochise County is located in the ancestral homeland of the Chiricahua Apache, who fiercely resisted American encroachment on their territory for decades.

A month later, the army responded by sending Lieutenant George Nicholas Bascom and fifty-four men into Apache Pass, where several people had been massacred by the Chiricahuas in the past.

After setting up camp about a mile from a Butterfield Overland Mail waystation, Bascom lured Cochise and several of his relatives into his tent and threatened to hold him hostage until Ward's property and the boy were returned.

Furious and insulted, Cochise cut through the wall of the tent, eluded the guards posted outside, and attempted to free the other hostages by offering to exchange them for several of his own prisoners.

[citation needed] The incident triggered a series of retaliations that soon erupted into full-scale war across a vast portion of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.

The biggest of these battles occurred when Cochise and Mangas Coloradas attempted to ambush a detachment of the California Column as it made its way east through Apache Pass in the Chiricahua Mountains.

There was also the fundamental conflict over resources and land, of traditional, Southern-style "small government" agrarianism of the rural Cowboys with Northern-style industrial capitalism.

[17]: 113  While traveling north to company headquarters in September 1878, less than two weeks after they were deputized, five Mexicans intercepted Adams and Finley, who they believed were carrying gold ore, and killed them.

[17]: 114  Unable to find justice in the courts for his brother's murder, Wyatt Earp began a vendetta, and killed Florentino Cruz on March 22, 1882 at a wood camp near South Pass of the Dragoon Mountains.

The Arizona Citizen reported that both U.S. and Mexican bandits were stealing horses from the Santa Cruz Valley and selling the livestock in Sonora, Mexico.

[30] In July 1881, "Curly Bill" Brocius received word that several Mexican smugglers carrying silver were heading to the United States through Skeleton Canyon.

He persuaded the Pima County Board of Supervisors to make the house of rustling buddy Joe Hill the polling place and himself and Ike Clanton as election officials.

On April 6, 1880, only two months after he arrived, Tombstone resident George Parsons wrote in his diary, "Several more shooting scrapes but they are of such frequent occurrence that their novelty has ceased.

The so-called cowboy faction allegedly targeted the Earps for assassination over the next six months, which led to a series of killings and retributions, often with federal and county lawmen supporting different sides of the conflict.

On January 14, 1881, gambler Michael O'Rourke (aka Johnny Behind the Deuce) got into a disagreement with Henry Schneider chief engineer of the Tombstone Mining and Milling Company, at a restaurant during lunch.

[62]: 39 In February 1881, Luke Short and professional gambler and gunfighter Charlie Storms had a verbal altercation about a faro game which was defused by Bat Masterson, who knew both men.

It was described as "an incident that became an open-and-closed affair over the short period of time required by Frank to puff through a rolled cylinder of Bull Durham.

Les Moore was buried in Boot Hill and his famous tombstone epitaph remains an attraction in the cemetery:[58] In 1886, John Horton Slaughter was elected Cochise County sheriff.

Four members of the Jack Taylor Gang—Manuel Robles, Geronimo Miranda, Fred Federico, and Nieves Deron—were wanted by both the Mexican Rurales and Arizona law enforcement for robbery and murder.

On March 15, 1881, at 10 p.m., three cowboys attempted to rob a Kinnear & Company stagecoach carrying US$26,000 in silver bullion (or about $847,152 in today's dollars) en route from Tombstone to Benson, Arizona, the nearest rail terminal.

Paul urged the horses forward and the Cowboys fired again,[70] killing Peter Roerig, a beer salesman for Anheuser Busch riding in the rear dickey seat.

When Virgil received it at 10:00 pm, he deputized Wyatt and Morgan Earp, Bat Masterson, who was dealing faro at the Oriental Saloon, and Wells Fargo agent Marshall Williams.

Behan indifferently agreed to stay, and they tracked three pairs of boots to a nearby hiding spot where the outlaws mounted their horses, accompanied by a fourth rider.

King had arranged with Undersheriff Harry Woods (publisher of the Nuggett) to sell the horse he had been riding to John Dunbar, Sheriff Behan's partner in the Dexter Livery Stable.

[75] After pursuing the Cowboys for over 400 miles (640 km) in a grand circle that finally led them into New Mexico, they could not obtain more fresh horses and were forced to give up the chase.

On September 8, 1881, tensions between the Earps and the McLaurys further increased when a passenger stage on the 'Sandy Bob Line' in the Tombstone area bound for Bisbee, Arizona was held up.

'"[80]: 137 Representing the danger of the Cowboys to business owners and citizens, on Saturday evening, March 25, 1881, chief engineer Martin R. Peel of the Tombstone Milling and Mining Company near Charleston was murdered by two masked men.