On March 5, 1917, the sheriff of Cochise County, Harry C. Wheeler, and his deputy, Lafe Gibson, were ambushed by a gang of Mexican alcohol smugglers near the town of Gleeson, Arizona.

[1][4] Harry Wheeler, a former Captain of the Arizona Rangers and the Sheriff of Cochise County was an enthusiastic enforcer of the state's ban on the sale and manufacture of liquor.

[5] On the night of March 5, 1917, Sheriff Wheeler and Deputy Gibson were returning to the latter's home at Gleeson in an Oldsmobile Touring Car after a day of searching the Chiricahua Mountains for smugglers.

However, not long after they had rolled out their blankets and laid down next to the car, a salvo of fire came in from some Mexican outlaws positioned behind some rocks about 200 yards away from the railroad tracks.

Then, when the Moon disappeared below the horizon, the lawmen made their charge and found the outlaws' camp hastily abandoned, the Mexicans having slipped away into the desert.

[1] Wheeler knew that since the outlaws were in the Chiricahuas and most-likely heading south to cross the border, they would have to go through Apache Pass in order to enter Mexico.

Accordingly, Wheeler and his men abandoned the pursuit and went to Tombstone on April 7, 1917, to drop off the confiscated whiskey, and on the next day they went to Apache Pass and succeeded in capturing two of the outlaws, who were then put in the Gleeson Jail.

[1][2] Ultimately, Wheeler and his men failed to capture the remaining outlaws, who escaped into Mexico, and they were immediately tasked with investigating a murder in Douglas and the finding of a dead body near Bisbee, the latter having died from a gunshot to the head.