Highs in the 70's, lows in the 50s
Last winter, my friend Paul and I decided that we needed to do some Arizona exploring. Then my ankle spoiled everything. So a couple weeks ago we finally sat down and made some plans. We were going to go to Prescott and Jerome but when we saw the temperatures were 29 at night, we quickly changed our plans and headed south to Tucson.
We took Highway 79 South from Paul's house and our first stop (most of our stops were planned by me) was at the Tom Mix Monument.
Tom Mix was one of the greatest cowboys of the silent-era movies and was an actual cowboy in his real life. I remember my Dad really liked his movies. It was reported he could knock a button off of a shirt with a rifle shot, and jump a horse into a railroad box car. He was married seven times to six different women.
On October 12, 1940, Tom was 60 years old and was behind the wheel of a 1937 Cord V8 convertible when he was headed across Arizona.
No one knows how fast he was going when he saw the road repair crew, but some say that he was standing straight up on the brakes, when his car flew into the ravine. Tom's aluminum suitcase flew forward and hit the back of his head. He got out of his car, apparently unscathed, took one step, and crumpled dead of a broken neck.
The horse on the monument is Tom's famous "Tony the Wonder Horse".
From here our next destination is the top of the mountain.
That Cord was one sharp car.
ReplyDeleteOne of our first historical sites we visited when we came to Arizona.
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