Five Shots at the Blevins House

Holbrook, Arizona Territory — September 4, 1887

On Sunday, September 4, 1887, Apache County Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens went to a small cottage on the north side of the railroad at Holbrook to serve a warrant on Andy Cooper, a man contemporary newspapers also connected with the Blevins family. Within minutes, Owens had shot four men. Samuel Houston Blevins died in the encounter; Cooper and Mose Roberts later died of their wounds. John Blevins survived.

The shooting became one of the best-known episodes of Owens’s career, but the contemporary accounts do not agree on every detail. What can be documented is enough to tell the story without adding to the legend.

Contemporary reporting placed the Blevins residence a short distance back from the north side of the railroad. One account described it as a cottage occupied by Mrs. Blevins, mother of the Blevins boys. Another placed the house adjoining the Brown and Kinders livery stable. Owens’s later account also placed him at Brown’s stable immediately before he went to make the arrest.

Owens had come for Andy Cooper.

A contemporary newspaper reported that the sheriff told Cooper he held a warrant issued at Taylor for a crime committed some time earlier. In testimony later attributed to Owens, the sheriff identified the matter as horse stealing. The surviving accounts therefore establish that Owens was attempting to serve a warrant on Cooper, while the contemporary newspaper itself does not spell out the underlying charge.

According to Owens’s account, he learned at the stable that Cooper was in Holbrook and might be preparing to leave. Owens retrieved his Winchester rifle and walked toward the Blevins house.

At the house, Owens called for Cooper. The sheriff later testified that he could see Cooper and John Blevins inside and that both men had pistols. Cooper came partly into a doorway and spoke with Owens about the warrant. Cooper refused to submit to arrest.

Owens fired.

That sequence is important because early newspaper reports differed over who fired first. One report said the men opened fire on Owens immediately after he demanded their surrender. Another contemporary account, however, agrees with Owens’s later testimony on the essential point: Cooper refused arrest and Owens shot him before John Blevins fired at the sheriff.

After Cooper was hit, John Blevins fired at Owens. The shot missed the sheriff and, according to contemporary reporting, struck and killed a nearby horse. Owens returned fire, hitting John under the right arm and disabling him.

Owens then moved where he could watch the house. In his later account, he said he saw Cooper inside and fired another round through the building in an attempt to hit him.

Mose B. Roberts was the next man shot. A contemporary account reported that Roberts went through a window of the house and was struck near the shoulder blade. Owens later testified that Roberts emerged from the northeast portion of the building and that he carried a six-shooter in his right hand. Owens acknowledged that he could not tell whether Roberts came through a door or a window. The contemporary newspaper account describing Roberts’s movement does not mention a weapon. Roberts was mortally wounded and survived the immediate shooting.

Then Samuel Houston Blevins appeared.

Contemporary accounts variously called him Samuel, Houston, or the youngest Blevins boy. One newspaper placed his age at about fourteen or fifteen. The earlier clipping describing his burial called him fourteen.

The newspaper reported that the boy came toward Owens with a pistol in his hand. His mother attempted to catch him and pull him back into the house, but he broke away. Owens fired, striking him through the body. Samuel Houston Blevins died.

The coroner’s inquest provides important contemporary evidence concerning that shooting. The jury found that Houston Blevins died from a gunshot wound inflicted by C. P. Owens, Sheriff of Apache County. It further found that the killing was justifiable because Blevins had offered armed resistance to the sheriff while Owens was lawfully attempting to arrest Andy Cooper.

The immediate result at the Blevins house was four men shot and Owens unharmed. Samuel Houston Blevins was dead. Andy Cooper was mortally wounded and died soon afterward. Mose Roberts was also mortally wounded. John Blevins was wounded but was expected to recover.

The newspapers quickly portrayed the encounter as a victory over a group of dangerous men. Their language was often sweeping, calling the men desperadoes, rustlers and members of the lawless element then troubling the Tonto Basin. Those descriptions reflected contemporary reporting and opinion; they should not be treated as proof of every accusation made against each man.

What happened at the Blevins house can be stated more narrowly.

Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens arrived with a warrant for Andy Cooper. Cooper refused arrest. According to Owens and one detailed contemporary account, Owens fired the first shot. John Blevins then fired at Owens and missed. Owens shot John, fired again toward Cooper, shot Mose Roberts, and finally shot the armed young Samuel Houston Blevins.

The coroner’s jury ruled the killing of Houston Blevins justified. Contemporary reporting stated that Owens’s actions in the shootings of Blevins and Cooper were supported by Holbrook’s law-abiding citizens.

Five rifle shots, four men hit, and a sheriff left standing unharmed made the encounter easy material for frontier legend. The surviving newspaper reports show something more useful: accounts written close to the event already disagreed about important details. Read alongside the coroner’s verdict and Owens’s reported testimony, they allow the shooting at the Blevins house to be reconstructed without filling those disagreements with folklore.

Sources and Documentation

• Contemporary newspaper clipping supplied for this article, “Good Work — Sheriff Owens Does Up a Gang of Outlaws,” including the coroner’s verdict on the death of Houston Blevins.

• Contemporary newspaper clipping supplied for this article, “More Rustlers Killed — Sheriff Owens, of Apache, Kills the Notorious Andy Cooper at Holbrook.”

• Contemporary newspaper clipping supplied for this article, “Bloody Tragedy — Sheriff Owens, of Apache, Shoots Four of the Tonto Basin Murderers.”

• Owens inquest testimony as reproduced in later Arizona historical material. Used only where identified as Owens’s account and compared against contemporary newspaper reporting.

• Historical photographs and records identifying the Blevins House in Holbrook as the site associated with the September 4, 1887 shooting.