The Murder of Gila County’s First Sheriff

In 1885, ranchers in Texas were going broke because the bottom dropped out of the market for sheep, wool and cattle. Among those selling out was cattleman Jesse Ellison. He brought his remaining herd to Arizona in hopes of starting over, and with him was fellow rancher Glenn Reynolds, who had thrown his small herd of cattle in with the Ellisons’. Reynolds returned to Texas the next year for a second herd on behalf of his brothers. Upon reaching Holbrook, he was joined by his wife of 10 years, “Gustie,” and their four children, two sons and two daughters. The Ellison and Reynolds families established their ranching claims in the Rim Country. Just as the Reynolds family was settling down, the Pleasant Valley War broke out, and no one felt safe as sheep and cattle ranchers ambushed one another. Glenn Reynolds determined to take his family to a more secure location, and moved to Globe.[1] In 1889, Gila County was expanded by the 15th Territorial Legislature to include the northern areas that had been Yavapai County. At this reorganization of the county, Glenn Reynolds ran for sheriff, and with the help of Rim Country ranchers like Jesse Ellison, he won. In his favor was the fact that he had held the office of sheriff for one year in Throckmorton County, Texas. He had been in office only a few months when the 35-year-old family man was murdered while transporting a group of Apaches by stagecoach to the territorial prison in Yuma...more