The Gunslingers’ Good Fellow

It interests me that the profession of doctor and the profession of gunslinger should both be so dependent on dexterity—and hand/eye coordination—yet one takes life and the other saves it. But it fascinates me even more that the most famous gunfight in the history of the Old West should have taken place at a time when one of the greatest doctors in the nation, a specialist in gunshot wounds whose methods are still employed today, should have been practicing in Tombstone, AZ.

George Goodfellow, photo by C.S.Fly, Tombstone

George Emory Goodfellow was born a westerner although educated back east. Son of a miner—eventually a mining engineer and mining executive—Goodfellow was sent off to boarding school at the age of twelve but returned to California to attend military academy.  His future was certainly oriented toward a career in the armed services, and he briefly attended Annapolis before being expelled for fighting with the first African American cadet. Having a wide range of interests, Goodfellow sought out his cousin, a doctor, and studied with him before going on to medical school in Ohio. Returning west, he eventually settled in Arizona Territory, initially working in Prescott with the Army before relocating in 1880 to the flourishing mining town of…Tombstone.

If you’re envisaging a kindly country doctor along the lines of Doc Adams in ‘Gunsmoke,’ think again.  The hard-drinking gambler, Goodfellow had been boxing champion at Annapolis and had a penchant for getting into fights, both with his fists and with a gun. Furthermore, he was quite the Renaissance Man with numerous and varied interests. Aged just twenty-five, he opened his office on the second floor of the Crystal Palace Saloon and settled down for his place in history. While many of his cases involved mining accidents, there was mounting practice in gunshot wounds. Making advancements in this area, he would eventually write articles that appeared in learned journals propounding that gunshots from .44 or .45 caliber into the abdomen were almost always fatal, as opposed to .32 calibre and lower. In those cases, he deduced, the main danger would be from either fecal or urinary matter causing infection. The higher calibire shot would rest in the abdominal cavity, thereby causing the victim to bleed to death unless a laparotomy was performed almost immediately. His treatise on this subject, ‘Cases of Gunshot Wound in the Abdomen Treated by Operation’ eventually appeared in the May, 1889, edition of The Southern California Practitioner.  Goodfellow, who believed in Lister’s practice of antisepsis surgery and Germ Theory, actually performed the first laparotomy on a miner shot outside of Tombstone. This procedure is still in use today. He also observed a shoot-out that took place at close range, and discovered the bullet that entered one of the contenders was still wrapped in a silk handkerchief from the man’s pocket.  Studying this closely, he wrote, ‘Notes on the Impenetrability of Silk to Bullets,’ also for the Southern California Practitioner. He advised that bullet-proof vests could be manufactured from silk, and made the first one of eighteen layers of silk. By the end of the century, such vests were in production.

So, by the time October, 1881, rolled around and there took place something now called Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, it was extremely opportune that George Goodfellow was on call. Goodfellow tended to the wounded on both sides of the argument. Unable to help cowboy Billy Clanton with six bullets in him, he removed the boy’s boots because Billy had promised his mother to die with his boots off. Goodfellow's testimony at the Earps’ and Doc Holliday’s trial played a large part in having the case against them dismissed as self-defense; he testified that the position of Billy Claiborne’s arm could not have been raised in the air.

Two months later, Virgil Earp was ambushed as he walked from the Oriental Saloon, hitting him in the arm with buckshot. It was Goodfellow’s belief that the arm should be amputated but Virgil refused.  Operating at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Goodfellow removed approximately four inches of the shattered humerus bone, saving the arm but leaving it crippled. Still, Virgil had his gun arm and was later able to serve as a US Marshal. His brother Morgan was not so lucky. Shot in the back while playing billiards, he died within the hour. As County Coroner, Goodfellow performed Morgan’s autopsy.

But while he was known as ‘The Gunslingers’ Surgeon,’ Goodfellow’s advances in medicine did not stop with gunshot wounds, nor was medicine his only field of expertise.  In the coming years, he performed the first successful prostatectomy and was among the first surgeons to use spinal anesthesia. He performed reconstructive face surgery, and also advocated the dry air of the desert as a treatment for tuberculosis, facilitating the large number of sanatoriums that would soon appear in Arizona.

Outside of medicine, in 1886, Goodfellow rode with the US Army to recapture

Geronimo

Geronimo who had escaped from the San Carlos reservation. He eventually befriended the man. In 1887, he made two trips to aid survivors of the Sonoran earthquake and to study the effects of the quake. He reported his findings in the US scientific journal, Science, and for his work, the Mexican President awarded him the gift of a horse.

Goodfellow on his gift horse

He proved, in 1891, that the bite of a Gila Monster was not necessarily fatal and published his findings in Scientific American. And having become personal physician to General Shafter during the Spanish-American War, he is credited with helping in negotiations for the peace settlement, due to his knowledge of Spanish.

Goodfellow’s later career had him setting up practice in Tucson prior to moving to San Francisco.  Sadly, the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed his manuscripts and patient records, and Goodfellow was forced to take a job with the Southern Pacific Railroad in Mexico as their chief surgeon.  He subsequently returned in 1910 to his sister’s home in Los Angeles, where he died aged fifty-five.

George Goodfellow, the ‘Gunslinger’s Surgeon,’ is credited with being the first trauma specialist.

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Bill Kirkland: An Arizona Pioneer

By Kristy McCaffrey

Bill Kirkland

Born in Virginia, Bill Kirkland came west in 1850 at the age of eighteen to the gold fields of California. After five years of successful prospecting, he decided to visit home via a steamer to Panama, traveling overland, then taking another ship to the eastern United States. But when the fare became too high, he decided on a southern route instead through Arizona and New Mexico.

He arrived in Tucson on January 17, 1856, just as the Mexican troops were preparing to depart. The land now belonged to the United States via the Gadsden Purchase. (The Gadsden Purchase was ratified in 1854, but the U.S. flag wasn’t displayed in Tucson until March 10, 1856.)

With little military protection, men began arriving to expand mining operations in the mineral-laden mountains near the Santa Cruz River. The area became lawless, but finally U.S. troops were dispatched. Kirkland decided to remain to provide timber and dry goods to the building boom that was just beginning in Tucson, as well as to the mines around Tubac and to the military.

During the 1850’s, Tucson became the center for trade in the southern Arizona Territory. By 1860, there were 650 residents. Tucson sat along the banks of the Santa Cruz and was described as a sleep, one-story adobe town with narrow, dusty streets. People and animals intermingled freely.

Cochise

In 1857, Kirkland started a ranch near Tubac. He grew barley for a nearby army post. Three times he purchased cattle in Sonora, only to have them stolen by Apache. On the fourth try, he finally managed to obtain, and keep, 200 head. His was the first American ranching enterprise in what would one day become Arizona. He lived under the constant threat of an Apache attack. One day, Kirkland met Cochise, who wanted to feed his braves. Kirkland quickly prepared a meal for them, after which they left.

In 1859, Kirkland married Missouri Ann Bacon, whom he met when her family stopped in Tucson on their way to California. When they settled in Tucson by opening a restaurant, Kirkland frequented it. Pretty girls garnered much interest, since there were so few of them. But Missouri chose Kirkland, a tall man with rugged good looks and a reputation as a fearless frontiersman. When their daughter, Elizabeth, was born, she was the first Anglo-American child born in the Arizona Territory.

Kirkland built the first graded road in the area, which led to his lumber camp in Madera Canyon. He supplied the mines, military and the village of Tucson until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. At that time, military posts in Arizona Territory were abandoned. The Apache, under the direction of Cochise, saw this as an opportunity to drive the Anglos out. Kirkland served as a captain of volunteers in Tucson, but finally decided to take his family to California until troops returned to Arizona. He had lost much of his ranching and lumber business due to the Apache.

When Kirkland returned to Arizona, he successfully prospected gold north of Wickenburg, near present-day Phoenix. He then moved his family to an area now known as Kirkland Valley. The first year, he raised barley. He also built four arrastras to crush ore and eventually had thirty men working for him. But, again, he was besieged by Apache. They stole his barley at night and rustled his livestock during the day. So, Kirkland packed up and went back to southern Arizona. He established a ranch on Sonoita creek, but Apache swiftly stole a dozen mules and a horse.

Following the establishment of Fort McDowell in the
Salt River Valley, enterprising men like Bill
Kirkland arrived.

Throughout his life, Kirkland preferred to move elsewhere when Apache problems occurred. In 1871, he moved his family to the Salt River Valley to a small community people were beginning to call Phoenix. A few entrepreneurs had cleaned out old Hohokam canals and were irrigating crops, which they sold to Fort McDowell and the mining camps up north in the Bradshaw Mountains. Missouri Ann was one of the first women to take up residence in Phoenix. Their home was a small adobe house. That year, Kirkland’s third child was born. Ella was the first Anglo child born in Phoenix.

In late 1871, Kirkland moved his family again, to nearby Tempe. He was elected a justice of the peace and for the remainder of his life he was known as Judge Kirkland. But Kirkland was restless. He moved his family to Silver City, New Mexico and then to Texas before returning to Arizona in 1876. He took the job of deputy sheriff in a wild cowtown called Willcox. But the Apache weren’t done with the area. When Geronimo and his band went on the warpath in the 1880’s, Kirkland once again moved his family to the new gold mining town of Congress.

Bill Kirkland was one of the first Anglo-Americans to arrive in the Arizona Territory. While he wasn’t a violent man by nature, he nevertheless never backed down when forced to fight. Whenever he could, he avoided confrontation with the Apache. Oddly enough, the Apache came to respect him.

Bill Kirkland passed away in 1910.

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Kristy McCaffrey writes historical western romances set in the American Southwest. Her latest book, The Blackbird, features the southern Arizona Territory. Learn more at her website.