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They both came from ranching families and knew how to work hard on isolated land. They come from Belgium, Germany, South Africa, Canada and all over Arizona and the United States.Ī Canadian traveler said: “Our annual trip to Arizona would not be complete without a stop at Tom’s memorial.”Ī San Diego visitor wrote: “May the Western spirit never die.” And a Fort Worth couple had the last word on April 23 with: “We shall meet him in the roundup in the sky.“If anybody was going to get hit, I was going to take it,” said Archie.Īrchie and Lesa had fallen in love back at University of Wyoming. “It wasn’t the first car Mix crashed, but it was the last,” White said.Ī visitor log at the Tom Mix Monument includes comments one might expect like “R.I.P,” “He was my hero as a little boy” and “He was my dad’s hero.”Ī handful of travelers per day take the time to write in the visitor log. ![]() White, who published “The Tom Mix Cord: Saga of a Western Film Star’s Classic Motorcar,” has said the supercharged Cord could top 100 miles per hour, and Mix was known to drive fast. Mix had customized the vehicle with hand-tooled leather fender guards, an accelerator pedal fitted for his boot heel and a steering-wheel holster for his Smith & Wesson revolver. Cowboy steering wheel drivers full#White of Scottsdale bought the car in 2010 and has since won awards at top car shows after a full restoration. Mix’s Cord 812 Phaeton was damaged, but not beyond repair. Mix might have survived, but an aluminum Haliburton case from the back seat struck him in back of the head. 12, 1940, Mix was speeding on what was then US 80 from Tucson to Florence when he crashed through a highway barricade into a shallow wash. ![]() “Mix was also a Romeo who was married five times, and he died tragically.” “He was a good-looking guy with an interesting story, born in a shack in Pennsylvania in 1880, and he went on to live in a mansion in Beverly Hills,” she said. The museum in Florence includes a collection of Mix memorabilia. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” a mention of a Tom Mix pocket knife in an episode of “M*A*S*H” and the 1988 film “ Sunset,” starring Bruce Willis as Tom Mix and James Garner as Wyatt Earp.Ĭhris Reid of the Pinal County Historical Society and Museum said Mix’s legacy as King of the Cowboys transcends his era. That includes his photo on the 1967 Beatles album “Sgt. However, pop culture references have kept Mix’s name out there. His film career ended in 1935, and few of his movies are readily available. Younger visitors to the Tom Mix Monument may not be familiar with Mix. Cowboy steering wheel drivers movie#The movies cost a dime, and it was a nickel each for a Coke and popcorn at the Rio Grande Theatre, a 1926 two-story adobe movie house that’s still operating. In the 1940s, Chavez said she and her brother Jiggs Garcia went on Saturdays to double features in Las Cruces to see Mix and cowboy stars Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy and Gene Autry. “Arizona reveres its cowboys,” she said of Mix, Andy Devine of Kingman and Rex Allen of Willcox. “He was a very elegant cowboy,” said Martha Jo Chavez, 79, of Las Cruces, New Mexico, during a recent visit with her son to the Tom Mix Monument. He became the standard for the Western heroes who followed him. Hollywood portrayed Mix as an upstanding cowboy, with flashy Western garb and a signature Stetson. Travelers stop near milepost 116 to pay their respects to an actor and trick rider who made close to 300 films from 1909 to 1935 and was paid as much as $17,000 per week. ![]()
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