Curly Bill Brocius
William "Curly Bill" Brocius was an infamous American outlaw of the Old West, believed to have been born in the 1840s as William Graham in Indiana. His early life was marked by struggles as a farmer, family upheaval, and eventual disillusionment, leading him to a life of crime after the Civil War. Brocius became involved in cattle rustling and robbery in the late 1870s and gained notoriety as a leader of the Cowboy gang, notorious for their extensive rustling operations across the southwestern United States. His criminal exploits included violent confrontations, such as the accidental shooting of Marshal Fred White, which resulted in an acquittal due to the incident being deemed unintentional.
Brocius's vendetta against the Earp family escalated following the death of his associates, positioning him as a central figure in the legendary conflicts of the era. He was ultimately killed in a showdown with Wyatt Earp in March 1882, a confrontation that marked a significant moment in the ongoing strife between the Cowboys and the Earps. Despite his violent reputation and involvement in numerous crimes, Brocius was never formally charged in Arizona. His life and exploits have left a lasting legacy in popular culture, inspiring portrayals in various Hollywood films that depict the tumultuous and often romanticized narrative of the Old West.
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Subject Terms
Curly Bill Brocius
American West gunslinger and outlaw
- Born: c. 1840
- Birthplace: Possibly Crawfordsville, Indiana
- Died: March 24, 1882
- Place of death: Probably Iron Springs (now Mescal Springs), Arizona
Cause of notoriety: Brocius, as a member of the cattle-rustling and stagecoach-robbing Cowboys gang, associated with some of the best-known outlaws in the American West and was believed to be responsible for at least eight (and possibly thirty-two) murders.
Active: 1878-1882
Locale: Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico
Early Life
Evidence suggests that William “Curly Bill” Brocius (BRO-shyuhs) began life in the 1840’s as William Graham, a struggling farmer in pre-Civil War Indiana. Graham was married with three children. Tired of being poor, Graham accepted five hundred dollars to perform military duty in place of a drafted wealthy man. When the Civil War ended in 1865, Graham did not return home but wandered the South. Returning to Indiana in 1869, Graham found his wife had remarried and had had another child. Angry, Graham left Indiana.
Brocius has been described as somewhat heavyset, with dark skin, dark eyes, and thick, curly black hair. A portion of his left ear was missing, shot off by a Texas Ranger. In a separate incident, Brocius was shot in the left side of the neck, the bullet exiting his right cheek. No documented photographs of Brocius exist, though one photograph shows a man fitting his description with a bullet-wound scar to the right cheek. All life descriptions of Brocius share one common trait: Curly Bill was unburdened by a conscience.
Criminal Career
Records of Brocius’s criminal career first appear in the late 1870’s, when he rode with cattle rustlers led by John Kinney, a central figure in the Lincoln County War. In 1878, Brocius, then using the alias William Bresnaham, helped rob an army wagon suspected of harboring cash. One soldier died in the attack, and after a shoot-out with Texas Rangers, Brocius was captured. He was charged with attempted robbery but not murder, and he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. He escaped and arrived in Arizona in 1878 with a cattle herd bound for the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation.
Upon his arrival in Tombstone, Brocius began his association with the outlaw gang that called itself the Cowboys, led by Newman “Old Man” Clanton. The Cowboys were a loose confederation whose principal occupation was stealing cattle and robbing stagecoaches, though members were free to pursue individual acts of criminal enterprise. The gang was protected by local law enforcement, notably Tombstone sheriff John Behan. Behan used Brocius as his “tax collector,” and Curly Bill gained a reputation for shooting “taxpayers” who did not pay Behan’s extortionary demands.
In 1881, during a drunken rampage in Tombstone, Brocius was asked to disarm by Marshal Fred White. While Brocius was surrendering his revolvers, one discharged and mortally wounded the marshal. Deputy Sheriff Wyatt Earp, arriving soon after, clubbed Brocius and arrested him. White gave a dying statement to witnesses that the shooting was accidental. Brocius was acquitted subsequently of a murder charge, with Earp testifying on his behalf regarding the accidental nature of White’s death. Despite this, Brocius never forgave Earp for humiliating him with a pistol-whipping in front of Tombstone residents and his Cowboy associates.
Following Old Man Clanton’s death in 1881, Curly Bill Brocius became the primary leader of the Cowboys. At that time the gang had more than four hundred members in Arizona, New Mexico, and old Mexico and had become the largest rustling operation in American history. In some instances, gang members rustled thousands of head of cattle at a time, and they did so with a total disregard for the international border with Mexico. This angered Mexican officials and President James Garfield, who ordered the gang be stopped at all costs.
In July, 1881, Brocius and Johnny Ringo rode to New Mexico for a revenge killing of two store owners who had killed two Cowboys during an attempted robbery. During this time, the men also led an attack on a cattle herd, killing six men. Brocius was out of Tombstone during the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Angered by the deaths of his comrades by the Earps and John “Doc” Holliday, Brocius masterminded the attack on Virgil Earp and the killing of Morgan Earp. These attacks began the legendary vendetta involving the Earps and the Cowboys.
The death of Curly Bill Brocius is linked to the legendary Earp vendetta ride. In March, 1882, after receiving information that Brocius and other Cowboys were near Iron Springs, Arizona, Wyatt Earp, Holliday, and three other men rode to the area. The Earp posse was ambushed by the Cowboys; during the battle and at point-blank range, Curly Bill and Wyatt Earp faced each other, both discharging double shotgun blasts. Pellets from Brocius’s gun tore through Earp’s clothing. Earp’s double blast took Brocius in the stomach, nearly tearing him in half.
Impact
Despite the presidential order against the Cowboys, as well as his reputation as a killer and countless known criminal acts, Curly Bill Brocius’s influence was such that he was never formally wanted for any crime in Arizona. The character of Brocius recurred in several well-known Hollywood films, including Hour of the Gun (1967), Tombstone (1993), and Wyatt Earp (1994).
Bibliography
Breakenridge, William M. Helldorado: Bringing the Law to the Mesquite. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1928. Memoirs of Sheriff Breakenridge and the only firsthand account of the Earp vendetta ride that does not come from an Earp family member.
Gatto, Steve. Curly Bill: Tombstone’s Most Famous Outlaw. Lansing, Mich.: Protar House, 2003. A good biography of the life and times of Brocius.
Marks, Paula M. And Die in the West: The Story of the O.K. Corral Gunfight. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996. An in-depth look at the events leading up to and following the famous gunfight, including the Earp vendetta ride.
Turner, Alford E., ed. The Earps Talk. College Station, Pa.: Creative, 1980. A book of documented interviews with Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, and Virgil Earp.
Walters, Lorenzo D. Tombstone’s Yesterday: True Chronicles of Early Arizona. Glorieta, N.M.: Rio Grande Press, 1928. Documented stories from Tombstone locals about the lawless days of the late nineteenth century.