Man on a mission

CLOVIS - Nick Cain is on a mission to honor his "colorful predecessors."

His goal is to locate and mark the gravesites of 107 men who served as Arizona Rangers between 1901 and 1909. Maybe he'll write a book; maybe he'll just share the information with others who admire the pioneer lawmen. Either way, he said, it's keeping him active and away from daytime TV.

Cain is a retired law officer and insurance investigator from California who now volunteers his time with the Arizona Rangers auxiliary at his home in Sedona, Arizona. He was in Clovis on Monday and Tuesday hoping to learn more about Lewis Hathaway Mickey, a Ranger from 1905 to 1909, who died in a gunfight here in 1925.

Here's what he knows so far:

Mickey was born Nov. 7, 1867, in Nebraska, the youngest of nine children. By 1892, he'd found his way to Floydada, Texas, where his wife died during childbirth, along with the infant, according to Cain's research and information on geneology.com .

He was married to Emily Ann Wisdom after that, and the couple had two children - Burby Mae Mickey (who died in 1990) and Fannie Lew Mickey (who died in 2009).

He first joined the Arizona Rangers in 1905 in Phoenix, left the agency, then re-enlisted multiple times.

Sometime after 1909, he surfaced in Clovis, where he found work as a police officer with the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe railroad.

Mickey was working for the railroad about 2 a.m. on March 20, 1925, when a call came in about a store robbery in Mountainair.

Officials had asked the railroad to be on the lookout for a 16-year-old boy suspected in the robbery. Mickey found the boy, Leslie Starr, hiding in a ventilator of a fruit car and arrested him, according to multiple newspaper articles.

As he searched the suspect, Starr pulled a pistol he'd strapped around his neck and began firing. "Several bullets passed through Mickey's body," according to New Mexico's Finest: Peace Officers Killed in the Line of Duty.

Mickey responded by firing his own weapon, striking Starr in the stomach and killing him instantly. Mickey died a few hours later in the Santa Fe hospital.

• • •

Historynet.com describes the Arizona Rangers as men riding "across mountains and deserts in pursuit of cattle rustlers and horse thieves, and, blazing away with Colts and Winchesters, (shooting) it out with desperadoes in saloons, dusty streets and desolate badlands.

"Outlawry was rampant in the territory at the dawn of the 20th century, and Congress consequently refused to consider statehood."

A cattleman named Burt Mossman helped frame Arizona's Ranger Act and became its founding captain.

Mossman "recruited outdoorsmen for his force - men who could ride and trail and shoot, men who had experience as cowboys or peace officers," Historian Bill O'Neal wrote for historynet.com.

When the territorial governor questioned some of Mossman's selections, he replied, "Now, governor, if you think I can go out in these mountains and catch train robbers and cattle rustlers with a bunch of Sunday school teachers, you are very much mistaken."

O'Neal reported the Rangers were relentless in their pursuit of outlaws and made more than 1,000 arrests during the fiscal year of 1904-1905.

By the end of 1908, the Rangers were credited with taming the region.

Ranger Harry Wheeler wrote in an August 1908 report: "The whole country seems remarkably quiet, and scarcely any crimes are being committed anywhere. There has been absolutely no trouble of any kind, and I am getting tired of so much goodness, as are all the men."

The territorial legislature disbanded its Rangers in February 1909. Lewis Mickey and the others went in search of new adventure.

• • •

It's not clear how Mickey ended up in Clovis, or even when he may have arrived, though newspaper articles show he had been in Curry County for "a long time" when he died. Records show Mickey lived with his wife and two small children on East Fourth Street in Clovis. The lawman also had a brother living in Clovis.

One news article reported Mickey had established a reputation as a "fearless officer," and his six-shooter bore three notches, "mute evidence of encounters with border cattle rustlers in which encounters his deadly aim brought him through."

Cain on Tuesday was hoping to find records of Mickey's law enforcement career after eyeballing his gravestone at the Mission Garden of Memories, which reads, "Lew H. Mickey 1867-1925."

The ultimate goal is to find family members and, if they're willing, involve them in a grave-marking ceremony, complete with a 21-gun salute, formally honoring the Arizona Ranger for his service.

Patsy Delk, president of the High Plains Historical Foundation, is assisting Cain in his search for information about Mickey and the incident that ended his life. Delk is also looking to locate the gravesite of the teenage Starr, whose parents lived south of Clovis.

Local cemetery records show a number of Starr plots, but none for Leslie Starr, she said.

Newspaper articles at the time of the shootout described the boy as "a rather uncontrollable youth who had a love for adventure and through much practice had become very proficient with a pistol."

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