DOUBLE MURDER AT ROOSEVELT
In January 1907 William Baldwin, a 25-year-old black laborer, was helping to build the Theodore Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River in Gila County, Arizona Territory—a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation project. On the 31st, a day off for Baldwin, he appeared at the dairy ranch of Charles P. Hill with disturbing news. He claimed to have witnessed two Mexican men killing a woman at the neighboring Harvey Morris ranch, 4 miles east of the dam site, and when he’d attempted to intervene, the assailants had turned on him, slashing him across the neck. Hill immediately notified Arizona Ranger James T. Holmes, stationed at the settlement of Roosevelt, some 80 miles east of Phoenix. Holmes was experienced and tough, having
