On the right track

Fairbank was a railroad town where nearly everything moved by train: building materials, manufactured goods, and foodstuffs arrived, while ore and cattle departed. Travelers bound for nearby mining towns commonly passed through Fairbank, where they could stay at a hotel, eat an elegant dinner, shop at the general store, and continue by stage to Tombstone or by train to Benson, Bisbee, or Guayrnas, Mexico. The town outlasted other silver milling towns along the San Pedro River, surviving the 1887 earthquake, repeated flooding, the loss of the mining industry because of the railroad, and later by being located along State Highway 82. In February 1900, an attempted train robbery at the Fairbank station platform by the gang of "Three-fingered" Jack Dunlap was driven off after gunfire by town sheriff and former Texas Ranger Jeff Milton.

Arizona · United States