Gun Fight at the Independence Mine

James S McClure, age 36, arrived home unexpectedly from a month-long business trip to Colorado. When he came upon his surprised wife, who was on her way to the post office, he was “out-of-sorts,” the Prescott Evening Courier reported. When she returned to their ranch that surrounded Tussock Springs, her husband was still in a sour mood. She was on her way to take the mule out to pasture, when “he asked her to wait a minute,” which she did.

What would transpire in the next few minutes would decide whether Mrs. McClure would live or die.

Williamson Valley's Astonishing Duck Migrations

Prescott Journal-Miner, 2/9/1917

They would usually appear in February after the harshest days of winter, and stayed until May. Reports of thousands upon thousands of ducks and other waterfowl were annually noted until the climate took a turn toward our more arid conditions today.

A report in the Prescott Journal-Miner in 1917 stated that “the sun was obscured for over five minutes” as a gigantic wave of migrating ducks were settling in for the Spring in Williamson Valley. One man who wanted to boost tourism via duck hunting proclaimed to the Weekly Journal-Miner: “It is safe to say that 80 percent of all water fowl flying from the north to the south use Williamson Valley as their course.”

Yet in spite of these incredible numbers, is it really possible to bring down thirteen ducks with only two shots, as one pioneer rancher claimed?