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| Dan Fain around the time of the incident. |
It was seven years before the Rafter 11 would brand its first bovine; when Norman Fain was just a lil’ cowpoke, at the mere age of 3. “Dan Fain was assaulted at Humboldt [May 31, 1910,] and escaped death solely through good fortune,” the Weekly Journal-Miner exclaimed.
Fain and a group of his employees from Dewey went to Humboldt to conduct business at an unidentified “business house.” Everything was normal until a pair of intoxicated Austrian immigrants entered the building and started to pick a fight. ”Soon a dispute followed, in which one of the intruders was knocked down by one of the cowboys in [Fain's] party,” the paper explained. Despite the fact that Fain had nothing to do with the disagreement, while he was passing to the rear of the room, he was slashed across the back with “a long and ugly-looking dirk.” He fell to the floor “and later was taken out of the building to a friend’s home,” while losing blood. For several hours his condition remained both agonizing and distressing as “he remained in a state of partial paralysis,” the paper revealed.
He was taken to Prescott for medical treatment, and “according to the physicians attending him, [he] had a very close call. Later he regained his normal condition,” the paper said, and doctors said he would recover.
“Immediately after the attempted murder, Deputy Sheriff Fred Campbell appeared on the scene,” and after receiving descriptions of the two men, he went on the chase. He spotted one of the men and had to fire three shots into the air before the man stopped running and gave up. He was taken to, and identified by, Dan Fain as one who assaulted him.
The other was found later in Humboldt, and both were incarcerated in the Prescott city jail. They were taken to Fain’s room in the hospital and identified by him. Later CH Hooker, Fain’s partner, headed out of Ash Fork to Prescott as quickly as he could to be by his injured friend’s bedside, but Dan Fain was made of tough stock. “Unless complications should arise, Mr. Fain will soon recover from the wound in his back.” Indeed, just eight days after the assault, a preliminary hearing was held in Dewey and Dan Fain recovered enough to leave the hospital in Prescott and go to the hearing to testify.
The true crime story of the murder of Sam Anderson by John Bryant in Prescott, AZ in 1910.
One of the Austrians “was discharged from complicity in the alleged crime.” The other was bound over to appear before the next grand jury with a bond of $300 for assault. The first name of the alleged assaulter was Paul. In its ongoing coverage of the case, the Weekly Journal-Miner managed to spell his last name five different ways, including two in the same column: (Kurkovica, Kesnovich, Krasnovich, Krasnovitch, and Krisnovich.)
Let’s call him Paul.
Paul was held for nearly six months before he was formally arraigned in mid-November, 1910, and it would be the first week in January, 1911 when his case would finally go to trial. A jury was impanelled, but the trial was delayed because several witnesses hadn’t made it to town yet due to the weather.
Once it started, the trial did not take long. Still, “the case attracted considerable interest and many witnesses were examined,” the paper told. The defense was largely a sob story of a generally good man who happened to have too much to drink and acted irresponsibly this one time.
The jury seemed moved and convicted him on the lesser charge of simple assault on January 5th. Additionally, “the jury recommended the lightest possible punishment for the offender,” the paper disclosed. Sentencing was set for the following Monday.
However, the judge completely disagreed with the jury’s recommendation, and gave the maximum punishment “which included a fine of $180, or 90 days in the county jail.”
Paul was immediately escorted to jail and the incident faded from memory.
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SOURCES:
Weekly Journal-Miner, 6/8/1910; Pg. 3 Col. 3.
IBID Pg. 6 Col. 5.
IBID Pg. 4 Col. 4.
Weekly Journal-Miner, 11/23/1910; Pg. 4 Cols. 4 & 5.
Weekly Journal-Miner, 1/11/1911; Pg. 2 Col. 6.
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