By Tom Collins

At 9:40 on the evening of June 28, 1896, Bertha Hovey and her friend Cora – two "habituees of Granite Street" – were dining out in the rear of the Cabinet Saloon on Whiskey Row. Other customers were drinking and playing poker throughout the saloon. The employees were busy serving. Suddenly, a horrific explosion rocked the building. The vicinity of Bertha and Cora’s table was blown to shreds and the entire dining room demolished. Floor boards in the barroom were torn up, tables overturned, windows shattered and everything movable was wrecked. The force of the explosion brought hundreds of people rushing to the scene to discover the cause of the disaster.

Although both women and their Chinese waiter were directly over the location of the powder that set off the explosion, they were miraculously only stunned and sustained no life-threatening injuries. The Miner newspaper of July 1st attributed their survival to a cover of heavy linoleum on the floorboards. "One of the women is laid up for repairs, while the other is as yet uninjured, but the Chinese waiter has a bad wound on one of his legs."

This was clearly no accident. At first the owners speculated that robbery of the games motivated the felon. Other theories were advanced but it became clear from the evidence that this was a case of premeditated, attempted murder: a man’s vengeance against a woman. The indignant Miner raved against the "demon" that "could not spare the lives of others, and dared to sacrifice them innocently with the one of his spite. Whether is it a case told over and over wherein man’s selfish and jealous plea could only be satiated by the work of a fiend and a deliberate murderer, makes the crime of last night none the less pardonable."

Chief of Police, Steve Prince, shortly arrested a man named Bill Binkley on suspicion. He had made threats against Bertha Hovey who proved to be his wife of whom he was said to be insanely jealous, even though they were separated at the time. A miner at the Last Chance Mine, Binkley had married Bertha, a "lady of the night," at Flagstaff the previous year. On being questioned, Bertha claimed they were "on pleasant terms," but other ladies of her profession said otherwise.

Finally, on July 19th, Binkley weakened under the weight of his guilty conscience and confessed. He said that after the wedding, Bertha told him their union was illegal: her former husband was alive and living in Colorado. Binkley’s jealous rage grew as he "haunted her place of abode again and again only to be tortured and laughed at." He secured six sticks of dynamite, three feet of fuse and one cap; then he waited until Bertha was settled in the Cabinet Saloon. At first he intended to blow himself up with her, but he weakened after placing the explosives and lighting the fuse and went down the street to the Royal Saloon. After the explosion, he hurried back to see the result of his work. If she were dead, he was prepared to "follow his mistress to the unknown, and for that purpose had a vial of laudanum to carry out his aim." Disappointed in his failure, he still hoped to see her prosecuted for bigamy.

Binkley ended up in Yuma Territorial Prison. The proprietors of the Cabinet Saloon, Ben M. Belcher & Co., faced thousands of dollars worth of repairs. As for Bertha Hovey, the cause of it all? No doubt she went back to her profession unaffected.

(Tom Collins, a Professor Emeritus of Theatre, is the author of "Stage-Struck Settlers in the Sun-Kissed Land," a history of the amateur theatre in Territorial Prescott. He is a volunteer in the archives at Sharlot Hall Museum.)

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bub8003pc) Reuse only bypermission.

Cabinet Saloon and surrounding businesses on Whiskey Row, c.1880s.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bub8033p) Reuse only bypermission.

The Cabinet Saloon on Whiskey Row, c.1890s, decorated for the July 4th holiday.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(buI0245p) Reuse only bypermission.

The interior of the Cabinet Saloon, c.1890. Notice the cuspidors (spittoons) on the floor near the bar for the tobacco-chewing customers.