By Robert S. Birchard
Cowboy star Tom Mix was not the first filmmaker to set up shop in Prescott, Arizona. The flamboyant ersatz Corsican, Romaine Fielding (born William Grant Blandin in Riceville, Iowa), blazed that trail in mid-July 1912 with the Southwestern unit of the Philadelphia-based Lubin Mfg Co. But, unlike Fielding, Tom Mix would often make Prescott a home away from Hollywood during his movie career.
Fielding departed for less rainy locations a month after arriving, but the Prescott Chamber of Commerce was bitten by the movie bug and, after several months of correspondence, attracted the Chicago-based Selig Polyscope Company, which had a unit working in Canon City, Colorado.
When the Selig troupe arrived in Prescott, Tom Mix was little more than a utility player. William Duncan, who wrote, directed and starred in his own films, headed the unit. The first Selig film made in Prescott was The Sheriff of Yavapai County, in which Duncan played sheriff Bud O’Neil, and Tom Mix played crooked gambler “Apache” Frank. The one-reeler proved successful enough that Duncan’s unit would remain in Prescott through most of the year.
In The Law and the Outlaw, a two-reeler, Mix played “Dakota” Wilson, the outlaw. He became known for performing daring stunts, and mostly they went as planned, but the May 30, 1913, El Paso Texas Herald outlined one stunt that went awry:
“Prescott, Ariz., May 30-A $1000 moving picture machine destroyed and two men as near death as they ever will be without actually crossing the great divide, was the result of an attempt by Tom Mix to throw, by the horns, a wild steer in Joe Roberts’s slaughter pen. “Mix agreed to “bulldog” and throw the steer for the Selig Polyscope Company. Operator Stanley Ostland placed his machine in a corner of the corral. Nip Van lassoed the animal, but released the lariat as soon as Mix ran in and seized the steer’s horns.
“Mix held on with a grip of iron. The steer ran him off his feet and the two went straight for the camera. It all happened in an instant and Ostland had to leave the instrument to save himself. When they struck the camera, it was knocked to the ground and reduced to something resembling kindling.
“Even then Mix did not give up. He held on till he had jerked one horn away. He could not hope to throw the steer by one horn and went over the fence to save himself.”
Mix was more successful in Prescott’s Frontier Days rodeo, where he took first prize in Bull Riding in 1913. Mix’s association with Frontier Days and the Northern Arizona Fair would lead to a more enduring association with Prescott.
Cowboy star Tom Mix with his co-stars Gloria Hope and Robert Walker in a scene from The Texan (Fox, 1920), a film based on the 1918 novel The Texan, A Story of the Cattle Country by James B. Hendryx and shot in part during Prescott’s Frontier Days rodeo in 1920 (Photo Courtesy of author).
In late 1913 Tom Mix was sent to California, where he was made head of his own Selig satellite unit based at the Bachmann Studio in Glendale, not far from downtown Los Angeles. Mix remained with Selig until late 1916 before signing with the Fox Film Corporation. After seven years in the picture business, Tom became an “overnight sensation” at Fox. With stardom came clout, and Tom returned to supervise the Northern Arizona Fair rodeo with Prescott local Lester Ruffner in 1918, 1919, and more significantly attended Prescott’s Frontier Days in 1920, where he shot scenes for The Texan. The June 30, 1920, Prescott Weekly Journal-Miner noted that Tom Mix arrived in town the day before, and enthused:
“It is important for Prescott to have these performances filmed for the sentiment is truly western, and Prescott is indeed the center of things western . . . In other words, Tom Mix belongs in Prescott, for the spirit for the ‘action picture man’ is at home here.”
Mix made eighty-five pictures for Fox between 1917 and 1928, returning to Prescott several more times, notably in 1922 for his film Romance Land. Unfortunately, most of Tom’s Fox films are now “lost” due to nitrate decomposition, and a disastrous 1937 Fox vault fire. But, almost miraculously, The Texan, with its images of Prescott’s Frontier Days, survives at the Danish Film Institute—and Tom Mix, the “action picture man” is still at home in Prescott—at least as long as The Texan continues to exist.
The Prescott Western Heritage Days at the Sharlot Hall Museum on September 13-14 will feature theTom Mix Gathering, a special display which will include Mix’s beautifully restored 1937 Cord Phaeton convertible, vintage posters talks by authorities on Mix and his extraordinary vehicle, plus some of his movies filmed in the Prescott area,
(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are available at www.sharlothallmuseum.org/library-archives/days-past. Please contact SHM Library & Archives Reference Desk at 928-445-3122 Ext. 14 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information.)