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Submitted: 7/6/20 • Approved: 10/29/20 • Last Updated: 10/29/20 • R5109-G0
October 2, 1859 - April 13, 1900
This well-known frontier peace officer was born in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, moved to Texas in 1874, and worked as a cowboy in McCulloch County. He married Mary McMahan, and they had seven children. George Scarborough Jr. became a noted lawman in his own right. In November 1884, the voters elected the elder Scarborough sheriff of Jones County, reelecting him in 1886. On October 15, 1887, in controversial circumstances, he killed an outlaw named A. J. Williams in Haskell; he was tried for murder and acquitted. Nevertheless, he lost his1888 reelection bid. He found employment as a stock detective before being appointed as a U.S. deputy marshal in 1893.
Two years later, Martin Mrose, an accused southern New Mexico cattle rustler, fled to the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, and sent his wife Helen Beulah to retain attorney John Wesley Hardin across the Rio Grande in El Paso. Hardin subsequently retained George Scarborough to lure Mrose across the river on an old railroad bridge on the night of June 29, 1895. Once on the El Paso side, Scarborough, plus former El Paso police chief Jeff Milton, Texas Ranger Frank McMahan, and (probably) El Paso constable John Selman, shot Mrose to death. Scarborough and the others were tried for murder, and Scarborough was acquitted. Late at night on April 5, 1896, Scarborough and Selman quarreled in an El Paso alley; Scarborough put four bullets in Selman, who died later on the operating table. Scarborough was tried for murder; he was acquitted but was forced to resign as U.S. deputy marshal.
For a while, Scarborough bought and sold livestock around Fort Davis, Texas, before moving to Deming, New Mexico, where he resumed his old activities as a stock detective and deputy sheriff. In early April 1900, in pursuit with two companions of cattle rustlers near San Simon, Arizona, he took a bullet in the leg and could no longer ride. His associates rode to San Simon for a wagon and transported him to Lordsburg, New Mexico. It had no doctor. They waited for a train, then took him to Deming, New Mexico, where he died on the operating table, primarily from loss of blood. His death came four years to the day after John Selman died on the operating table in El Paso. George Scarborough is buried in Deming.
Contributed on 7/6/20 by tomtodd
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Record #: 5109