Murderer's Grave Station is a historic locale, later called Kinyon Station and Kenyon Station was a

stagecoach A stagecoach (also: stage coach, stage, road coach, ) is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by ...

station of the

Butterfield Overland Mail Butterfield Overland Mail (officially Overland Mail Company)Waterman L. Ormsby, edited by Lyle H. Wright and Josephine M. Bynum, "The Butterfield Overland Mail", The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, 1991. was a stagecoach service in ...

located along the

Gila River The Gila River (; O'odham ima Keli Akimel or simply Akimel, Quechan: Haa Siʼil, Maricopa language: Xiil) is a tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona in the United States. The river drains an arid watershed of ...

in Arizona. The site was located 20 miles east of Oatmans Flat Station and 15 miles west of Gila Ranch Station. It was located along the

near the present site of the Painted Rock Reservoir

History

The site was originally a Native American village named ''Rancheria de San Diego'' by Father

Francisco Garces Francisco is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the masculine given name ''Franciscus''. Meaning of the name Francisco In Spanish, people with the name Francisco are sometimes nicknamed " Paco". San Francisco de Asís was known as ''Pater Comm ...

in 1774. Subsequently, it was named ''Murderers Grave'' in the 1850s for an accused murderer who was hung there by travelers on the

Southern Emigrant Trail :''The Southern Emigrant Trail should not be confused with the Applegate Trail, which is part of the Emigrant Trail, Northern Emigrant Trails.'' The Southern Emigrant Trail, also known as the Gila Trail, the Kearny Trail, the Southern Trail and ...

during the

California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...

. It was renamed "Kinyon Station" in 1858 for Marcus L. Kinyon, station agent for the Butterfield Overland Mail. In 1872 the name became 'Kenyon Station' for Charles H. Kenyon, superintendent of Moore and Carrs Stage line from Tucson to Yuma from 1872 to 1879.Byrd H. Granger, Arizona's Names (X Marks the Place), Tucson: The Falconer Publishing Company, 1983 Murderer's Grave or Kenyon Station site is located in

Maricopa County, Arizona Maricopa County () is a County (United States), county in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the population was 4,420,568, or about 62% of the state's total, making it the List ...

at an elevation of 380 ft. It can be seen on the USGS 1:24K topographic map Horn, AZ.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murderer's Grave Station San Antonio–San Diego Mail Line Butterfield Overland Mail in New Mexico Territory Ghost towns in Arizona American frontier Pre-statehood history of Arizona History of Arizona by location Former populated places in Maricopa County, Arizona Stagecoach stations in Arizona Locale (geographic)