Tom Mix's Last Canary Yellow Cord Road Trip
HEADING NORTH OUT OF TUCSON MIX CRASHED IN A WASH
AND IS MEMORIALIZED ALONG THE PINAL PIONEER PARKWAY
A 1938 canary yellow Cord Roadster against the backdrop of the desert surrounding the Tom Mix memorial on the Pinal Pioneer Parkway. The desert would have looked very similar on the day Mix failed to slow for a bridge being replaced.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Mix was traveling on what was historic Route 80, the Ocean to Ocean Highway, starting in downtown Tucson and headed for the Pinal County seat of Florence. Route 80 was changed to Arizona 79 in 1992.
Tom Mix was a name better known to our parents or grandparents. However, most of us recognize him as an early western film star and a few of us have seen him acting in one or more of those moving pictures. Long before the popularity of Roy Rogers, who touched our era more closely, Mix was a rock star who had been around in the late days of the era he portrayed in his movies. He was known to have "wept" at the funeral of Wyatt Earp.
Mix met his own demise north of Tucson on a Saturday in October, the 12th. The year was 1940 and he was 60. Mix had been crossing the southwest, seen in Las Cruces, NM, the day before. He was seen and spoken to by many the evening before having stayed at the Santa Rita Hotel in downtown Tucson, a place he had stayed before and at which he was known to have once ridden his horse into the lobby.
He was driving a yellow Cord Roadster. Several spoke to him as he left the Hotel to head north out of Tucson toward Florence about noon. Along that route about midway, there was a highway crew working repairs on the "pioneer highway" between Tucson and Florence which continued on to Phoenix. They were repairing a wash crossing on the highway when they saw a large cloud of dust proceeding toward them - showing, then disappearing, then showing again. Someone was headed their way on the dirt route at a tremendous rate of speed.
Mix's Cord passed warning signs and did not slow, and it became obvious the vehicle was not going to make the detour. It drove through the barrier and dove into the sandy wash, flipping up on its side. The dust cloud, once following, now slowly passed the wreck.
Mix began to get out of the crumpled auto, but - according to the first worker to arrive - just as he was standing, his heavy traveling trunk dislodged, falling on him and breaking his neck. Other reports say he was killed instantly in the wreck.
At a roadside park with ramadas, grills and a monument, Tom Mix is remembered along the Pinal Pioneer Parkway. Photos: R. Link
The marker in this minimalist but strangely appealing stretch of the Sonoran Desert tells the story only summarily. Broadsheets on a picnic table flipping in the wind and weighted down by six rocks tell the rest of the story. Beside the broadsheets lies a plastic container with a notebook intended for guests to sign, in an eerily time-transported way. Between passers on the highway, most of whom do not slow any more than Mix did on that October day, one can almost sense a splashy, yellow Cord coming over the hills toward the site. And not slowing one bit.
Mix’s Cord Phaeton Roadster was recovered from the wash and eventually restored. It was sold at Bonhams auction for $155,500, including a life-size wax figure of Mix. In the information included with the auction, Bonhams said that although born in Pennsylvania, Mix was a true cowboy before his days acting the part of one:
“He went west in the last days of the nineteenth century, finding his spiritual home in the American West, wrangling horses and driving beef across the vast stretches of the plains. A superb horseman, he was an innate showman. He positioned himself in the forefront of public events including riding with the Rough Riders in Teddy Roosevelt’s 1905 inaugural parade despite having left the Army on less than formal terms after the Spanish-American War.
His talent and flair made itself felt in subsequent years’ Wild West shows, then wrangling horses for the Circle D ranch which provided horses, cowboys and Indians (no disrespect intended, but that’s the term of the day) to Hollywood’s early silent pictures.
Mix’s break came in 1910 when Circle D’s client Selig Pictures recognized his flair and featured him in the silent film Ranch Life in the Great Southwest. The rest is history.”
- Bonhams Auctions
Location
TOM MIX MEMORIAL
Between mile markers 115 and 116 on arizona 79 and historic u.s. 80 between oracle junction and florence.
Tom Mix was a Daredevil both on the screen and off-camera as well.
By Fox Film Corporation - Exhibitors Herald (Jan. - Mar. 1920) Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
