Commodore Perry Owens

Copyright 2019 by Gary L. Pullman

Commodore Perry Owens

Like many other figures of the Old West, Commodore Perry Owens worked at a variety of jobs. Life on the frontier was fluid, so a man had to be flexible and willing to try his hand at a number of ways to earn a living.

Born in Tennessee on July 29, 1852, Owens left his home on the family farm to travel and to live, first in Indiana and then in Texas, where, beginning in 1870, he worked as a cowboy, before traveling to New Mexico, settling at Navajo Springs in 1882.

Sahrps 45-60 Buffalo Rifle

Owens was an expert shot and carried a 45-60 Sharps buffalo rifle with which he was an accurate shot to a distance of one mile. He also carried a Winchester rifle and two handguns. He was in charge of a stagecoach station on the Navajo reservation, where, from time to time, he had brushes with Indians.

The abandonment of the station caused Owens to drift south to Cottonwood Seep, Arizona, where he drove cattle and raised horses and became a deputy sheriff of Apache County on November 4, 1886; ten months later, he was elected the county's sheriff on September 4, 1887.

Andy ("Cooper") Blevins

As sheriff, Owens shot it out with a houseful of outlaws when he rode out to the Blevins' house in Holbrook, Arizona. Not only was Owens's quarry, Andy (“Cooper”) Blevins home, but so were Sam Houston Blevins, John Blevins, Mose Roberts, and Mrs. John (Eva) Blevins. Other woman might also have been inside the house. Owens's target wasn't about to submit to arrest, and a shootout ensued between Owens and the desperadoes, during which Owens, firing five shots with his Winchester, “killed Cooper, Roberts and Sam Blevins and severely wounded John Blevins.”

After his term as Apache County's sheriff, Owens was employed by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and then by Wells Fargo. After a stint as a U. S. deputy marshal and, from March 25, 1895 to December 31, 1896, as the sheriff of Navajo County, Arizona, he became a businessman in Seligman, Arizona, possibly as a saloon operator. He died on may 10, 1919, and was buried in Flagstaff, Arizona.