The Great Reavis Land Grant Fraud
For about ten years from 1885 all the lands of the Salt and Gila valleys of Arizona lay under a serious cloud of title. There had been elimination of the Texas-Pacific landgrant, which unsuccessfully had been claimed by the Southern Pacific. Then came the Reavis grant, one of the most monumental of attempted swindles ever known. James Addison Reavis, a newspaper solicitor, claimed a tract 78 miles wide from a point at the junction of the Gila and Salt Rivers, eastward to beyond Silver City, N.M., on the basis of an alleged grant, of date December 20, 1748, by Fernando VI, King of Spain, to Senor Don Miguel de Peralta y Cordoba, who then was made Baron of the Colorados and granted 300 square leagues in the northern portion of the viceroyalty of New Spain. The grant was said to have been appropriated in 1757. Reavis had first claimed by virtue of a deed from one Willing, of date 1867, but there was switching later, Reavis thereafter claiming as agent for his wife, said to have been the last of the Peralta line, but in reality a half-breed Indian woman, found on an Indian reservation in northern California, and one who had no Mexican history whatever. Reavis renamed himself "Peralta-Reavis," and for a while had headquarters for his "barony" at Arizola, a short distance east of Casa Grande, where he maintained his family in state, with his children in royal purple velvet, with monogrammed coronets upon their Russian caps. He arrogated to himself ownership of all the water and the mines and sold quit-claim deeds to the land's owners. It is said that the Southern Pacific bought its right of way from him and that the Silver King and other mines similarly contributed to his exchequer. He claimed Phoenix, Mesa, Florence, Globe, Silver King, Safford and Silver City.
He planned a storage basin on Salt River and another above Florence on the Gila, and advertised that he intended to reclaim 6,000,000 acres on the Casa Grande and Maricopa plains, "thereafter returning to the Gila any surplus water." Just how accurate his figures were may be judged by the fact that government engineers have found that the waters of the Gila, above Florence, are sufficient for the irrigation of not more than 90,000 acres. He viewed things on a big scale, however. At Tonto Basin he was to build a dam 450 feet high and the water was to be taken from the river channel by means of a 44,000-foot tunnel.
Whenever one of his prospective customers failed to contribute, he often deeded the land to a third party. Some of these deeds are to be seen on the records of Maricopa County. His case had been so well prepared that many were deceived, even the lawyers who served him as counsel, including Robert G. Ingersoll. Naturally something approximating a panic for a while was known by the farmers of the valleys affected.
Meanwhile, very largely from moneys obtained as above noted, Reavis was spending royally at many points. At Madrid, Spain, he had a gorgeous establishment, whereat he even entertained the American Legation. At many points in Mexico, he scattered coin lavishly and accumulated cords of alleged original records and he even found paintings of his wife's alleged ancestors. The grant was taken into politics and was an issue in the congressional campaign of 1887.
About 1898 there was establishment of the United States Court of Private Land Claims, especially for adjudication of many such claims in the Southwest. Reavis' elaborately prepared case tumbled almost from the day it was brought into court. Government agents found bribery, corruption and fraud all along his trail. He had interpolated pages in old record books and had even changed and rewritten royal documents, including one on which the grant was based. Some of his "ancient" documents were found to have been executed on very modern milled paper. On one of them appeared the water mark of a Wisconsin paper mill. Others had type that had been invented only a few years before. The claim was unanimously rejected by the land court and on the same day Reavis was arrested on five indictments for conspiracy. He was convicted in January, 1895, and sentenced to six years in the penitentiary. After serving his sentence, he made a brief confession, telling that he had been "playing a game which to win meant greater wealth than that of Gould or Vanderbilt." The district covered by his claim today has property valued at at least one billion dollars.
When Mesa first was settled, every alternate section was called "railroad land." claimed by the Southern Pacific, under virtue of the old Tom Scott-Texas & Pacific land grant. Early in the eighties, this claim vanished, it being decided that the Southern Pacific had no right to the grant.
Chapter Twenty-one
Near the Mexican Border
Location on the San Pedro River