Holbrook, AZ—The Town Too Tough for Church

Many old Wild West frontier towns were infamous for being brutal, lawless places. Jerome, for instance, was called the wickedest town in the West, while Deadwood had no sheriff at all due to being an illegal town.

Holbrook, AZ, rivaled both of these dens of sin. Once upon a time, it was called “the town too tough for women and churches.”

That’s not an exaggeration. In 1914, Holbrook was the only county seat in the entire U.S. without a single holy house.

Prior to European settlement, the area around modern Holbrook had been inhabited by Native Americans (including Ancestral Puebloans, Hopi, Apache, and Navajo) for thousands of years. In fact, the Hope guided Coronado to the Grand Canyon during his search for the seven cities of gold.

After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, the region was ceded to the U.S. Soon after, all hell broke loose.