"Elevation 5,080 feet. County Seat. Formerly known as Horsehead crossing. "Named, 1880, after H.R. Holbrook, first chief engineer of Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. He was the builder of the Rocky Ford Colorado Irridation system." A.G.W. James H. Wilson was the first P.M., September 18, 1882. Orestes P. Chaffee, brother of General Adna R. Chaffee, USA, was PM and quartermaster agent here from March 4, 1888, to September 9, 1989. He was a crippled Confederate soldier."
Barnes, Will C.; Granger, Byrd (ed.) Arizona
Place Names University of Arizona Press. 1997
P. 208
In 1881 John W. Young, a railroad contractor, set up headquarters two miles east of the future Holbrook, where a little community was already in existence. Juan Padilla had built the first house immediately east of Horsehead crossing above the junction of the Puerco and Little Colorado River in 1871. Berado Frayde (or Freyes) was in charge of Padilla's saloon and the place came to be known as Berado Station, a main crossing for travellers en route south. Padilla, his boss, was at best a haphazard merchant, pricing all articles at fifty cents regardless of their true value. In 1881 the first railroad tracks were laid at Berado adn extended west. In 1882 Holbrook came into being and Berado began to vanish, with Berado himself moving to Albequerque. Gradually Horsehead Crossing disappeared as Holbrook grew in importance. Young named it in honor of H.R. Holbrook. It became the county seat in 1895 and is today an important community serving numerous ranches and trading posts. PO Est Sept. 18, 1882 James H Wilson first pm."
The newly created Navajo County made Holbrook, founded in 1881, its county seat. In the beginning the county was supported by lumbering, farming, railroading, ranching and trade with the Indians. It was also a rugged stretch of land called home mostly to a crusty bunch of men. At its center, Holbrook had taken on all the vices of a typical Wild West town, complete with a saloon called the Bucket of Blood. Law and order were non-existent, gambling was popular, and painted ladies far outnumbered “proper women.”
There was obviously a need for law enforcement in Navajo County and Holbrook soon brought in Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens to settle down the lawless elements. Owens, already the Sheriff of Apache County had gained a reputation for cleaning up the territory, so much so that he was called "Saint George with a six-shooter."
When Navajo County was formed, Owens was appointed as its first sheriff, a position he held until Frank Wattron was elected to the post in 1896.
In 1898, the county erected a new courthouse that would become the scene of a number of notorious trials over the years. The basement of the courthouse housed the jail cells, manufactured as complete units in St. Louis, Missouri and shipped to Holbrook on railroad flatcars. The small, dark cells were very effective throughout the years, as no one ever escaped from them.
Though the court would continue to dispense justice at this location for the next seventy-eight years, the most famous would always continue to be the first and only man ever hanged in Navajo County.
Barnes, Will C.; Granger, Byrd (ed.) Arizona's names : X marks the place
Falconer Pub. Co. : distributed by Treasure Chest Publications, c1983. P. 302-303.