S1 | E2: The Baron of Arizona

In the 1880s, James Addison Reavis attempted the greatest land fraud in American history. In a story that crisscrosses the United States and Mexico, and crosses the ocean to Spain, he tried to convince the U.S. government that he owned 18,000 square miles of the Arizona Territory. In the process, he anointed himself the Baron of Arizona

SOURCES

“In Old Arizona: True Tales of the Wild Frontier!” Marshall Trimble. Primer Publishing, October 1985.
“Hornswogglers, Fourflushers, and Snake-Oil Salesmen: True Tales of the West’s Sleaziest Swindlers,” Matthew P. Mayo. TwoDot Publishing, August 2015.
“The Peralta Grant: James Addison Reavis and the Barony of Arizona,” Donald Powell. University of Oklahoma Press, 1960.
“The Baron of Arizona,” E.H. Cookridge. John Day Company, 1967.
“King of con-men," TheEconomist.com. December 22, 2012.

In the 1880s, James Addison Reavis attempted the greatest land fraud in American history. In a story that crisscrosses the United States and Mexico, and crosses the ocean to Spain, he tried to convince the U.S. government that he owned 18,000 square miles of the Arizona Territory.