AZ Trip #35: Film Star Tom Mix's Fatal Crash Site

In today's blog about my Arizona trip, you'll learn about the western film actor, Tom Mix and the tragic accident that took his life. After we left the Biosphere 2 complex, we drove north toward Phoenix. While on the highway we spotted a marker about Tom Mix, so we checked it out. You'll learn about it in today's blog.

Tom Mix

HOW DID I KNOW OF TOM MIX? I only knew about Tom Mix, the 1940s western /cowboy actor because I have read a lot about Wyatt Earp's life. When Wyatt was in his 70s, he and his wife Josie moved to Los Angeles, California, and Wyatt hung around movie studios, and got to know Tom Mix!  So, I learned about the actor. 

History.com provided the following info:
WHO IS TOM MIX?   The star was a genuine cowboy and swaggering hero of the Wild West: He was born in Texas; fought in the Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion and the Boer War; and served as a sheriff in Kansas, a U.S. marshal in Oklahoma and a Texas Ranger. In fact, Mix was born in Driftwood, Pennsylvania; deserted the Army in 1902; and was a drum major in the Oklahoma Territorial Cavalry band when he went off to Hollywood in 1909. None of these inconvenient facts prevented Mix from becoming one of the greatest silent-film stars in history, however. Along with his famous horse Tony, Mix made 370 full-length Westerns. At the peak of his fame, he was the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, earning as much as $17,500 a week (about $218,000 today).

Tom Mix's car -restored after crash

DIFFICULTY TRANSITIONING INTO TALKING PICTURES - Unfortunately, Mix and Tony had a hard time making the transition to talking pictures. Some people say that the actor’s voice was so high-pitched that it undermined his macho cowboy image, but others argue that sound films simply had too much talking for Mix’s taste: He preferred wild action sequences to heartfelt conversation.

The Highway where Tom Mix's car crashed

ABOUT THE ACCIDENT - On October 12, 1940, cowboy-movie star Tom Mix is killed when he loses control of his speeding Cord Phaeton convertible and rolls into a dry wash (now called the Tom Mix Wash) near Florence, Arizona. He was 60 years old. On the day he died, Mix was driving north from Tucson in his beloved bright-yellow Cord Phaeton sports car. He was driving so fast that he didn’t notice–or failed to heed–signs warning that one of the bridges was out on the road ahead. The Phaeton swung into a gully and Mix was smacked in the back of the head by one of the heavy aluminum suitcases he was carrying in the convertible’s backseat. The impact broke the actor’s neck and he died almost instantly. Today, the dented “Suitcase of Death” is the featured attraction at the Tom Mix Museum in Dewey, Oklahoma.

HIGHWAY MEMORIAL - Today, visitors to the site of the accident can see a 2-foot–tall iron statue of a riderless horse and a somewhat awkwardly written plaque that reads: “In memory of Tom Mix whose spirit left his body on this spot and whose characterization and portrayals in life served to better fix memories of the Old West in the minds of living men.”

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