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“In 1858 the reputation of southern Arizona for wickedness was just beginning.  By the Gadsden Purchase this border territory had recently been acquired from Mexico.  The tradition of mines of fabulous richness, abandoned by the Spaniards, made this remote country a new El Dorado.  The sudden influx of Americans, eager to exploit its mineral treasures, produced a society that was without parallel in the world.  An experienced traveller who had visited the rough mining towns of the West described Tucson as ‘a city realizing, to some extent, my impression of what Sodom and Gomorrah must have been before they were destroyed by the vengeance of the Lord.’  Later communities were to arise and flourish in iniquity, as the great cow-towns, Abilene and Ogallala, but in the period before the Civil War only Natchez-under-the-hill could rival Tucson in crime.  For in the Gadsden Purchase were gathered the worst elements of two civilizations.”  – W. Clement Eaton, “Frontier Life in Southern Arizona 1858-61”