Blacksmith William Flores Jr. was one of the last people to see Tom Mix alive on Oct. 12, 1940.
The cowboy star, who made more than 300 silent-film Westerns and a few with sound, stopped by Flores' shop to have his roadster fitted with a trailer hitch. Mix was headed to Florence to buy a horse and needed to haul it back to California.
After the two men settled on a design for the hitch, Mix hopped in his yellow 1937 Cord and took off. He never made it to Florence. Mix crashed his car in a wash and was killed by a suitcase that came loose and hit him in the head.
SOURCE: Tucsonan Dave Hawkins and www.roadsideamerica.com
